Jacobin Radio

Suzi talks to Boris Kagarlitsky, Russian left intellectual writer-activist, just two weeks after he won his release from over four months in pre-trial custody. Kagarlitsky was arrested in Moscow on July 25 by the FSB, the Russian secret police, and taken more than 800 miles north to the city of Syktyvkar in the Komi Republic, where the local FSB opened a criminal case against him. He was accused of justifying terrorism, ostensibly for comments that he posted months earlier on social media regarding the attack on the Crimean Bridge. Even pro-Kremlin commentators were surprised at how far-fetched the accusations were. The state has imposed increasingly draconian charges and sentences for even minor anti-war activities, arresting thousands.Kagarlitsky's arrest was part of a coordinated attack on the online journal and popular YouTube channel that Kagarlitsky edits, Рабкор.ру (Workers Correspondent). The Russian Socialist Movement saw Kagarlitsky’s arrest as an attack on the whole left movement in Russia, and a h