Chapter V
Upon the collapse of the USSR, the KGB had been disbanded and several successor organisations spun off in an independent fashion. The early years of the Russian Federation had seen such intelligence agencies struggle immensely. Prestige was absent, power was diminished and finances were weak. Former KGB personnel – spies and Walter Mittys alike – departed from government service. Many set themselves up as ‘businessmen’: mercenaries, smugglers and violent criminals. The far-smaller and less-powerful organisations continued though. Russia needed intelligence services as does any country. When power was transferred to Putin in January 2000, where he moved from the office of prime minister to that of president, those small organisations got a major boost. Putin was a former KGB man and had been the director of one of those intelligence agencies in recent years during his meteoritic rise to power. The Federal Security Service – better known as the FSB – was the nation’s internal security service responsible for protecting against foreign spies and domestic subversion. Putin had been the director of that one (though for less than a year) and it was the FSB that was the most-influential of the cluster of KGB orphans before he took up the reigns of power: with him as president, the power of the FSB would keep growing. It was never going to be the KGB yet that wasn’t needed. Russia was a far different country than what the Soviet Union had been… or it was meant to be anyway.
Bringing a bloody end to the street protests in Russia through the end of September and into October 2008 had been the work of the FSB. They had supervised this in addition to playing a vital role in identifying those to be arrested and causing all sorts of behind-the-scenes disruption to the organisers. The Militsiya had been the public face of that suppression but the FSB were the masterminds. Once done, reports had been issued to both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin informing them of what had been done and the outlook for the future. The FSB hadn’t promised that there would be no more protests – that would be a foolish mistake for anyone to make – yet they rated that as unlikely due to the disruption which they had caused. Breaking up conspiracies (real and imagined) was a hallmark of the KGB and like a good child who’d learned from its parents, the FSB had done just that.
However, without realising it, in being so successful in what they had done back in early October, the FSB had unknowingly created something far worse. This time there was no conspiracy, no overall organisation and no real leaders when demonstrators and violence returned to the streets of Moscow and other Russian cities. The fractured opposition to the government would have less of a role than imagined in such protests too.
November saw the protests begin. It was in Moscow and St. Petersburg first before there was a spread further afield throughout western and down into southern Russia. The tide of protests went eastwards too: through several Siberian cities and as far as Vladivostok on the Pacific. Different opposition groups, none of which were very large, undertook marches against the government in multiple cities with only the barest of cooperation between them. The follow-up marches took place because of media coverage of preceding ones. The FSB spent too much time chasing shadows as they looked for those coordinating matters. By the time they understood that this wasn’t the case, the spread was far and wide. The usual, proven methods of stopping trouble wasn’t going to work anymore as the FSB became a victim of its own success.
As had been the case before, the initial protesters marched against the corruption of the regime and the lack of ‘real’ democracy in Russia. They wanted Putin out along with his ‘KGB cronies’ and the ‘rule of the oligarchy’ brought down. However, this time the slogans were more prominent than any real allegations made nor alternatives offered. This made this second wave of protests this year far different from the first. These people didn’t have the numbers too like before, not at the start anyway. The Militsiya moved against them. The same tactics were tried as before. Several bloody events occurred though there were no deaths this time. Maybe this was all going to be stopped…
…not likely.
Further protests occurred. The marchers hadn’t been deterred. Soon they had the numbers too so as to stop police efforts to break them up. Attaching themselves to the demonstrations, and not welcomed by the protesters, were troublemakers. There were some suspicions that these were agent provocateurs brought in by the FSB but that was paranoia. Instead, it was criminals and extremists from both the far right and the far-left. Protests against the regime turned to violent riots as those in the marches were only part of the people on the streets. Things fast got out of hand. The Militsiya wouldn’t cope. Bad weather was the only saviour when it came to stopping major loss of life and damage done. Yet, fires were started though, property was smashed up and lives were lost. The mob hadn’t taken over yet they looked like they might if this was going to go on and on as it was.
Over in the United States, Barack Obama had handily won election to the presidency. He wouldn’t take office until January 20th next year. During his campaign and once elected, Obama had said almost nothing on the issue of the violence in Russia nor anything about the continuing Russian military presence in Georgia. The Kremlin had exchanged harsh words with the Bush Administration over these matters. Rice in particular had become the target for Russian anger where the Secretary of State was the face of the effort in the West – joined by Sarkozy from Paris yet Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, was also active especially in Eastern Europe – to increase sanctions against Russia and the Kremlin sought to counter those. Rice was soon to be gone though come January just as Bush was. The aim was for there to be a new page started when it came to Russian-American relations under Obama. Putin and Medvedev had discussed how they would ‘handle’ the inexperienced Obama and make sure that he didn’t carry on where Bush would leave off.
That plan hadn’t foreseen the wave of violence which hit Russia’s cities. This wasn’t Soviet-era Russia and so this couldn’t be hidden. Footage and eye-witness reports were all over the world media; it was through elements of that that Russian protesters themselves got much of their information rather than from domestic news sources. Therefore, bringing an end to the violence would have to be done in the public eye. Some foreign media teams attempting to enter Russia had met issues at airports with problems over their passports and visas – these things happen – but there were many more inside the country already. Russian media itself was on-message and played down what was happening yet didn’t deny that there was trouble. The worst aspects of what was going on with criminal hooligans was that message rather than the anti-government message. Nonetheless, the information was out there.
Putin and Medvedev made a collective error in waiting for the trouble to die down. They had hoped that more rain and snow as well as the cold would help along with increasing the numbers of the police on the streets. The violence didn’t cease. It only got worse. They thus had to act: their hand was forced. Not doing so meant risking everything. Those out on the street were getting more daring in what they were doing and committing further acts of violence. The mob weren’t afraid of the Militsiya anymore. They could bring down the government if they carried on and their numbers kept on growing like they were. Russians were taking to the streets with violent intent and weren’t going to give up unless they were forced to.
So forced to be they would.