Russian youth continues to be a topic for commentary on Russia Profile. The husband-wife team of Yelena Rykovtseva and Alexei Pankin comment on the conservatism of Russian youth and the differences between the lives of Soviet post-Soviet Russian youth. These two commentaries are nicely supplemented by an article in the Moscow News on the new radical and pro-Kremlin youth group, Young Russia.
I’ve never been an advocate of generational conflict or a stark divide between generations, but my own research and reading is suggesting more and more that a generational analysis might prove fruitful. This “clash of generations” is an overarching theme in Rykovsteva’s and Pankin’s articles, where they decry Russian youths’ unwillingness to question the government and their passive acceptance of Russian life. Their ire comes from the fact that both grew up in Soviet times when their lives were haunted by the contradictions between Soviet propaganda and Soviet reality. This contradiction, Pankin argues, was what pushed those of his generation to question authority and strive for changes. The “Khrushchev Generation” begot perestroika.
However, their mistake was making “fetishes of freedom and democracy instead, seeing them not so much as tools in our hands as an aim unto themselves, a means of entering paradise.” It seems that this fetishization has for the most part attained ideological hegemony among today’s Russian youth. Whereas the contradiction between formal and actual freedom drove the Soviet system to suspension, the new system seems to feed off its opposite. The fetishization of actual freedom, in the form of the abundance consumer items, popular culture, individual freedom, etc, has allowed for the restriction of formal freedom—state structures and organizations based on openness, democracy, and civil society. Such is the heart of Pankin’s statement, “Today’s young people are more restricted in their freedom to move in their immediate environment, but much freer to move around the world. For us it was the other way around.”
For Rykovsteva, this is the reason why the Russian government can speak to something like education reform without actually doing anything. She writes,
The issue is that young people in today’s Russia are not rebels by nature. Everything has changed. The KVN television program, which pits university students against each other in a sort of humor and satire competition, was an oasis of free-thinking in the Soviet years, but hardly anyone jokes about politics on today’s version, or, if they do, they take care not to upset the authorities. In the past, the youth were, a priori, critical of whatever the authorities did. Today’s young people are, a priori, sympathetic. There are always exceptions, of course. Besides those like the reporter who changed jobs to support the authorities, there are others who are fired for criticizing the authorities. It just seems to me that the first group is bigger than the second.
Such views are fueling the membership of groups like Nashi and now Young Russia. Young Russia, the Moscow News reports, is rather new on the scene. It boasts a membership of 2000. Forming in April 2005 by students at Moscow’s Bauman University, Young Russia seeks to unite “sensible youth that loves its country and takes upon itself the responsibility for its future.” What they really seem like is a pro-government answer to the National Bolsheviks, which Young Russia has declared enemy number one. In one incident last week, members of Young Russia pelted a Natsbol leader Eduard Limonov with eggs. The Natsbols responded with boots to the face and air guns that fired rubber bullets. A 14 year old passerby was sent to intensive care after he got caught up in the melee. In another incident, 17 Young Russia members were arrested attempting to break up an anti-censorship rally. Many believe that the group is being financed by the Kremlin but these allegations have been denied by the group’s press secretary Alexander Kalugin.
The truth of the matter is that Young Russia is yet another of the several pro-Kremlin youth organizations that have sprung up to prevent democratic change in Russia. With this, it is difficult to write off Yelena Rykovtseva’s and Alexei Pankin’s trepidation as simple generational conflict. There are many qualitative difference between their and the new generation of Russian youths. A politics accepting of the status quo, it seems, is one of the glaring ones.
Does it remind anyone else of the Hitler Youth?
It’s funny but nothing has changed. Last week I was telling a person who came to Moscow for the first time, “go see the KGB, the KPSS, Pioneers etc”. It’s like being in the 80′s again. Back when the Perestroika brought the cooperatives and people started making money illegaly.
Yes, and there are other parallels with that era in Germany as well, in my opinion. Blaming outsiders and former opponents in their last war for economic problems, after a steady rise in fortunes creates a renewed sense of nationalism – just off the top of my head. Calls out to the diaspora (Volksdeutsche in German), citing a need to protect them in bordering states.
I don’t see this leading to military expansionist tendencies, except perhaps in renewed agreements and a continuation of policies in the caucasus region. My opinion anyway.
I actually don’t agree with the Weimar analogy mostly because it obscures rather than illuminates the current state of Russia. I think that there is a tendency to see Russia as becoming our worse fears. In the 1990s it was fearing the return of the Communists and now it’s the emergence of the Nationalists or Fascists. Part of this I think is because of the “transition” paradigm we tend to view Russia through. If they are not becoming like us, then they are becoming something completely other.
Anyway, in regard to Weimar Germany, remember that 1920s Germany was a situation where there was the loss in a devastating war, government collapse and widespread economic depression. Political turmoil was rampant as communists and fascists were righting in the streets. Political assassinations were common. The demobilization of an enormous and defeated army put Germany further into a revolutionary situation. Sure while Russia experienced the collapse of a system, it never approached this level of disintegration. In addition, the Putin government appears much more stable that Weimar by simple fact that there is no viable political opposition. The appearance of economic growth in the form of petrodollars has staved off much of the potential real discontent among the population.
I think Russia is experiencing a problem that is currently occurring in several places around the world. The pressures of cheap migrant labor and immigration have increased the tensions within a society where the real economic surplus is increasingly concentrated in fewer hands. Russians have to now compete with those who will work for less in an already competitive labor market. As some have pointed out Russia is only second in the world to immigration, though this phenomenon is not new to Russia by any means. Only the situation has changed since the sources of immigration fall outside its direct jurisdiction. I see the increase of Russian nationalism, (and I wouldn’t call it fascism either though there are certainly fascist expressions in the lower rungs of society), is a result of the increased economic competition between Russians and its others, and the identity crisis that was created with the collapse of the Soviet Union and is exacerbated with immigration. The question all of this seems to be in reaction to is not whether “Russia [will be] for Russians”, but what is Russia and Russian? Thus the problem as I see it is economic and cultural, through the two can’t be divorced from each other. There is an interesting interview with Marlene Laruelle on Washington Profile which addresses the influence of Russian nationalist philosophy (Culturology) and how it has overtaken, but expresses a similar dogmatism to, Marxist-Leninism.
Well, when people talk of Russian Nationalists and Russian Fascism, reffering that to the actual neo-nazi groups in Russia is misguided in my opinion. For, the actual Russian Fascism is closer to the state. If you see, it is totalitarian and runs a typically fascism economic model (consolidation, protectionism, state capitalism).
Regarding on how the West views Russia, I think it is fairly permissive and passive with regards to the new Russian identity. Only fifty years ago was when Russia conquered a third of Europe and only fifteen years ago when the whole system fell. I also think it is a mistake to differentiate between the Communists and Putin (Capitalists) because they may differ in the internal way to run the country but their foreign policy stays pretty much the same from the 1930′s.
Certain things teach you to be certain of that things will happen, but you just don’t know when…
I have to agree with Alex on the Fascist State — Putin is creating an economy based on state (or junta) control of key sectors and trying to consolidate the society with a somewhat imperial rhetoric. However, this imperial fascism is emphatically non-Nazi, non-racial and non-ethnic. Ethnonationalist movements are more likely to represent grassroot concerns (such as immigrants crowding out locals) and, as all things grassroot, make Putin cringe.
The Weimar analogy is partly valid. There is one common component that goes unappreciated: a sense of national and ethnic humiliation.