“Officers of Russia”

An exhibition of photographs by Jock Sturges has been closed down in Moscow by men and women in uniform – neither police officers nor members of any law enforcement agency.

Back in 2007, police at a rally in Siberia in support of the ruling party United Russia (usually attended by state employees under duress) were given pause for thought. A man turned up with a placard reading: “Putin is better than Hitler.” By itself, the proximity of the words “Putin” and “Hitler” seemed suspicious, but in terms of formal logic there was nothing to find fault with. Any dissenters would be declaring ipso facto that Putin is worse than Hitler.

However, the police did not ponder the philosophical conundrum for too long. The man was detained and fined for improper behaviour.

Comparing the Putin regime with totalitarian case studies from history is a favourite pastime of the uncompromising liberal opposition, which as a result, alas, looks increasingly like a caricature (for other reasons too …). The usual suspects in the comparison stakes are, of course, Hitler and Stalin. But those slightly more informed sometimes point to Franco in Spain, Salazar in Portugal, the colonels in Greece, and Pinochet in Chile, thereby suggesting, somewhat simplistically, that Russian democracy is just around the corner.

But such diabolical analogies do not withstand serious criticism, because they are at odds with objective reality. Russia is no ordinary authoritarian dictatorship of the industrial age. There are no mass purges or executions; instead, bloggers and opposition members can be put under house arrest on trumped-up charges. There is no blanket censorship, but media can be squeezed out of business through various bureaucratic (and legal) means. Instead of public tribunals, there is “telephone” justice. There are formal elections and opposition parties. Despite various encroachments of late, people’s private lives (including the bedroom) remain their own. Add to all that, consumer well-being, albeit sapped by falling oil prices and sanctions.

Therefore, comparisons with Nazi Germany are always win-win. Equating your opponent with absolute evil is a smear that will not wash off. And whereas the opposition can’t quite manage it, Russian state TV is adept at using the slur for propaganda purposes: political necessity requires that the Fascist label be applied to anyone who disagrees with Moscow at any given time: the Ukrainians, the Americans, the Turks (the latter, it should be noted, ceased to be Nazis rather quickly).

Recently, opponents of the Russian regime had an opportunity to evoke the Third Reich without comic exaggeration. For several weeks, a small modern gallery inside an industrial loft in downtown Moscow had played host to an exhibition titled “No Embarrassment” by US photographer Jock Sturges, best known for his photos of nudist beaches of California, including teenagers.

When the exhibition was long into its run, the self-appointed guardians of moral probity began to spread online rumours that child pornography was on show in central Moscow. Russia’s recently appointed children’s ombudsman, an ultra-conservative priest’s wife, was not amused. The entrance to the gallery building was soon blocked off by unidentified people in uniform, who were neither police officers nor members of any law enforcement agency. Instead, they came from “Officers of Russia,” a somewhat obscure public organisation. But it has to be said that they do not look like an officer class …

The police did not intervene because, as they explained, the people were simply expressing their opinion (in any other circumstances, all of them would have been detained in five minutes for staging an unsanctioned protest). The liberal public was duly horrified: “Orthodox Taliban,” “new Iranian revolution,” “return to the Middle Ages” and “Hitler’s storm troopers” were just some of the similes that rang out.

But it sounds worse than it was. Two days later, the leader of “Officers of Russia” wrote on Facebook that he had been misled by bloggers (who should be dealt with by the Prosecutor’s Office, in his view) and that the exhibition should be allowed to continue. The aforementioned ombudsman wife of a priest even erased her post on the topic. The exhibition does indeed go on.

Does this mean that stormtroopers are again prowling Russia, as they did under Hitler? No. These costumed characters will ultimately vanish along with the regime that funds and protects them. Does it mean that we can just laugh it off? No. The exhibition really was attacked, even if by uniformed clowns. Does this mean that we should take notice of what is going in our capital city? Yes. As I was finishing this column, news broke that another exhibition had been attacked by clowns – this time, photographs of the war in eastern Ukraine.