Translated material
Like adults
"A Just Russia" decided to acquire a youth organization
The A Just Russia party intends to create its own youth organization in the near future. Its ranks should include 30 thousand people from several youth movements: the youth union “For the Motherland” (the youth wing of the Rodina party), the Energy of Life movement (the youth wing of the Party of Life), the small youth organization of the Pensioners Party and the League movement Justice", which is headed by the former commissioner of the Nashi movement Dmitry Pakka.The leader of the Youth Union "For the Motherland" Sergei Shargunov told a Vremya Novostei correspondent that today he should discuss the format of the unification at a meeting with the chairman of the A Just Russia party, Speaker of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov. “We will begin to unite immediately after the regional elections in March and plan to complete this process by the end of August,” Mr. Shargunov said. - At the end of summer we will hold our joint congress. This is where the federal election campaign will begin.” As for the name of the future organization, this question remains open. However, Sergei Shargunov expressed the wish that the word “justice” be present in the title. “For example, a youth organization could be called “A Just Cause,” the politician said.
Like the process of uniting “adult” parties into “A Just Russia,” the creation of the youth wing of the united party is not going too smoothly. Despite the fact that Sergei Shargunov and the chairman of the “Energy of Life” movement (the youth wing of the Party of Life) Yuri Lopusov declared their intention to unite last summer - before the official unification of their senior comrades, and even sealed their union with blood, symbolically acting as donors for sick children , they had serious disagreements regarding the choice of methods of political struggle. The public young politician Shargunov gravitated towards street protest, while the apparatchik Lopusov argued that the interests of unprotected layers of citizens should be defended at the legislative level. At the same time, Lopusov was closer to Sergei Mironov, which made his position stronger. But Shargunov did not give up trying to prove to the leader of A Just Russia that he was right. The confrontation resulted in a battle of compromising materials on the Internet.
One of the main targets of the war of incriminating evidence was Dmitry Pakka, an associate of Shargunov, whose incriminating photographs and stories about his expulsion from Nashi for “not conforming to the image of a commissar” were distributed across a number of Internet sites.
However, now, apparently, the parties have reached parity. At least Sergei Shargunov, in a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, asserted that he does not claim sole leadership in the new organization, but is a supporter of the institution of co-chairs.
Any more or less reputable party considers it its duty to acquire a youth organization. For some, “Komsomol” exists in reality, for others it is purely nominal. In this case, several party functionaries, in order to portray the effect of presence, urgently round up a crowd of teenagers for a small fee, who are dressed up in party symbols. Most often, youth organizations are used to picket events of political opponents.
Among the opposition youth organizations, the most active are the National Bolsheviks, as well as young activists of Yabloko and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Pro-Kremlin youth organizations are primarily the “Young Guard” (the youth wing of “United Russia”), “Young Russia” and the “Nashi” movement.