Putin’s Iron Grip on Russia Suffocates His Opponents(kids get bad grade for bad parents)

NYT ^ | 02/24/08 | CLIFFORD J. LEVY

[TigerLikesRooster]

Putin’s Iron Grip on Russia Suffocates His Opponents

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia — Shortly before parliamentary elections in December, foremen fanned out across the sprawling GAZ vehicle factory here, pulling aside assembly-line workers and giving them an order: vote for President Vladimir V. Putin’s party or else. They were instructed to phone in after they left their polling places. Names would be tallied, defiance punished.

The city’s children, too, were pressed into service. At schools, teachers gave them pamphlets promoting “Putin’s Plan” and told them to lobby their parents. Some were threatened with bad grades if they failed to attend “Children’s Referendums” at polling places, a ploy to ensure that their parents would show up and vote for the ruling party.

Around the same time, volunteers for an opposition party here, the Union of Right Forces, received hundreds of calls at all hours, warning them to stop working for their candidates. Otherwise, you will be hurt, the callers said, along with the rest of your family.

Over the past eight years, in the name of reviving Russia after the tumult of the 1990s, Mr. Putin has waged an unforgiving campaign to clamp down on democracy and extend control over the government and large swaths of the economy. He has suppressed the independent news media, nationalized important industries, smothered the political opposition and readily deployed the security services to carry out the Kremlin’s wishes.

While those tactics have been widely recognized, they have been especially heavy-handed at the local level, in far-flung places like Nizhny Novgorod, 250 miles east of Moscow. On the eve of a presidential election in Russia that was all but fixed in December, when Mr. Putin selected his close aide, Dmitri A. Medvedev, as his successor,

[TigerLikesRooster]

Rather insightful comments from Khodorkovsky:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1974951/posts

Russia Is the Occupied State for Khodorkovsky

Mikhail Khodorkovsky regards Russia an occupied state and blames the lack of the nation’s initiative exactly on this occupation, Novaya Gazeta reported with reference to Khodorkovsky’s talk with the lawyers.

According to Khodorkovsky, quite a few different thinkers arrived at one and the same conclusion - mentality of the Russians, the relations of people and elite, the place of special services in public life are characteristic not for the country at war but rather for the occupied country.

Since the time of Tatar and Mongolian invasion, Khodorkovsky went on, the nation has humbled that authorities owe nothing, they don’t make any agreements with people, collecting taxes not for the common targets but as a tribute, for what they aren’t accountable. It is the tradition of many centuries, former Yukos CEO pointed out.

“The freedom-loving people attempted to act differently – joining the elite, moving to the East, to the North, but hardly anything has changed in mentality of majority because of it,” Khodorkovsky explained.

Due to historical reasons, not individualism but anti-collectivism is peculiar for the Russians, i.e. the nation is unable to close ranks for solving common tasks without the leading influence of authorities.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky is serving an eight-year sentence in the colony of Krasnokamensk-town of the Chita region. The charges against him are formally economic, but their nature is political, the right defenders say.

[DB]

I’ll say it...

Russia is now a fascist state.

Pretty ironic really. But it is true.

We better be careful.

[TigerLikesRooster]

In November, the police cracked down on a march in Nizhny Novgorod organized by the loose opposition coalition called Other Russia.

Leaders of the loose coalition called Other Russia have been repeatedly arrested, with some charged with inciting terrorism.

An opposition leader from Nizhny Novgorod, Boris Y. Nemtsov, was arrested during an anti-Putin rally in St. Petersburg in November. Mr. Nemtsov became a political star in Russia and the West as governor of Nizhny Novgorod and deputy prime minister in the 1990s, but in recent months he and his opposition party have taken a battering. Regional and national television stations, controlled by the Kremlin and its surrogates, have repeatedly attacked him — calling him everything from a corrupt bureaucrat to a traitor.

[gusopol3]

it may be more important to get the oil money out of Putin’s hands than out of the Saudis. He was fairly reasonable before he had money.

[SampleMan]

The city’s children, too, were pressed into service. At schools, teachers gave them pamphlets promoting “Putin’s Plan” and told them to lobby their parents. Some were threatened with bad grades if they failed to attend “Children’s Referendums” at polling places, a ploy to ensure that their parents would show up and vote for the ruling party.

Sounds like our schools.

[tet68]

Mikhail Khodorkovsky is serving an eight-year sentence in the colony of Krasnokamensk-town of the Chita region.

Seems like putin is keeping some traditions alive.

[libertylover]

Russia is now a fascist state. Pretty ironic really. But it is true.

Why ironic? Surely you don't believe that fascism and communism were ever opposites?

[DB]

Thinking Hitler.

[Sender]

Putin has turned into a great disappointment for me. Once I thought a strong leader would be good for Russia, getting the oligarchs in line, cracking down on corruption, reforming the military, taking out the trash. But now I see that you can take the boy out of the KGB, but you can’t take the KGB out of the boy. I’m not sure that the Russian people will ever be free from a Czar of one form or another. Perhaps that is why they are so familiar with chess; they know which moves pawns can make, and which moves knights and bishops can make, and they behave accordingly. New king, same chessboard.

[denydenydeny]

Google "Pavlik Morozov."

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Still, as was made plain in dozens of interviews with political leaders, officials and residents of Nizhny Novgorod over several weeks, a new autocracy now governs Russia. Behind a facade of democracy lies a centralized authority that has deployed a nationwide cadre of loyalists that is not reluctant to swat down those who challenge the ruling party. Fearing such retribution, many of the people interviewed for this article asked not to be identified.

[Tailgunner Joe]

[linMcHlp]

February 24, 2008

[linMcHlp]

Posted by Freeper TigerLikesRooster to FR, reply 3, February 24, 2008

An opposition leader from Nizhny Novgorod, Boris Y. Nemtsov, was arrested during an anti-Putin rally in St. Petersburg in November [25, 2007]. Mr. Nemtsov became a political star in Russia and the West as governor of Nizhny Novgorod and deputy prime minister in the 1990s, but in recent months he and his opposition party have taken a battering. Regional and national television stations, controlled by the Kremlin and its surrogates, have repeatedly attacked him — calling him everything from a corrupt bureaucrat to a traitor.

- - -

January 2, 2011, BBC

A prominent Russian opposition leader has been sentenced to 15 days in jail after taking part in a demonstration on New Year's Eve.

Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, was punished for failing to follow police instruction, Ria Novosti news agency reported.

Mr Nemtsov was one of more than 120 protesters arrested at rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg.

The protests are held monthly to assert the right to freedom of assembly.

- - -

February 27, 2015

Boris Nemtsov, assassinated

- - -

April 7, 2025, Reuters

Although five men from the Muslim Chechnya region have been arrested over the killing, opponents say the person who ordered it may never be found, partly because it could end up revealing a link to allies of the Kremlin.

The main suspect, Zaur Dadaev, served with Chechen police troops who answer to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a Putin ally. Dadaev, however, said in court last week he had confessed to the killing only after being beaten.

[linMcHlp]

My reply 14 above, "April 7, 2025" should be "April 7, 2015"

[OwenKellogg]

New iteration TigerLikesRoosterNew, but hasn’t posted for awhile.

[linMcHlp]

bttt