Union of whip and bludgeon: why the Cossack battalions are necessary for the National Guard

Sergey BAIMUKHAMETOV

“Now we are actively working on the issue of enhancing the involvement of the Terek military Cossack society in ensuring security and defense capability by members of the Cossack societies undergoing military service under contract. In particular, it is proposed to create military Cossack units (separate battalions) in the Russian Guard, stationed in places of compact residence of members of Cossack societies. Subsequently, such an experience can be disseminated throughout the entire territory of Russia”, - Chaika said.

The uniqueness is that, firstly, this was said by the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus Federal District, that is, the representative of the guarantor of the Constitution, and, secondly, by the former Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation.

The prosecutor's office is a special body in the state system. It is, in theory, the general design, two-fold. The prosecutor's office "supervises the observance of human and civil rights and freedoms". If someone thinks that the words “human and civil rights and freedoms” have been thrown at us by “hostile Western propaganda” and the opposition “singing along” with it, then they can look into the federal law on the prosecutor's office.

Further: the prosecutor's office "supervises the implementation of laws by federal executive bodies".

That is, the prosecutor's office is the sword of the state, punishing state structures if they do not comply with the laws.

Probably, many, especially young people, in the light of modern law enforcement practice, even find it strange to read this. But it is written in the Law.

And so, albeit far and not always, it was in the long-standing already Soviet (it is totalitarian, and so on) reality. In any case, the government bodies, including, first of all, the power structures, constantly looked back at the prosecutor's office... In order not to be unfounded, I will cite the most ordinary example from the everyday life of the police in 1966, in a distant provincial town. As a boy, while still working in a criminal investigation department, I came to a citizen whom we suspected of something: it seemed like just to talk, to have a conversation on certain topics. He lived in a one-story log factory building with four apartments, with a common corridor. He did not answer the knock on the door. The neighbors said that he was probably sleeping drunk, this often happens to him, but I can come in, wake him up, his door never locks. I, out of stupidity and inexperience, entered. There was no one there. He stood, looked around, went out. That's all, a trifle not worth mentioning, right?

But my boss, the senior operatic of the city's Ugro Nikolai Teterkin, started yelling: “What are you, an idiot ?! In front of the neighbors! They will let us down under the prosecutor's office!"

In particular, I would have been charged with illegal intrusion and, as a result, any evidence that could be found during a potential search, the prosecutor's office would have protested.

And today the prosecutor's office is perceived exclusively as a side of the state prosecution, as a punitive body for the illegitimate population.

And therefore the public almost did not notice that the former Prosecutor General, the representative of the President, the guarantor of the Constitution - that is, the guarantor of civil rights and freedoms, announced that members of a public organization were recruited to serve in the security forces "in places of compact residence".

There are a lot of questions here. Yuri Chaika talks about "ensuring defense capability." Who will be against? And then it seems like imperceptibly goes on to enroll the Cossacks in the Russian Guard. But Rosgvardia has an indirect relationship to "ensuring defense capability". Its main tasks, according to the law, are "participation in the protection of public order, ensuring public safety".

What does “separate Cossack battalions” mean? There is no such thing in any documents of the Russian Federation on military and police service. Does it mean that an appropriate law should be passed? And then it must be written in it that we have Cossacks... Who and what? A special class? A special ethnos? And create some separate units within the state power structures according to an unknown (class? Ethnic?) Principle? Moreover, "stationed in places of compact residence of members of the Cossack societies." That is, all the rest of the Russians will serve where the Motherland will send, and the Cossacks - in their villages, near their huts? But this will already be direct discrimination, violation of the rights of all other citizens of Russia.

Cossack "troops", "Cossack communities", "unions" according to their legal status are public organizations. And if Cossacks are recruited to serve in the army or in the National Guard “as part of separate formations,” then why not involve members of other public organizations in the same status? We have hundreds and hundreds of them. For example, to create "separate battalions" from members of the "Youth Union of Economists and Financiers"? Or to form "special companies" from members of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of Consumers of Educational Services?

These and many other questions inevitably arise when they try to give a special status to someone or something, in this case - the Cossacks.

But, we repeat, the public almost did not notice that Yuri Chaika, a high-ranking civil servant, announced that he was recruiting members of a public organization to serve in the state power structures. Moreover - at the place of their "compact residence".

We got used to it. No one was particularly surprised when, in 2013, the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, Tkachev, announced that Cossack patrols would protect law and order in Sochi, while he was either naively naive or cynically frank: "What the police officer can't do - a Cossack can".

The next year, the world saw what "the Cossack can do". On the Sochi embankment, the Cossacks whipped with whips, beat them in the face and stomach, rolled on the ground and dragged the girls - members of the Pussy Riot group by their hair, while a policeman, the guardian of the law, stood by and watched. Report from the pre-Olympic Sochi shocked foreign viewers. But we didn’t notice. Didn't pay attention.

In the same 2014, a month after the beating in Sochi, a federal law was adopted, which provided for “the activities of the people's guards from among the members of Cossack societies... People's guards from among the members of Cossack societies perform duties of protecting public order in uniforms established for members corresponding Cossack society”.

No one was surprised when, in 2016, the Central Cossack Host website published reports about the exercises of the Cossacks (including those with firearms) under the eloquent headlines: "The future of security of mass events in Moscow is in the reliable hands of the Cossacks".

And if the recent statement of the presidential envoy to the Caucasian Federal District becomes a reality (“the issue is being worked out very actively”), then unsanctioned popular rallies will also suppress “separate battalions” of the Cossacks.

The police, riot police, Rosgvardia - with clubs, and the Cossacks - with whips.

Human rights activists, publicists, bloggers write: only the state has the right to violence (exclusively legal violence). And it cannot transfer this right to anyone. Otherwise - chaos, the collapse of the state as such. Does it mean that our government itself is releasing power from its own hands? What is not, that is not: in the retention of power we see a sophisticated grip. Then why? Let us recall Tkachev: "What the police cannot do - the Cossack can do it." In the early Yeltsin times, when the creation of Cossack "troops" began and the first people in Circassian uniforms with shoulder straps appeared on the streets, they said: "Yeltsin, who came to power on the shoulders of the people, is now afraid of the people. He knows that the police will not go against the people, but the Cossacks will. They are no strangers since tsarist times".

What vital issues were given so much state, government attention, how much is paid to the Cossacks? Development of high technologies? A dying Russian village? Strengthening a failing health care system? Since 1992, 12 federal decrees, decrees and decisions on the Cossacks have been adopted, including a special law “On the State Service of the Russian Cossacks”. Apart from regional acts, including those on budgetary financing. For example, the government of the Murmansk region announced subsidies to Cossack societies in 2021. “The Cossack community is the backbone of the authorities (emphasis mine - SB) of the Murmansk region for solving important problems of the region,” said Anatoly Vekshin, vice-governor of the Arctic. "Polar" Cossacks in the history of Russia have not yet existed...

In 2020, the Cossack societies of Russia received 62.8 million rubles of subsidies from the federal budget. 69.7 million rubles are planned for 2021, 71.4 million rubles for 2022.

Summarize. The "Union of Cossack Warriors of Russia and Abroad" is registered with the Ministry of Justice as a public organization.

But at the same time, the concepts of "Cossack army", military ranks were officially introduced, and "the involvement of members of Cossack societies in the performance of the duties of the state and other service" was envisaged. Which one is "different"? What does this mean?

So what should be expected from such a "social organization"?

And that is why exhortations addressed to the authorities, to civil servants of all ranks are naive and vain. The authorities know and understand what they are doing.

In the photo: Cossacks beat up participants of an unauthorized demonstration.