The Roots of Opposition

Writing in Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal (in Russian), correspondent Alexander Golts notes a striking characteristic of the Putin regime: it exists in order to create its own enemies. Commenting on three recent areas of conflict and controversy in Russian social and political life, Golts sees a connecting thread.

Of the confrontation between Putin and the Mothers of Beslan, Golts observes what seems to be a wilful and almost deliberate attempt by the Putin government to aggravate the conflict:

The tendency to hide a problem, to make it look as though it does not exist at all - this is not even the style of Putin's leadership, it is the essence of his regime. But then the people for whom the given concrete problem has become the most important thing in their lives will inevitably go against this regime.

Of the recent beating of members of the National Bolshevik Party by a highly organized group of pro-Putin Nashi supporters, Golts sees it as one more distorted PR move, and has this to say:

The money for the fight with the National Bolsheviks has been allocated - and where, it is wondered, are the results. So a gang of thugs was hired in order to demonstrate that the money had not been allocated in vain. But the by-product of this method of sawing the budget is an increase in the popularity of the National Bolsheviks and other radical oppositionists

And thirdly, there is the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who from prison has announced his intention of running for the Russian Parliament - or even for the post of President:

It turns out that everything the Kremlin devised - the arrest, the unjust trial, the humiliations - did not break Khodorkovsky, but, on the contrary, turned him into a consistent enemy of the regime. Thus, the Putin vertical [of power] creates its own enemies.