Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 4 – “Totalitarianism
has many definitions,” longtime Russian human rights activist Lev Ponomaryev
says; “but for [him] its chief characteristic is when under the wheels of
repression can fall the most ordinary people who have not set as their goal
political struggle with the regime.”
That is what is now happening in the
Russian Federation, he says, as the forces of repression have moved on from repressing
opposition figures and demonstrators to repressing ordinary citizens who have
done nothing that could possibly justify official actions against them (echo.msk.ru/blog/lev_ponomarev/2195526-echo/).
The stage for this tragic development
was set in December 2017 when FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov said there was
clear line of succession from the Cheka of Lenin’s times to the OGPU and NKVD
of Stalin’s to the FSB of today. “For
those who haven’t lost their memory of history, this sounded like an evil
warning.”
“And now already we can assert that
it is beginning to be achieved. The political initiative in internal cases of
the country before our eyes is passing into the hands of the FSB,” just as it
passes into the hands of its Soviet era predecessors with horrific consequences
for the population at large.
Unfortunately, it does not appear
that many Russians are alarmed. “According to the latest polls of the Levada
Center, only five percent of Russians are concerned about the limitation of
rights and freedoms in the country,” apparently believing that the regime is
directly repressive actions only against its declared opponents.
Recent cases in which completely
innocent and non-political people have been subjected to repressive actions by
the security services highlight how this dangerous process is being repeated.
First, the organs invent cases to go after opposition figures who have not
taken any real action, and then, they use similarly invented cases to go after anyone
in a random fashion.
“Why were such cynical falsifications
undertaken?” Some say that “the security forces want to demonstrate their
vigilance” in advance of the World Cup competition. “But I think the causes are
deeper,” Podrabinek says. Today, “the siloviki and the FSB in the first instance
not feeling any limitations on their actions … are dictating their model of
life in Russia.”
The organs “hunt down civil
activists, they fabricate cases for posts and likes on social networks, and
they propose laws which limit the rights and freedoms of citizens. The ‘FSB
Corporation’ has received power, it is expanding, and it is seeking work for
itself.” Consequently, it is looking for new enemies to go after even if they don’t
exist.
Such institutions and their officers “will
resolve any problem by force.” That is the way of security services, but in
democratic countries, they are limited by effective courts and by public
attitudes that will not put up with such violation of rights. Unfortunately, in
Russia, both of those things are lacking.
How then can Russians hope to limit
the power of the siloviki? According to
Podrabinek, people “must fight for the maintenance of constitutional norms.” A
good example of this is when 15,000 Russians went into the streets in Moscow to
protest the government’s blocking of the Telegram messenger service.
“We must also actively defend those
against whom such invented cases are lodged or who are subject to torture,” the
human rights activist continues. And the
time to do so is rapidly running out.
According to
Podrabinek, “the FSB is strengthening its influence in society. This is an
inertial process,” and officers at all levels think that they can gain
preferment and advancement by following the course of spreading
repression. “This is a chaotic process,
but it is very dangerous for the country.”
If the FSB is not stopped, he says,
then it will soon be able to arrest and send to prison anyone it likes regardless
of what that individual thinks or does. “Hundreds of thousands of users of
social networks will fall into the list of extremists [and] the next step will
be massive political repressions.”
Russia has seen this before: it must not see it again.
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