Putin's Russia: prison state
by Viktor Bourenkov.
The Committee to Defend Political Prisoners Fighting for Socialism
has
held a rally to protest against the arrest of the leading young
communists in Russia. It took take place on 15th June 2000 opposite
the Federal Security Service (FSB) building in central Moscow under
the slogans "Prevent the prison state's secret services throwing the
innocent in jails!" and "Stop political repressions against
communists!"
Three members of Revolutionary Young Communist League (Bolshevist)
(RKSM(b)), Nadezhda Raks, Tatiana Sokolova and Larisa Romanova are
being held in custody for three months. They are accused of plotting
a bomb near the FSB building.
The current wave of arrests began on 23rd of February this year, when
Nadezhda Raks was jailed after being interrogated five times during
that month.
Born in Ukraine in 1973, Nadezhda remained unaffected by pernicious
anti-Communist propaganda which the enemies, according to the plan to
destroy the USSR, were widely spreading amongst the Soviet youth.
Instead, she strove to follow the cause of liberation of mankind from
the capitalist yoke. Nadezhda was largely influenced by her
grandfather, a communist and a veteran of the Great Fatherland War
(1941-1945) with top-ranked medals. She then went on to study at the
Institute of Education in the city of Kaluga in central European
Russia.
Nadezhda's response to the counterrevolutionary coup of 1991 was the
same as that of the Soviet people to Hitler invasion in 1941: an
enemy has occupied the Socialist Motherland, and it is a duty of every
responsible citizen to defend it.
To this end, Nadezhda joined the Russian Young Communist League
(RKSM)
when it was established in 1993. Later she became one of the founder
members of the Revolutionary Young Communist League (Bolshevist)
(RKSM(b)) as the most militant members in RKSM decided that there
arose a necessity to form a new organisation in order to break with
revisionist elements who gained control of RKSM. She was elected to
the Central Committee of RKSM(b).
Having graduated, she started working as a teacher of English in a
Kaluga school and devoted herself to children. Nadezhda also took
care
of a boarding school in Kaluga. Like in Soviet times, she formed an
organisation of Pioneers. She even managed to set up something the
counterrevolution took away from the Soviet children - Pioneers'
summer camps.
In 1997, she organised a teacher strike in Kaluga.
For years, the CC of the RKSM(b) has been entrusting her to work
amongst the Pioneers and students. Nadezhda has never been
indifferent
to bringing up the young generation and tried, in any way she could,
to provide a substitute for many important things the children have
lost in the free-market reforms. She has been setting an example to
all comrades in the Young Communist League and is well known amongst
the communist youth on the territory of the Soviet Union.
Comrade Raks has been a regular contributor for Bumbarash, the
newspaper of the Revolutionary Young Communist League (Bolshevist).
Without her optimistic and lively articles, the newspaper would not
have been the same.
She later moved to Moscow.
A member of the Russian Communist Workers' Party, Nadezhda Raks
always
supported the most decisive actions. She was actively campaigning
against the arrest of Comrades Gubkin and Sokolov - two other members
of RKSM(b) who were arrested by FSB in 1997. The latter were accused
of forming a Revolutionary Military Council, whose aims were to
prepare and conduct an armed strike in order overthrow the bourgeois
régime and to set up dictatorship of proletariat in form of the
Soviet
power. On that occasion, FSB also wanted scapegoats following an
explosion of a newly put-up monument to Nikolai II, the last Russian
tsar.
For these reasons, FSB officials have been watching Nadezhda and
arrested her at convenient moment. Just a few days later, Tatiana
Sokolova and, early in March, Larisa Romanova were arrested with the
same accusations. The two girls have similar stories of heroic
struggle against the capitalist restoration.
The young communists have rejected the allegations, but made no
comments to these gendarmes, because if they mention somebody's name,
or even if they do not, this can cause further arrests.
Federal Security Service (FSB) is mainly composed of traitors from
the
former Committee of State Security (KGB). It is totally subordinated
to the anti-people puppet government, which pursues the interests of
world imperialism. Its main task therefore is to impede the radical
left opposition, i. e. communists to the left of the parliamentary
Communist Party of Russian Federation. FSB has been working actively
in coöperation with the bourgeois mass-media and used the previous
arrests to create a repelling and scary image of
communists-"terrorists".
Nevertheless, FSB is being undermined by its incompetence in the
recent months. Its reputation has been seriously spoilt after it was
found out that the secret police officers were involved in exploding
blocks of flats in Moscow and in other cities in September 1999, at
start of Putin's campaign in Chechnia. To justify the government's
actions and to help create a certain public opinion, those
bloodsuckers would not stop at anything, not even at murdering
hundreds of innocent civilians.
Explosions took place near FSB building in August 1998 and in April
1999. Some organisation, which called itself New Revolutionary
Initiative, claimed responsibility. Embarrassed by not being able to
find the real organiser of the explosions for nearly two years, the
Federal Security Service has started picking at young communists.
As Viktor Tiulkin, the First Secretary of the Russian Communist
Workers' Party (RKRP), said, "All that the Federal Security Service
is left to do is to wage a war against girls at the time when amnesty
is extended for Chechen terrorists, and at the time when nobody is
found guilty of any of the real assassinations or real explosions."
In the three months the communist girls have held in jail, FSB found
no evidence to charge them.
There cannot be any evidence, because they are innocent!
All their friends and colleagues know it. It is expressed in the
letters of support which Nadezhda and her friends have received (and
which can be sent to: Russia, 111 020 Moskva (Moscow), E-20, p/ja
201,
N. G. Raks). These young communists have rendered great services to
the Soviet people and to the international communist mission. It is
not coïncidental that it were them who were chosen for the arrest.
In their successful struggle they are enjoying authority and trust
amongst the working people.
A number of left-wing organisations on the territory of USSR
affiliate
to the Committee to Defend Political Prisoners Fighting for
Socialism,
including Russian Communist Workers' Party, Russian Party of
Communists, All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Alliance of
Soviet Army Officers. It aims to defend all the militants subjected
to repression for the just struggle while withholding support to any
ultra-leftists and dissidents trying to get into political arena on a
plea of fighting for Socialism (like the anonymous "New Revolutionary
Initiative" that claimed responsibility for these explosions). It had
a major success this April, when, following actions of protests by
the
Committee, 77-year-old Vasilij Kononov, the anti-fascist veteran and
a
Hero of the Soviet Union, was released after months of imprisonment
in
neo-fascist Latvia. It was not long, however, before the Latvian
powers have arrested another veteran, 84-year-old Mikhail Farbtukhand
imprisoned him for 5 years. He is another major focus for the
Committee's campaigns at the moment.
The progressives around the globe should not remain indifferent to
this arrest of the best people fighting for justice. They should use
this and other vivid examples to expose to the masses in their
countries the corruptness and the danger of the democratic régimes,
which came to power as a result of the 1991 counterrevolutionary coup.
They should realise, that the method of permuting presidents will not
work for the second time. And this means that one should expect still
stronger repressions against communists under Putin than there were
under Yeltsin. In its efforts to prolong its tyrannical existence,the
ruling régime is tending towards fascism. The faster the working
people take power, the less losses there will be.
Nadezhda wrote from the prison: "We are ordinary human beings, like
everybody else. But it is so good that we, unlike many, were able to
find strength in ourselves, so that, sacrificing our welfare, we are
not just sitting there. We have chosen our way and found our mission
in life, our "battlefield", like our grandmothers and grandfathers
during the [Second World] War. I do not want to be a lackey. I am
glad
that I have nothing to be ashamed of before those Soviet people, who
gave their dearest possession - their life - for our future and for
the Soviet power."
As Marxists-Leninists, the arrested revolutionaries are aware of the
essence of individual terror. Whilst requiring huge efforts, it can
only result in getting rid of two or three parasites. Those parasites
then simply get replaced by new ones, which are no better. Hence the
individual terror makes no contribution to the victory of the working
class.
With all the hatred towards FSB, the imprisoned young communists
would
therefore not have intended to organise the explosions. They have
been
spending their efforts rationally, not to plot bombs, but to mobilise
the masses for Socialist revolution, and this is the kind of work the
imprisonment prevents. They are held in jail for their loyalty to
communist ideas and for determination to struggle tirelessly.
The sympathies of the participants of the rally had been with the
comrades in trouble. The powers wanted to force the organisations to
abandon Comrades Raks, Sokolova and Romanova. No way! On the
contrary,
in solidarity with them, those communists who are free at the moment
will do everything to get them out.
The arrested revolutionaries are high in spirit, in spite of all the
pressure by the criminal Federal Security Service.
As Marxists-Leninists, they know that the parasitic bourgeois
régime,
based on extreme exploitation and deceit of the working people, will
soon inevitably collapse.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
