Siloviki have Own Power Vertical Against Which It is Almost Impossible to Appeal, Travkin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 16 – When a Soviet citizen felt he had been treated unfairly by the militia, he could turn to the local communist party committee with his complaint. But today, the siloviki have their own power vertical and there is no one at that level Russians can complain to. If they feel mistreated, they can only write to Vladimir Putin, Nikolay Travkin says.

            The Soviet system worked well because “de facto the chief of the militia, prosecutors and judges were subordinate to the first secretary of the local party committee,” the former Russian politician and now commentator says. That helped keep the anger of the people down (rosbalt.ru/posts/2021/12/16/1936003.html).

            “The system was not legal or democratic,” Travkin continues, “but today’s is still more ugly and unfair.” People who feel they have been treated wrongly have no one to turn to short of Putin who is unlikely in most cases to take any action. “All those in the force structures, including judges, have their own vertical” and no one outside it can have much influence.

            Some have argued that the new law on local administration brings it back to the status the executive committees had in Soviet times. But in fact, it doesn’t go far enough, the commentator says. It would be “more logical and honest to go further and revive the authority of the district committees of the ruling party.”

            Those who fear that elections might bring to power another party at least in the localities needn’t worry, he says. The Kremlin won’t allow that to happen. If it did, that would be a revolution; and Russia would have to begin again to “construct the institutions of power on a legal basis.”