Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 2 – Russians are ironically
calling “the Network,” as the Kremlin’s new youth movement is officially known,
“Putin’s Witnesses” because its members are so ideologically committed and go
from house to house to spread their ideas about the need for complete loyalty
to Vladimir Putin and his regime.
The group in the process of
organization for almost a year gained new prominence last week when various
commentators suggested that it should respond to an open letter from Ukrainian
students calling a more honest discussion of Russian-Ukrainian relations (rusjev.net/2015/02/02/kreml-aktivno-razvivaet-sektu-svideteley-putina-ispolzuya-programmirovanie-psihiki/).
The Russky Yevrey (“Russian Jew”)
site points out that details about “the Network” are hard to find because its
adepts say that information about it is “closed.” When asked about themselves, the Putin’s
Witnesses typically say that “this is a global state project,” and Kremlin
officials acknowledge that it is being formed on the Kremlin’s orders.
Some additional information about
the new group/sect can be found at set-info.ru
and http://проектсеть.рф/ and in the course of a
discussion of the “Putin alphabet” that the Network has been promoting in
schools in which pupils learn their letters by linking them to Putin-approved
themes (echo.msk.ru/blog/expertmus/1317016-echo/).
According to Russky Yevrey, “the new
project of pro-Putin youth, which has the name Network shows all the signs of
an organized sect: Putin is called “Father,” participants in the movement are
called “the family,” and the organizers undergo “collective psychological
training” in order to better guide their followers.
That’s why, the site continues, many
Russians view the Network less as a political group than a religious sect and
informally call it “Putin’s Witnesses” – a label that can’t please Kremlin
political technologists given the official hostility to sects in general and
the Jehovah’s Witnesses in particular.
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