Yuri Belyaev: We want to become a parliamentary party

Fyodor Gavrilov

When little Surik comes in from the yard and unexpectedly utters a serious obscenity, the question arises-Who taught him that? Akhmed almost always turns out to be the guilty one. It was Petro who taught Danechka; Vanya, Rustam; Solomon, Igoryok...A foreigner taught them.

A foreigner—slant-eyed, snub-nosed, burring his r’s—made it so that I’m poor, I drink, my daughter isn’t married, my wife is a bitch and puts out for the neighbor. Were it not for him-foreign, speaking with an accent, living differently from the way we do, pissing in our stairwells, too sly, sensual, goat-legged, blood-sucking—everything would be okay.

They know who taught them those dirty words. They’re ready to solve our problems.

"Pchela": It isn’t so easy to find your party in the city—what’s the reason for this? Did you go underground?

Yuri Belyaev (Chairman of the National Republican Party): Well, as they say, our party is fighting—it’s clear in what sense. We’ve counted: 28 people have died. So it’s a precautionary measure. Elementary, like brushing your teeth.

"Pchela": How do you recruit people to the party?

- We make extensive use of leaflets, newspapers; I appear on television often. Then, you know, we don’t need everybody, we need people who share our ideas, and these people find us one way or another.

"Pchela": Can we ask about money? Rumors are going around that yours is the richest of the "patriotic" organizations.

- I agree with that. We have a fairly solid budget in comparison with other political parties, which don’t have a budget at all. They can’t put together this kind of budget: they don’t have normal people. Take a look at our people—young, agreeable, healthy, with brains...Naturally, they earn money. Business people come to us, too.

"Pchela": What is the profile of the enterprises your security firms protect? Commercial?

- No, we don’t take on kiosks. Many times I’ve been offered to protect kiosks, but I refused because it’s so mixed up with criminals. Then they would say that Yuri Belyaev is a stall-keeper. Solid firms. Rubicon was in the computer business, but that fell through. Then there was CHS, the third biggest seller of computers in Europe. For a while we even had Siemens on board, but our friends from the FSK [Federal Counterintelligence Service] told us this was their territory since Siemens is a foreign company. We didn’t want to get in the way of our valiant security organs. We found a common language: they compensated us for everything and we let them have it. We have other serious companies, ones involved in communications—their ads are all over town. On that level. And smaller things—stores and the like.

"Pchela": Are you personally rich?

- I don’t think so. All profits go into the party account. Naturally, I have the right to a certain percentage, but I can’t say that all this money goes to me. It goes to support people, to publish leaflets. Take all our relocations alone—it makes your hair stand on end.

"Pchela": In maintaining a security business do you have to deal with the criminal world?

- We have to deal with everybody. We find common ground with ninety percent of them. Well, and with the other ten percent we sort things out.

"Pchela": All the same, why doesn’t your party have a newspaper?

- We’ve changed tactics now. As soon as we start to have something of our own, something tangible—a commercial structure or a newspaper—the FSK immediately starts to get interested in them and we take direct hits. Now we’ve decided to use the widest spectrum of newspapers possible in our struggle. If they need financial help, then of course we help. You have to use all newspapers, support them financially. And the newspapers that refuse, we’ll extinguish them. Either economically or physically.

"Pchela": Did you or your people take part in the war in Chechnya?

- We wanted to, but Chechnya is a complicated area. In principle we had a base purchased there, but unfortunately it was a flop—all our people were arrested. Two policemen were killed at the base: they climbed over the fence. The prosecutor’s office got involved; now it’s going to court. But that’s a long story—it was all a provocation.

We offered to serve the army on a contract basis and got a negative answer. But judging by the way the war was conducted—it’s clearly better to send 18-year-olds boys there, cannon fodder. We’d have shown them! In Bosnia we didn’t lose one battle, the Serbs were constantly attacking. It was only the United States that stopped us, when they started bombing.

"Pchela": What is your attitude toward the current regime?

- We’re statists. There’s a legally elected government and we as statists don’t have the right to bring it down. We can call for strikes, acts of civil disobedience, print leaflets—but we can’t call for the overthrow of the legally elected government. There’s only one case in which we might resort to breaking the law—if there were a threat either to the national security of Russia or to the Russian people. We want to become a full-fledged parliamentary party.

"Pchela": It seems that your party has completely changed its attitude toward violent methods?

- That depends on what you have in mind. But now, as before, we clearly adhere to the position that the government is the government. Today we overthrow them, but tomorrow will we be overthrown as well? There’s the Constitution after all, there are elections. And our charter gives us the right to political activity.

"Pchela": Name the intellectual authorities that you raise party members on. The Communists have Marx, Lenin, Trotsky.

- You see, it’s hard to follow the dogmas of the 19th century. We try to orient ourselves on contemporary theoretical foundations. We have ideologues—for example, Professor Piotr Khomiakov, who in his day was on Gaidar’s team, a brilliant economist, a member of our party, author of Nationalism without Socialism and National Progressivism....Everyone comes away with the best impression from these books. But I’m more the practical type. I can organize anything: a party congress, a seizure of power, an attack...Ideology isn’t my thing.

Our basis is a national-state ideology. You might even consider Yeltsin our ally. You’ll remember that before he went into the hospital he said that we need a new national ideology. Brilliant! The man’s beginning to understand our ideas.

"Pchela": How do you see the new state?

- We want the sort of state which would defend the national interests of all the people, all rossiyane [a word that denotes the citizens of contemporary Russia, whatever their ethnicity, as opposed to russkie, ethnic Russians], although I don’t like that word.

"Pchela":That is an interesting position. Rossiyane, the imperial principal, are more important for some people, while others speak only of Russians. Which do you choose?

- We understand the concept of nation quite broadly, having in mind all indigenous inhabitants. If you were born here, your ancestors lived here, then you’re Russian. That was the case under the czars: they didn’t deport anyone, everyone lived very well. It was under the Bolsheviks that it all began: deport, exterminate—and then blame the Russians for it.

"Pchela": In terms of the problem of nationality the patriotic parties usually have two sore spots: Jews and Chechens.

- We don’t have any problems with the Jews. We have the Yid-fighters, as we call them—they’re the ones who fight Yids. One shouldn’t confuse them with the national movement. But we don’t any problems with Yids. There are problems with Russians. They aren’t paid their wages; they get killed, get their throats slit. Those are the problems. But the Yids live well in Russia, take a look at the television.

"Pchela": If you were in power, you wouldn’t repress them in any way?

- Gas chambers?! By the way, they’re the ones who invented gas chambers. So they’ve got nothing to be afraid of. We simply have different economic priorities. Now Russia’s given the green light to Western capital: please, steal, rob, don’t pay taxes...When we come [to power], we’ll give the green light to our national entrepreneurs. And there might be some patriotic Jews among them—by all means!

"Pchela": That means you have a negative attitude toward Western investment?

- Of course. It’s drummed into people’s heads that the West is giving [Russia] credits...But no one simply gives anything like that, especially in the West, where every dollar is counted. That means they’re taking something from us, and if you take a look at what they have taken from us: the diamond industry for a few kopecks, gold, oil, all of the gas...But we’re being paid a few pennies for it. We don’t need investments like that. When we come to power we’ll be prepared to accept investments, but under different conditions, the way it’s done all over the world.

"Pchela": What’s your attitude toward nationalization?

- And where did you see nationalization? When we come [to power], all strategic industries will be nationalized, all resources—there’s no question about it. But the way it is now—all the Siberian aluminum belongs to five citizens of Israel. Can you really call that business?

"Pchela": But the private sector will remain?

- Of course. And who will boost production? But strategic fields will definitely be nationalized. Then there’s no danger to the state that someone will seize something. Why can’t we create a stable economy in Russia? Because those industries wound up in foreign hands and they don’t care about our people’s sufferings. They’re simply pumping money out and sending it abroad. But if all this had been nationalized, that money would’ve stayed in the country, would’ve worked here, for you, for me...And then we wouldn’t be so frightened that some Bronstein owns a store or a sewing factory and also earns money. Allah be with him, it’s not so terrible.

"Pchela": How do you propose to combat the Caucasian criminal elements in our cities?

- Deport them. Earlier, by the way, that system worked well. There was this operation, "Caucasus"—I participated in it quite often. Every task force member had to catch two or three people. And the ones who had no right to be in Leningrad, their passports were put in envelopes and sent to the place where they were legally registered. And if they were caught again without documents, they automatically went for a month to a reception-distribution center. But nowadays they’re coming, doing business, building themselves villas.

"Pchela": What is your attitude toward the multi-party system?

- In principle, negative, because Western democracy already has wrecked the whole of Europe, not to mention America. America’s ruined. But there’s no way Western democracy can be adapted to Russia. The Russian people have always loved a firm hand, strong government, and only under these conditions did they live normally. But all this democracy...that’s not for us.

"Pchela": Should Russians have advantages over the other peoples of Russia?

- You’re trying to fit me into a scheme: Yids, proportional representation, and so on. Look, take the French state. The principal nation are the French, right? And the state is built around this principal, indigenous nation. In the Russian state everything is also built around one nationality—Russian. And if you shatter this core, then the whole state crumbles.

But smaller peoples aren’t capable of acting as states. Look at Udmurtia, even Kazakhstan. Historically there never was any such state. And suddenly—wham-bam, a state. They grabbed Baikonur and tore it down, unscrewed the handles from the toilets—that’s their level. [Baikonur, the Soviet Cape Canaveral, is now on the territory of independent Kazakhstan, but is still used for launches by the Russian space program.] You can’t take people who had their own way of life, lived in yurts, and—slam!—throw them into civilization. Diplomas were purchased for them in exchange for twenty rams; they were admitted to the institutes without examinations: they tried to make them into civilized nations. But hell, you can’t turn them into civilized nations. Centuries have to pass so that it soaks into their genes. Well, for example, can you really find an outstanding Negro? Well, yes, he plays those criminal songs on the horn, that Louis Armstrong, and he’s presented to us as a great man. We don’t need his music, we don’t need it....

"Pchela": What’s your opinion of youth culture? Jazz, rock’n’roll?

- That’s the Western culture that they’re trying to inculcate here. I’m not against good songs. I love the Beatles—although they’re Jews, as you know. Good music, there’s a melody there. You know that in music the theme means something, the catchy melody? But Negro ensembles, jazz: they’re simply awful, some sort of cacophony. It grates the ears; it doesn’t raise your spirits. Just try putting on Armstrong in the morning. You’ll be in a bad mood all day, I guarantee you. But put on a song by the Beatles and you’ll be in an excellent mood.

"Pchela": But Russian rock’n’roll?

- There isn’t any Russian rock’n’roll. When I was young, I ran with that crowd. But we had good songs: those very same Beatles, our groups, the Singing Guitars—there were good tunes. Young people need to hang out, get to know each other, and all that.

"Pchela": Your attitude toward Communism?

- Very negative, especially recently. Earlier I had no reason to deal with them, and I didn’t understand that they were rogues and scoundrels. But this is a particular segment of the society, purely Soviet. There were 20 million Communists and I was one, too, incidentally. That is, I wasn’t a Communist, I was a member of the Party because I was an officer, and all of us were ordered to join. But recently, when I began to deal with the Communists in politics, they constantly deceived us, betrayed us, saw us only as slaves who should run around, work...They just used us. And they use a patriotic ideology as a cover. If Zyuganov said, "I’m a Communist," then nobody would vote for him. So he creates this aura of the patriot around himself—he thought up the Popular Patriotic Union—but he himself brings flowers to that bald guy [Lenin] who killed several million Russians. What a joke.

"Pchela": How do you see the role of women in the society? How do you relate to women in politics?

- Negatively. A woman should stay at home, take care of the children, her husband. I don’t know how it is in Europe, but it’s always been that way here. And what kind of woman goes into politics? That [Irina] Khakamada woman [prominent Russian politician and currently minister in Yeltsin administration]. A normal woman doesn’t go into politics.

"Pchela": Does the National Republican Party have contact with deputies in the State Duma, in the [Petersburg] Legislative Assembly?

- Full contact. We have ten legislative aides alone hanging out there. We’re absolutely informed on what’s going on. In the Duma we’re based for the most part in the Liberal Democratic Party. We have some problems with Zhirinovsky, too, but his views are closer to ours.

"Pchela": How do you see the typical representative of the patriotic movement? Age, occupation?

- Young, likable, strong, smartly dressed. His occupation has no significance, but what he does, he always does well. While the patriotic democrats swill vodka...