What Some Call the Opposition is Really Russia’s Updated Version of Britain's ‘Angry Young Men' of the 1950s, Travin Says

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 29 – The term “angry young men” which was first applied to intellectuals in the United Kingdom in the 1950s who had become disillusioned with British society helps to explain what is going on among Russians who don’t like the direction that Vladimir Putin is taking the country, according to Dmitry Travin.

            The Russian scholar says that in Russia today there is no real opportunity to struggle for power, those who are typically called the opposition are in fact angry young men and women who aren’t happy about the direction the country is going and “only show their position be the few available means” (rosbalt.ru/news/2025-05-29/dmitriy-travin-serditye-molodye-lyudi-vmesto-oppozitsii-5401931).

            They can set the tone for a larger group, but like their namesake of half a century ago, such people are not really an opposition because they are not struggling for power but rather only seeking to express how they feel and how they feel others who think as they do should feel as well.

            “Politics,” Travin says, “is in one way or another always a struggle for power. Culture in contrast is connected with an expression of acceptance or non-acceptance of the social system. If the system is firm, disputing power inside it is impossible, but one can one way or another demonstrate one’s position.”

            This unfortunate reality must be recognized, he continues. Otherwise, the angry young men and women in Russia today, however much they want to be taken for an opposition, will in fact prove to be something else entirely – and much less threatening to the powers that be than they and others would like.