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Brainwashing 101: How state propaganda hijacked Russian education
“A new student joins your class — Stas. He likes to talk about politics and discuss what’s happening in society. He’s persuasive, considers himself part of the opposition, and thinks it’s cool to challenge public opinion. One day, Stas invites several classmates to join an unauthorized rally, promising it will be fun and exciting. He even says there’s a cash reward for taking part. Your friends ask you to come along. What decision will you make, and why?”
This is the script of one of the propaganda videos shown to students in Russian schools, colleges, and universities. The animated film presents only one “correct” response: to report the opposition-minded classmate to the police.
With the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian educational institutions began receiving hundreds of propaganda manuals from the authorities, says Pavel Talankin, a former social educator at a school in the Chelyabinsk region and co-author of the film Mr. Nobody vs. Putin, which explores the militarization of Russian education.
“The documents came down to us from all sorts of organizations — not just the Education and Enlightenment Ministries, but also the Distance Learning System, the Ministry of Social Relations, and [state youth development watchdog] Rosmolodezh,” Talankin recalls. “About 50 manuals a month. If some agency urgently needed to stage a patriotic event to meet its reporting quota, they made us organize it.”
According to the teacher, his school was one of the “lucky” few where new propaganda techniques were “tested.” Political lessons appeared there even before the nationwide rollout of “Conversations About Important Things.”
Schoolchildren are indeed vulnerable to propaganda, Talankin believes. He recalls a lesson for fourth graders titled “Hero of Today,” which he observed. A special manual had even been developed for the topic. At first, the teacher talked about people who help the elderly cross the street or love animals, but then abruptly switched to speaking about Putin — about his respect for nature and the older generation. At the end of the class, students were asked whom they considered a hero of Russia, and most named the president.