Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 15 – The
Kremlin’s backing of radical forms of patriotism and fanatic religious belief
has led the situation which is “getting out of control,” according to five
leading Moscow commentators. And what is
most worrisome, they say, is that stopping what the regime has started “will
not be a simple matter.”
In a Rosbalt article entitled “Is a
Civil War Beginning in Russia,” that agency’s journalist Dmitry Remizov lists
the attacks on politicians, cultural figures and rights activists that have now
grown into a campaign of violence of various kinds by opponents of the film
“Mathilda” and surveyed five leading commentators about the trend (rosbalt.ru/russia/2017/09/14/1646168.html).
Valery Solovey, an MGIMO professor and frequent
commentator, says that “a great deal of hatred” has built up in Russia, thanks
in part to state policies. The
government attacks various groups, and many in the population read that as
license to attack these groups in ways that the authorities themselves have not
yet done.
Still worse, he says, the government
has given support to some radical groups ranging from “religious or
pseudo-religious activists to biker clubs,” the historian continues. And what is worrisome is that “even if the
state financing of these people ends … this process will not stop on a dime.”
It will continue for a time “by inertia.”
According to Solovey, “the state has
handed over part of the right to force to arbitrary organizations of activists
[and] therefore they can do everything they want. Among these peoples are not
simply insane people but insane people who are radically inclined.”
He says that in his view, the
government now is “not very happy” that it backed these groups. But it is not
clear to the authorities how they can stop it.
Ending support isn’t enough. “Decisive steps” will be necessary, “but
the powers that be are clearly not prepared to do that,” at least not yet.
“I don’t think,” Solovey says, “that
all this will acquire some colossal extent. But in certain cases, even one or
two terrorist acts or attacks are sufficient to generate a wafe of the
strongest emotions and not only within Russia.”
Aleksey Sinelnikov, a Moscow
political analyst, says that all the recent violence has one interesting common
feature: all the attacks are “politically anonymous. No organized force takes
responsible for them. Even demands like not showing a film are a fiction
because how can one today really make such a demand credible.”
But no one is prepared to come down
hard on these people. The Russian Orthodox Church doesn’t disown those who act
in its name, and what that means, the analyst continues, is that Russia doesn’t
face “an Orthodox jihad” as some have suggested but “a real jihad of anonymous
terror, that is, an ordinary total war” against those these people oppose.
“The situation is so serious,” he
argues, that one is justified in concluding that it is “a new type of war” and
calling for the harshest measures against those who are participating in it.
Roman Romanov, a Moscow sociologist,
says that one of the reasons things have gotten out of hand is that senior
political figures, including Duma members, often say things that have an impact
they may not even intend because they do not always understand how their words
are understood beyond the ring road.
“They do not understand that there
are many people who are just waiting for some ‘suitable’ signal” to act as they
want. Now, it is important that those who send such signals intentionally or
not be held to account because what they have started will be anything but easy
to stop.
Vitaly Cherkasov, a lawyer and
longtime rights activist, says that the Russian authorities were supportive of
popular activism when things were good before the 2008 crisis but failed to
recognize that such activism, with new targets including the regime itself,
would be redirected once things went bad.
In response, he says, the regime has
established the Russian Guard as well as “flying squads” of radical Orthodox
activists “in order to frighten … or prompt to flee” those who oppose the
government. The regime’s hopes for a
return of the “fat” years are “illusory,” the lawyer continues, and the regime
is now promoting by action and inaction “’lynch law.’”
Dmitry Gudkov, an opposition
politician, says that “when the authorities lose the monopoly on force, this
always ends with civil clashes. It begins with a struggle with dissidents and
ends with a struggle against the powers themselves.” Now people may burn the
cars of lawyers but “tomorrow they may burn” those of ministers.
“And bureaucrats must understand
this,” Gudkov says. “If the authorities
do not react to such methods of settling political scholars, it will give a
signal to all marginals: if you support the little father tsar, you can do what
you want.” As Russian history has shown
repeatedly, “this is very dangerous.”
Marginals, he continues, “are people
of a definite turn of mind: they do not see any framework or limits for action.
Already, no one will be able to stop this because the monopoly on the use of
force has been destroyed.” The only hope
is that the powers that be will come down hard on all who violate the law.
Unfortunately, he suggests, there is
little indication that those in charge are prepared to do that.
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