You probably didn’t know that Putin Youth was a thing. But it is: it’s a satirical name for the Yunarmiya, the deadly serious All-Russia "Young Army" National Military Patriotic Social Movement Association. Founded two years ago, Yunarmiya already has more than 250,000 members and it is growing rapidly. Its young members are given military training in which they use Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons and conduct parachute jumps.
When Yunarmiya was formed, one Russian website published a complaint that it was “plagiarizing Hitler Youth”. This complaint was quickly removed, as you’re not supposed to draw that analogy in Russia.
Although under the radar of most Westerners, Yunarmiya did make the news a couple of weeks ago when Colonel-General Andrei Kartapolov, a veteran leader of Russia’s brutal campaign in Syria, was tapped by Putin to lead a new political wing of the Russian Army. The new directorate’s goal will be to shape the “political and moral unity within the army”, much as political commissars did in the good old days of the Soviet Union. And Kartapolov will not only head the new directorate of quasi-commissars; he will also be responsible for the activities of the Yunarmiya youth group.
The new directorate’s role is not clearly spelled out. Vladimir Scherbakov, a military specialist at the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper, said:
In the Soviet era, the directorate in practice worked in the interests of the Communist Party’s central committee. It’s not completely clear what military-political work the resurrected directorate will do and more importantly in the interests of which political party.
This last part is key. Although Putin is officially an independent, in practice he is associated with United Russia, the dominant party in Russia. United Russia has no coherent political ideology, other than to preserve and protect Putin’s power. (Sounds a bit like what our Republican Party is evolving to, no?) So, if the Russian Army is creating an organization of political commissars, the only real politics in town will be “follow the dear leader Putin” politics.
Keep all this in mind the next time you hear Republicans praise Putin. These Republicans are not just being nice. They’re looking at a role model. And Yunarmiya and military commissars are what their role model is doing.