Re
:
is Cold War ended?
Young Russians’ About-Face From the West
When the Berlin Wall fell, young Russians clamored for all things Western. Now they rail against anything that is.
By
Owen Matthews and
Anna Nemtsova | Newsweek
When the Berlin Wall collapsed, most young, educated Russians aspired
to what could broadly be described as Western values: democracy, free
speech, anti-imperialism.
...
What a difference a few years make. ... thanks to a decade of anti-Western fervor propagated by the
Kremlin, a new generation is growing up strikingly out of sync with the
West.
...
"The generation who grew up in the Putin era have a completely
different mentality. Modern pro-Kremlin youth groups are so well fed by
the state that they've grown faithful as tame dogs." The result is a
generation that not only buys into the Kremlin's world view, but is
also deeply distrustful of anybody who thinks differently.
Denis Volkov, of the Moscow Levada Center, has studied the attitudes of
Russia's youth toward the West and its values and uncovered a scary
picture. Over the past decade, numbers have been falling. A poll last
month showed that 40 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have a "negative"
attitude towards the U.S., not far behind those over 55, a Soviet-era
generation that has long been steeped in anti-Western propaganda. And
in a kind of demented historical throwback, Stalin is once again in
favor.
...
The rollback of pro-Western attitudes is largely a direct result of a
concerted state policy aimed at shaping the hearts and minds of Russian
youth, led by Putin and executed by his chief ideologist, Vladislav
Surkov.
...
Surkov and other top Kremlin ideologues quickly ordered a slew of
anti-Western television propaganda casting George W. Bush's campaign to
spread democracy in the Middle East as an attack on Russia.
...
"Putin's television anti-Western propaganda
has done its dirty business," says Lipman. "Young Russians are cynical
people who believe that Russia is surrounded with enemies, that the
West does not want Russia to grow stronger."
...
Russia's dwindling number of Boris Yeltsin-era liberals find such
attitudes scarily reminiscent of Soviet-era groupthink. A recent
campaign mounted by Nashi activists in Moscow against a dissident
journalist likewise shows that the Kremlin-backed youth groups are
growing more powerful than ever, and that they're repeating the kind of
harassment of independent thinkers common in the 1970s.
...
"Moscow's politics is now concentrated on finding the most talented
young people in the regions who will be able to save Russia from
economic crises," says Evgeny Nizhnik, 31, a charismatic youth leader
who has been involved in youth politics since 1991. "Chaos, cheap
drugs, alcoholism, and racism were the result of unlimited democracy in
the 1990s. Russian youth needs a strong grip in order not to get lost
in chaos." Of course, another side effect of that strong grip is to
prevent dangerously independent thoughts that could challenge the
Kremlin's hold on power. It's a sad outcome for those who hoped to see
a young generation use the new freedoms won after the fall of the
Berlin Wall to embrace liberal values.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/221210/page/2
