Talk:Neo-Nazism in Russia

Comments from draft that were in AFC comment format

• Comment: OK, first of all, my impression is that the articles makes a fair effort to be accurate and neutral, however, it needs substantial work.
  Things that must be done: 1. Make sure this article doesn't read like a copypasted translation of the Russian article from Google Translate. I've done the first part, but I abandoned it when I saw that the Counteraction section is in a bad state.
  2. Rewrite the "Counteraction" section. It is WP:PROSELINE, and some of it, particularly the descriptions of the neo-Nazi orgs in Russia, definitely belongs in the previous sections (e.g. "Post-Soviet period").
  Things that are highly desirable, but should not stop the review process 1. As mentioned above, add quotes to the refs, though I don't necessarily agree with bombing the article with "verification needed" templates. The material is in the sources, but pages or specific passages must be provided for ease of verification.
  2. Use more scholarly resources and books, particularly in English. Russian books are mostly already there, but I think more is to be found in a simple Google Scholar or Google Books search.
  After this, even though it is a bit flawed, it should be fine to accept. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 07:48, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: Removed history OR Immanuelle 💗 (please tag me) 08:23, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: The article is a distorted translation from Russian Wikipedia page. It does not comply with en.wiki's policies. This draft should be rejected. Here is my review of the entire article:
  1) 1st section is about "History" and has only 1 paragraph sourced, 2nd paragraph is unsourced WP:OR. This section was already covered at Neo-Nazism#Russia.
  2) 2nd section, about "Soviet Period" is also largely unsourced and it talks about non-notable WP:FRINGE books like "Word of the Nation" that would never meet WP:N or attract any noteworthy coverage. It ends the section with "a group of Moscow high school students held a Nazi demonstration on Pushkin Square". How is that noteworthy?
  3) 3rd section about "Post Soviet Period" has some content but it largely talks about Racism in Russia, Russian National Unity, and SOVA Center, for which we have already got separate articles. There is no need to repeat any of it here.
  4) 4th section on Ideology is just amalgam of sections above and is largely WP:OR. It further talks about non-notable subjects like Schultz-88, Ilya Lazarenko, Navi Society, and others that deserve no mention.
  5) 5th section about "Counteraction" lists about arrests of also those who were not neo-Nazis, and most examples don't involve any notable case.
  6) The last section is about "Art" which reads like a review of Neo Nazi music of Russia.
  The problem with the article is that it depends on WP:OR, poor sourcing, WP:UNDUE content and repetition.
  Whatever was important, it has been already covered at Neo-Nazism#Russia, Antisemitism in Russia, Racism in Russia, Russian nationalism, and other related pages.
  Note that we also don't have a stand alone article for Neo-Nazism in the United States (currently redirect), Neo-Nazism in Italy and others. A "Neo-Nazism in Russia" will be too problematic at this stage. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 00:59, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Comments from draft that were not in AFC comment format

@Piotrus: I am analzying most of the remaining paragraphs here.

"{{tq|In 1970, a text titled "Word of the Nation" was distributed in samizdat in the USSR. It expressed rejection of the liberal-democratic ideas prevalent among some Russian nationalists at the time...." Not only it is non-notable but source does not describe them as Neo-Nazis.

"During the Soviet era, Viktor Bezverkhy [ru] (Ostromysl), the founder of the Russian Vedism movement..." This is about Peterburgian Vedism and has nothing to do here.

"The first public demonstrations by neo-Nazis in Russia took place in 1981 in Kurgan..." Demonstrations are not noteworthy unless they attracted more than local coverage.

"In 1982, on Hitler's birthday, a group of Moscow high school students held a Nazi demonstration..." Just like above.

"According to data from participant observation conducted in 1996-2008 by lawyer and researcher S. V. Belikov..." Rememmber that Wikipedia is WP:NOTPAPER. Anything relevant to this should be covered at Racism in Russia but it already exists in better words.

"One of the largest Russian nationalist-extremist parties until the late 1990s was the neo-Nazi social-political movement Russian National Unity (RNE)" a large paragraph about Russian National Unity that has been already described at Neo-Nazism#Russia, Racism in Russia and Neo-fascism#Russia.

"The ideology of Russian neo-Nazism is closely related to the ideology of Rodnovery (Slavic neo-paganism)..." This is one of the theme used for creating at least 30% of the article, to call anybody associated with "Slavic neo-paganism" a Neo-Nazi, that's why I said the article has too much WP:OR.

"{{tq|A former Komsomol activist Ilya Lazarenko..." A non-notable individual who's biography is not needed here.

"Rodnovery is a popular religion of Russian skinheads." This is another WP:OR. Rodnovery is Slavic Native Faith which is not confined to Nazism. It should not be dragged here unless the reliable source supports the connection.

The "Counteraction" and "Art" sections are absolutely not needed since they largely cover non-notable examples.

I am also seeing misrepresentation of courses on the article. For example "sociologist and political scientist Marlene Laruelle reported on the participation of Russian National Unity members in the armed struggle on the side of the rebels", when in fact Laruelle's position is opposite since she discarded this claim as a 'myth', and writes "How to explain this inconsistent media hype on the alleged rebirth of the RNU, with almost no open sources to confirm it?"[1]

It would be better to seek quotations from each source that has been used here so that we can WP:VERIFY that the information is being correctly represented.

Once we resolve all these issues then at best we will only find a larger section than what already exists at Neo-Nazism#Russia.

I believe, like Nazism in the Americas, we can create a Nazism in Europe and include relevant details about Russia as well as some other countries. I am sure this idea would work better because so far, we have no "Neo-Nazism in xxxx" for any other European country or even the United States where Neo-Nazism has dominated the most. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 16:00, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

@Aman.kumar.goel: Regarding Bezverkhy, this seems somewhat relevant, although I'd prefer to see a source that mention his name and the term neo-Nazism together. Otherwise I'd be fine with merging this paragraph to the article about him (or his sect). Regarding the demonstrations, I concur it would be good to see those events mentioned in non-contemporary newspapers; honestly I have trouble reviewing most sources (since they are in Russian). Regarding the Belikov's data, as I said, it is more relevant to an article about skinheads and I'd be fine with merging it somewhere else. I don't howeve rsee a problem with the content about RNE, assuming that the sources support calling it neo-nazi, it is relevant, and if the content is also mentioned somewhere else, so what? I also don't understand your criticism of Lazarenko part, he is notable (has article on Russian Wikipedia). WP:RED links are totally fine. Moving on, I concur that we need an explicit reference that connects Rodnovery to nazism. I do disagree about the counteraction and art sections, I think the are relevant. Overall, I think that while this article suffers from problems, and perhaps it could even end up, barring major improvments, a redirect, that we should move it to the mainspace and continue any discussions in an open forum, up to and including and AfD which would involve a larger scruitny by the community and that could result in this being send back to draft, merged or simply deleted. My point is that the article deserves to appear in the mainspace (where it can be kept or deleted following regular procedures). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:13, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Piotrus and also Immanuelle I think three of us are experienced enough to find a solution here. Some good amount of content has to be verified through quotes from the sources as I mentioned. Russia is certainly the country for whom "Nazism" has been the biggest problem since 1930s. Context is certainly important and with a title like "Neo-Nazism in Russia" we could be misleading readers to think as if Neo-Nazism ever had endorsement in Russia contrary to the large number of scholarly sources which I can quote. I would be fine with renaming this to Nazism and Russia and describe overall relationship of Nazis with Russia as a whole including the histories that happened during Stalin's period to 21st century. How does that sound? Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 13:54, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

@Aman.kumar.goel: This could work, but it would require further rewriting this. Are you willing to give it a try? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:15, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

@Piotrus: Yes I will be editing the draft to reflect my proposal. Hopefully we will be done by this month. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 18:27, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

@Piotrus: @Aman.kumar.goel: Do you think it would be helpful to put verification needed on claims en masse due to the verification issue we saw earlier? Immanuelle 💗 (please tag me) 21:14, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

@Immanuelle: I think so. In general, while I find this article to be borderline acceptable, I'd very much like to see sourcing to newspapers and like removed, and replaced with academic works. On that note, something that would be helpful now would be to upgrade refs to use citation templates, which would allow us to clearly separate academic journals and books from websites/news. Adding translated title using trans_title parameter to all sources, plus specifying the language (I wonder if the source are mostly Ukranian?) would help too. All that said, I still think all said fixes can be done while this is in the mainspace, and any hiding, either through deletion, draftication or merger, should be a result of a wider community consensus (ex. AfD). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:14, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

I added verification templates for all the post soviet events. I also really want to do more research to see if the seemingly original research I removed earlier about Russian neo nazis not believing Russia considered slavs inferior has any truth to it Immanuelle 💗 (please tag me) 21:14, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Accept

I don't think anyone is making a claim that this is not a notable topic. This is not a WP:BLP so the only other hurdle that needs be cleared here is WP:NPOV and certainly such issues have been raised here and there have been efforts to address this. Our ability to work controversial topics in AfD is limited and controversial topic is a bad reason to keep it here. I will restore {{original research}} and {{refimprove}} tags and accept the draft. Presumably improvements will happen at an accelerated pace in mainspace. ~Kvng (talk) 16:55, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Waiting for a redirect to be deleted to finish the accept.

This article apparently arrived in AfC through WP:DRAFTIFY. I'm curious whether participants here feel like the time spent as a draft was helpful. ~Kvng (talk) 17:02, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

@Kvng I feel it was helpful, but I feel like it spent too long in review. AFC usually leads to maybe a month of improvement followed by 4 months waiting, then if rejected 1 month improving 4 months waiting. The editing period can be good, but the 4 month invisible waiting period is time it could have spent in article space with more editors seeing it and fixing problems. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 19:40, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

@Kvng btw deletion of the redirect is complete now Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 23:39, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Merger

@Kvng, Immanuelle, Mupper-san, Rsk6400, CharlesWain, Mhorg, and Kiril Simeonovski: We don't have a Neo-Nazism in Ukraine but we have Far-right politics in Ukraine.

Just like that, we already had a Far-right politics in Russia and then this article on Neo-Nazism was accepted.

I have already merged 100% content of this article's content to Far-right politics in Russia. Can we finally redirect this article to Far-right politics in Russia and work there instead? Let me know. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 01:22, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I would say these aren't quite the same topic. Neo nazism is more specific and related to race and and a certain set of iconography. Far right politics could include things like Islamism or more generic Putinism or Chekism or Russian Orthodox related ideologies that are unrelated to racial ideologies. I would also criticize your removal of images which makes the merged content feel a lot flatter and harder to read Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 01:39, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

nvm only one image seems to have been removed. But I think a lot more images are needed in the larger article Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 01:41, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@Aman.kumar.goel I disagree with merging them, on the basis that Russian neo-Nazism is distinct from the country's broader far-right politics in that it is primarily concerned with attacks on refugees and liberals, and that it forms a specific political movement focused on violence more than holding office. Neo-Nazism in Russia (or, more specifically, neo-Nazi murders of refugees/migrants) meets the GNG with English sources alone and was a non-insignificant political matter within Russia around the 2000s. What I would do is move away from mentioning every single neo-Nazi group with a brief blurb to covering the topic in a way that more broadly discusses the matter of neo-Nazi violence within Russia. Further, I don't see the reason to bring up Ukraine; to my knowledge, neo-Nazi violence has been a much larger matter of concern in Russia, even if this concern was more 20 years back than now.

Mupper-san (talk) 02:17, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@Mupper-san you expressed my view much more articulately than I could have. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 02:20, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Also agree with Mupper-san. Rsk6400 (talk) 07:45, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

• I still support merging this article. Neo-Nazism is a sub-category of far-right after all and we don't need two articles. CharlesWain (talk) 10:10, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

As I've just had to change several reference not {{citation needed}} as they were just undefined short form I'd support meging this based on potential issues with its referencing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:57, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@Kvng, Immanuelle, Mupper-san, Rsk6400, CharlesWain, Mhorg, and Aman.kumar.goel: I apologise for responding so late due to other commitments. After carefully reading the article, my impression is that it should be merged and re-directed to either Far-right politics in Russia or Neo-Nazism#Russia because of the following two reasons. Firstly, the article's content consists primarily of unverified claims about far-right extremist and neo-Nazi groups with very little evidence why this should be documented in a stand-alone article. The history section is misleading from the beginning. It introduces the reader with a statement that Nazis considered Slavs to be of an "inferior race" and "subhuman", but it completely fails to explain why would Russians as Slavs support one such ideology in the long run. The sub-section on the Soviet period reports about the appearance of post-war neo-Nazi groups in the Soviet Union with absolutely no information about their dominant presence in the Russian SFSR, which means that the content can be properly added to any article of the sort "Neo-Nazism in X" where X is a post-Soviet country. The sub-section on the post-Soviet period contains a lot of unverified claims and its content at the end, where it's mentioned that neo-Nazi symbols in Russia are prohibited by law and the country proposed a UN resolution to combat the heroisation of Nazism, clearly contradicts the sub-section on the ties with the Russian government. Secondly, it's very puzzling that we have stand-alone articles of the sort "Neo-Nazism in X" only for Russia and Canada when activities of similar groups have been noted in many other countries. As a reader, I expect to see an elaboration why is it considered neo-Nazism in Russia and Canada but far-right extremism elsewhere. Furthermore, it's even more puzzling that Neo-Nazism in Germany re-directs to Neo-Nazism#Germany with a lot of content available in Far-right politics in Germany (1945–present) when there's been a post-war movement that aimed to revive the Nazi ideology and there are still people in Germany who openly self-identify as Nazis (or neo-Nazis). If we allow having country articles about neo-Nazism, then Germany should be undoubtedly the country to begin with. All in all, the article is in very poor shape with elements of WP:OR and WP:CFORK. Thank you.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:23, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Far-right politics covers a lot more than Neo-Nazi (Neo-Nazi would be a sub-page). Therefore, no merger. At the same time, I can see a significant content overlap (a lot of copy-paste segments) in these pages. That could be fixed. My very best wishes (talk) 00:59, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Wagner

Is there an explanation why one of the few researchers (reported by ABC News) who commented on Wagner's ideology was removed from the article?[2] Mhorg (talk) 20:36, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I think the content is fine, so if you would like to restore her commentary then go ahead, however giving Wagner special treatment by adding "(disputed)" to their inclusion seems WP:UNDUE at best and POV at worst. That is telling the readers how they are meant to interpret the content rather than letting the actual content do it. TylerBurden (talk) 20:47, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

An organisation is defined as "neo-Nazi" when it acts politically to promote neo-Nazi ideology in society. Gaston's intervention goes precisely in that direction, telling the reader that although some members of Wagner are extreme right-wingers, the group does not behave like the extreme right-wing organisations studied, but merely as a PMC. So yes, it seems important to me to quote that statement. Mhorg (talk) 11:13, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

So you went ahead and restored "disputed", how do you reckon that is appropriate? I never saw you follow that line of thinking on Azov Brigade, which you insisted must be described as neo-nazi in Wikivoice despite the situation being very akin to what you described on specific members, which I also find rather interesting, either way the neo-nazi Wagner links are established in WP:RS, so kindly stop adding WP:UNDUE conclusions and let the readers make up their own minds through content.

Again if you'd like to add the source without violating WP:DUE, then go right ahead. TylerBurden (talk) 17:19, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

For the Azov Brigade there are dozens of sources describing it as a "neo-Nazi militia", whereas for Wagner there is nothing like that. You are also doing a SYNTH or an OR. And you are removing a statement by a researcher quoted by ABC News for no reason. Mhorg (talk) 22:22, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

There are also dozens of sources describing it as not neo-Nazi, so per WP:DUE you don't label it such in Wikivoice. You seem to like telling readers how to interpret content rather than letting them read and do it themselves. You still haven't answered my question by the way, why are you repeatedly inserting the POV "disputed" on Wagner's entry? As for the ABC content, read what I wrote again. TylerBurden (talk) 19:45, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

• Well, "Wagner" was a military nickname of Dmitry Utkin who was the first commander of the group. Hence "Wagner group". Did he chose such nickname because of his views and after the German composer? Yes, maybe, see Dmitry_Utkin#Political_and_racial_views. He was an openly Neo-Nazi of course. My very best wishes (talk) 15:50, 8 March 2024 (UTC)