Children, go ahead!

The other day, about a hundred activists from the youth organizations of the United Russia and A Just Russia parties - the Young Guard and Ura movements - started a fight near the United Russia office. Rally against counter-rally, word for word, wall to wall, and it was necessary to separate the fighters with the help of a water cannon. As a result of the political battle, there are injuries, there are also burnt enemy flags, and there are no detainees. The older comrades promised to look into it, and A Just Russia noted that “this is just the beginning.” All kinds of actions by politicized youth are beginning to resemble more and more the skirmishes of football fans. The culture is the same: a war of chants, banners, then fights. This time too, at first there was shouting: “United Russia” is the party of goats!” the activists of the “Hurray” movement screamed; in response they received: “Hurray” - go to hell!” Then a mandatory, fashionable attribute of such events took place - a performance: young people in medical bandages suddenly appeared and threw eggs at the protesters. According to eyewitnesses, no one understood where the provocateurs came from and where they disappeared, as a fight immediately broke out. What the reasonable man in the street has long feared has happened - for the first time, “official” (and not marginal) youth political groups came together in hand-to-hand combat. Perhaps this was a precedent that could well be followed by a chain reaction. They most often react literally to the eloquent words of their curators. Adult politicians chat, shake the air in polemics with each other, then drink cognac or whiskey together on the sidelines, talk peacefully, tell stories and gossip about their colleagues. And the young people listen, and then wave their fists, spray gas, block cars, seize buildings...

We are told that there is nothing wrong with this - the teenagers have warmed up. After all, realists once fought with high school students, and nothing happened. Yes, they fought, but there were no adults looming behind them. It was a different tradition.

...Sometime in the early 80s, when I worked as a history teacher at school, a KGB officer regretfully told me that children today are apolitical. I was ready to agree with him and also complain about this. There was a kind of sleepiness in the apoliticality. It seemed to me that this reflected the growing indifference of schoolchildren to humanities in general. Then the era of perestroika came, and young people began to take an active interest in at least the modern history of the country. It seemed that this was waking up. And it was those who woke up who came to the White House on August 19-20, 1991. My students were there too... Then the time came to gain freedom and earn money. And we were even glad that our children were apolitical again, because this was no longer due to indifference and hopelessness, but, as it were, on the contrary - from a feeling of advancing stability and opening prospects. “I’m not interested in politics,” it even sounded intellectually and aesthetically condescending. And optimistically, because “freedom is when you forget the tyrant’s middle name”...

Times have changed again, and children are again called into politics. For some of them it became accessible entertainment, for others it seemed like a lively activity, for others they missed mass communication, for others, perhaps, they decided to earn extra money.

Every year on June 1, Children's Day, loud voices are heard demanding to protect them from the so-called corrupting influence of the West with its corrupting mass culture, calling to fight against children's drug addiction, orphanhood, domestic violence, etc. And we are accustomed to the fact that the street, the Internet and television are the main risk areas for children. Now, with some justification, we can add specific socio-political activities to them. Therefore, it becomes urgent to protect young people from the equally harmful influence of unscrupulous politicians - both from commissars “in dusty helmets” and from commissars in expensive suits.

They are put ahead of themselves, exploiting age-related looseness, increased aggressiveness, decreased sensitivity and lack of understanding of real consequences. Doing your adult gesheft behind their backs. And when they commit clearly illegal acts, risking their health and freedom, they are told that they are undergoing a rite of personal and political initiation. They are attracted to participate in the affairs of those who are not really going to take part in their destiny.

They were picked up on the street and thrown there.

Anatoly Bershtein