How 10,000 Little Putins Rule Russia
When the regime requires an outstanding display of loyalty, conformism is elevated to principle and a virtue that officials vie aggressively with each other to demonstrate.
They race ahead of the heavily bedecked train to meet the arriving government officials with a band and the traditional salt and bread.
College deans ready to reveal the names of students involved in anti-government protests, officials and lawmakers who have polished their newly-minted bills to a totalitarian sheen. Police officers, investigators, prosecutors and judges — all eager to report, with Stakhanovite zeal, how they have exceeded their quotas for imprisonments and fines.
Three recent examples of such superlative efforts include a law enabling the authorities to label individuals, and not just organizations, as foreign agents; an initiative by Ruslan Golubovsky, the unassuming deputy director of the Consular Department of the Foreign Ministry who proposed extending the current prohibition against U.S. citizens adopting Russian children to adoptive parents of all nationalities; and a fine of approximately $10,000 against the international Memorial Foundation for failing to label itself as a foreign agent on its Instagram account — bringing the total fines against vital human rights organization to $35,000.
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