Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 9 – Ever more people
are pointing to fascist aspects of Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia and even are
suggesting that he is on the way to making it a fully fascist state, but Vadim
Zaydman says that his regime was fascist from the outset, a conclusion certain
to unsettle many in Russia and in the West.
Suggesting that Putin only became
fascist in the course of his rule, the Moscow commentator says, lets off the
hook not only those in the Yeltsin regime who brought him to power but those in
Russia and the West who have viewed him as someone they could deal with as a more
or less normal leader (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=59105A5E436B3).
Even before Putin
was elevated to the presidency, when he was still prime minister, Zaidman
continues, he “began his actions by blowing up the apartment blocks in Moscow
and Volgodonsk and with ‘the training exercise in Ryazan.’ If this isn’t
fascism, blowing up houses where one’s own citizens live, then what is fascism?”
Putin’s regime “from the very
beginning was authoritarian … he did not acquire fascist characteristics step
by step; it only ever more manifest them in its activity.” And those who did
not see it after Ryazan were deceiving themselves. Given Russian history,
Yeltsin’s decision to appoint “the chief of ‘the Russische Gestapo’” president
only confirms that.
Many in Russia and the West have
refused to recognize this, preferring instead to follow the Kremlin’s line that
the Chechens were to blame for what Putin’s FSB did. They and those who accept
their view do not see that this too is confirmation that Putin has already
created his own “stormtroopers,” people who will do his bidding regardless of
what he does.
Such people must be exposed, Zaidman
says. “A country must know its ‘heroes,’ it must know that there are a lot of
them.” Only in that way can they and the fascist regime they are defending and
extending be defeated.
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