What awaits Russia after Putin? And with whom will we in Poland and in the West have to deal there? Answers to these questions can be found in the book Za Putina. Mroczny portret faszystowskich ruchów młodzieżowych w Rosji (For Putin: A Dark Portrait of Fascist Youth Movements in Russia). It is a translation from English of a book Z Generation. Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth by Dr. Ian Garner, a Canadian scholar of English origin, who currently lives and works in Warsaw at the Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidarity and Valor (Instytut Solidarności i Męstwa im. Witolda Pileckiego).
Ian Garner came to the Polish Radio studio to talk about his book and what he had seen in Russia.
Ian Garner: I have been studying Russia for 20 years now. I first began looking at Russia when I was a student at university. The particular topic we are going to talk about today — war, nationalism, and potentially the face of the next, youngest generation of Russians — really began to interest me about five years ago. The last time I was able to visit Russia as a researcher was in 2019, before the pandemic, before the war, and before the state banned me from returning to Russia. I noticed that many of the people I knew who worked in education — in universities and schools — were starting to tell me that life was becoming more patriotic. What the state was doing was not just asking them, but forcing them to incorporate more patriotic and more nationalistic material into their work and everyday lives. They began talking to me about paramilitary youth groups for children, such as Yunarmiya and Victory Volunteers. There are various groups like this that the state has been pouring millions of dollars into, and they have been springing up in schools and universities all over the country. To me, this seemed very different even from the kind of soft authoritarian Russia that I first visited 20 years ago, when it was clear that the country was not a full-fledged democracy but still could have had a different fate and a different future. Now the government, and Putin personally, have decided that they see the future in a very different way.
And if we compare, for example, the youth in Russia, Poland, and Canada, what do they have in common, and what sets them apart?
Ian Garner: In Canada, and indeed for young people in Poland as well, I would say there is one common feature they share with young Russians, and that is their addiction to and love of the smartphone. But there is a crucial difference. The Russian state, especially over the last five years — and in particular since the COVID pandemic, when it began experimenting with new digital forms of engaging young people — has really started to understand that the smartphone can be a tool through which it can spread propaganda and ideology 24/7 into young people’s lives. If you look back to the twentieth century, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes across Eastern Europe always faced a problem: people would go home, close their apartment doors, and talk more freely. In that moment, young people were cut off from the state. But now, of course, young people go home, go to their bedrooms, close the door, pull out their phone — and the state can reach them with constant messaging. The Russian state is doing this in increasingly sophisticated ways, using paid influencers, digital campaigns, and games, all designed to sell a vision of militarism, war, and participation in the state’s imperial projects.
The state of Russian society, and in particular its youth segment, you describe in your book with the word “fascism.” What does this fascism look like in reality?
Ian Garner: One of the clever things the regime in Russia has done is to realize that in the modern era it is possible to mobilize only parts of the nation for fascism, and that it is no longer necessary to mobilize everyone. If we think back to Nazi Germany, for example, the state very clearly attempted, at least in principle, to mobilize the entire ethnic population on behalf of fascism. Everyone was supposed to be involved. Today, however, the state, because it has modern communication methods — and in particular the internet — can target one part of the population with one reality and another part with a completely different reality. As a result, the state can create a situation in which, for some people, it appears that every Russian is a furious, war-loving fascist, ready to go out, fight, die in Ukraine, and commit genocide. At the same time, for other segments of the population — especially in wealthy cities, where people generally have less interest in waging war themselves — it is possible to create an apathetic, highly atomized, and fragmented society that can almost live as if there is no war, no fascism, and no authoritarianism at all.
In my conversation with you, I thought that a kind of special “tribe” is forming in Russia — the Putinoids. Is it fair to put it that way?
Ian Garner: That is an interesting term, and I have not heard it before, but I like it, because it kind of sounds like they are robots — as if they are brainwashed and unable to think for themselves. But the state actually does encourage people to think. It encourages them to think about the world, however, in very narrow and very black-and-white terms. These are terms that say: you are either with us or against us; you are a good Russian or a bad Russian; Russia is good, Russia is anti-fascist, and everything outside is equally bad and equally dangerous. As a result, young people who choose to participate in these projects, or who reject the state’s messages, are always making a conscious choice. They are not forced to do this in the sense that there is no direct violence inflicted on them by the state — at least inside Russia. In the occupied territories of Ukraine, of course, the situation is very, very different. Most Russians, at least for the time being, still have the option of remaining relatively apathetic and choosing not to take part, or of saying: I want power, I want money, I want privilege — so I say yes.
For Europe East Viktar Korbut