In case you don't know who Udo Voigt is - he is a former bigwig of the Neonazi NPD party in Germany. His big highlights so far include calling Hitler a "great german politician", trying to nominate Rudolf Heß for the Nobel peace prize, demonstrating against black German athletes, calling the Hitler Salute a "salute for peace" and claiming that there was "no way that six million jews died, at most 340.000" and then claimed that the lower number would decrease the criminality.ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—For more than a year now, the Kremlin has warned of a resurgence of fascism in Europe—meaning the pro-Western government in Ukraine.
But on Sunday, a lawmaker whose party cooperates with the ruling United Russia in parliament, hosted a foreign legion of politicians too far to the right for most of Europe.
For fringe politicians—and some ex-fringe politicians—the trip let them do something they say they can’t back home: sound off against what they call the monolithic message of Washington and Brussels.
“If you tried to have a conference like this in the U.S. or the U.K., it wouldn’t be allowed,” said Nick Griffin, the expelled former leader of the anti-immigrant British National Party. “Russia has shown it is more free than the West.”
President Vladimir Putin has been trying to exploit political rifts in Europe by forging alliances with what were regarded in their home countries as fringe political movements on the left and right. Some have grown in popularity in countries such as Hungary and France, giving the Kremlin a lever to pry against European economic sanctions for the war in Ukraine.
In Greece, the new defense minister in the leftist government has close ties to Russian hard-liners.
For the Kremlin, the tactic is a familiar one. In Soviet times, Moscow tinkered with the internal politics of the West by funding and even controlling left-wing groups. Today, as Mr. Putin tries to position himself as steward of global conservatism, the Kremlin’s alliances are mostly with the right.
Billed as the International Russian Conservative Forum, organizers struck a defiant tone against Western political correctness, calling the event something that “enemies of Russia can’t stop.”
As Moscow prepares for grandiose celebrations in May to mark the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, speakers vehemently denied any connection to Nazism.
“I don’t find it defamatory to be called a fascist,” said Roberto Fiore, leader of Italy’s far-right party Forza Nuova, who spoke at the conference Sunday. “But I do find it defamatory if you call me a Nazi.”
The forum’s website recalled an address of Mr. Putin at a conference for foreigners in the provincial resort of Valdai, where he warned the West faced a “profound demographic and moral crisis” because of the collapse of traditional values, religion and rise of same-sex marriage.
Speakers echoed Mr. Putin’s message, but added attacks on other alleged ills, including abortion, atheism, Freemasonry, and unbridled immigration that, if unchecked, will snuff out the Caucasian race.
Invitees included Udo Voigt, a senior figure in Germany’s extreme-right National Democratic Party, who drew rounds of applause with calls to oppose U.S. hegemony and to denounce homosexuality. Other invitees included members of the ultra-right Greek party Golden Dawn.
Mr. Fiore, of Italy’s Forza Nuova, said Moscow is now the sole guardian of Western values, in the way Rome once was. “It’s not me saying this—it’s God saying it,” he said.
Among participants, there was discussion over who could be called a fascist, since the Kremlin has denounced the Ukrainian government in Kiev as such, while others insisted the fascists were in Brussels and Washington.
Aleksei Zhilov, an organizer for pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, said the only fascists were in Ukraine.
“All that is in Donbas—that is antifascism, and everything in Ukraine is fascism,” he said. “There isn’t any other fascism anywhere.”
Cas Mudde, a political scientist who specializes in extremism at the University of Georgia, said the lineup was puzzling because Kremlin has plenty of right-wing allies in Europe who control large parliamentary factions and are politically important. None were at the conference, however.
“You don’t need to go to the gutter to find some pro-Putin right-wing parties, but they did for some reason,” said Mr. Mudde.
He suggested that some conservatives may not have shown up at the party because they “don’t want to be tainted,” and the Kremlin itself may not have been involved in much of the planning.
But the conference appeared to have Moscow’s tacit approval. One of its organizers, Aleksei Zhuravlyov, is leader of the pro-Kremlin Rodina political party which, before it struck an alliance with Mr. Putin, was banned for its racially tinted campaign ads.
Moreover, critics of the event noted that it suffered no interference from police. When exiled tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky tried to address supporters in the same hotel, via video-link from Europe, four months ago, police swept in with drug- and bomb-sniffing dogs. Then the hotel lights went out.
Another Kremlin critic, Stanislav Belkovsky, tried to hold a meeting with political activists in St. Petersburg on Saturday, but couldn't find a hotel or meeting room where anyone would allow him to speak. Ultimately he met with a small crowd on the street before police dispersed it as an unsanctioned meeting.
The conservative conference was cut short by a bomb scare late in the day, but only after most of the speakers had finished and participants hurriedly signed a final declaration.
Jared Taylor, a U.S. author and proponent of what he calls “racial realism,” said he found some of the event suspicious because organizers didn’t tell him who would be there ahead of time. Mr. Taylor said he was aghast at the attendance list, but came and spoke anyway because they paid for his plane ticket and hotel.
After a tour of St. Petersburg, he planned to continue to Moscow to promote his book, “White Identity.”
“When you’re on the fringe, there’s no soapbox too low,” he said.
EDIT: More info here.
but yes presumably if your ngo gets money from a foreign government with a strong ideological bent there are strings attached.
