RUSSIAN AND GERMAN NAZIS ARE BUILDING LINKS
By MIKHAIL TSOVMA

On the 27th of October "Inostranets" newspaper (a supplement
to the biggest Russian business weekly) published an article
about the growing co-operation between two Nazi
organizations - the German group "National Offensive" (NO)
and Russian National Unity (RNE). Representatives of both
groups met last week in Moscow to discuss possible
"solidarity actions." German NO was outlawed this summer and
Russian National Unity faced the same problem after it's
active participation in the defense of the Russian
parliament in September-October this year. An agreement was
made to organize a week of solidarity and hold protests in
front of Russian offices (including embassies, consulates
and Aeroflot air company) in Germany and German offices in
Russia demanding legalization of these ultra-right fascist
organizations. According to "Inostranets" these
demonstrations will take place from December 4 to 11 this
year.

The press service of the Ministry of Security (the renamed
KGB) confirmed this information and told Inostranets that
they were aware the meeting was taking place. Of course,
they couldn't do anything about it since the meeting looked
"like an ordinary meeting of friends." These bastards are
always saying that they act only according to the law when
it comes to fighting fascists. The KGB spokesman assured the
correspondent that they will take any steps possible to
prevent Nazi demonstrations.

Russian National Unity appears to be the strongest fascist
group in this country which openly declares its loyalty to
fascist ideas. Before Yeltsin's coup d'etat (after which it
was formally outlawed) fascists from the RNE openly trained
themselves in shooting and fighting. Stories about this
appeared in the papers with frightening photos but none of
the authorities seemed to care about that. The only protest
against RNE of which I am aware took place in Moscow on
August 7 when several young anarchists and communists
attacked fascist literature sellers after one of the
anarchists was beaten by the thugs from RNE. Of course, when
the police interfered it arrested the leftists not the
fascists.

After Yeltsin's decision to disband the parliament at the
end of September thugs from Russian National Unity appeared
near the parliament. Since they were one of the most
organized forces they easily got loads of AK-47s
(Kalashnikov machine-guns). Trotskyists and anarchists that
appeared near the parliament in these days were beaten up
for the mere notion that they are internationalists. After
the storm of the parliament, RNE was outlawed, but a lot of
fascists managed to escape arrest. One can be sure that they
did not leave machine guns on the battlefield. Alexander
Barkashov, the leader of RNE, was not arrested.

Reports on the activities of the RNE before the putsch
described it as a 400 to 500 people strong battle detachment
which had a number of sympathizers among the police.
Unfortunately the left in Russia seems to be very
disorganized and of course it poses no real danger to the
fascists so far, but anti-fascist actions have to start
sometime and the sooner it happens, the better. It will be
very good if we can organize an international counter-
campaign against RNE in Russia and NO in Germany. This will
be a good start for building links among anti-fascist
activists. The time is now because Nazis are already trying
to build links among themselves.

I will try to spread the information about the coming Nazi
actions to activists in Russia so that we can organize
counteractions. I will be very glad to send information to
all the anti-fascist activists in Germany who want to do
something about the coming actions of RNE in December.

You can send your information, requests and contact
addresses by e-mail (to: krazchenko@glas.apc.org) or by fax
(to: 095-9210655).

Mikhail Tsovma is an activist of an anarcho-syndicalist
group in Moscow, currently working in the KAS-KOR Labour
Information Centre. Please, address all messages concerning
this to him.
