February 24, 2022 brought Sal Solaris out of its anabiosis, demanding to speak out with all clarity: the war against Ukraine is an immeasurable crime for which we and our descendants will have to pay. And one more thing: the war against Ukraine is a war of Putin’s elite against Russia and its future.

The need for this statement is dictated not only by civil, but also by personal responsibility. As many people know, and for those who have forgotten, we remind you, Sal Solaris began in the second half of the 1990s as a project tightly associated with the National Bolshevik Party. Party card with a number from the second thousand, hitchhiking from Rostov to the first congress of the party, Dugin's personal anathema to the founder of Sal Solaris - we have a lot to tell, but that's not the point.

Since its founding, the National Bolshevik Party has been a subcultural movement, in which symbolic gesture was placed above political pragmatism. The cultivation of ambivalent radicalism attracted people of different views, who were united by their aversion to shitty Russian reality. As the balance of power in the country began to shift toward the siloviki (defense and law enforcement chiefs) in the second half of the 2000s, it became clear that the Limonov group was incapable of recognizing recognizing the changes taking place in the country and of making anything more than a gesture. The "first call" National Bolsheviks were leaving the movement, unable to grow beyond the narcissism of its founder. The movement was shaken by splits.

Further, the radicalism of the National Bolshevik rhetoric remarkably converged with the rhetoric of the authorities, eventually acquiring the features of an over-identification with Comrade Major. After Limonov welcomed the annexation of Crimea, contrary to the interests of the peoples of Russia, only complete dickheads remained with him. The death of the many times reborn entity was sealed by the renaming of the party into "The Other Russia of E.V. Limonov." A party that claimed to banish idols and strive for the future! The irony is emphasized by the fact that in the "party" there is not a single person left who has enough brains to realize what has happened.

How did the movement exchange radicalism for the pleasure of barking in unison with the sheepdogs of the regime? Was this transformation inevitable and what made it possible? One problem may lie in the very principle of "for everything radical against everything bad" - effective for cultural mobilization in a period of transition, and unsuitable for the production of a political alternative amidst the concentration of power. These questions require a detailed answer, which will be presented elsewhere. 

The NBP has a lot to be damned for. Yes: diluting responsibility is what the operators of the war want. Yes: up to a certain point, both among party members and on the level of declarations, there have been properties that do not fit in any way with the evolution of the RF. These are protest, actionism, egalitarianism, obsession with rebellion, etc. Putin's Gormenghast was built from other bricks, by other builders and stimulated by other sources. It’s pure Chekist bullshit, DUGIN, spaced-out conspiracism and dead water. But: now is not the best time to separate the grains from the chaff. Therefore, let's state the facts with all the straightforwardness of the authentic NBP of the 1990s.

The National Bolsheviks are monstrously fucked up. It's stupid to say that the current war is a caricature of the kind of righteous imperial irredentism that the National Bolsheviks dreamed of. Those dreams could not have come true in any other form, and we have to live with that.

It was the SS sermon of June 12, 2022.

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On the cover is the Northern Saltovka neighborhood of Kharkiv in June 2022. Somewhere far beyond the bombed-out houses in this photo is the former Saltovsky settlement, where Eduard Limonov was born and grew up.

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Sal Solaris — Всё, остальное [NEN.35]

Русский мир

Всё, остальное

Genre-agnostic label in exile. Music with a displaced center of gravity. Online and on cassette tapes.

Sal Solaris — Всё, остальное [NEN.35]

NEN Records