National Salvation Front (Russia)
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ФНС (Russian)
Sergey Baburin
Gennady Zyuganov
Nikolay Pavlov
Ilya Konstantinov
Mikhail Astafyev
Vladimir Isakov
Gennady Saenko
Alexander Nevzorov
National Salvation Front Фронт национального спасения | |
|---|---|
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| Abbreviation | FNS (English) ФНС (Russian) |
| Leader | Collective leadership |
| Founders | Albert Makashov Sergey Baburin Gennady Zyuganov Nikolay Pavlov Ilya Konstantinov Mikhail Astafyev Vladimir Isakov Gennady Saenko Alexander Nevzorov |
| Founded | 24 October 1992 |
| Banned | 4 October 1993 |
| Succeeded by | CPRF-led National Patriotic Forces of Russia Derzhava |
| Ideology | Russian nationalism Soviet patriotism Anti-Yeltsinism Factions: Left-wing nationalism Marxism–Leninism Corporate statism National communism National Bolshevism Orthodox Christian nationalism |
| Political position | Syncretic Factions: Far-left to Far-right |
| Member parties | Russian All-People's Union Communist Party of the RSFSR Russian Communist Workers Party Russian Christian Democratic Movement Constitutional Democratic Party National Republican Party Russian Party of Communists Front of National Revolutionary Action National Bolshevik Party Nashi movement |
| Colours | Black Yellow White Red |
| Party flag | |
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The National Salvation Front (NSF or FNS; Russian: Фронт национального спасения; ФНС, Front natsional'nogo spaseniya, FNS) was a broad coalition of communist, socialist, and right-wing nationalist movements against the government of President Boris Yeltsin in Russia. Established in 1992, the FNS was the first group to be banned in post-Soviet Russia before playing a leading role in the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis.
The FNS was established at a congress on 24 October 1992 at which an alliance was concluded between some 3,000 communist and nationalist activists united by their opposition to the presidency of Boris Yeltsin.[1] Hard-line nationalism was represented by a number of leading authors and ideologues, including Valentin Rasputin, Alexander Prokhanov and Igor Shafarevich.[1] They were joined by former leading figures from the Soviet days such as General Albert Makashov and Colonel Viktor Alksnis and political figures including Sergey Baburin and Constitutional Democratic Party – Party of Popular Freedom leader Mikhail Astafyev.[1] The co-chairmen of the movements were Baburin, Nikolay Pavlov (both Russian All-People's Union), Gennady Zyuganov (future leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation), Ilya Konstantinov, Astafyev, Valery Ivanov, Vladimir Isakov, Gennady Sayenko and Albert Makashov.[citation needed] The involvement of Zyuganov in the FNS helped to ensure that when he established his new Communist Party in 1993 it included a significant strain of nationalism in its ideology.[2][3]
Ideology
Shafarevich argued that the changes taking place in Russia were reminiscent of the settlement imposed on Germany after the First World War whilst Konstantinov, who chaired the group's organising committee, stated that the aims of the group were to oust Yeltsin as President, establish a new coalition government that would take control of prices, end the dismantling of the armaments industry and halt the removal of troops from the former Eastern Bloc states.[1] Dyen, a right-wing nationalist journal edited by a number of nationalist intellectuals including Aleksandr Dugin (accused by Yeltsin of being anti-Semitic), threw its weight behind the FNS and functioned as the effective mouthpiece of the party.[4] Dugin's ally Eduard Limonov made his National Bolshevik Front a constituent part of the FNS as well.[5] As a result of Dugin and Limonov's involvement the FNS won the support of Belgian Third Positionist Jean-François Thiriart who established the European Liberation Front as a network of support groups across western Europe.[6]
The group's combination of Soviet communism and militant Russian nationalism was not always a comfortable marriage, however. Amongst the founders was Nikolai Lysenko and his National Republican Party of Russia, a hard-line nationalist group that claimed to take its inspiration from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. However a leaflet produced by Lysenko containing virulently anti-Caucasian sentiment was criticised by a communist leader of the FNS, leading to Lysenko's party withdrawing from the Front in July 1993, with Lysenko dismissing the movement as too communist and internationalist.[7]
