Putin’s Approach to Demonstrations Opens the Way to Pogroms, Orekh Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – Something terrible happened on Saturday, Anton Orekh says. The government set one group of Russians against another.  “This is not a civil war, but it is an important element of one” and is likely to be manifested in the same way that it was when the last tsar used this tactic: in pogroms against despised minorities.

            “The authorities specially selected and prepared detachments for pogroms, devoting money to this and assigning sponsors. This was no drunken fight and not a clash of political opponents who suddenly cae together … This was a special action planned over the course of several months,” the commentator says (echo.msk.ru/blog/oreh/2198084-echo/).

                This operation, he continues, required time. It couldn’t have been put together in a few days or weeks. And such people “have no other work besides provocations and force.” 

            The harsh actions of the police are at least potentially “theoretically explicable.” They are “a unitive organ” and have “the formal right to use force.  It is another matter how they use this right, but the right exists. But young people dressed up as Cossacks have no right to beat others at all under any circumstances.”

            Moreover, such people must not only be organized and trained but directed, Orekh says; otherwise, they would not necessarily know whom to attack and when.  That is what the powers that be of the Putin regime have done: they have “given the signal for pogroms,” first against protesters, but soon they will turn on other targets.

            And just as over a century ago, “no one will even tr to stop them. The police won’t even formally begin to interfere.” Such people trained by the regime may stop someone in the street and beat him just because they don’t like his physiognomy.  And they may feel they can act with complete impunity.

            The Putin regime is about to learn what Nicholas II did: “it is possible to start pogroms” to suit your purposes, “but then to control them is already impossible.” The Kremlin may be pleased that the actions of these people will make Russians think twice about attending any meeting lest they be attacked.  That will cut attendance.

            But then something else will happen, Orekh says: “those who come may turn out to be no weaker than the little Cossacks. And then to the first element of a civil war will be added the second: the use of force will become mutual.”  At that point, those who have sown the wind may as before reap the whirlwind.