The Fortress strikes

Last weekend it became clear with what tools the Russian bureaucracy intends to ensure a solution to the “2008 problem” - either retaining Putin for a third term, or nominating an uncontested successor. I must say, nothing particularly original was invented. The recipes are quite Soviet. On the one hand, the merciless suppression of any hint of real opposition, on the other, the accelerated construction of the image of an external enemy.

On March 24, the police operation “Fortress” was carried out in Nizhny Novgorod. From 5 (according to some sources) to 20 (according to others) thousand riot police, operatives and soldiers of the internal troops were brought into the city. This was enough to block the city center, arrange a total document check and filtering of everyone who had the misfortune of arriving in Nizhny by train or intercity bus. Suspicious persons were detained without explanation. In fact, in peacetime, the city in the center of Russia was placed under a state of siege. The reason is a possible attack by the “enemy within”: on this day, opposition organizations intended to hold a “March of Dissent” in the city. All the organizers of the march were arrested under false pretexts. Thus, the leaders of the local branch of the NBP were detained, accusing them of distributing a certain “Terrorist Cookbook” via the Internet. Four dozen teenagers were gathered at the announced location of the march, who were supposed to portray some kind of “positive” action “City of Masters” (it was this that served as the reason for refusing to hold the opposition rally). Those few oppositionists who managed to break through to the center were quickly taken with batons, pushed into buses and taken to police stations. After which Vice-Governor Sergei Potapov came out into the empty square and said that thousands of police officers were needed in order to “protect children, protect them from this influence.” The official also said that they tried to organize the “March of Dissent” with money from the United States and other Western countries.

This rich idea was developed the next day in Moscow.

Here, the “Nashi” movement decided to celebrate Putin’s 7th anniversary in power by organizing a mass expression of gratitude to “our everything.” To do this, 15 thousand young people were brought to the capital (for some reason their documents were not checked), who were supposed to invite Muscovites to send SMS congratulations to Putin. However, a stupid, but at first glance harmless event under the slogan “Lick your boss’s ass” very quickly became very aggressive. Licking just like that was considered insufficiently creative, so the participants of the action were asked to simultaneously spit in the direction of the West. Taking up the idea of ​​the Nizhny Novgorod vice-president, the speakers at the rally started a song about sinister foreign forces who want to take away our natural resources. Everyone who received a SIM card to send greetings to the President was offered a questionnaire with great questions. For example: “How do you (do you) feel about the fact that military bases are being deployed around Russia and tension is being escalated?” The questionnaire also proposed to identify the enemies of Russia, directly suggesting that these are the United States and the West, who are trying to establish external control in Russia. And, finally, the apotheosis: “Do you agree with the opinion that if Putin is eliminated or departs from his course, “troubled times” will come in the country, and power will be seized by proteges of the West or extremists? According to the organizers of the event, the 15 thousand participants were supposed to spread propaganda among at least 100 thousand people, instilling in them a willingness not only to send greetings to Putin, but also, if necessary, to take to the streets to defend the regime.

I suspect that in recent years, at state exams at the academies of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there has always been a question like “President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin. about methods of operational work." And the graduates memorized the famous paragraph from the book “In the First Person”: “We acted as if from around the corner, so that our ears would not stick out, God forbid. Let's say a group of dissidents is going to hold some kind of event in Leningrad dedicated to the birthday of Peter the Great. Dissidents in St. Petersburg mainly timed their events to coincide with such dates. They also loved the anniversaries of the Decembrists. So they planned an event with an invitation to the diplomatic corps and journalists to the scene in order to attract the attention of the world community. What to do? You can't accelerate, it's not ordered. Then they took it and organized the laying of wreaths themselves, exactly at the place where the journalists were supposed to come. They convened the regional committee, trade unions, police cordoned everything off, and came to the music themselves. They assigned it. Journalists and representatives of the diplomatic corps stood, looked, yawned a couple of times and dispersed. And when they dispersed, the cordon was removed. Please go whoever wants to. But no one is interested anymore.”

And now, to the best of their ability, FSB officers sent to Nizhny and excellent students serving in Moscow are implementing the behests of their senior comrade. In Nizhny Novgorod, they tried to organize a children's party as a cover. But they were clearly afraid to contact the trade union committees. As a result, they simply staged an ordinary gendarmerie pogrom without any cover. It is indeed stupid to carry out Operation Fortress without an obligatory assault and heroic resistance to it. And in order to justify him, they immediately remembered the world behind the scenes.

In Moscow, they tried to be proactive and, on the eve of the “March of Dissent” scheduled for April 14, to demonstrate the inescapable love of young people for V.V. Putin. But, having planned such an action, they immediately realized that they were trapped. If everyone in the country, except for a pitiful bunch of renegades, loves power so much, then from whom, one might ask, should this power be protected? And according to this inexorable logic, the main reason for mobilization is an external threat.

Thus, politics in the country should represent, according to the Kremlin leaders, a kind of “Operation Fortress” - with merciless police suppression of any protest. To explain all this will be the need to counteract the aggressive plans of world imperialism. Let me note that a couple of years ago, a certain Mikhail Yuryev, who was aspiring to the role of Putin’s ideologist, already put forward a similar concept, which he called “Fortress Russia.” Then it seemed to the Kremlin too straightforward and extremist. However, as we see, times are changing.

Will this plan be implemented? I doubt. And, first of all, because the leaders of this very Fortress are now in full swing not with the evil West, and not with the opposition. They are furiously at war with each other, with no clear plans to overcome the inexorably growing crisis associated with the fact that the authorities have no consensus on how exactly Putin's course will be continued after 2008. No amount of police repression will help when almost every day the state leadership system demonstrates a lack of consolidation and clear political will. Of course, you can disperse the “March of Dissent”, you can bring several thousand dunces onto the streets of Moscow. But what to do with the State Duma, which in the eyes of voters, with eight months left before the elections, is finally turning into a farce? Thus, having hurled thunder and lightning at Minister Zurabov for the sake of decency, on command from the Kremlin, parliamentarians instantly abandoned demands for his resignation. It is very difficult for a government that is so funny to become scary.

In my last article, I compared Putin’s Russia with an “old house”, an institution for the elderly in the village of Kamyshevatskaya, where renovations were done with double-glazed windows, but where, due to bureaucratic greed and indifference, there was no one to put out the fire. The possibility of turning this “stardom” into a fortress seems more than doubtful.