Those attending opposition protests, he implied, were traitors.
Mr Gudkov will give no more speeches from the floor of the Duma, and he now attends opposition demonstrations without his onetime parliamentary immunity.
Like the man who was killed, the beating victim, Ayalew Beyene, had previously been arrested for attending opposition meetings or distributing campaign literature, he added.
The arrests began early in the new year, when several dissidents were called in for questioning after attending opposition conferences abroad.
He points out that more people are willing to attend opposition events, for example, if they are held at night and in the dark, "safe from the prying eyes of the regime".
When Douglas visited in 2002, and in the years that followed, he was astounded by what he saw — his father was attending opposition rallies, keeping a shotgun close at hand, and growing pot in the corn patch; the lodge was earning money not from tourism but from prostitution; and everyone from soldiers to ZANU-PF top brass to teen-age diamond smugglers were enjoying drinks and TV at the bar.
Momentum gathered last week with thousands of people attending opposition rallies across the country ahead of the vote.
"The regime fears most that the opposition unifies," said Riyad Hijab, the former Syrian prime minister who defected in early August and attended the opposition conference last week.
He had attended an opposition conference, sitting in the company of Limonov.
