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TheNational Salvation Front (NSF orFNS;Russian:Фронт национального спасения; ФНС,Front natsional'nogo spaseniya,FNS) was a broad coalition ofcommunist,socialist, andright-wing nationalist movements against the government ofPresidentBoris Yeltsin inRussia. Established in 1992, the FNS was the first group to be banned inpost-Soviet Russia before playing a leading role in the1993 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 ofBoris Yeltsin.[1] Hard-line nationalism was represented by a number of leading authors and ideologues, includingValentin Rasputin,Alexander Prokhanov andIgor Shafarevich.[1] They were joined by former leading figures from the Soviet days such as GeneralAlbert Makashov and ColonelViktor Alksnis and political figures includingSergey Baburin andConstitutional Democratic Party – Party of Popular Freedom leaderMikhail Astafyev.[1] The co-chairmen of the movements were Baburin,Nikolay Pavlov [ru] (bothRussian All-People's Union),Gennady Zyuganov (future leader of theCommunist Party of the Russian Federation),Ilya Konstantinov, Astafyev,Valery Ivanov,Vladimir Isakov, Gennady Sayenko andAlbert 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]
Shafarevich argued that the changes taking place in Russia were reminiscent of the settlement imposed onGermany after theFirst 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 formerEastern Bloc states.[1]Dyen, a right-wing nationalist journal edited by a number of nationalist intellectuals includingAleksandr Dugin (accused by Yeltsin of beinganti-Semitic), threw its weight behind the FNS and functioned as the effective mouthpiece of the party.[4] Dugin's allyEduard Limonov made hisNational 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 ofBelgianThird PositionistJean-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 wasNikolai Lysenko [ru] and hisNational Republican Party of Russia, a hard-line nationalist group that claimed to take its inspiration fromAleksandr 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]
On 28 October 1992 Yeltsin declared the FNS as unconstitutional, effectively making the group the first to be outlawed since the collapse of communism.[1] Konstantinov however argued that Yeltsin had overstepped his authority in doing so and stated that only a court could make such a pronouncement. The case was taken to theConstitutional Court, which overturned the ban on 12 February 1993.[1]
The FNS was one of the leading groups involved in the1993 Russian constitutional crisis.[1] The group even announced during the crisis that they had established a shadow government and were preparing to take control from Yeltsin.[6]
Several leading members of the group were arrested and held inLefortovo Prison in the immediate aftermath of the unrest, whilst the Front, along with theRussian Communist Workers Party andAlexander Rutskoy's Free Russia Party, was barred from participating in the1993 Duma elections.[8] As a result of their non-participation the nationalist vote was dominated by theLiberal Democratic Party of Russia ofVladimir Zhirinovsky, who had taken no part in the FNS.[9]
The group began to fall apart in mid-1994 as a response to ethnic unrest in theNorth Caucasus. The leadership of the FNS attacked Yeltsin for what they saw as his heavy-handed response to ethnic separatism but ultra-nationalist leaders Limonov andAlexander Barkashov, the leader of thefar-rightRussian National Unity and an emerging political force at the time, praised what they saw as the decisiveness of Yeltsin, with Barkashov even offering Yeltsin the use of his street army for use inChechnya.[10]
In 1994, some former members of the front created two small nationalist organisations: one led byValeri Smirnov [ru] and one led by Ilya Konstantinov.[citation needed]
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