Putin's Wars (26 page)
Who is to say that such youth movements as
Nashi
(Ours),
Mestnye
(Locals), and the
Molodaya Gvardiya
(Young Guard) will not go the same way as the nationalistic
Rodina
(Motherland) Party? After being likewise set up by the Kremlin,
Rodina
became a loose cannon because of the ambitions of its nationalistic leader, Dmitri
Rogozin. The Kremlin had to remove the Motherland Party from the Moscow elections
and expel some of its overambitious politicians. It might be more difficult to keep
even the pro-Kremlin youth movements on a leash. The gangs of young Putin supporters
created by the Kremlin in the wake of the Ukrainian Revolution started by harassing
opposition politicians Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Kasianov and then went after foreign
diplomats, attacking the British and Estonian ambassadors. The young are playing the
game with evident enthusiasm, becoming more aggressive each time. They have already
understood their strength and are eager to do “big projects.” The moment may come
when the young wolves will feel they are manipulated and will want to become an independent
force. And someone might emerge who will lead this destructive blind force that can
be turned into a dangerous political weapon. The Russian authorities may never have
read the story of Frankenstein and seem unaware of how experiments creating monsters
may end.
[58]
Unfortunately, sooner than expected, Shevtsova’s predictions seemed to come true.
In an alarming article about the growth of racist neo-Nazi organizations in Russia,
Newsweek
wrote that “the growth of violent racism in Russia has been encouraged by the Kremlin’s
dabbling with nationalist ideology and politicized youth groups. . . . The Kremlin’s
‘political technologists’ unwittingly trained a generation of cadres to be conversant
in the dark art of rousing masses of young people, organizing demonstrations, manipulating
the press, and cutting deals with the authorities.”
[59]
The magazine added that “[a]
Newsweek
investigation has revealed that many of the organizers of today’s extreme nationalist
groups learned their tradecraft as ‘commissars’ of the Kremlin-sponsored youth groups
Nashi, Walking Together, and the Young Guard.”
[60]
This might have raised some doubts in the Nashi leadership as concerns the desirability
of the planned Nashi militias. In the spring of 2013 on the website of Rosmolodezh,
the official youth agency, an article was published, announcing that at the end of
2013 the Nashi would be transformed into a new youth organization with a new name.
The title commissar would disappear. The former commissars would get a new task: “they
become managers, coordinating the movement’s projects.”
[61]
The objective of these projects would be “the social adaptation of youth.”
[62]
Aleksey Makarkin, a political scientist, commented that “after December 2011 it
became clear that the Nashi were not effective in the struggle against the regime’s
opponents. Therefore the emphasis is [now] on less ambitious local projects, that
are, maybe, more effective projects.”
[63]
Does this mean the end of Putin’s
druzhiny
project? Not quite. Because in the meantime Putin had discovered another group of
devoted supporters whom he considered more capable of this task: the Cossacks.
Cf. “Istoriya voprosa: Saga o ‘Putinjugende,’”
NEWSru.com
(January 14, 2005).
Novaya Gazeta
of September 23, 2002. Quoted in “Istoriya voprosa: Saga o ‘Putinjugende.’”
Politkovskaya,
Putin’s Russia
(London: The Harvill Press, 2004), 282–283.
Fedor Yermolov, “Free Speech and the Attack on Vladimir Sorokin” (August 13, 2002).
Published on Sorokin’s website.
http://www.srkn.ru/criticism/yermolov.shtml
.
Yermolov, “Free Speech and the Attack on Vladimir Sorokin.”
However, it would not take long before the movement itself would be implicated in
a—this time
real
—mini pornographic scandal, when it came out that a leading figure of the Saint Petersburg
branch produced pornographic cassettes, which he sold on the market. This scandal
further tarnished the already tainted reputation of the movement. (Cf. “Lider ‘Idushchikh
Vmeste’ poiman na rasprostranenii pornografii,”
NEWSru.com
(November 4, 2004).)
“Kreml gotovit novyy molodezhnyy proekt na zamenu ‘Idushchim Vmeste.’”
NEWSru.com
(February 21, 2005).
Some texts by Gene Sharp, such as “The Politics of Nonviolent Action,” can be freely
downloaded from the website of the Albert Einstein Institution.
http://www.aeinstein.org
.
According to Marie Jégo, Moscow correspondent for
Le Monde
, from 2008 to late 2010 the Nashi received—in addition to other gifts—11.5 million
euros directly from the Kremlin. (Marie Jégo, “Fascistes ou fans de foot?”
Le Monde
(December 24, 2010).) The Kremlin has repeatedly accused Western NGOs and governments
of having organized and financed the opposition groups that were active in the color
revolutions. However, according to Parol Demes and Joerg Forbrig this support was
rather restricted. In Ukraine “the Pora campaign was only sparsely supported by international
donors. A mere $130,000 was distributed in foreign funding: by the Canadian International
Development Agency, Freedom House, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
By comparison, Pora’s total financing was $1.56 million. In-kind contributions in
the form of free publications, communications, and transportation exceeded an estimated
$6.5 million.” (Parol Demes and Joerg Forbrig, “Pora: ‘It’s Time’ for Democracy in
Ukraine,” in
Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine’s Democratic Breakthrough
, eds. Anders Åslund and Michael McFaul (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 2006), 97–98.)
Politkovskaya,
A Russian Diary
, 270–271.
Charles Clover, “‘Managed Nationalism’ Turns Nasty for Putin,”
Financial Times
(December 23, 2010).
Official website of the Nashi (in Russian).
http://www.nashi.su
.
Quoted in John Follett, “Russia’s Past Mobilised to Shape the Present,”
Herald Scotland
(October 16, 2009).
Tony Halpin, “Winning Young Hearts and Minds: Putin’s Strategy for a New Superpower,”
The Times
(July 25, 2007).
In his famous Ascension Day Speech of May 1927 Mussolini exhorted Italians to increase
the population from 40 million to 60 million in twenty-five years. Italian women were
called upon to have a dozen children each. Pro-natalist measures included a tax on
bachelors, tax exemptions for large families, and restrictions on emigration. (Cf.
Carl Ipsen,
Dictating Demography: The Problem of Population in Fascist Italy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 173–174.)
Luke Harding, “Welcome to Putin’s Summer Camp,”
The Guardian
(July 24, 2008).
Roland Oliphant, “Seliger Camp’s Growing Pains,”
Moscow News
(July 20, 2009).
Oliphant, “Seliger Camp’s Growing Pains.”
Halford J. MacKinder, an English geopolitician, developed the theory of a Eurasian
heartland for the first time in a paper “The Geographical Pivot of History” (1904).
According to him the power that dominated this heartland would dominate the world,
a theory that became very popular in Russia. (Cf. Halford J. MacKinder, “The Geographical
Pivot of History,” in
Democratic Ideals and Reality
, ed. Halford J. MacKinder (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1996),
175–193.)
Mark Franchetti, “Putin’s Fanatical Youth Brigade Targets Britain,”
The Sunday Times
(September 2, 2007).
“Vashe Velichestvo, pishet Vam kollektiv russkikh druzey” (Your Majesty, A Collective
of Russian Friends Writes to You),
Kommersant
(December 6, 2007). When, on March 28, 2008, the Foreign Office announced that Brenton
would be replaced by Anne Pringle, former ambassador to the Czech Republic, there
was speculation on the website of Robert Amsterdam, Khodorkovsky’s lawyer, that this
was done under pressure from the British energy giant BP that had billions of dollars
invested in projects in Russia.
http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2008/03/the_departure_of_uk_ambassador.htm
.
However, the Foreign Office “rejected speculation the change was due to worsening
ties between the two countries” (Cf. “Update 1: Britain names Russian envoy, hopes
for better ties,”
Reuters
(March 28, 2008).)
Estonian Review
17, no. 16–17 (April 18–May 2, 2007), 3.
Even during these Russian attacks the Estonian government had the diplomatic correctness
to receive, on April 30, a delegation from the Russian State Duma to discuss the events
around the removal of the war memorial. This delegation was headed by the former FSB
director Nikolay Kovalyov, who, on his arrival in Tallinn, bluntly called for the
immediate resignation of the Estonian government—a more than ill-mannered intervention
in the internal affairs of a neighboring state that awoke memories of a not so distant
past. (Cf. Victor Yasmann, “Monument Dispute with Estonia Gets Dirty,”
RFE/RL
(May 8, 2007).
http://www.rferl.org/articleprintview/1347550.html
.
Quoted in Ronald D. Asmus,
A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West
(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010), 246.
The attacks were distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in which hundreds of
thousands of “zombie” computers overwhelm the target network. According to an Estonian
spokesperson the attack on Estonia originated in 178 countries. The Kremlin denied
being implicated in the cyber attacks. Afterward, however, direct Russian implication
was conceded through two incidents. The first involved Duma deputy and Kremlin pundit
Sergei Markov, who, on March 3, 2009, in a panel discussion with American experts
on information warfare, said: “About the cyber-attacks on Estonia . . . don’t worry,
that attack was carried out by my assistant. I won’t tell you his name, because then
he might not be able to get visas.” The assistant was thought to have been in “one
of the unrecognized republics.” Later it was stated that he was in the Moldovan breakaway
province of Transnistria—outside the territory of Russia. (Cf. “Sergei Markov Says
He Knows Who Started the Estonia Cyber War,”
Intelfusion
(March 6, 2009).)
http://www.intelfusion.net/wordpress/?p=544
.
The name of this assistant was revealed later. It would have been Konstantin Goloskokov,
a Nashi commissar. He told the
Financial Times
“that he and some associates had launched the attack.” (Charles Clover, “Kremlin-backed
Group Behind Estonia Cyber Blitz,”
The Financial Times
(March 11, 2009).) Markov wanted to present the unprecedented massive cyber attacks
on the government of a NATO member state as a kind of innocent “naughty boys” prank
that, apparently, was organized from
outside
Russia. One might confidently assume, however, that this was an attempt at active
disinformation aimed at hiding the likely real instigators of the attack: the Russian
secret services FSB, GRU, and/or the Russian army.
Cf. Evgeny Morozov, “What Do They Teach at the ‘Kremlin’s School of Bloggers’?”
Foreign Policy
(May 26, 2009).
In 2005 the movement distributed a brochure titled “Program for Combating Fascism”
in secondary schools and universities. The “fascists” named in the brochure included
Ilya Yashin, the leader of the liberal Yabloko youth organization; Yukos shareholder
Leonid Nevzlin; and the democratic opposition leaders Garry Kasparov and Vladimir
Ryzhkov. It is telling that Dmitry Rogozin, who at that time was chairman of the nationalist
Rodina party and, maybe, the only representative of the extreme right on this list,
was later appointed ambassador to NATO by Putin. (Cf. Oleg Kashin and Yuliya Taratuta,
“Obyknovennyy antifashizm,”
Kommersant
(May 12, 2005).)
Shaun Walker, “Pro-Kremlin Youth Group Blamed for Attacking Paper,”
The Independent
(March 6, 2008).
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/prokremlin-youth-group-blamed-for-attacking-paper-792074.html
.
Dmitry Sidorov, “A Mafia-Style Message on Russian Free Speech,”
Forbes
(April 7, 2009).
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/07/donkey-ears-press-freedom-opinions-contributors-nashi-medvedev.html
.
In his article Podrabinek attacked Soviet veterans. “Your fatherland,” he wrote, “is
not Russia. Your fatherland is the Soviet Union. You are Soviet veterans, and your
country, thank god, has not existed for eighteen years. The Soviet Union is not at
all the country that you described in the school books and your liar press. The Soviet
Union—it is not only political leaders, Stakhanov workers, communist superproductive
workers, and cosmonauts. The Soviet Union—it is also peasant rebellions, victims of
the collectivization and the Holodomor, hundreds of thousands of innocent people who
are shot in the basements of the Cheka and millions who are tortured to death in the
Gulag . . . . The Soviet Union—it is permanent confinement in psychiatric hospitals
for dissidents, treacherous murders, and in countless Gulag cemeteries the anonymous
graves of my friends, the political prisoners who did not live to see our freedom.”
(Alexander Podrabinek, “Kak antisovetchik antisovetchikam ,”
Ezhednevnyy Zhurnal
(September 21, 2009).)
Cf. Follett, “Russia’s Past Mobilized to Shape the Present.”
These papers were the British
The Independent
, the French
Le Monde
and
Le Journal du Dimanche
, and the German
Frankfurter Rundschau
. The Nashi were demanding 500,000 rubles (11,500 euro) in damages from each of the
newspapers. The group’s lawyer, Sergey Zhorin, confirmed on October 27, 2009, that
four lawsuits had been filed at Moscow’s Savelyovsky District Court. (Cf. “Pro-Putin
Youth Group Sues European Newspapers,”
Euranet
(October 27, 2009).) The first hearing took place on December 7, 2009. The correspondent
of
Le Monde
, Marie Jégo, present at the hearing, said: “It is an opinion, it is not slander.
To give your opinion is authorized by article 10 of the European Convention on Human
Rights, signed by Russia in 1998.” (“‘Le Monde’ poursuivi par les Nachi,”
Le Monde
(December 9, 2009).) On April 21, 2010, the Court sentenced
Le Journal du dimanche
to pay the Nashi 250,000 rubles (6,400 euro), although the Parliamentary Assembly
of the Council of Europe, of which Russia is a member, had confirmed that the facts
reported by the four papers, could, indeed, be described as harassment. (Alexandre
Billette, “De jeunes nationalistes russes obtiennent la condamnation du ‘JDD,’”
Le Monde
, (April 24, 2010).) Although the probability that the sentence would be carried out
in France was extremely low, the Nashi felt they had won an important propaganda victory
in their home country.
“Kashin-Yakemenko Feud Heats Up,”
seansrussiablog.org
(March 28, 2011).
Cf. Tony Halpin, “Vladimir Putin’s Youth Army Nashi Loses Purpose,”
The Times
(July 22, 2008). Another British journalist,
The Guardian
’s Luke Harding, came to a similar conclusion two days later, when he wrote: “This
year’s camp, the fourth, is smaller than last year’s—a sign that Nashi’s days may
be numbered.” (Luke Harding, “Welcome to Putin’s summer camp,”
The Guardian
(July 24, 2008).)
Cf. John Wendle, “Children’s Movement Fails to Draw Kids,”
Moscow Times
(December 7, 2007).
Quoted in Chloe Arnold, “Russia: New ‘Teddy Bears’ Have Overtones of Soviet-Era Youth
Groups,”
RFE/RL
(February 15, 2008).
Jégo, “Fascistes ou fans de foot?”
Anna Nemtsova, “Fear and Loathing in Moscow,”
Newsweek
(October 24, 2008).
“Batting a Thousand,”
Kommersant
(August 31, 2005).