The gubernatorial election campaigns are under way now in many oblasts (regions) in the central part of European Russia, known as the "red belt"; they are
traditionally controlled by the Communist Party. So, in the present elections,
the main candidates for posts of governors are Communists and generals of
the Federal Security Service (FSB, the former KGB). The below-described election struggle in the Smolensk region, located directly to the west of Moscow, is representative enough here.
An "ordered" murder or murder attempt is a common phenomenon in present-day Russia. Several thousand such cases take place there annually, and only high-ranking cases attract public attention.
The following report was published in major Moscow papers and even
reprinted by some Russian-language editions in the U.S.
On the morning of May 15, the car of the vice governor of the Smolensk region, Anatoly Makarenko, was fired on by someone with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle while Makarenko was riding to his office.
The driver of the car was killed by a bullet to the head, and the car crashed against a tree. The vice governor's bodyguard was seriously wounded in both feet. Makarenko himself received a slight wound in the hand.
Immediately after the assault, the local police and FSB stated that the
murder attempt had nothing to do with the election campaign, in which the
incumbent, Gov. Alexander Prokhorov, supported by the Communist Party,
was struggling against the present chief of the local FSB (KGB), Gen. Viktor Maslov.
Vice-Governor Makarenko, however, accused Gen. Maslov of being the "customer" who had ordered the assault. He declared that Gen. Maslov had privately demanded, three days before the assault, that Makarenko leave Smolensk immediately and not even try to prevent Maslov's election. Or else.
Simultaneously, it became known that the Smolensk regional division of the Russian Internal Ministry (the police), which supports Maslov as the gubernatorial candidate, began a criminal case against Gov. Prokhorov – for improper use of budget money.
(end of the report)
Alexander Prokhorov's followers did not fail to use that incident for their
own objectives. Makarenko and Prokhorov made a series of statements.
Moreover, the Smolensk administration requested Russian President Vladimir Putin "provide the necessary help to regional governing bodies in order to establish law and order in the territory of the region." The request said that the attempted assassination was "another attempt by Prokhorov's adversaries to intimidate him, to make him quit the election race."
The Smolensk administration also reminded the president that "the headquarters were bombed and the houses of the election campaign supervisors [of the incumbent governor] were set on fire."
During the last two weeks before the elections, Pravda, the major Communist newspaper, published a series of articles supporting Gov. Prokhorov's campaign. Some of articles were signed by Communist Gennady Zyuganov himself. Their major theses are the following:
1. The Smolensk region can now be considered as one of the most successful and prosperous regions in the central part of European Russia or even in all of Russia. For instance, industrial production in the Smolensk region rose in the first quarter of 2002 from the same period in 2001 by 11.8 percent, while the average growth in all of Russia during that period was only 4.9 percent. Eleven industrial enterprises, closed earlier, were now back in business. Unemployment is almost non-existant.
2. One of the main agricultural products of the Smolensk oblast is flax, which in Soviet times occupied about 120,000 hectares. By the mid-1990s, the area in flax had diminished to 4,000 hectares. Now it has grown to 20,000 hectares. Successes in other areas are also huge and numerous. And all this has been achieved under Prokhorov's rule.
3. Many of the local industrial enterprises are still utilizing only 25 percent to 30 percent of their capacities, but this is the fault of Moscow (the Kremlin and the central government), which doesn't pay for earlier-placed orders.
4. If Gen. Maslov and his bosses – the Kremlin, FSB and Moscow oligarchs – come to power, the Smolensk region will lose all of its recent achievements realized during the last several years of Communist government. The last valuable bits of state-owned property – the Smolensk nuclear power station, etc. – will fall into the hands of the criminalized Moscow elite, and the local people will sink into poverty.
5. Gen. Maslov and his circle are using unfair methods in the election
campaign. Maslov has at his disposal three local newspapers "bought" by money
from Moscow, while Gov. Prokhorov – with scarce election funds – has
no local papers supporting him. The same is true for local television.
6. Worth mentioning, 40 "ordered murders" took place recently in the Smolensk
region, and the FSB couldn't disclose any of them. Still, Gen. Maslov, chief
of the regional FSB and the "Moscow nominee" for governor, promises to
cleanse the region of organized crime – when he becomes governor.
However,
local crime – as well as Moscow crime – has close ties with the local police and FSB, so Maslov's claims are groundless. Now people in uniform shoot each
other because they back up different criminal groups.
7. The FSB is coming to power all over Russia. FSB generals, during
the two years since Putin was formally elected president, have come to power as elected governors in the Ulyanovsk region, the Voronezh region of European Russia, etc. The lives of average people in these regions has not gotten better.
8. During the Napoleonic invasion of 1812 and during the Nazi invasion in
1941, the city of Smolensk and all of the Smolensk region were the sites of major battles that undermined the forces of the invaders and, eventually, brought victory to Russia. This time again, a victory in Smolensk could result in the victory of patriotic forces all over Russia.
(end of Pravda theses)
Indeed, the election campaign in Smolensk took the form of a major battle,
and the unseen one in Russia: the battle between the Communist Party and its
"patriotic allies" on the one hand, and the FSB/KGB along with the Kremlin and Moscow oligarchs (Pravda's claims are correct here) on the other hand.
The situation in Smolensk and its surrounding area is definitely not as brilliant as
Pravda describes it: The region has no oil or gas deposits, no large metallurgical or chemical plants, i.e., serious sources of export income. This means, according to the practice in today's Russia, that the region is "doomed" to poverty. The "internally oriented" industry and agriculture (definitely not
in the best shape, whatever Pravda claims) are incapable of improving the situation.
Yet the Smolensk region, to some degree, is indeed of strategic importance:
A huge flow of raw materials, metals and chemicals – from Siberia, the Urals zone, most of European Russia – goes to the West, i.e., to the "Belarus ally" and
all of Europe, through Smolensk. And a huge flow of consumer goods for
the wealthy "New Russians" in Moscow and other major cities comes in thousands
of trailers from the West, also through Smolensk.
So, the region could be considered a real tidbit for the Moscow elite! Already the FSB, police and organized crime are taking tribute from the owners of the goods flowing to the east and west. Very probably, they intend to
increase their incomes when the Communists are out and the last obstacle in their path is eliminated.
Neither side has special plans regarding improving the living conditions of the average local population – tired from 10 years of chaos,
impoverishment, living in crumbling apartments or rural houses, suffering a
whole set of illnesses as well as alcoholism and drug abuse, deprived of
medical assistance.
FSB Gen. Viktor Maslov won the gubernatorial election in the Smolensk region on Sunday, May 19. Maslov won 40.7 percent of the vote, while the incumbent, Gov. Alexander Prokhorov, won 34.5 percent.
The Smolensk region is traditionally referred to as the "red
belt" in Russia, the territory in which the residents support Communists.
Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist Party, used to say that the red
belt is the territory where the government is more honest and fair, "where
it takes care of the people."
Now, the Communist grasp over the "red belt" has become even weaker. Alexander Prokhorov's four years on the job did not help him get re-elected in spite of his "care of the
people."
Gen. Maslov, in his campaign, tried to present a reputation as a
crime fighter. The motto of Maslov's campaign was "The heroic
land deserves a worthy government."
The people of Smolensk have made their choice: They defeated the Communists and voted for – democracy? No, for the FSB/KGB.
The FSB has established "iron rule" in Moscow; most of Putin's "seven
Plenipotentiaries," informally but effectively ruling the Volga zone, the center of European Russia, the Urals zone, Siberia and the Russian Far East, are from the same nest.
The same holds for a significant part of the ministers appointed during the last two years. Now this informal grip has become formal: The FSB, supported by money from the Moscow oligarchs, has directly taken over the above Russian regions.
This is the shameful end of so-called "Russian democracy"!
Does it remind one of events in Germany in 1933-35?
Dr. Thomas J. Torda is a Chinese defense technology and language consultant with a Northern Virginia firm.
You may contact Dr. Torda at
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