Over the last 20 years, Russian society has been re-Sovietized. The KGB man at the top has seen to that. There are more political prisoners in Russia today than there were in the late Soviet period. This is documented by Memorial, the civil-society organization, which, of course, the Kremlin has outlawed.
The Kremlin has abolished civil society and independent media in Russia. There is the state, and the state alone. All nods to democracy — even fig leaves — have gone.
Consider this recent news: “A Russian father flees before a conviction that may keep his daughter in an orphanage.” The article in question is here. The subheading reads, “Aleksei Moskalyov was convicted over antiwar comments on social media that came to light after his daughter made a drawing at school.”
Here is some other news:
Russia’s top security agency arrested an American reporter for the Wall Street Journal on espionage charges, the first time a U.S. correspondent was put behind bars on spying accusations since the Cold War. The newspaper denied the allegations against Evan Gershkovich.
The Kremlin has another American hostage. (For the article I have quoted, go here.)
Many of us have been thinking about the Daniloff case. Nicholas Daniloff, too, was taken hostage, in 1986. He was a correspondent for U.S. News & World Report. I heard Secretary of State George P. Shultz give a speech at Harvard. The date was September 5. Schultz said,
I know that I’ve come to the right place to voice a message of outrage at the detention of Nick Daniloff, Harvard class of 1956. The cynical arrest of an innocent American journalist reminds us of what we already know: Our traditions of free inquiry and openness are spurned by the Soviets, showing the dark side of a society prepared to resort to hostage-taking as an instrument of policy.
Let there be no talk of a trade for Daniloff. We and Nick have ruled that out. The Soviet leadership must find the wisdom to settle this case quickly in accordance with the dictates of simple human decency and of civilized national behavior.
Needless to say, there was a deal. As there probably will be for the new hostage, the Wall Street Journal’s Gershkovich.
For 20 years, people of a certain type have told me, “Today’s Russia is not the Soviet Union, you know!” I have typically responded, “I know. Does Putin?” There was sympathy for the Kremlin in the ’80s (all around me); there is sympathy for the Kremlin now.
Have you heard Trump’s latest?
What I ask for, above all, is realism — an end to stupid illusions about the world we are facing, particularly where Putin’s Russia is concerned.