Spirit of 1937 - III

In the Moscow Times, Simon Saradzhyan discusses the complex movements of Vladimir Putin's encounter with the Beslan Mothers, and his attempts simultaneously to accept and reject responsibility, in a manoeuvre reminiscent of the darkest days of Soviet power:

At that meeting, Putin also had promised his guests that he would publicly "repent," they later told Ekho Moskvy radio. On Tuesday, the president confirmed that he had made such a pledge and said he had fulfilled it the next day. "Yes, I said so," Putin responded when Kommersant's Kremlin correspondent, Andrei Kolesnikov, asked if he had told the Beslan mothers that he would repent.

The word the mothers had used was pokayatsya, which means to repent and has religious overtones. According to a transcript published in Kommersant, Putin appeared to avoid this word when responding to Kolesnikov.

Putin's only major public appearance on Saturday was a meeting of the Security Council in his Novo-Ogaryovo residence. Accounts of that meeting in the Russian press and on the Kremlin's web site contained no reference to him acknowledging his guilt over Beslan, where 331 people died after terrorists seized a school last September.

Members of the Beslan Mothers' Committee in interviews with Ekho Moskvy on Saturday had expressed their disappointment that Putin had not repented. The Kommersant reporter challenged Putin on his failure to repent, but the president insisted that he had.

"I said that," Putin was quoted as saying. "It was on Sept. 3. I said that. There were many television cameras, there were journalists.Everything was said. ... I spoke publicly about my guilt in what happened."

Still unimpressed, the Kommersant reporter persisted until Putin said, "What do you want from me? Repentance should be in one's heart. It is like believing in God. I will have to live with it."

The official transcript of Putin's opening remarks at Saturday's Security Council meeting contained no apologies. Putin did tell the members of the Security Council, which includes his prime minister and top law enforcement, defense and security officials, that Russia was a target for terrorist attacks and "each one of us ... bears responsibility for everything that occurs in this sphere."

The presidential press service on Wednesday refused to comment on the Kommersant report. A spokesman said only that "everything the president says is uploaded on the web site."

In his address to the Security Council, Putin said that a group of investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office would be sent to Beslan to revitalize the investigation. He said the findings of the investigation would be used to reform the police and security services.

These remarks, in addition to his statement that they all bore responsibility for not protecting citizens from terrorism, prompted some speculation that Putin might heed calls from the mothers of Beslan victims and others to fire Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev and Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev over the
intelligence and law enforcement failures in Beslan.

Putin's remarks on Tuesday indicated he had no such plans. When asked if those responsible for this tragedy should be punished, Putin invoked an anecdote about Stalin's response to a complaint from the chairman of the Union of Soviet Writers, Alexander Fadeyev, that many of the writers were "amoral fools."

"It might even be effective at first glance," Putin was quoted as saying. "This is in reference to whether I replace people or don't replace people.

"'We don't have any other writers.'"