Disrupting Escalation Of Terror In Russia To Prevent - Belfer Center ...

of them on charges related to their political actions. 64 Another 39 activists who participated in
the seizure of the reception office of the presidential administration in December 2004 were
found guilty of public disorder by a Moscow court in December 2005. 31 received suspended
sentences and 8 got prison terms of 18 months to three and a half years. Since 2004, the NBP has
been in a legal war with the Russian authorities aiming to disband the party on premises that its
members have engaged in extremist activities. The party was banned by the Russian Supreme
Court in November 2005. The NBP leaders vowed repeatedly in 2005 that, if banned, the party,
which counts over 25,000 members in 50 Russian regions, would operate underground. 65
The use of such brutal tactics against the NBP clearly helps the organization to
accumulate a pool of young operatives who have no fear of potentially violent confrontation with
the state. As NBP activists see no effect from their actions other than publicity and repression,
some of them may start to wonder whether more serious attacks will have the desired impact on
authorities and the public.
A more disturbing development is that hatred toward the government itself—which is
understandably represented by its most powerful institution, the Federal Security Service
(FSB)—has already led to several actual terrorist attacks against the agency by young leftist
radicals. Although nobody died in these and other bombings of symbolic establishments, several
leftist extremists have been convicted over the past several years to prison terms as long as nine
years. 66 The most notorious attack, against the FSB building in Moscow in April 1999, was led
by four female members of the Russian Communist Labor party. The party perceives itself as
revolutionary, and blames the parliamentary Communist Party of the Russian Federation for
64
Interview with Limonov by authors on June 29, 2005.
65
Ibid.
66
Nabi Abdullaev, “4 Women Sentenced in FSB Bombing,” Moscow Times, May 15, 2003.
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