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Nashi (Russian youth movement)

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File:Nashi logo.png
Nashi logo
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Nashi (Template:Lang-ru, Molodezhnoye dvizhyenye "Nashi" 'Youth Movement "Ours!"') is a government-funded youth movement in Russia. It positions itself as a democratic anti-fascist movement. Its creation was encouraged by senior figures in the Russian Presidential administration , and by late 2007, it grew in size to some 120,000 members aged between 17 and 25.

The organization is seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin's version of the Soviet Komsomol. Sergei Markov, a Kremlin adviser, stated in 2005 that Nashi " Russia to be a modern, strong and free country... their ideology is clear: it is modernization of the country and preservation of its sovereignty with that."

Foundation

The movement was officially announced by Vasily Yakemenko, (leader of the pro-Putin Walking Together youth movement) on 1 March 2005. The founding conference was carried out on 15 April 2005. It is believed that Nashi was established mainly as a reaction against Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004, in which youth-led street protests helped give the presidency to pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko.

Yakemenko claims to have constituted Nashi as a movement to demonstrate against what he saw as the growing power of Nazism in Russia and to take on skinheads in street fights if necessary. While officially, its funding comes from pro-government business owners, it is widely reported that the group also receives direct subsidies from the Kremlin.

Nashi's close ties with the Kremlin have been emphasised by Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff Vladislav Surkov, who has met the movement's activists on numerous occasions, delivering speeches and holding private talks. It has been speculated that the Kremlin's primary goal was to create a paramilitary force to harass and attack Putin's critics "enemies of the State". At one event for political education in summer 2006, the Kremlin advisor Gleb Pavlovskii told members of Nashi that they "lacked brutality": "you must be prepared", he went on, "to break up fascist demonstrations and prevent with force any attempt to overthrow the constitution".

The National Bolsheviks have accused Nashi of leading attacks on their members, including one in Moscow in August 2005. Liberal youth leader Ilya Yashin has also denounced Nashi as a cover for 'storm brigades' that will use violence against democratic organizations and claimed that their formation is only part of Putin's fear of losing power in a manner similar to the Orange Revolution of Ukraine. One young National Bolshevik, Roman Sadykhov, joined Nashi's sister organisation Rumol (Rus Molodaya, or Young Russia) in order to investigate its activities. He claimed that Rumol had formed a group of 'Ultras' to conduct street battles against members of the opposition. Their training included the construction of smoke bombs. He secretly taped meetings he had attended. At one of the meetings, senior Kremlin staffer Vladislav Surkov said that he found the training for street combat 'terrifically interesting'.

Beliefs and goals

Walking Together leader Vasilii Yakemenko said in 2005 that the goal of the new "anti-fascist" movement is to put an end to the "anti-Fatherland union of oligarchs, anti-Semites, Nazis, and liberals." Several Moscow-based newspapers suggested the goal of the group is actually a bit more specific: to eventually replace the party of power, Unified Russia. Not all of its goals are politically motivated however. Nashi organizes voluntary work in orphanages and old people's homes, and helps restore churches and war memorials. It also pickets shops accused of selling alcohol and cigarettes to minors, and campaigns against racial intolerance.

One of the movement's main goals is preventing the introduction of foreign control in Russia. Russian newspaper Moskovskii Komsomolets quoted Yakemenko as saying that "organizations in Russia are growing, on the basis of which the U.S. will create groups analogous to Serbia's Otpor, Georgia's Kmara, or Ukraine's Pora. These groups are Eduard Limonov's National Bolshevik Party and Avant Garde Red Youth." Yakemenko expressed his fears that Russia's fate may be similar to that of Ukraine which he considers to have become a "colony of the United States".

The movement cultivates an unorthodox interpretation of the term "fascism", including that the Russian liberal leftist party Yabloko is fascist. Nashi has been accused of recruiting skinheads and local hooligans to intimidate rival youth groups. Such activities caused Gavin Knight, an editor for the New Statesman, to draw the conclusion that "Nashi’s true function was as a personality cult for Putin whose job was intimidate, bully and harass his opponents."

A Nashi advertisement was described in a Time magazine article as "reminiscent of Soviet-era propaganda with its non sequitur acceleration of hysteria". The advertisement read: "Tomorrow there will be war in Iran. The day after tomorrow Russia will be governed externally!" The Boston Globe said that "movement's Brownshirt tactics certain evoke shades of Hitler Youth, as does the emphasis on physical fitness, clean living, and procreation for the Motherland". Some view the emergence of this and, more recently, other similar organisations, such as Young Guard and Locals, as one of the signs of Russia under Putin "sliding into fascism, with state control of the economy, media, politics and society becoming increasingly heavy-handed".

Notable events and incidents

On June 26 2005, with media present, President Vladimir Putin met with a group of Nashi members at his residence in Zavidovo, Tver Oblast. He expressed his support for the group, described as "awestruck" by his presence.

In August 2005 Putin officially invited Yulia Gorodnicheva (b. December 161985), an undergraduate student of Tula State University, one of the members of Nashi he had invited to the Zavidovo meeting, to become a member of the Public Chamber of Russia, but she refused to be selected by the President and on November 152005, entered the second part of the chamber as a representative of Nashi. There she became a member of the Commission on Social Development.

In 2006 members of Nashi conducted a campaign against the British ambassador in Moscow, Tony Brenton, as he attended an opposition conference called Another Russia on July 11-12. He attended along with Putin opposition leaders such as Eduard Limonov, leader of the National Bolsheviks. Unnamed British officials were reported to suspect that this campaign had been co-ordinated by elements within the Russian government as a punishment for the speech given by the ambassador.

In April and May 2007, Nashi members held daily protests in front of the Estonian embassy in Moscow in protest of the moving of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn to a military cemetery. In response, in early 2008 Estonia placed some Nashi members on a European Union-wide immigration blacklist.

On May 2 2007, they blocked the cars of both the Estonian and the Swedish ambassadors.

On July 24, 2007, Putin met with Nashi, Young Guard and Young Russia and attacked Great Britain over the Alexander Litvinenko affair, stating, "“They are making proposals to change our Constitution, which are insulting for our nation and our people...It’s their brains, not our Constitution, which need to be changed."

In December 2007 the movement was reported to be planning to send a select group of activists to study at British universities, arguably despite its disdain for Britain and its harassment of the British ambassador in Moscow. They said: "We lag behind in knowledge and experience vital for making Russia a 21st-century world leader. British education is rated highly all over the world. The graduates of British universities are in great demand. This is because of the high quality of education and also control from the government."


Other uses

In early 1990s, a different organization called Nashi carried an ultranationalist orientation and its members were called nashists, see "Nashism" article.

See also

References and notes

  1. Putin’s youth brigade targets Britain, by Mark Franchetti, The Sunday Times, September 2, 2007
  2. Michael Hammerschlag (July 5, 2007). "Putin's children". International Herald Tribune.
  3. Edward Lucas The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West , Palgrave Macmillan (February 19, 2008), ISBN 0230606121, page 79.
  4. Discussion of speech freedom at Russian Radio Freedom, April 19, 2005
  5. Pravda, link broken
  6. Preempting Politics In Russia. By Masha Lipman The Washington Post July 25, 2005.
  7. Putin's young 'brownshirts'. (First part) By Cathy Young The Boston Globe August 10, 2007.]
  8. The Kremlin has a new weapon in its war on real or imagined enemies, from opponents at home to foreign revolutionaries. By Owen Matthews and Anna Nemtsova Newsweek International May 28, 2007
  9. 'Putins Prügeltrupp', Focus, 2 April 2007, pp.172-4 (p.174)
  10. Batting a Thousand, Kommersant, 2005-08-13.
  11. Russian youth on political barricades by Leonid Ragozin, BBC News, 2005-03-03.
  12. ... как Кремль формирует боевые отряды из своих юных сторонников. New Times №46 Dec 24, 2007.
  13. 'Putins Prügeltrupp', p.172
  14. ^ Analysis: Walking With Putin y Julie A. Corwin, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2005-03-02.
  15. ^ The Kremlin's new commissars by Tim Whewell, BBC News.
  16. Perspicacity Online, link broken
  17. 170 тысяч* бойцов готовы к новой русской революции
  18. The alarming spread of fascism in Putin’s Russia. by Gavin Knight New Statesman 24 July 2007.
  19. A Tsar Is Born - TIME
  20. Putin's young 'brownshirts'. By Cathy Young The Boston Globe August 10, 2007.
  21. Sex for the motherland: Russian youths encouraged to procreate at camp. By Edward Lucas The Daily Mail 29th July 2007.
  22. Is Putin the bully leading Russia into fascism? by Michael Binyon The Times June 5, 2007.
  23. The alarming spread of fascism in Putin’s Russia. by Gavin Knight New Statesman 24 July 2007.
  24. Putin Plays Host to 56 Nashi Youth by Stephen Boykewich. The Moscow Times, #3217, July 272005.
  25. Nashi activist to become a member of the Public Chamber by Mikhail Vinogradov et al., Izvestia, August 302005 (in Russian).
  26. Городничева Юлия Михайловна
  27. Russian youths 'hound UK envoy', BBC News, December 82006.
  28. Russian regime is accused of intimidating British interests, The Times, 2006-12-09.
  29. Estonia closes Moscow consulate, citing security, RIA Novosti, April 28, 2007
  30. EU protests over Russian attacks on ambassadors. by Ian Traynor The Guardian May 3, 2007.
  31. Estonia Bans Travel for Kremlin Youth Group New York Times
  32. Putin Lashes Out at Nashi Gathering by David Nowak, The St. Petersburg Times, Issue #1292 (58), 2007-07-27.
  33. Putin's youth head to British universities. By Will Stewart telegraph.co.uk Dec 28, 2007.

External links

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