Nashi (youth Movement) - Criticism

Criticism

According to Edward Lucas, author of The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West, Nashi is seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin's version of the Soviet Komsomol.

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." The movement has evoked comparisons with the Hitler Youth in the mainstream media to the extent that Nashi, together with other pro-Putin youth organizations, were derogatively nicknamed Putinjugend.

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".

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'.

Nashi has been accused of being a group of "football hooligans and racist skinheads" preaching hostility of certain races traditionally targeted by Russian nationalists- such as Chechens, Georgians, Armenians, Azeris, Circassians, Uzbeks, Jews, Poles, etc.

British journalists Peter Oborne and James Jones examined the activity of Nashi in a documentary produced for Channel 4's foreign affairs series Unreported World. They described it as a movement originally created to prevent the emergence of a colour revolution-style movement in Russia. They claimed that some members of Nashi are explicitly racist, and met with Russian journalist Oleg Kashin, who alleged that Nashi members were most likely responsible for a severe beating he received in late 2010 after writing an article critical of a business associate of Vladimir Putin. Kashin was beaten with iron bars, and was in a coma for three days due to the assault, in which he received two broken legs and a broken jaw, as well as a severed finger. Oborne and Jones accused Nashi of fostering a cult of personality around Putin, redolent of historical leaders such as Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Joseph Stalin.