Union of Russian People

The Union of Russian People (URP) (Russian: Союз Русского Народа, translit. Soyuz Russkogo Naroda (СРН/SRN) was a loyalist extreme right nationalist political party, the most important among Black-Hundredist monarchist political organizations in the Russian Empire between 1905 and 1917.

Founded in October 1905, its aim was to rally the people behind 'Great Russian nationalism' and the autocracy, espousing anti-socialist, anti-liberal, and above all antisemitic views. By 1906 it had over 300,000 members. Its paramilitary armed bands, called the Black Hundreds, fought revolutionaries violently in the streets. Its leaders organised a series of political assassinations of deputies and other representatives of parties which supported the Russian Revolution of 1905.

The Union was dissolved in 1917 in the wake of the Revolution, and its leader Durnovo placed under arrest.

Some modern academic researchers view the Union of Russian People as an early example of fascism.

The Union was the leading exponent of antisemitism in the wake of the 1905 Revolution. It has been described as 'an early Russian version of the Fascist movement', as it was anti-socialist, anti-liberal, and 'above all anti-Semitic'.

The Union of the Russian People called for the 'restoration of the popular ', a concept they believed had existed before Russia had been taken over by 'intellectuals and Jews'. Antisemitism was brought into the URP by what became the organisation's ideological core, chairman Alexander Dubrovin, Vladimir Purishkevich, Pavel Krushevan, Pavel Bulatsel and some other 'radical temperament anti-Semitic rabble rousers', who had seceded from the Russian Assembly. The methods of the Union were not what the Russian Assembly considered proper conduct. Save lawyer and journalist Bulatsel, another leading intellectual of the URP was B. V. Nikolsky, privatdozent (senior lecturer) at Petersburg University.

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