1
Jussi Lassila
Reading perestroika-era tension into the activity of the pro-Putin
youth movements
(Published in Perestroika: Processes and Consequences. Markku Kangaspuro, Jouko
Nikula & Ivor Stodolsky (eds.) Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society 2010, pp. 262-283)
In this article my aim is to show that the perestroika-type of tension between the ideals of
centralised policies and grass-roots actions can be tracked in the pro-governmental youth
activities in Putin’s Russia. In Gorbachev’s glasnost the tension occurred between ideal
openness dictated by the Communist Party and the real openness in the society that the
official openness made possible. In Putin’s era, as we know, the idealised, or pre-defined,
openness does not concern discussion on socialism and communism, but the success of
Russia in globalization by emphasising Russia’s national pride.
The special case, in which perestroika type of tension can be tracked, is the relation of the
broadly known pro-Kremlin youth movements Iduschie Vmeste (Walking Together,
hence IV), and its ‘semi-official’ follower Nashi (Ours) to general outlines of official
youth policy. It seems that multiple manifestations of national pride by these movements
follow the basic model of perestroika era tension: centralised policy programs are
allowed for seemingly open discussion as long this ‘openness’ relies on the ideals of the
centralised policies. Moreover, it seems that in the case of both movements – definitely
with Idushchie Vmeste – the idealised space for political implementations shows clearly
the unintended results as was the case between perestroika and glasnost. However, the
issue here is not to argue that the unintentionality of the actions by these movements
would have as drastic results as twenty years ago. Instead, the point is to examine the
movements which offer us a reasonable view of the discursive practices of Russian
nation-building in post-Soviet Russia.
Glasnost as utopian communication of perestroika
2
The social sphere, or topic, where the values and ideals of perestroika and glasnost
profoundly manifested was the discussion on the use of public language during
perestroika. Michael S. Gorham1 points out that along with the political demands of
novoe myshlenie (new thinking) and obnovlenie (revitalization), in order to renew the
Soviet system, the language culture of perestroika and its pedagogical principles were
reconsidered as well. According to Gorham2 ‘the discourse of perestroika and glasnost
shifted the focus on language as an emblem of Soviet patriotism to a model that saw
language as a tool for social and political reforms’. Drawing on pedagogic material
written in the years of perestroika, he3 shows that these materials generally supported the
idea of dialog ravnopraviia (dialogue of equality). In this dialogue all participants would
be active to the same degree instead of the traditional monologic discourse of the teacher
familiar in pre-perestroika school education. However, these optimistic expectations of
new language and communication practices in the creation of the new, more individual
and active Soviet citizen clashed with well grounded concerns about the actual skills of
the people: The question was how to express these new visions of democratisation with
the available communicative and linguistic instruments. As Gorham4 cites one
commentator’s account in 1988:
(T)he democratization of society and glasnost presuppose the ability of everyone
to express their point of view, but this requires first and foremost the ability to
express one’s thoughts in a manner which will lead to understanding and support.
In a sense, we said to people, ‘Speak!’ but how can they speak if they are either
accustomed to keeping silent or incapable of defending their position? A person
who holds a just position but who has not mastered the word can be compared to a
well-armed soldier who holds in his hands everything needed for victory, but
lacks just one thing – the ability to shoot well.
1
Michael S. Gorham, ’Natsiia ili snikerizatsiia? Identity and Perversion in the Language Debates of Late
and Post-Soviet Russia’, The Russian Review 59 (2000), 617, 614-629.
2
Ibid, 617.
3
Ibid, 618.
4
Ibid, 618.
3
Hence, the problem of glasnost was not in glasnost and perestroika itself but rather in the
incapability of people to follow the principles of these ideals. This view interestingly
matches a point by Alexei Yurchak5 – although from reverse angle – who says that
during its first three or four years perestroika was not much more than a deconstruction of
the Soviet authoritative regime. In other words, perestroika was the first true attempt in
the history of USSR for the Soviet people to ‘think seriously’ all those authoritative
words, expressions, slogans, etc. which had been produced by the Communist party so far
(see also Remington6). Glasnost was the tool for these attempts, and finally, the result
was the absolute ideological crisis of the socialist system.7 However, as the quote above
illustrates, the strictly authorised discursive regime of the pre-perestroika period had
produced such conditions for public language use which were not capable of fulfilling the
discursive demands of perestroika, i.e., glasnost.
A booklet Komsomol, Teacher, Pupil8, dedicated to the issues education in the
Komsomol work, published ‘in the heart’ of perestroika in 1989, is an illuminative
textual artifact of the voices of glasnost, voices which – from today’s point of view –
were incompatible with each other. On the one hand, the booklet reflects the
contradiction between the ideals of perestroika and the reality in the schools. On the other
5
Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton
& Oxford: Princeton University Press 2006, 292.
6
Thomas Remington, ‘A Socialist Pluralism of Opinions: Glasnost and Policy-Making under Gorbachev’,
The Russian Review 48:3 (1989), 273-274. 271-304.
7
According to Yurchak, the pre-perestroika Soviet authoritative discourse since the death of Stalin can be
termed as a discourse of rhetorical circularity in which legitimization was ultimately produced by referring
to ‘the master-signifier Lenin’: Lenin was the implicit or explicit ontological starting point for all elements
of this discourse which, however, were dictated as already conducted achievements. Gorbachev risked this
principle by opening up spaces for public discussion about authoritative discourse which did not follow the
pre-planned ideals of glasnost, and this effect eventually questioned the whole discursive structure of
socialism. Yurchak 2006, 71-74, 291-292; This argument should not be understood as ‘the final explanation
of the collapse of the USSR’. Instead, Yurchak points out that the object of his analysis is not the causes for
the collapse but the conditions that made the collapse possible without making it anticipated, i.e. the
question is not what led to the collapse, but why was it not expected. See Yurchak’s response to Sheila
Fitzpatrick, London Review of Books Vol. 28 (12/2006), http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n12/letters.html#letter6,
17.6.2008.
8
Vulfov, Boris & Ivanov, Valeri. Komsomol. Uchitel. Uchenik. Moskva: Pedagogika, 1989.
4
hand, it reflects teachers’ concerns of such glasnost which seemingly clashes with the
ideals of perestroika9:
Everybody talks about perestroika, the school reform, XX meeting of the
VLKSM10 but I don’t see any changes in the work of my school, or in its
Komsomol organization either. Things are not going better but everything is
getting worse. How can you explain this?
We recently had a quarrel in our collective; is it possible that older pupils
(starsheklassiki) can be rockers, metallists, etc, and active Komsomol members at
the same time? What do you think?
In the light of these examples the challenge between perestroika/idealised glasnost and
the real glasnost was significantly evident in educational settings where different
generations met each other: teachers met their students and pedagogical practices met
their actors in the situation where the horizon for unintended results had been irreversibly
opened. The authors of the booklet strive to offer reasonable answers using the official
discourse stating in many parts, however, that there are no unambiguous answers to such
questions as presented above11. As a discursive culmination between Soviet authoritative
discourse, and the new, and inevitably shocking reality of glasnost, the booklet offers a
few summaries of pupils’ views for teachers of the Komsomol work on different
educational levels. Here is one example12:
Teacher!
Today Komsomol-upper school pupils (Komsomoltsy-starsheklassiki) are
concerned about the following questions:
9
Ibid., 3-4.
10
Abbreviation from Vsesoyuznyi Leninskiy Kommunisticheskiy Soyuz Molodezhi (All Soviet Leninist
Communist Union of Youth).
11
Vulfov & Ivanov, Komsomol. Uchitel. Uchenik.
12
Ibid., 41
5
I think (and this is not only my opinion) Komsomol has started to lose its idea. Is
it not time to change the style of its work?
Is it right that in one (Komsomol) organization there are 14-year-old teenagers as
well as old boys older than a quarter of a century?
Although these kinds of provocative questions may be found in several educational
publications, in Russia, in the West, before and after 1991, this example should be read as
a textual artifact of Gorbachev’s glasnost. Openness becomes apparent by explicating
challenging discourses (pupils’ questions) by which teachers are reminded with the
exclamation mark and bold letters about their existence and importance in the
contemporary (perestroika era) school and Komsomol work. However, the general
response to these challenges goes along the lines of the official discourse within its sacred
references which hardly diminishes the real conditions of these challenges. In the
following example, the authors of the booklet offer an answer13 to the question ‘why is
Komsomol necessary?’:
By following the author’s logic we’re trying to answer the question: why is
contemporary Komsomol needed? According to the constitution of the U.S.S.R.,
social movements must improve political activity, individual initiatives
(samodeyatel’nosti), and fulfillment (udovletvoreniyu) of multiple interests of
citizens. What kind of interests of young people does Komsomol hope to fulfill?
First of all, ideological and organizational (ideyno-organisacionnym).
In this light it seems that the authorised side of the society – in this case authorised
authors of the official booklet published by official Soviet printing house ‘Pedagogika’
dedicated to educational issues – well admitted the key challenges of the society, here in
educational settings. However, admittance appears not in the form of clear answers and
solutions but recycling these challenges as new components of official discourse. They
13
Vulfov & Ivanov, Komsomol. Uchitel. Uchenik, 45.
6
were thrown to teachers whose position as official pedagogues could not match the
realizations of glasnost that the pupils’ views characterise.
From the absence of youth to its controlled mobilization
Along with multiple chaotic aspects of Russian society since the collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991, the issues of youth and youth policy were also characterised by chaos. In
certain respects, it seems that in the aftermath of the collapse, perestroika-era tension had
diminished in such that the failed ideological regime was not superseded by those
discourses which deeply challenged the socialist discursive regime, for example
democratic initiatives by youth. Instead, the whole youth issue had become ‘apparent’ by
an almost total absence in political practices. For example, in the constitution of the
Russian Federation in 1993, the concept of ‘youth policy’ is not mentioned at all.14
According to Yuri Korgunyuk15 the ignorance toward youth issues among political
parties and movements during the 1990s is not exceptional because in post-Soviet Russia
youth was generally regarded as politically indifferent, and hence, useless in the sense of
potential supporters of political parties. However, although the absence of youth issues in
the 1990s was much more concrete than in the current decade (see below), it is not
correct to argue that the 1990s was an ‘empty decade’ for youth issues in Russia. During
perestroika, in 1987, outlines for the new youth policy of the state (gosudarstvennaya
molodezhnaya politika) began to be formulated.16 For the first time in the Soviet history
this youth policy was planned to offer possibilities of self-fulfillment (samorealizatsiya)
for a youngster as distinct from earlier Soviet didactic policies of the ‘communist
education’17. The main problem with this new, rather revolutionary policy which
14
Valery Lukov, ‘Gosudarstvennaya molodezhanya politika: bitva koncepcii i ozhidanie rezultatov’, in
Molodezh i politika. Moskovskoe byuro fonda Fridrikha Naumanna. Moskva: Biblioteka liberalnogo
chteniya 2006 (17), 73-88; Elena Omelchenko, ‘Molodezh dlya politikov vs. molodezh dlya sebya?
Razmyshleniya o cennostyakh n fobiakh rossiiskoy molodezhi’, in Molodezh i politika. Moskovskoe byuro
fonda Fridrikha Naumanna. Moskva: Biblioteka liberalnogo chteniya 2006 (17), 9-34.
15
Yuri Korguniuk, ‘Molodezhnaya politika sovremennykh rossiiskikh partii. Teoriya
i praktika’, in Rossiia na rubezhe vekov: politicheskie partii i molodezh. Moskva: MGPU 2000,
http://www.partinform.ru/articles/molod.htm, 17.6.2008.
16
Lukov, ‘Gosudarstvennaya molodezhanya politika: bitva koncepcii i ozhidanie rezultatov’, 75.
17
Ibid., 74; About didactic functions of the early Komsomol, see Anne E. Gorsuch, Youth in Revolutionary
7
highlighted the solution to everyday challenges of a Soviet youngster instead of former
ideological didactics was the time of its establishment: April 1991, less than a year before
the end of the empire. Whilst having history as a Soviet document, this new youth policy
was inevitably useless for the new leaders of post-Soviet Russia despite its rather
individual and liberal progressivity18.
However, a continuum can be seen from the state youth policy of the perestroika era to
1993 when ‘the main orientations of the state youth policy’ was accepted in the post-
Soviet Russia including the following nine orientations: 1) guarantee of the rights of
youth; 2) guarantee of the rights of youth in labor; 3) collaboration with entrepreneurial
activities of youth; 4) state support for young families; 5) guarantee of social benefits; 6)
support for talented youth, 7) formulation of conditions which support physical and
spiritual development of youth; 8) support for youth and children associations and
societies, and 9) collaboration with international youth exchange programs. The emphasis
in these new orientations was mainly on youth itself19 without any explicit references to
accounts of ‘ideological resource’ which were the core of the Soviet-era youth programs
and policies. Only echoes from the Soviet era resource-thinking can be seen in the spots
where ‘talented youth’ are supported and ‘physical and spiritual (dukhovnyi) conditions
for the development of youth’ are formulated.
The development from the highly didactic underpinnings of the pre-perestroika era to the
perestroika era liberation, and finally to the almost fully democratic youth-oriented
‘youth policy’ of the 1990s may offer us a rather clear-cut picture of top-level attitudes
towards youth. However, the case is not that simple. Although almost all political parties
in the 1990s emphasised the importance of a solution to the multiple social problems
among youth, those parties which more or less relied on nationalistic views of Russia’s
future saw youth still in the light of the Soviet-type of didactic control. In reviewing the
Russia. Enthusiasts, Bohemians, Delinquents. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 2000;
About Komsomol practices during late socialism, see Yurchak Everything Was Forever Until It Was No
More.
18
Lukov, ‘Gosudarstvennaya molodezhanya politika: bitva koncepcii i ozhidanie rezultatov’, 76.
19
Ibid., 76-77.
8
political programs of Russian parties of the 1990s Korgunyuk20 identifies five theses
concerning the issues of youth (those political groups are mentioned in brackets which
highlight that thesis): 1) Youth lives in minimal, insufficient, and horrible conditions
(political opposition of Yeltsin from liberals to communists); 2) Youth is one of the
categories of the not-yet-capable people, and hence youth must be protected and
supported by special social benefits (all political groups); 3) It is necessary to control the
youth in all circumstances, and protect the youth from alien influences (anti-liberal
movements, communists, and national-patriots); 4) Youth is our future, and it is
necessary to offer a chance for young people to improve their own possibilities, for
example via education (all political groups), and 5) Youth occupies messianic position; it
is the most energetic population group (youth movements).
In addition, the shift towards national emblems and patriotic values was formulating
already before the Putin era. For example, Michael Gorham21 points out that the
discourse on language as an instrument for an individually-oriented instrument for social
change became preoccupied with national rather than civic identity during the post-
perestroika years. Moreover, perestroika-era tropes of language stressing its
instrumentality were now replaced with organic ones, highlighting different ‘impure’,
‘contaminating’ and ‘perverse’ forces threatening the language22. Although language
policy and attitudes work in a different social field than youth policy, it is not separate
from that general social atmosphere which became established in Russia in the mid
1990s. Relying on the sociological polls conducted by VCIOM23, Boris Dubin24 points
out, that the mid 1990s was the dividing line of values in the sphere of Russian national
identity, the shift from western democratic ideals ‘back to Russianness’. The shift was
first of all based on the catastrophic results of the failed economic reforms conducted in
the beginning of the 1990s.
20
Korgunyuk, ‘Molodezhnaya politika sovremennykh rossiiskikh partii’.
21
Gorham,’Natsiia ili snikerizatsiia?’, 618-619.
22
Ibid., 620.
23
VCIOM (Russian public opinion research center), http://wciom.com/, 17.6.2008.
24
Boris Dubin, ‘Zapad, granica, osobyi put’: simvolika ‘drugogo’ v politicheskoy mifologii Rossii’,
Neprikosnovennyi zapas 3(17) 2001, http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2001/3/dub.html, 17.6.2008.
9
Lev Gudkov25 explains this shift with the term ‘Russian neo-traditionalism’, a
phenomenon in which various Western concepts, slogans, and rhetorical figures, used in
political speeches in the beginning of the 1990s, began to lose their positive explanatory
force for social and political processes of Russian society. Instead, these Western
discursive borrowings (such as ‘civil society’ or ‘liberal democracy’) began to appear as
negative examples, emphasising the necessity to rely on the Russian experience of the
past.26 However, this emerged longing for the past after the Western-oriented euphoria of
the beginning of the 1990s did not manifest in the sense of the restoration of the previous
ideological regime, but rather as imagined, or nostalgiced vision of ‘good old times’.27
Let us now see how these re-emerged underpinnings of national pride along with
attempts at globally- oriented modernisation are present in the current youth policy of the
Russian Federation, as well as in discourses of the two pro-governmental youth
movements, Idushchie Vmeste and Nashi.
Russian youth policy 2006–2016
Douglas W. Blum28 writes that since 1991 all post-Soviet states have been embroiled in
the process of nation-building, which involves the creation of new institutions of
governance as well as new systems of meaning and order. However, in Russia the process
of nation-building has been rather exceptional and extreme whilst so far a cohesive
concept for national identity is missing.29 There are coexistent desires to joining the
developed West, pre-revolutionary ‘authentic’ Russian constructs, as well as the
restoration of Soviet practices, each having strong echoes in Russian public discussions.
25
Lev Gudkov, ‘Russkiy neotradicionalizm i soprotivlenie peremenam’, Otechestvennye zapiski 3 (4) 2002,
http://magazines.russ.ru/oz/2002/3/2002_03_09.html, 17.6.2008.
26
Gudkov, Ibid.
27
Ibid.; About nostalgic views of Russians concerning the ‘Great Fatherland War’, see Boris Dubin,
‘Krovovaya’ voyna i ‘velikaya’ pobeda’, Otechestvennye zapiski 5(20) 2004,
http://magazines.russ.ru/oz/2004/5/2004_5_5.html,17.6.2008. According to the survey pattern by the
Levada Centre, still in 2004 the highest amount of respondents (53%) regarded the Soviet system as the
best economical system. However, at the same time, 86 percent of the respondents did not see any
possibilities to restore that system, and the highest amount of respondents (48 %) regarded the option of
returning to the ‘Brezhnev times’ as negative. Levada centre report ’Nostalgiya po proshlomu’,
http://www.levada.ru/press/2004031901.html, 17.6.2008.
28
Douglas W. Blum, ‘Russian Youth Policy: Shaping the Nation’s State Future’, SAIS Review vol. XXVI
no. 2 (Summer-Fall 2006), 95. 95-108.
29
Blum, ‘Russian Youth Policy’, 96.
10
Arseniy Svynarenko concisely illustrates the lack of common and cohesive Russian
national identity by comparison with Ukraine. In Ukraine, the whole political field, from
nationalists to liberals, is more or less oriented towards the EU. In Russia, this sort of
political consensus in discussions on national identity is completely missing.30 Since
Putin’s presidency, the issue is not about struggles between different political groups and
parties but rather an internal competition between state level policies.
That coexistent ambition to seemingly different ideological and political directions is
profoundly present on the questions of the socialisation of youth.31 Furthermore,
discussion of youth policy has not been limited to institutional proponents focusing on a
variety of policy drafts and ideas, but it has wide social resonance in Russian society in
general, including various mundane realisations, for example, in newspaper articles, web-
blogs and other informal discussion forums.32 The following account by Blum33
elaborates on the notion of tension which resembles perestroika-era visions of individual
capabilities under the strict political rule in order to strengthen that rule:
The debate over youth policy expresses a basic tension in Russian society: a
demand for civil society and democratic legitimacy, alongside an equally
powerful demand for control, stability, and a guaranteed normative order.
However, the major difference between the attempts of Putin’s policies to modernise
Russia and create cohesive outlines for the Russian national idea, and Gorbachev’s
attempts to modernise the Soviet Union, is that for Russia since 1991 the limits of
discussion are ultimately open. There are no such definite ideological borders for Putin in
contemporary Russia as there were for Gorbachev who aimed to renew the whole system
since this renewal had to happen ‘under the sacred principles of Lenin’. And, when this
sacred pillar of communism could not guarantee its own legitimacy anymore, the whole
30
Arseniy Svynarenko, Key concepts in nationalist rhetoric in today’s Ukraine and Russia. Paper
presentation at the conference ‘Extremism and xenophobia among youth through prism of transnational
studies in St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of Sociology, 16-18.3.2007.
31
Blum, ‘Russian Youth Policy’, 96.
32
Ibid., 99.
33
Ibid., 99.
11
socialist system lost its legitimacy. However, by aiming to read the tension between the
idealised glasnost and the real glasnost of perestroika to Putin era pro-governmental
youth activities, I am not arguing here that we could compare these eras and their socio-
political tensions as equal phenomena. Instead, I argue that the perestroika-era tension
between the idealised and the real glasnost can help us to conceptualize the
implementation of the current youth policy by the actors who enthusiastically draw on
‘open’ sources for political support which seemingly challenge the accounts of ideal
nation-building in youth activity.
The official youth policy ‘Strategy of the State Youth Policy’ for 2006–2016, completed
by the Ministry of Education and Science in late October 2005, is an illuminative
example of identity struggle between global pressures and needs to define national
identity.34 Although the Strategy emphasises the problems of youth, and points out the
challenge of youth’s social and political passivity each time when the word or the
derivative ‘youth’ is mentioned, it nearly always is accompanied by a particular
conceptual expansion, most often ‘national interests’, or ‘the interests of Russia’. For
example, the first sentence in the section ‘The aims and principles of the realisation of the
Strategy’ is: ‘the aim of the state youth policy is the development and realisation of the
potential of young people according to the interests of Russia’35. Hence, young people are
not allowed to be presented as citizens with their own needs and problems but as a group
of people whose potential must be utilized in the service of national interests. The
difference from the outlines of youth policy of the 1990s mentioned above is rather clear;
for instance, the need for cooperation of foreign youth movements and programs are not
mentioned at all in the current policy.
In this respect, we can point out that the Soviet-era understanding of youth as a national
(and political) resource has made a comeback in the current policy, although these
‘Soviet underpinnings’ are not the whole content of the policy.36 The most evident proof
34
Strategiya gosudarstevennoy molodezhnoy politiki v Rossiiskoy Federacii 2006–2016,
http://www.mon.gov.ru/press/news/3318,print/, 17.6.2008; Blum, ‘Russian Youth Policy’, 98-101.
35
Strategiya 2006–2016.
36
Lukov, ‘Gosudarstvennaya molodezhanya politika: bitva koncepcii i ozhidanie rezultatov’, 74.
12
of national rebirth in youth issues can be found in another, more specified youth policy
program, ‘The Patriotic Upbringing of Russian Citizens’ which explicitly underlines
various didactic and educational functions of instances of society in the sense of
patriotism. The first version of this program was for 2001–2005, and the current one for
2006–2010. For example, by strongly emphasizing the importance of patriotism and
patriotic education for the good of society, the program regards the relation between the
media and patriotism as follows: ‘(the need for) the creation of such conditions in mass
media which allow propaganda of patriotism, formation of the state demand for the
production of patriotically-oriented products by cultural and artistic organizations, and
mass media’. In this respect, the media is not seen as an independent actor in the society
but rather as a tool for the spreading of ‘newsworthy’ messages created somewhere else.
However, the aspect of commercial competition and struggle over commercial space is
interestingly added to this national mission by the notion of ‘formation of the state
demand for the production of patriotically-oriented products’ which reveals the
assumption that successful implementation of patriotic values requires market demand for
these values.37
From Idushchie Vmeste to Nashi
The appearance of the pro-governmental youth movements took place soon after the
inauguration of Vladimir Putin in 2000. The most visible such act since the days of
Komsomol took place on May 7, 2001, when thousands38 of youngsters gathered in the
centre of Moscow to celebrate Vladimir Putin’s first year in office. What was noteworthy
about this initiative was not only in the high number of the people but their rather
coherent visual image: the vast majority wore t-shirts with Putin’s portrait and the
intertextual phrase vsyo putyom (everything is on track) referring to order, and to the
surname of the president. These people – headed by the ex-employee of the president’s
37
‘Gosudarsvennaya programma Patrioticheskaya vospitanie grazhdan Rossiiskoy Federacii na 2006–2010
gody’, http://www.ed.gov.ru/junior/rub/patriot/, 17.6.2008; About Soviet era principles of media, see Frank
Ellis, ‘The Media as Social Engineer’, in Russian Cultural Studies, an introduction. Catriona Kelly &
David Shepherd (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998, 192–222.
38
These estimates vary between 10 000 and 50 000 young people. See Dmitry Ivanov, ‘Idushchie Vmeste
nastupili na grabli’, in Lenta.ru 23.2.2005, http://www.lenta.ru/articles/2005/02/23/young/_Printed.htm,
17.6.2008; Viktor Savelev, Goryachaya Molodyozh Rossii. Moskva: OOO Kvanta 2006, 77.
13
administration Vassili Yakemenko – labeled themselves as members of the youth
movement Idushchie Vmeste. IV was officially registered on July 14, 2000, but through
this large scale action in May 2001 it became well known to the broader public as well.39
Although there were immediate accusations against IV concerning its role as a rubber
stamp for the Kremlin’s policies, IV constantly emphasised its spontaneous position as an
independent youth organization not belonging to any political party. Dmitry Andreev40
interestingly points out that although Idushchie Vmeste and Nashi represent themselves as
pro-Kremlin movements, and are evidently supported to some extent by the Kremlin
authorities, any type of emotionality is ‘prohibited’ in the political guidelines of the
Kremlin. This means that the political regime headed by Putin actually created its own
ideological course which can be condensed as doubling gross domestic product (udvoenie
VVP). In ideological terms, this means total freedom in the field of ideology, i.e., the
possibility to move from superpower quasimonarchy to liberal oligarchy and from
socially-oriented market economy to right neo-conservatism á la Thatcher and Reagan.
Andreev argues that the main point here is that ‘passionarity’ as political stylistics for the
current political course is not only unnecessary but also dangerous in order to distribute
its ideas according to its own administrative vertical.
At first sight, it seems that the ideological agenda of Idushchie Vmeste offers a rather
clear connection to the ideals of the Soviet-era Komsomol as a youth organisation which
fostered the moral norms of a good youngster. The main text of IV – Moral Codex – is a
no doubt conscious intertextual referent to the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism
established in 1961.41 This was a set of twelve codified moral rules in the Soviet Union
which every member of the Communist Party of the USSR and every Komsomol member
was supposed to follow. In terms of moral education, IV explicitly follows this tradition.42
39
Iduschie Vmeste 7.5.2001, http://www.idushie.ru/photos/actions/7may2001/index.php, 17.6.2008;
Savelev, Goryachaya Molodyozh, 77; Ivanov, ‘Idushchie Vmeste nastupili’, 23.2.2005.
40
Dmitry Andreev, ‘Fenomen molodezhnoy ‘upravlyaemoy passionarnosti’ i vozmozhnye scenarii ego
perspektiv’, in Molodezh i politika. Moskovskoe byuro fonda Fridrikha Naumanna. Moskva: Biblioteka
liberalnogo chteniya 2006 (17), 57-58. 49–61.
41
See Moral Code of the Builder of Communism,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Code_of_the_Builder_of_Communism, 17.6.2008.
42
’Moral’nyi Kodeks’, http://www.idushie.ru/rus/about/kodeks/index.php, 17.6.2008.
14
This is interesting while the main political opponents for IV were communists. However,
this is not the only reason why an analogy to the Soviet-era Komsomol is weak in many
ways. The moral panic strongly emphasised in many texts of the movements differs from
the moral control of Komsomol because of an absolutely different social and political
context: IV is not a hegemonic actor in the field of youth activity as was the case with
Komsomol and the Communist party.43 In this respect, the conservative and moralistic
ethos of IV works rather as symbolic capital; the ethos is believed to have better value
than some other youth movements may have.44 Although the use of carrots by IV in
maximising its own attractiveness – for example by offering free access to internet for its
members45 – resembles Komsomol era-practices of offering various social and ‘non-
political’ activities46, the discourse of mobilisation for IV seems to be more exclusive
than inclusive. The majority of key texts of the movement emphasise strict moral norms
and the necessity of following these norms if a person wants be a member of the
movement. Thus, although the ethos of IV well resembles the accounts of Komsomol as
alternativeless choices in order to be and become a true youngster, in the context of
Putin’s Russia, this ‘alternativelessness’ is socially and politically distinctive option. In
othet words, it is not a total condition, as it was the Komsomol-era institutional and
organisational alternativelessness.47
If we wish to conceptualise IV`s position as a form of glasnost, we can state that since
coming to power Putin actively has begun to utilize piecemeal the emerging national and
patriotic attitudes of the Russian people.48 Consequently, IV showed its own partial
43
About Komsomol in the 1920s, see Gorsuch, Youth in Revolutionary Russia, 42-43.
44
Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory helps here to see how ‘the field of youth activity’ has balanced in relation
to those fields where national and patriotic elements have occurred before their broadening into the field of
youth policy and youth activity. Hence, the most profitable and legitimate rules follow patriotic rules rather
than Western oriented democracy. See Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power. Polity Press 1991;
Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art. Stanford University Press 1996.
45
‘Pamyatka Idushchemu’, http://www.idushie.ru/rus/about/pamyatka/index.php, 17.6.2008.
46
Gorsuch, Youth in Revolutionary Russia, 42-43.
47
See ‘Moral’nyi Kodeks’ and ‘Pamyatka Idushchemu’.
48
The political speech act which evidently helped Putin to become an efficient and popular prime minister,
and finally the president, was his well known and purely colloquial phrase’ we’ll whack them, even in the
outhouse!’, performed shortly after terrorist bombings in Moscow in 1999. This criminal jargon mediated
Putin’s masculine and patriotic position of the new leader of the state as well show level of his attitude
towards the presumed bombers, Chechens. In the aftermath of the bombings’ shock these words had a
significant high value. See Rémi Camus, ‘We’ll Whack Them, Even in the Outhouse: on a Phrase by
15
spontaneity by conducting social actions which worked as symbolic capital relying on the
collective and re-emerged memories of the ‘Soviet happiness’ although this capital was
often targeted against communists.49 However, this spontaneity did not match with the
Kremlin’s expectations of adequate nation building.
Spontaneity and carnival: The Exchange of Books
Two themes which started to appear in various actions of IV were emphasised irony and a
sort of carnival. The most illuminative example of this was IV’s well known action ‘The
Exchange of Books’50 in 2002 in which the movement organised several points for book
exchanges in different places in central Moscow. The idea was that people could bring
the works of ‘postmodernist-pornographers’51 to these points and then obtain the works
of ‘true Russian literature’ – works of Russian classical literature – in exchange. The
collected works of ‘degenerate’ literature were marked by the stamp ‘to be returned to the
author’ and were packed into a sack with the same text. The action culminated in front of
the Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow in summer 2002 where activists of IV protested against
the theatre’s decision to perform a play based on Vladimir Sorokin’s text by throwing
torn works of the writer into a huge toilet seat made of pasteboard.52
Although this was not the last large scale action by the movement, ‘The Exchange of
Books’ had obviously reverse results: the sale of works of accused writers rose
dramatically, IV achieved a notorious position as ‘Putin Jugend’, and finally the Kremlin
– now often regarded in the media as the ultimate benefactor of the movement –
dissociated itself from the activities of the movement.53
V.V.Putin’, Kultura 10/2006, 3; Michael S. Gorham, ‘Putin’s Language’, Ab Imperio 4/2005, 388. 381-
401.
49
’General’naya uborka Rossii’, http://www.idushie.ru/rus/about/activity/actions/uborka/index.html,
17.6.2008.
50
’Obmen knig’, http://www.idushie.ru/rus/document/press/books2/index.php, 17.6.2008.
51
In general these deceitful writers included a couple of well-known Russian contemporary writers, for
instance Viktor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin but Karl Marx as well, see ‘Obmen knig’.
52
Sorokoviny po bolshomu teatru. http://www.idushie.ru/rus/document/press/sorokoviny/index.php
17.6.2008.
53
Savelev, Goryachaya Molodezh, 78; Ivanov, ‘Idushchie Vmeste nastupili’, 23.2.2005; Tatyana
Stanovaya, Molodyozhnye organizacii v sovremennoy Rossii, 2005,
http://www.politcom.ru/2005/analit275.php, 17.6.2008.
16
Carnival continues: Nashi and the Bronze Soldier
The aspect which puts this kind of carnivalistic and at least partially spontaneous form of
action beyond an individual case is its recurrence in the most visible action of the
successor of IV – the movement Nashi. In late 2004, during the ‘Orange Revolution’ in
the Ukraine, the first rumors of the new youth movement supported by the Kremlin
became public.54 These rumors proved to be correct whilst in February 2005 the
Antifascist Democratic Youth Movement Nashi was officially established.55 The main
difference in the agenda from IV was in its emphasised politicalness in relation to
international issues and its emphasised position as an antifascist and democratic
movement.56 The size and systematic and professionally planned design were also rather
distinctive from the programme of IV: Nashi established itself as a federal youth
movement having tens of local branches along with the Moscow main office, and the
utililization of the internet was clearly more professional than IV’s rather incoherent web-
image and style. It is not difficult to find a connection with the emphasised and well-
planned role of the web image and the focus of official youth policy which underline the
importance of development of informational sources and technology.57 This account
seemingly matches with Nashi’s ethos to exemplify the capability of rational
individuality, talent, and particular entrepreneurial spirit as pillars in the creation of an
ideal young person. In general this ethos borrows from the global discourses of success.58
However, despite Nashi’s deep intention to manifest itself discursively as ‘globally up-to-
date’, the agenda of Nashi includes many more accounts against ‘Western hegemony’
than the more domestically and morally oriented agenda of IV.
54
Mikhail Shevchuk & Dmitri Kamyshev, ‘Obyknovennyi “Nashizm”’, Kommersant 21.2.2005.
55
Savelev, Goryachaya Molodezh, 86; Ekaterina Savina & Yulia Taratuta & Mikhail Shevchuk, ‘Kratkiy
kurs istorii dvizheniya “Nashi”’, Kommersant 29.1.2008.
56
‘Manifest’, http://nashi.su/ideology, 17.6.2008.
57
Strategiya 2006–2016.
58
‘Manifest’; Jussi Lassila, ‘Commissars on the Market: Discursive Commodities of the Youth Movement
NASHI’, in Voices and Values of Young People – Representations in Russian Media. Ed. Marjatta
Vanhala-Aniszewski & Lea Siilin. University of Helsinki: Aleksanteri Series 6/2007, 99-136.
17
Nashi’s struggle over fascism which from its beginning had made apparent the
importance of the symbolic began, in addition, to receive carnivalistic elements, as was
seen in the case of IV. The most visible – and carnivalistic – action around the topic of
antifascism was the movement’s protest against the removal of the statue of the Bronze
Soldier by Estonian authorities in Tallinn in late April 2007. This protest culminated
around the Estonian embassy in Moscow where hundreds activists of Nashi along with
activists from some other pro-Kremlin youth movements beset the embassy for almost
one week. Protests against Estonia were held not only in Moscow, but became
cornerstone of the movement’s activities in different regions as well. In addition, clearly
repetitive feature in these actions along with their intensity was their carnivalistic
elements, as the following example from the town of Kovrov shows59:
Kovrov: A saving ‘puncture’ from eSStonian fascism
In May 28th commissars of the antifascist section – wearing white coats of medics
– were walking in the streets of the town, and offered check-ups for passers-by in
order to map frequency of the new horrible virus called ‘eSStonian fascism’.
A blank form arranged as a certificate of vaccination contained questions which
elaborated the relation of the respondent to the government of the state which has
violated our memory and arrogated the privilege to rewrite world history for itself
alone.
These answers were immediately analyzed, and OUR ‘doctors’ diagnosed the
patient by giving a certificate. Symptoms of fascism were found in only nine
persons from the sample of 150 respondents. Our nurses conducted a vaccination
against fascism for all those who were infected by a long and convincing
discussion on the heroic deeds of the Soviet soldiers and violent actions of the
Estonian authorities.
59
‘Kovrov: Spasitel’nyi ”ukol” ot eSStonskogo fashizma”, http://nashi.su/news/18436, 17.6.2008.
18
This sort of carnivalistic symbolism is not a single case in the web-site of the movement
but rather a fragment from hundreds of similar grass-roots actions. Along with this
vaccination campaign – mainly conducted by the activists in the Vladimir filial – there
were several actions in order to collect signatures from Russian citizens for posters which
symbolised petitions against the removal of the Bronze Soldier, and demands for the
removal of the building of Estonian embassy from its current location.60 Moreover,
highly symbolic welcoming ceremonies were organized in the Moscow railway station
for those activists who were expelled from Tallinn by the Estonian authorities. These
activists called themselves ‘living statues’.61 They traveled to Tallinn to stand around
Tônismägi – the area where the Bronze soldier was located – wearing the World War II-
era Red Army uniforms and carrying flags of the movement. As a result, the Estonian
authorities refused to grant visas to several members of Nashi. In the context of the
Schengen treaty this actually meant that these members were no longer allowed entry to
the territory of the European Union.62
Conclusions: Gap between correct expressions of youth activity
In January 2008 the newspaper Kommersant63 wrote that Nashi will cease to exist in its
current form and will be radically reorganized. According to the newspaper, one reason
for the reorganization was the negative attitude of the new president Dmitry Medvedev
towards the movement, and even Putin considered Nashi to be a problem for Russia’s
relations to the West. The second possible account concerns the loss of the charismatic
leader: Vassili Yakemenko was nominated as the head of the State youth committee, and
a third view underlines the point of uselessness: the acute threat of the Orange Revolution
was over. Although it is too soon to speculate on the final destiny of Nashi (there were no
signs of its demise in November 2009), it is clear that something changed in the attitudes
60
See for example ‘Opredelena data demontazha zdaniya Estonskogo posol’stvo v Moskve’,
http://nashi.su/news/17098, 17.6.2008; ‘Penza: Bolee 700 gorozhan vyskazalis’ za demontazh Estonskogo
posol’stvo’, http://nashi.su/news/17066, 17.6.2008; ‘Lipetsk: eSStonskoe posol’stvo – pod lom i
bul’dozer’, http://nashi.su/news/17145, 17.6.2008.
61
‘Zhivye pamyatniki dobralis’ do Moskvy’, http://nashi.su/news/18945, 17.6.2008.
62
‘Molodezh: subyekt ili obyekt’, http://www.nashi.su/news/23216, 17.6.2008.
63
Savina, Taratuta & Shevchuk, 29.1.2008.
19
of the political elite towards Nashi’s actions during 2007. My argument is that this
‘something’ is first of all related to Nashi’s style to follow the political top’s ideas, but
this following does not capture these ideas.
Both movements, IV and Nashi, work as an illuminative example of the tension in the
sense of a ‘practice of hybridisation’ mentioned by Blum64: a general approach to
national youth identity formation in which certain global and hegemonic practices are
imbued while rejecting other ‘excessive’ ideas and asserting a unique, supposedly
indigenous identity. My argument is that namely carnivalisation and the aesthetisation of
nationalist and reactive topics by IV and Nashi are something which aims to manage this
practice of hybridisation in the creation of national identity, and this spontaneity is
something which radically challenges the trust of the political elite. In other words,
activity and spontaneity are needed, and the ‘glasnost’ of IV and Nashi clearly emanated
from these nationalistic, post-perestroika values, in many ways supported by the political
elite as well, but this ideologically-correct grass-roots activism caused such effects which
the Kremlin regarded as harmful for its own ‘perestroika’. The following quote from
Nashi’s web-page report65 interestingly shows the movement’s attitude to the headline:
‘Youth: subject or object, that’s the question’. The subjectivity of youth issues along with
youth’s democratic rights is positioned as active and progressive patriotism as distinct
from the silence and ‘objectivism’ of adult politicians. Moreover, the ‘fight for your
rights’ in the last sentence interestingly adds the aspect of emancipatory grass-roots
activism in fostering patriotism:
During the session youth was seen not only as a cadre reserve but also as a driving
force in public opinion. A question which concerned the status of youth policy
caused intensive debate. Nobody could give clear answers about that. An example
which was given was the removal of the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn. Adult
politicians tried to stonewall this issue but youth did not allow this. Youth did not
64
Blum, ‘Russian Youth Policy’, 103.
65
‘Molodezh: subyekt ili obyekt’.
20
allow elders to be quiet concerning the violation of Russian history by the
Estonian government.
In addition, history did not end here. Along with the accession of Estonia to the
Schengen zone, the blacklists of person non grata block the entry to most of
European countries for those people who did not do anything illegal, people who
refused to forget their own history and were ready to fight for their rights with
legal and democratic tools.
This quote reveals that Nashi ‘admits’ the basic challenge for the mobilisation of youth in
Russia: youth has been seen as a resource (here cadre reserve), a faceless mass whose
needs are defined from an administrative and governmental point of view ignoring grass-
roots needs of the young people themselves. This challenge is profoundly discussed by
Russian scholars of youth as well.66 However, the subjectivity and true voice of youth
from Nashi’s point of view is something which goes beyond the national and patriotic
underpinnings of the current youth policy programs by stating that: ‘(Y)outh did not
allow elders to be quiet concerning the violation of Russian history by the Estonian
government’. The case here is not to argue that ‘true’ grass-roots initiatives would be
only such which clearly challenge official youth policy values, and would be oriented
toward democratic, or Western values. As the text of Nashi shows above, grass-roots
activism can also be oriented towards official values and demands (patriotic civic
position), but it draws on such forms of activity which seemingly do not fulfill the
political elite’s expectations of decent behaviour of a youth movement.
I argue that the symbolic dimension of the movements’ activity within its carnivalistic
elements conducted by various carnivalistic actions is the aspect which should not be
underrated. Image work of the movements definitely plays a part for unintended results
that they have caused for the visions of the political elite. In addition, the carnivalisation
is that dimension of activity by which the movements manage to show their true support
towards conformist values, aiming to have a distinctive position in the competition with
66
See for example, Lukov 2006 and Omel’chenko 2006.
21
other actors (mainly youth movements) in the field of youth activity. This situation is
actually quite close – although with different symbolic parameters – to Gorham’s point67
where the demands of perestroika/glasnost clashed with the actual skills of the people. As
that commentator in 1988 put it: ‘(A) person who holds a just position but who has not
mastered the word can be compared to a well-armed soldier who holds in his hands
everything needed for victory, but lacks just one thing – the ability to shoot well’. Time
will show if Nashi and other such movements learn to shoot better.
67
Gorham,’Natsiia ili snikerizatsiia?’, 618.
