Kremlin revives Soviet-style youth indoctrination amidst Ukraine war

The Kremlin has decided to maximise ideological propaganda among children and youth in a Soviet-style manner, for the first time openly including participation in the war with Ukraine and the West on the list of values instilled from childhood, reports The Moscow Times. "We need warriors, shooters, and attackers," says one of the Kremlin officials.

The draft law "On Systematising the Sphere of Youth Policy," which has been sent to the State Duma on behalf of all five factions, aims to "shape among young people the readiness to fulfil the constitutional duty to protect the Motherland."

"We need warriors, shooters, and attackers. Those who will run to the military registration and enlistment office at the first call of the president, and not towards Upper Lars," explained a Kremlin official in an interview with The Moscow Times.

Upper Lars is a checkpoint on the border of Russia and Georgia, through which Russians left the country in the autumn of 2022 after the announcement of "partial mobilisation."

"The jokes are over. Our homeland is in danger, threatened by the West, the USA. We no longer need hipsters, rappers, lovers of Western culture, and other non-binary people," added the official.

The Kremlin had recognised the fight for young people's minds as one of the main directions of internal policy since 2000 when Vladimir Putin first became president. Money from the central budget was regularly allocated to numerous projects and youth movements under the patronage of Kremlin ideologues—initially Vladislav Surkov, later Vyacheslav Volodin, and currently Sergey Kiriyenko.

However, as shown by the massive protests in 2011-2012 and the particularly strong support among youths for Putin's main opponent Alexei Navalny on the eve of the 2018 presidential elections, the regime has not managed to win over young people.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Russian authorities have been more enthusiastic about youth policy. Just three months after the invasion, in May 2022, on Putin's initiative, the "First Movement" was founded, reminiscent of Soviet pioneers. Since autumn 2022, weekly solemn formations with the national flag and the anthem have been introduced in schools.

"Now the presidential administration is simply dusting off old practices and literally studying and adopting methodological recommendations that were used during Stalin's times and later," a source close to the Kremlin tells the portal. "There is no sense in reinventing the wheel when we are dealing with an example right before our eyes: the 1930s and the years of the Great Patriotic War. We take the practices of our fathers and grandfathers and prepare the younger generation," added the source.

To maximally systematise and unify the large number of initiatives in the field of ideological indoctrination of citizens from early childhood – kindergartens, followed by schools and higher education, the Kremlin intends to seriously strengthen the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh).

Russian media report that the department's funding will be significantly increased, and a new head will be appointed next year. Although the Russian constitution stated that "no ideology can be established as state or mandatory" after the collapse of the USSR, in practice, Rosmolodezh will become a state branch promoting state ideology. So far, Putin has declaratively rejected proposals to return state ideology to the text of the Constitution, calling "patriotism" the only possible ideology of contemporary Russia.