Imagine what will happen if they are found guilty and actually get a 10 year sentence.
Every single person will think twice about attending a protest next time, which would be the end of democracy (if it isn't already gone in the USA)
Every single person will think twice about attending a protest next time, which would be the end of democracy (if it isn't already gone in the USA)
And it would be hard to convince a jury that these guys actually intended to perpetrate a terrorism hoax. Who'd believe that someone could mistake glitter that fell off a sign for a dangerous substance?
The above is all paraphrased from a couple of news reports in Russian that I watched last week.
There is a well known phenomenon in politics and society of the pendulum swing. Childhood friends who discovered politics in University and hated each other because one was socialist and the other capitalist, find that after 40 years they have EACH reversed their positions and still can't reconcile. Or the USA who used to hold up the Soviet Union as an example of the wrong way to do things and consequently avoided doing things that might appear to be Soviet style. But now that there is no Soviet Union to compare itself to, the USA has copied the worst excesses of Stalin's KGB. Meanwhile, the Russian Federation still holds out the Soviet Union as a standard of comparison -- it is their history after all -- and actively moves away from Soviet style solutions embracing capitalism and individual liberty to a far greater degree than Western countries. While corruption in the USA grows unchallenged, the Russian Federation is in the second decade of a campaign to root it out both high and low.
KGB was formed in 1954, after Stalin's death. It is historically meaningful because of all the changes that were happening right after Stalin's death when USSR was changing from mass violence oppressive state of Stalin to the totalitarian state with more targeted violence. In particular the role of agency like KGB (while still having the same goal of state security) was shifting to being of less of enforcer/executioner and more of information gatherer and "mind controller" Big Brother style.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Soviet_secret_pol...
As for the rest of your post - it is just propaganda blabber.
What Stalinism was about was the use of organized crime tactics that Stalin had used during the revolution and previously being brought into use in government. The thing that usually prevents this from happening in a normal situation is that the mob bosses get obsessed with material possessions, women and comforts and get distracted from running a government. In Stalin's case though he wasn't going to be satisfied until he had completely taken over the world in the name of Marxism/Leninism and that kept him focused throughout his political journey. It also didn't hurt that he had an enormous intellect and memory to keep the whole thing together. It's weird because it was all ideologically consistent and had probably seemed all practical and reasonable to the cadres. Simon Sebag-Montefiore explained this in his book "Court of the Red Tzar" as them thinking of themselves as "Warrior Priests". Molotov, a true believer himself, even complained that after Stalin the government became filled with opportunists and not revolutionaries.
Chechnya (Ichkeria)... Sochi (Circassia)... Karelia (Finland)... and so many more...
Many people that should never have been locked up in the first place.
> will not demand Ukraine to take any particular internal actions in return for financial help
Except cut off their gas supply if they do not go with Russia.
> While corruption in the USA grows unchallenged, the Russian Federation is in the second decade of a campaign to root it out both high and low.
Somehow, mysteriously, rooting out corruption is mostly successful against opponents of Putin.