The American Gestapo - Vladimir Osechkin
What a Russian political refugee can teach us about the dangers of the U.S.'s current governmental climate
To this day, I have something of a distaste for Russia.
Let’s be quite clear: I’m obviously not referring to the Russian citizens themselves, nor am I trying to send any kind of Ukrainian virtue-signal. In fact, I sympathize with the Russian citizens as much as I dislike the country as an institution. I read Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich as a senior in high school, and was absolutely taken aback that an awful place like the Gulag could have existed. Of course, I’d known about concentration camps prior to then, but many schools today tend to gloss over the more disturbing details of that era. Ivan Denisovich put these evils into very clear and present terms, and that was something I had not yet been presented. Compound this with the fact that my attractions to libertarianism began at about this same time, and I quickly determined that Russia was not my kind of place.
The evils committed within the Gulag are certainly not unique to Russia, nor are they indubitably the worst human rights violation that this earth has seen - the horrors of Tuskegee and MK-Ultra took place in the U.S. during the same time period. But, as of 2022, I don’t see many other governments that are as blatantly, unapologetically fascist as Russia’s is, excepting China and very few others. And, like many other Americans, I worry that we’re headed down the same path.
The FBI’s raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home this past August prompted many comparisons of the FBI to the Gestapo, the Secret State Police of Nazi Germany during WWII. It certainly would appear as though the current administration has been using the deep state as a weapon, and while the comparison is not entirely one-to-one, there are definitely similarities. Germany was still a largely democratic nation before WWII, and the Nazi party would need to make several strides before they could enact their authoritarian ideal.
Firstly, in order to overcome barriers by law enforcement at state and local levels, President von Hindenburg and then-Chancellor Hitler used the Reichstag Fire of 1933 as a means to declare a state of emergency in Germany. What followed was the Reichstag Fire Decree, which gave the central German government the authority to overrule state and local governments. The decree also permitted “restrictions on personal liberty, free expression, freedom of the press, assembly and association, and violations of privacy.” Without context, one would be hard-pressed to guess whether this quote was from the Reichstag Fire Decree or a travel ad for California during the lockdowns. Once Hitler and von Hindenburg were able to overrule those pesky human rights, Germany was theirs for the taking.
The next, and most important, step would be the “Nazification” of the German police. After the Reichstag Fire in 1933, the Nazis began deputizing members of various Nazi party groups, creating a new police force with almost unfettered power and total loyalty to the Nazi party; while certainly reminiscent of the FBI’s partisan operations today, I also see similarities to the massive funding increase for the IRS with the Inflation Reduction Act that passed this year, which will massively increase their staff and even equip select agents with firearms. The Nazi party then began to stack state and local government positions with sympathizers as well, thus forming a political and legal apparatus that was entirely under their thumb. Jewish police and government officials were then removed from state service under the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. The U.S. Military performed a similar stunt during the COVID-19 vaccine mandates, discharging any service members who refused to comply (to date, at least 450 naval officers and 1,000 marine corps have been discharged for refusal to get the vaccine).
Eventually, after President von Hindenburg’s death and Hitler declaring himself Fuhrer, Germany went from a dying democracy to a newborn autocracy. The Nazi party began their campaign to alienate Jewish citizens and exclude them from various aspects of normal life, such as selling goods and services. This campaign reached a frightening new zenith in November 1938, when a German-Jewish citizen assassinated a German diplomat named Ernst vom Rath. The assassination was then used by the Nazi party to incite violence against Jewish citizens, prompting a night of terror in 1938 that would become known as Kristallnacht, or “The Night of the Broken Glass.” On that night, Nazi sympathizers and party members coordinated violence throughout Jewish communities, breaking storefront windows and burning synagogues to the ground. Once again, the similarities abound; the assassination of vom Rath as the catalyst for Kristallnacht is very much akin to President Biden’s prime time speech this month that blatantly demonized “MAGA Republicans,” which has since given rise to various attacks upon anyone who doesn’t openly side with the leftist establishment. I also see a profound similarity with the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the sudden wave of terrorism against pregnancy centers. Certainly, there are plenty of comparisons to be drawn.
The state of the U.S. is concerning at best, and the repetition of the past is rarely something to be celebrated. The expedient arrests of leading Republican figures and cohorts like Peter Navarro and Mike Lindell in recent months have done little to shake the FBI’s Gestapo-esque reputation. Meanwhile, as we send more and more resources to Ukraine, we claim to stand against Russia and their tyranny, as though we aren’t creeping down the path to authoritarianism ourselves. But even within Russia, there are some who are still working to bring back a culture of liberty.
Enter Vladimir Osechkin, founder and owner of a Russian human rights activism website, Gulagu.net. The site has been dedicated to exposing civil rights violations in Russian prisons and prison hospitals since it launched in 2011. The website has uncovered various atrocities over the years, including torture and physical abuse, ongoing sexual assault of prisoners, and forcing prisoners to destabilize political movements. As you might have guessed, Osechkin isn’t very popular among the Russian government. In fact, he has been on Russia’s wanted registry multiple times, living in France under political asylum since 2015. Osechkin has been able to live a largely undisturbed life in France despite his incendiary position with the Russian government - that is, until this month.
On September 19, Osechkin revealed in an interview that he was targeted by a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) assassin; according to Osechkin, he was tipped off beforehand, and was only able to escape death when he noticed the red dot of a sniper scope in his peripheral vision, slowly inching towards him whilst walking through his Biarritz home. French authorities are still in an ongoing investigation, though the current overwhelming opinion is that the assassin was, in fact, an agent of the FSB. The continued pattern of Putin opponents dying mysteriously in the past year would also seem to indicate Russian involvement. But why did Osechkin suddenly become a target, after living peacefully in France for seven years prior?
The answer lies with the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary group tied to Vladimir Putin that has been involved in conflicts around the world, such as Syria and Libya. Recently, members of the paramilitary group have been identified fighting alongside Russian forces on the frontlines of the Ukrainian conflict. But we should first recognize that the Wagner Group’s presence in Ukraine isn’t breaking new ground; the paramilitary group joined forces with the Donetsk and Luhansk regions’ separatist forces in 2014, when they declared independence from Ukraine. That conflict would eventually result in the two regions’ separation, which formed the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) - interestingly enough, both nations will soon hold a vote on whether to be annexed into Russia. But still, the question remains: how does Osechkin fit in?
Osechkin received tips via Gulagu.net that the Wagner Group had been recruiting Russian prisoners to join the fight against Ukraine. Within the past few weeks, a video recording of a known associate of Putin’s, Yevgeny Prigozhin, surfaced on Telegram, showing Prigozhin in army fatigues, addressing an assembled group of Russian inmates. Prigozhin informs the inmates that, “after six months” on the frontlines in Ukraine, they would receive a pardon for their prison sentence - but Prigozhin then warns the inmates that anyone who arrives on the frontlines “and say[s] it’s not for them, get[s] shot.” Even here, we see a connection to Nazi Germany; towards the end of WWII, with Germany’s prospects of victory in the gutter, the Nazi army began to form military units comprised of prisoners (called Strafbataillon) and coerced them into aiding the German forces.
Between the Gestapo, the Wagner Group, and the FBI, I’ve had quite enough of private and federal groups being wielded for political power. And the massive financial aid being funneled from the U.S. into Ukraine with no oversight is simply more gas on the fire, allowing the key players to expend yet more resources and bid for yet more political power. Perhaps the midterms may provide an opportunity to end, or at least mitigate, U.S. involvement in Ukraine. Especially with the overwhelming victories of America-first candidates in the primaries, we have our first hope in months that America can withdraw military and financial forces. At last, we may be able to focus all our efforts on the tyrannical organizations in our own country, to address priority issues like inflation and the border crisis, and to fight for a culture of liberty.