In the newspaper Shturmovik (Storm Trooper), which, obviously, is distributed mainly to the Russian army, in 1997 (1 – 15 December), an article was published that begins with the words: “Yes, we are called to be masters of this world, because that is what the Lord wanted. And if to fulfill His will we need to drown a couple of billion foreigners and infidels in their own blood – we won’t need to think for a moment about whether this is humane or not, or whether it violates “human rights” – such nonsense! A man, a real man, has no rights. He has only duties: duty to God, to the Nation, to the Empire…. Our mission is the holy mission of the White cause [perhaps, the name of all described above –V.P.], to impose the Russian spirit around the world, as only our race [the Russian nation -V. P. ] deserves to dominate the world.”

Now, let’s proceed forward to 2006. On April 16th, 19 -year-old man, Alexander Shtopor, was killed. It happened at dusk in a noisy, bustling street in Moscow. Six people attacked him from behind with knives. He got stabbed in the heart and the head. When the ambulance arrived half an hour after after it was called, Alexander was dead. Flyers of the Anti-Fascist Committee were found in his pocket. It was a pre-planned assassination. Nevertheless, no one has been punished.

On the Internet there were numerous responses and comments on this tragic event. Most of them directly supported the murderers. Here’s one of them: “Finally, the Moscow anti-fascists gained a martyr. On April 16th an unwary geek fell a couple of times on a knife and went away to his mate Timur Katcharava. This is not the last of such actions, I hope: may sending them [ anti-fascists – V.P . ] to intensive care and mortuaries become an ongoing tradition until they’ve been completely exterminated. It is a way of life for us. The victory is close. In no way should they be given a chance to develop anti-racist and leftist tendencies. Salute the Right, the White cause, Nazis, skinheads and hooligans, you who are cleaning the streets of our cities from multiracial skids. [Lashman@inbox.ru]”.

The killing was timed to “celebrate” Hitler’s birthday, April 20th the day that Nazis organize marches with all Nazi symbols. Not only do the police to touch them, they, rather protect them.

Between 1997, when the above-mentioned article was published, and 2006, a heinous war in Chechnya took place, which continues to this day at a “low-intensity”, though it is no less cruel. Actually, it was rather giant ethnic cleansing, than a war, with the purpose of annihilation of the most of Chechen nation. The small Chechen army of volunteers, who heroically resisted the overwhelmingly powerful Russian invasion, was inseparable from the people. It actually was genocide. Chechens were destroyed by all means possible by the Russian barbarians, provided with an ideology of hatred, and drunk to a man from soldiers to the general’s staff. The Russians swept and burned entire villages and settlements (Znamenskoye , Novye Aldy , Samashki, to name just a few), murdering the inhabitants en masse, and by 2002 the city of Grozny had been destroyed more than any European city by 1945. The Russian troops bombed columns of thousands of civilians who were fleeing from the war via officially declared humanitarian corridors for civilians to leave the battlefields. They used mass torture: tied 15 to 20 people together and blew them up, so that they could not be identified; they threw Chechen civilians into pits and spread poison gas there or simply kept them with no food or water and urinated on their heads; they conducted the “famous ” punitive operations over whole villages or town, where they severely beat every single male inhabitant, from 10 to 12 year-old children to seniors, many of whom died as a result; in some areas of Chechnya they ran toxic substances into rivers or sprayed bacteriological substances (therefore, biological weapons were , deployed); they raped women in the same way as their predecessors – the army of “liberators” who raped German women at the end of the 2nd World war; finally, they rounded up people for “passport checkups”, while teenagers and young people did not have passports (Russian passports were not issued in Chechnya after 1996), sending those who did not “pass” the checkup to death camps, such as Chernokozovo.

A letter came from one Russian soldier who felt that participation in such inhumane violenceagainst civilians was unbearable. He deserted from Cheronokozovo camp where he was sent to serve and went into hiding, as otherwise he “would be sawed by an automatic saw,” in his words. . The letter reads: “… [The camp staff-V.P.] literally mutilate and stab them up [the Chechen prisoners]. You must hear creams of these strong men, when each part of their body is being broken. Some of them are brutally raped. The prisoners are brought every day in large numbers. Currently there are up to 700 people here, but only 7 are suspected to be militants. These people are half-dead. Two have died already. It’s hard to describe the exotic ways they use to turn humans into animals. I would like to help these people if any power exists at all in the world that can make a difference there. I’m disappointed with our government. It’s a lie, deception and hypocrisy. I’ll stop now … “. This letter came from a French journalist who was lucky to meet this Russian soldier, and was read at the Paris Conference of 2000 “On the situation in the Chechen Republic.”

The acts of terror, committed in Tsarist Russia and agrevviated in the coup of 1917 became the template for the ongoing tactics of the GPU, NKVD, KGB, FSB that followed directly out of them. Terrorism (both within the country and abroad) became, in Russia, the only way to seize and maintain power for the dark forces who established their totalitarian regime in 1917, assisted by bureaucrats who were drunk on the ideology of terror and bloodshed. The apogee of terrorism was Stalin’s Soviet (Red) state terror, popularly called the GULAG (short for the name of the institution – State Directorate of the Camps, which was directly responsible for the destruction of millions of Soviet people; mostly creative, scientific and industrial intellectuals , peasants, clergy, as well as almost all military experts).

But if for Stalin to hold the “throne” it was enough to commit the murder of Kirov, which was then followed by a wide and powerful wave of terrorism (both within the country and abroad), Putin, in a very similar situation felt he had to outdo his hero: he would not murder just one rival, as Stalin did, but approximately 300 of his fellow citizens in the staged blasts of three apartment buildings in Russia in September 1999. The number of those killed is a matter of no consequence to such dictators. The purpose was achieved: the pretext was invented for the launching of a “counter-terror operation”, so that Putin would appear as the savior of the Russian nation.

The very next day Chechens were blamed for the blasts, and Putin promised to “soak them wherever they are, even in sortir.” (this is Russian gang jargon that means “to kill”). And Putin has achieved his goal: he became president. He was given all the power, all the money, all the “keys” by, and to, Russia. And the newly resurrecting criminal terrorist mafia clan, the KGB (after Yeltsin’s small reorganization), was gradually capturing one public office after another – ultimately they recaptured the state they’d only recently lost control of. How so? By terrorism, e.g., by returning to the methods of terror. A very appropriate and apt expression by an anonymous reader is: “Each state has its mafia, but the Russian mafia has its own state …”.

We can say that the apogee of Putin’s FSB terror was the genocide in Chechnya, although the destruction of Chechens continues to this day. After the destruction of 15 to 17 thousand devoted and heroic fighters of the Chechen Resistance by 2002, and a quarter of a million civilians, a furious hunt began for those who survived all the shelling and bombardment, for all those who had escaped or surrendered, or been “pardoned”. The mafia continues to diligently chase even those Chechens who couldn’t bear the Russian puppet government’s terror in Chechnya and fled, applying for asylum in other republics or abroad; they hunt down and take their families, and even their sympathizers, hostage.

Around 20,000 Chechens have already been thrown in jail and into (labor) colonies in Siberia, where they face a slow death, labeled “terrorists” and members of “unlawful armed groups “. What kind of “law” are we talking about? These people were resisting the aggressor, which came to destroy the Chechen nation. Was then the Warsaw ghetto uprising unlawful too? Was a resistance to Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union unlawful too? Is there a “law” that legalizes military aggression against a peaceful republic? The Russian “legislators” have turned everything upside down. But military aggression – genocide – was being committed under the “roof” of the FSB, and because of that, the genocide is “lawful.”

There is a lack of information about the fate of Chechens in the labor colonies because they are kept in a state of deepest isolation. Unlike some “famous” political prisoners in Russia, prisoners of the Chechen war do not appear in news, and even the names and whereabouts of most of them are kept secret. However, we can imagine their fate as scarce bits of information do sometimes Here is a horrific piece of information, an appeal from the prisoners of the colony IK – 2 in Omsk, Siberia (the name of the prison director is Vladimir Iosifovich Omelchenko): the prisoners managed somehow to record their appeal on a voice recorder and to send it to human rights defenders. By some miracle, the recording reached the renowned Russian human rights Center ‘Memorial’. Connection with the prisoners was completely lost afterwards. Their whereabouts are today unknown.

Here is their appeal:

“… We, prisoners of the colony IK -2 in Omsk, as well as other colonies of the Omsk region, cry out for help! What is going on here: the daily torture, beatings and humiliation that the administration and the guards of the colony commit against the natives of Chechnya and Ingushetia. These acts do not fit into any limit of human understanding. We cannot even talk about what they are doing to us, it is beyond human power. In addition to “regular” beatings to half-death and torture, such as breaking bones and ribs, we suffer also from torture in the form of drowning, suffocation mask, and electroshock. They are stabbing us, there are cases of sticking screwdrivers in the kneecap, tearing nails, we are stripped and attacked with dogs; we are forced to undergo baptism. They offend our religious feelings, urinate and defecate on us; in a word, these bad people – they are not human beings – scoff at us with their perverted mentality. Sometimes men are publicly raped, especially those who are trying to claim their rights. Such tortures are aimed at mentally suppressing not only us but also other prisoners. Many of us cannot bear all this. Some inmates cut their veins, cut open their bellies to set themselves free from this torture and abuse. Injuries inflicted during torture and deaths in custody resulting from torture, the administration of the camp report as suicide attempts. If an inmate is brought to a state of being half-dead, he is transferred to another colony in order not to increase death statistics in this colony. As far as we know, these sadistic tortures and abuses are either hidden from the administration of the colony, or occur with its tacit consent. We are deprived of any opportunity to convey information about what is happening to the officials and human rights activists. We believe that only by a miracle will our desperate cry for help be heard by the public. We realize that after if we manage to convey this message, our lives will be under direct threat. But we simply cannot bear such inhumane torture and humiliation. Help us! …”

This was recorded in 2010. When relatives addressed the administration of the colony, they got the answer: “It’s not us. This is an order from the “top” … “.

Dozens of journalists and lawyers, human rights activists and the regime’s opponents, who have decided to write and defend the truth and to speak out against the regime, have been killed in the last few years; hundreds of political prisoners were kidnapped or forced into prison camps, often with a strict regime. Human rights defenders are subjected to searches, interrogations, and are often beaten and abused.

I want to go back to the murder by the Neo-Nazis of the 19 -year-old anti-fascist youth in connection with the recent events in in the town of Biryulyovo, now a suburb of Moscow. In a dispute between two men over a girl (according to the official version), one of them killed the other. Under normal rcumstances, the murderer would face life in prison, but… only if both men were Russian. In this case, the one who killed was an Azerbaijani, a so-called migrant.

His nationality was a factor that infuriated the crowd. The angry inhabitants staged a riot and destroyed the central vegetable market in which most of the salesmen were Azerbaijanis. Here is a comment written by Dmitry Zykov about the pogrom, recently published on many blogs and websites: “I’m out of the” Prague” subway station, thirty minutes before the stated start of the action, which is “our response to Kurban-Bayram” [Muslim Holiday-V.P.]

When the “Prague Passage” shopping center closed, several hundred young people had already gathered. The youth who’d assembled looked like fans (football fans). At exactly 7 p.m. they started chanting “Russia for the Russians! Moscow for Muscovites! “, and the crowd moved toward Biryulevo. The average age of those involved was about 15 years old. School children shouting ” Sieg Heil ! Rudolf Hess, Hitler Youth , SS! ” walked down the ‘Podolsk cadets’ street, named after the Podolsk cadets of the military schools who defended Moscow from the Nazis in 1941. Then someone commanded, ” Turn right ! To the yards ! ” And the crowd shouted “Russians forward! ” as they ran into a residential area. The neo-Nazis went from house to house, smashed and destroyed cars, but only the cheap ones . Before my eyes they broke “Ladas” and “Giguli [model –V.P.] ninth” . Parked foreign cars they did not touch. Cars also had a nationality. ”Black” [not Slavic –V.P.] means poor . Poor people drive cheap cars.

“Ordinary people” are not aware yet of these facts, but the bourgeoisie and the clergy have realized it completely. Or [the young Neo_Nazis-V.P.] will beat the poor ( for the wrong nationality, the form of eyes, the citizenship , etc. ), or the rich – that means them.

On October 30th On October 30th , Russia celebrated its” Memorial Day for Victims ofPolitical Repression. ” As great as this idea is, it appears deeply cynical against this background. Its underground celebration was started in 1974 by former prisoners of the Gulag. Frightening annals are full of evidence of the GUKAG’s hard labor and the inhumane conditions of detention suffered by those who were deemed to be “criminals .”

Here is the response of one of those present at this outing . “Wreath of victims of the executioners … Crocodile tears – the height of cynicism – a wreath to the victims of repression at the Solovetsky Stone laid by the fascist executioners , the ex- communist soviet ” United Russia “. Here, they show their love of the dead – easier than to love or simply not to torture and stop killing the living ones.

Freedom for political prisoners: Boris Stomakhin , Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and hundreds of other activists ! Freedom fordetained members of Greenpeace! Freedom for the fighters from the North Caucasus! Hold Putin and the FSB executioners accountable! “

Recently Forbes magazine published a list of the most influential people in the world. In first place was Russian president Vladimir Putin – dictator of the country of eternal GULAG. If Forbes existed in the time of Hitler, it probably would have said,- even after the “Kristallnacht”, that Hitler was the most influential person in the world, just as it’s named Putin now. Maybe it is so. But “away” , the Nobel Prize looms ahead for Putin. Perhaps for all the reasons that have been shortly outlined above.

Victoria Poupko
Boston