Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 5 – With the murder
of Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Putin has caught up with and surpassed Italian
Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, according to Igor Eidman, by casting off all
moral constraints as Andrey Zubov suggests and putting him on the road to
becoming “the most dangerous man in the history of civilization” in the words
of Andrey Piontkovsky.
On Kasparov.ru, Eidman notes that in
his recent book, “Putin’s New National Idea,” he outlined the many ways in
which the authoritarian Putin regime had acquired “many of the aspects of a fascist
dictatorship including an aggressive and annexationist foreign policy, the rule
of state monopoly capital in the economy and of the force structures in the
administration, and of chauvinism and clericalism in ideology” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=54F729897FA41).
“The demonstration murder of Boris Nemtsov confirmed this
conclusion,” the Moscow analyst says. “Of all the bloody political crimes, it
most of all resembles the murder by Mussolini’s militants of the opposition
deputy [Giacomo] Matteoti in 1924. Then in Italy as now in Russia, the fascist
regime was finally asserting itself.”
Eidman continues: “In Italy this murder sparked a most serious
political crisis and put Mussolini’s regime at the edge of collapse. In Russia
nothing like that has happened. The reason is that in Italy were still
preserved some remnants of opposition in parliament and the relative
independence of the judicial system.”
In Russia today, “Putin’s regime has gone much further
along the path of imposing fascism than had the political regime of Italy at
that time,” he argues. But even
Mussolini “overcame the crisis … and achieved the complete suppression of the
opposition and the concentration of power in his hands and then began
aggressive military adventures.”
The current Kremlin leader “has already surpassed in this
direction his Italian predecessor,” and it would appear that he is hurrying as
quickly as he can “to the same end which Mussolini suffered.” (For those
unfamiliar with the Matteoti crisis, a good summary can be found at britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1574455/Matteotti-Crisis).
Andrey Zubov, a former MGIMO
professor and outspoken critic of Putin’s policies in Ukraine, extends this
analogy by observing that Nemtsov’s murder “under the walls of the Kremlin” is “a
sign that the regime has chosen the path of a undiluted criminal-terrorist
regime,” one that wants to “throw off all legal norms” both abroad as in
Ukraine and at home as well (gordonua.com/publications/Professor-Zubov-Esli-oppoziciya-posle-ubiystva-Nemcova-ispugaetsya-to-etot-rezhim-budet-svirepstvovat-skolko-Bog-dast-69733.html).
In the wake of
the assassination of Nemtsov and the Kremlin’s response, Zubov continues, “anyone
who has any relationship to the powers that be has to decide for himself
whether he is with this terrorist and criminal regime or whether at a minimum
he will not take part in its actions or will even resist it.” There is no third
choice.
And given Putin’s
amorality, his possession of nuclear weapons, and his faith that no Western
leaders will stand up to his aggression abroad or his repression at home, Putin
has become, Russian commentator Andrey Piontkovsky says, “the most dangerous
man in the history of civilization” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=54F6EB24341D6).
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