Cheka This Out

Jesse Walker | September 14, 2004

This would be creepy under any circumstances, but as a backdrop to Putin's power grab it's especially disturbing:

A new statue of the founder of what became the KGB, Felix Dzerzhinsky, has been unveiled in a small town outside Moscow.

The monument was commissioned by the town authorities.

Some believe the event is part of the gradual rehabilitation of the once feared Russian secret service under President Vladimir Putin, himself a former officer of the KGB.

[Via Lonewacko.]

Comments

|9.14.04 @ 3:29PM|#

Jesse,
Hasn't Putin's consolidation of power been going on for awhile? One can sort of understand that something has to be done to stop the chaos that is Russia....the mafia, the corrupt oligarchs, the Chechens etc.....but is it going to be the Soviet Union with a different face? Will the vast majority of Average Russians still continue to get the shaft?

Jesse Walker|9.14.04 @ 3:59PM|#

Hasn't Putin's consolidation of power been going on for awhile?

Yes. And in some respects he's continuing trends that began before he took office. But it's gone into overdrive since Beslan.

|9.14.04 @ 6:31PM|#

I look forward to more libertarian times in Russia when Jesse can offer Dzerzhinsky a coke as well:

http://reason.com/jwmain1.shtml