From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 1/20/2006 3:48 AM
20-January-2006
Youth movements playing increasingly important role in Russian politics
Political youth movements are playing an increasingly active role in Russia, compensating for the lack of a strong opposition in mainstream politics, an article by Pavel Dulman says in the newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The youth movements of political parties are increasingly drawing attention to themselves by frequently staging dramatic protests. Non-party youth movements are also growing in prominence and many see a Russian equivalent of the Georgian and Ukrainian revolutionary youth movements emerging from this sector. The creation of the pro-Putin youth movement Nashi, which has by far the greatest membership of all these groups, seems to be a response to this development. However, the author believes, the authorities' intention to use Nashi's sheer strength in numbers to demoralize other youth movements has backfired and it has in fact acted as a catalyst for increased cooperation between such groups.
The Russian party system is insufficiently developed - the president has said this unequivocally, and on the basis of this assertion amendments to the country's electoral legislation have been drawn up.
It is all true. The right-wing parties are having difficulty recovering from their failure in the 2003 elections, the semi-disintegration of Motherland continues and One Russia is engaged in a permanent quest for an ideology. Against this background an increasingly active role is played by political youth movements, be they structural subdivisions of the "big" parties (only the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, by virtue of its specific characteristics, does not need such an organization) or non-party associations. Who better than they, who are not yet accustomed to wearing good suits, to take topical political ideas to the mass of potential voters in an accessible form.
The anti-fascist Nashi movement, youth Yabloko, the National Bolsheviks, Oborona [Defence], the Youth Union for the Motherland - in the past 12-18 months they have come to occupy their own area of the news agenda, often playing the role of PR engines for their senior comrades. And this greatly facilitates the systematization of the most prominent political (or politicized) youth movements.
Yabloko possesses most active youth wing
The most active movement on the right flank is undoubtedly the youth branch of Yabloko. It is also probably the oldest youth political association - it is more than 10 years old. Today the youth wing of Yabloko is headed by Ilya Yashin - one of the most prominent youth leaders (Yabloko's youth wing, like the party itself, is typically a leader-oriented organization). To a significant degree it was through his efforts the failure of Grigoriy Yavlinskiy's party in the parliamentary election had practically no effect on the activity of youth Yabloko.
The best way for youth organizations to make their presence felt is to hold rallies, pickets and other events that get them onto the TV screens and into the news reports. Here youth Yabloko, in terms of the number and quality of events held, shares top place with Motherland's youth branch. And they are among the few who react promptly to current political events. Yabloko's youth wing, for instance, was the only organization to mark the State Duma's approval of the amendments to electoral legislation with a cheerful performance, although that event affected everyone.
Union of Right Forces' youth wing lacks leader
The activity of Yabloko's eternal opponents, the SPS [Union of Right Forces], is much less prominent. The SPS only started taking a serious interest in its youth organization in spring this year. This situation is easily to explain: The SPS has always positioned itself as a party of young and successful people, and as a result, theoretically, there was no need for a youth subdivision. However, the "triumphal defeat" in the 2003 elections led to adjustments in the right wingers' development strategy. As of today, the youth wing of the Union of Right Forces exists, although it has no leader. The movement is the responsibility of the party federal political council's youth policy commission headed by Andrey Vulf (a former show business personality and ex-deputy, now, among other things, head of the Culture Ministry's press service). There is also a conceptual problem in choosing a leader for the youth SPS because of the fact that the present party leader, Nikita Belykh, is himself only 30. Despite this, the youth SPS's flags can be seen at some joint opposition events.
Revolutionary potential seen in non-party youth movements
Simultaneously with the youth divisions of the traditional right-wing parties, non-party political movements are also developing. For instance, several events, including active participation in the rally at Ostankino [TV centre] in defence of freedom of speech and a rally and concert in support of Mikhail Khodorkovskiy in Lubyanka [square], have brought to public notice the democratic association "DA!" [the initials DA make the Russian word for yes], which declares its goal to be "building a civil society in Russia and resolving concrete problems: the elimination of censorship, police tyranny, ethnic intolerance, corruption in higher educational establishments and problems in the army." It is noteworthy that the "DA!" leadership includes [former Prime Minister] Yegor Gaydar's daughter Mariya.
The all-Russia democratic coalition Oborona [Defence] has become equally famous in recent months. Oborona incorporates both young supporters of Yabloko and the SPS and, for instance, Social Democrats, Communists and ex-National Bolsheviks. Recently it has been spoken of increasingly frequently as the Russian counterpart of Georgia's Kmara or Ukraine's Pora [youth revolutionary movements]. And this characterization of Oborona comes not only from its supporters but also from its opponents, who thereby do it an inestimable service. There are indeed many similarities: the catchy name, memorable symbols, a common and clear goal - peaceful opposition to the authorities' antidemocratic (in the right wingers' view) actions. One of the coordinators of Oborona is the selfsame Ilya Yashin.
"Oborona is not a political organization, it does not set itself political goals. It is specifically a civil coalition, which would be very useful to the big parties, but is today taking shape at the level of youth organizations. Here we should get away from the rhetoric about the unification of the right-wing parties, which contains too much populism and PR on the part of the SPS," Ilya Yashin explains the organization's nature to Rossiyskaya Gazeta . "We should try to formulate the thesis of unification of the opposition in general around some specific idea. For instance: 'Against war and autocracy.' That would be constructive. When the authorities do not want to conduct a dialogue with the opposition within a civilized, office-based framework, the opposition is left with no choice but to take to the streets. Absolutely everyone is doing this now - the right, the left, the socialists. It is on this basis that the dialogue between different opposition movements is now springing up."
It was largely thanks to its name that the organization "Marching Without Putin", operating in St Petersburg, became famous. In early 2005 students of several Petersburg higher educational establishments united to form this organization, along with - and this is particularly remarkable - part of the local branch of Marching Together [pro-Putin youth movement], who did not agree with the processes taking place in that organization. Marching Without Putin rejects violence and aggression as a means of achieving goals, but intends to demand very persistently from the authorities freedom of speech and conscience and the eradication of corruption in general and in the sphere of education in particular. They usually take part in events in conjunction with Oborona.
Left-wing split over tactics
For left-wing youth organizations, the process of unification is much more pressing than for the right. Back at the beginning of last year an idea was put forward for the unification of left-wing opposition organizations to form a common association - the Youth Left Front, since the ideological differences are minimal and it is easier to survive together.
Incidentally, it was announced officially that the idea of creating the front sprang up "as a natural response by left-wing youth to the increasing authoritarian trends in the activities of the Russian bourgeois political regime". The Communist Youth League (a subdivision of the CPRF [Communist Party of the Russian Federation]), the Red Youth Vanguard - (linked to Working Russia), the Revolutionary Communist Youth League (Bolsheviks) and Socialist Resistance decided to form a united front in the future. They all uphold similar ideas and principles (recently antiglobalism has been added to the ideas of Marx, Lenin, and Che Guevara). The difference is one of methods - the Red Youth Vanguard and the Revolutionary Communist Youth League (Bolsheviks) have a weakness for direct actions and revolutionary aesthetics, while the Communists prefer to remain within the framework of tradition. The trend in recent months has been for individual joint actions with youth Yabloko and other movements on the right political flank.
"We have a fairly restrained attitude towards this practice. The watershed is the topic of 'orange revolution' - the SPS and Yabloko like this path, although it is nothing more than a redivision of power between different bourgeois clans. We, however, are opposed to the actual capitalist system that exists in the country, and are not so much against President Putin, who is the guarantor of its preservation," Ilya Ponomarev, one of the leaders of the Youth Left Front, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta .
This summer, during the relative political lull, the Youth Left Front has organized about 10 summer camps for its activists. Throughout the country, something like 500-600 left-wing activists are undergoing ideological and theoretical training. Here, in particular, they are formulating plans for protests in the autumn.
"The key topics will, of course, be housing and utilities reform and education reform," Ilya Ponomarev told Rossiyskaya Gazeta . "Although experience shows that the main revolutionary in our country is the regime. It suggests the topics to which we have to react, and it mobilizes people for protests."
The patriots are also an active presence - the Youth Union "For the Motherland!" The actions of the young Motherlanders have always been marked by cheerful cynicism. At one time Dmitriy Rogozin's followers took the trouble to travel to London in order to stage a picket outside Boris Berezovskiy's office demanding that he return home. Their bringing a black goat to the party congress of the "Bears" (One Russia) can also be considered a classic example of successful anti-PR.
Strength in numbers for pro-Putin movement
The democratic anti-fascist movement Nashi sprang up in the spring of this year and immediately became the largest and most recognizable youth movement in Russia. Minister of Education and Science Andrey Fursenko and well-known TV anchor Vladimir Solovyev honoured its founding congress - held in the Russian Academy of Sciences auditorium - with their presence. Vasiliy Yakemenko, former leader and ideologist of the organization Marching Together, became head of Nashi.
Commentators associate the reason for Nashi's emergence with the fact that the incumbent authorities recognized the pressing need to counteract the opposition youth movements. That is, Nashi was called into being partly by the spectre of the "orange" revolution [in Ukraine].
The ideology of Nashi is incorporated in the movement's manifesto, which is a wonderful mixture of theses on the need to preserve the country's sovereignty, modernization and their own special vision of democracy. If you do not read it too closely or notice the internal contradictions, the ideology of Nashi is highly attractive to young people.
Nashi win people over not through fantasy but through their mass nature. Many people remember the static demonstration because of which Leninskiy prospect in Moscow was closed at noon. A sea of flags, powerful sound equipment and police cordons accompanied the passing of the baton of love and loyalty to Russia from the veterans to Nashi. Ultimately they are the only youth movement that can speak with pride about their membership - at least 50,000 active members and as many sympathisers. That is more than enough to be registered as a political party. Unlike Nashi, no other youth movement risks publicizing its membership numbers - that is not their strongest point.
Apart from patriotic actions in the regions (less impressive and with far fewer participants), Nashi have been notable for their squabbles with A-list Russian officials. Thus, Federation Council speaker Sergey Mironov and State Duma first deputy speaker Lyubov Sliska, who had spoken critically of the movement's actions, were sharply rebuked by the movement. However, the most prominent newsworthy item in the past month was the work of the Nashi camp at Seliger. Here specially selected commissars (that is what a Nashi militant is called) were taught political wisdom by well-known Russian political experts. The event culminated in a visit by specially "talented" Nashi members to the out-of-town residence of Zavidovo, to see Vladimir Putin - the only Russian politician towards whom the commissars show unconcealed sympathy.
Nashi encouraging opposition groups to unite
The formation of Nashi was theoretically supposed to demoralize the opposition youth movements. However, the reverse happened. By associating themselves with the incumbent authorities and the course pursued by them, Nashi, without expecting it, greatly reduced the degree of antagonism that existed among oppositionists. Even before this, the youth leaders were not enemies at a personal level - they meet periodically at round table meetings and joint events and conduct constructive dialogues.
Summer, for the youth movements, is the time to gather their forces. Right and left are actively creating their structural subdivisions in the regions, Nashi are learning political theory and practice from [spin doctor] Gleb Pavlovskiy. Preparations for the new political season are in full swing and there is not the slightest doubt that the youth movements will have more than enough reasons to make their presence felt.
Source: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Moscow
