On March 5, the Russians remembered the deceased Joseph Stalin - someone cursed, someone took him to his chest for peace, and someone proved by deeds that the leader was dead, but his ideas and methods are alive. After all, as long as the forceful intervention in the work ...

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March, the Russians remembered the deceased Joseph Stalin - someone cursed, someone took him to his chest for peace, and someone proved by deeds that the leader was dead, but his ideas and methods are alive. Indeed, as long as forceful intervention in the work of enterprises for the sake of the authorities remains the norm, we are as far from the rule of law as in March 1953.

What can a weakening dictator do to make the people rally around him more closely? The Stalinist method is to find the enemy and set the masses against him. Such a simple scheme was tested in the Omsk region, where the governor's rating on the eve of the elections dropped to indecent. They found a bright adversary - a regional energy company, over which, moreover, the shadow of the main enemy of the entire working people, Anatoly Chubais, hovers.

At the same time, the administration completely failed budget payments for electricity and heat, owing Omskenergo 625 million rubles. Omskenergo was forced to introduce targeted shutdowns for non-payers in order to retain the ability to heat those who pay regularly. For this, Governor Leonid Polezhaev branded the company's management as energy terrorists and demanded the dismissal of CEO Alexander Antropenko. However, the masses reacted sluggishly to such PR - the population has already learned to figure out what's what. Then a scene was introduced into the play, which is popularly called "mask-show". Fifty people armed with machine guns broke into the office of Omskenergo. Employees and managers of the company were locked in their offices, even a pregnant woman was taken to the toilet under escort. The power engineers did not immediately figure out which department the raiders serve, because they only showed documents and a search warrant in the evening. It turned out that Omskenergo was accused of tax evasion, and the armed seizure was carried out by the tax police. The policemen brought witnesses with them, so they willingly turned a blind eye to the seizure of documents without an inventory and other violations of the law. Later, the police authorities announced the amount of claims against the energy company - 120 million rubles. The essence of the violation could not be clearly explained. Whether it is serious or not is for the court to decide, which, of course, will take into account that the budget itself owes Omskenergo five times more.

It is clear that the tax police are a pawn in someone else's game. For those who are trying to play solo in it, a criminal tax case is a convenient excuse to delve into documents, install wiretapping and surveillance, and “deal with” the top officials of the largest company in the region. You can use different structures: traffic police officers, customs officers who slow down wagons with coal, tax officials for a demonstrative assault. The goal is clear - to destroy the enemy in the Stalinist way: to deprive not only assets, but also reputation, to crush morally. To the misfortune of customers, not the entire law enforcement and judicial system is rotten yet. For example, the day before the Omsk demarche, the same criminal case against the leaders of JSC Stavropolenergo ingloriously failed. Both in Stavropol and in Omsk, there was a political order - the authorities are somehow sure that such actions will add to their popularity in the eyes of voters. However, the intended scapegoat is far from always being carried to the slaughter, which inspires hope: Stalin's PR methods are still a thing of the past.