> I get the feeling sometimes that people in the West think it's still 1900
> and there are Black Hundreds roaming around the metro or something.
Not me. In fact, it is Australia which has probably experienced the biggest growth in antisemitic _acts_ over the last 10 years -- something like 5-10 synagogues have been firebombed in that time. This trend has, BTW, been attributed to these cretins suddenly having access to North American and European based hatesites and the low base level for such acts previously.
But, anyway, what will happen to minorities in all of the industrialised countries when the next major, worldwide depression occurs?
PS: Interesting article on Russian skinheads. You say:
"It is no coincidence that many of the so-called "skinheads" are not, as with their counterparts in the West, from the working or lower classes. Rather, a disproportionately large number are the children of the former Soviet "middle class" and intelligentsia - doctors, teachers and so forth who would have had privileged lives under the old systems but were lumpenized by hyperinflation in the early 1990s."
from personal experience of them at their peak --- including having friends beaten up by them --- I would say that most skinheads here were "working or lower class" only because the vast majority of the population is also those things. Here the skinhead gangs seemed to be dominated by British immigrants, the kids of British immigrants and/or misfit lower middle class types. The dominant youth subcultures, those based around (1) cars/metal music or (2) surfing were also very racist at the time and their membership also cut right across class lines.