Charles Clover has written a brilliant, daring report on terrorists in Russia who are inspired by racist nationalism and financed by officials of the Russian state.
Opening with a shocking account of a ritual dismemberment taped and distributed on the Internet as propaganda, the well-sourced investigation is punctuated with insightful observations:
There are many gangs who hang out in the high-rise, low-income flats built in the 1960s and 1970s on the outskirts of most Russian cities. It is a world of drugs and warring subcultures of youths, and at the top of that grim heap are the skinheads, the kings of ultra-violence, motivated by hate, alcohol and, in many cases, mental illness. The NSO was made of the same raw materials.
On the nexus between the Russian state and skinhead street gangs – or, urban terrorist squads:
…The NSO case has shed a great deal of light on the murky world of Russia’s skinhead street gang members, even if not all of them survived to testify in court. The NSO was run as an underground, disciplined terror unit with a tight, cell-like organisation, typical of experienced terror groups. Each regional cell is handled by a kurator, or handler, in charge of men who have undergone military training, some with firearms and explosives.
The NSO has emerged not only as a terror group with a significant propaganda function, but most importantly, one with numerous and not altogether transparent relationships with Russia’s political and law-enforcement establishment. While the source of the money in Bazilev’s account will, in all likelihood, never be properly investigated, it can be surmised that it came from someone with a great deal of power and influence – probably the same person who appears to have befriended the organisation, given it protection and, possibly, had Bazilev killed.
…There is an implicit contract between skinhead gangs and the authorities under which the state turns a blind eye to violence by skinhead groups, in exchange for their not getting involved in politics.
Belov said that a senior interior ministry official in the city of Bryansk once told him: “Go ahead and beat up black people. We will pretend that we don’t see that. Just don’t get involved in politics.” Belov violated that implicit law.
In a fleeting moment, we happen upon the inconvenient truth of a similar racket in the U.S.:
…Maksimov, a rather garrulous person, invited me to his favourite bar to discuss the photos and the rather odd picture they present – skinheads seemingly working for the police to break up opposition demonstrations and protect counter-demonstrators. The bar is the Grease Club on Malaya Ordynka Street, a few blocks from the venerable Tretyakov Gallery. Most strikingly, in some sort of homage to international racism, it is hung wall-to-wall with American confederate flags. The clientele are tattooed, muscular youths with buzz cuts or shaven heads. “Everyone in this place is a right [as in politically right] person,” said Porthos, grinning and flashing a little Hitler salute.
Finally, on the lessons of history when it comes to this tactic:
…Like the Pakistani secret service’s indulgence of the Taliban in the mid-1990s, intended as a directed outlet for Islamic radicalism, the movement has slipped from the grasp of those who would rein it in. Instead of creating a docile manipulable movement, it has unleashed a generation of radicals.
Now, let’s return to the question that has marked if not marred American political culture for the last decade: should terrorists be considered criminals engaged in political acts or political actors engaged in acts of war?
Not only does the evidence (who, what, where, how, why) overwhelmingly support the former, it is the only course which renders illegitimate the use of terrorism as a political tactic.