Personnel decides everything!

"United Russia" takes control of universities

For the student party. “Cadres decide everything,” the ideologists of the party in power repeated after their father and teacher and ... went to the people. More precisely, to the leading Russian universities, which United Russia decided to take under its control. There is a result - concluded The New Times
Evgeny Ivanov (name changed) entered the Faculty of World Politics (FMP) of Moscow State University in 2005. He assures that he entered himself, studying for a long time with tutors. At the same time, he admits: “You won’t get to the prestigious FMP from the street.” According to Yevgeny, students of the Faculty of International Politics are either the children of oligarchs, or “just thieves who go to the university in business suits from Armani, and many of them are listed as employees of state monopolies from the very first year.” Evgeny was offered an internship on the website of United Russia's friends, a social network called Berloga. But the student's practice did not work out. “I was warned that the main thing is to understand, “whose will you be?” And then they gave me the phone number of a man from Lubyanka, who was supposed to become my curator, - says Evgeny. “I never called him. I didn't want to campaign." As a result, he completed an internship at the Russian Socio-Political Center, where, according to him, he was engaged in "pure political science."

Dean-roof The dean of the FMP is Andrey Kokoshin, deputy chairman of the United Russia faction in the Duma. “Students treat the dean with respect, this is our roof,” Evgeny admits. Behind him like a stone wall. To fly out of the faculty, you need to have wings. According to him, for all four years of study at the faculty, no more than five people were expelled for poor progress, and then those who did not read books at all. “Personally, I first saw Kokoshin in my third year,” says Evgeny. - It was a lecture by journalist Vitaly Tretyakov "Politics and Politics: Norm and Deviation", I have never heard more frank propaganda, Dr. Goebbels would envy. My fellow students listened with interest, and many later reproached me for being a freethinker, since I disagree with many things. By the way, it was impossible to disagree out loud: a special person is constantly looking after the students, who sits at the faculty in a separate office without a sign, and no one even knows his name.

In 2007, Vitaly Tretyakov, in addition to giving lectures, was the editor-in-chief of the Moscow News weekly. A year later, he moved to his beloved Moscow State University "with suitcases" and started creating a new faculty - the Higher School of Television (HST).

Faculty for the State At the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University, which has been training television men for decades and has a special department of radio and television, little can be said about the Higher School of Television. “I don’t understand the structure of their curriculum. I know that the idea of ​​creating the Higher School of Television was born in the depths of Channel One and the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company,” Professor Elena Vartanova, Dean of the Faculty of Journalism, said in an interview with The New Times. Ernest Mackevicius, a host of the Rossiya TV channel who teaches at HSE, says he tells students about what he knows: about interviews, reporting, talk shows ... Mackevicius believes that the faculty’s close ties with television bosses of state channels will help students try themselves "in field". “I myself graduated from the faculty of journalism and I know that you can get an internship at Vesti or Channel One only through an acquaintance. But the Higher School of Television provides such an opportunity. In Vesti, we even have an order from the authorities so that the interns are not offended, ”Mackevicius laughs.

The school's website states that "in 2009 HST plans to significantly increase student enrollment." Faculty Dean Vitaly Tretyakov refused to talk to The New Times about this and other topics: “I'm not sure that even the most harmless answers will be correctly interpreted. I will not make any comparisons with journalism. I can’t scold - corporate ethics, we are in the same Moscow State University. Praise too - we are fighting for some applicants.

Included in the reserve The emergence in 2008 of the faculty for the "correct" journalists almost no one was surprised: the struggle for control over Russian universities, the party "United Russia" began much earlier. Most of the rectors of the country's leading universities, including the rector of Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy, are now members of the United Russia party. And the rector of the Samara Medical University, Gennady Kotelnikov, a member of the General Council of United Russia, was even entrusted in the fall of 2007 to ask Vladimir Putin to head the party's election list, and then, if possible, the government. “This will also provide an additional resource for the victory of the United Russia party, for obtaining the required number of votes in the State Duma, and therefore for managing the political situation in the country,” the rector reasoned.

In the same Moscow State University, two years ago, after the division of the Faculty of Philosophy, the Faculty of Political Science appeared. Then the news that the Board of Trustees of the faculty will be headed by the chairman of the State Duma and the chairman of the Supreme Council of United Russia, Boris Gryzlov, caused a great resonance.

Participation of "United Russia" is necessary, assured Andrey Shutov, the dean of the new faculty. Then rector Sadovnichiy spoke out against this appointment, but already in March 2009 he suggested to Gryzlov that graduates of the faculty be included in the Personnel Reserve program of United Russia. Gryzlov took the idea with a bang, saying that such people should be "registered so that the lists of such graduates are in the United Russia party." “We believe that our youth should be involved in political life in such a way that it is not young people who rush into this sphere, but that we help young people, prepared youth, to enter power structures. If we do not move young people into power, in the near future we simply will not have a personnel reserve, ”Gryzlov believes.

One Moscow State University, however, the activity of "United Russia" is not limited. In September last year, the new rector of the Russian Academy of Economics. G.V. Plekhanov became a member of the Presidium of the General Council of United Russia, the former head of the State Duma Committee on Regional Policy Viktor Grishin. A State Duma deputy from A Just Russia, former governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Valery Zubov, also applied for this position, but at the last moment he was not allowed to participate in the elections by the attestation commission of the Ministry of Education and Science.

Such attestation commissions are an innovation that appeared through the efforts of the same United Russia. In 2006, the State Duma adopted amendments to the Law on Higher and Postgraduate Education, regulating the procedure for electing rectors. If before the adoption of the amendments the academic council was involved in the election and nomination of candidates, then since 2006 candidates for the post of rector have been approved by the attestation commission. 50% of such a commission consists of federal or regional officials (depending on the status of the university), and another 50% are "representatives of public and state-public associations."

Regional dependence Valery Fadeev, director of the Institute for Public Design, co-chairman of the political club "November 4" at United Russia, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Expert" believes that there is no party school in Russia. “There are such examples in the USA. The School of Political Science at Harvard has always been run by Democratic leaders. And one of the tasks is to train future deputies of the US Congress. This is a real party school,” says Valery Fadeev. In fact, there is no "school of political science" at Harvard University. There is the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Its current dean, Professor David Elwood, did work for the US Department of Health during Democratic President Clinton's first term in charge of health insurance reform. But he came to government from Harvard University, where he defended his doctoral dissertation in economics back in 1981, and then taught for 14 years, and is considered one of the largest experts on poverty. However, these are details that a member of the Public Chamber and the director of the Institute for Public Design are absolutely not obliged to know about.

According to political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin, an ideological line is clearly traced in higher education. “The new elite class is interested in the preservation of the current political system, so every year the influence on higher education increases,” Oreshkin said. “But they didn’t take into account one thing: when students have been hammered in for five years that white is black and vice versa, then thinking young people begin to ask questions, to doubt. The current situation is reminiscent of the times of the USSR, but even then many talented and honest political scientists, journalists, and historians grew up. All famous people also joined the CPSU, they understood that if you want to grow further, it’s easier for you to do this with a party card in your pocket.

Mark Urnov, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Political Science at the Higher School of Economics, argues that the HSE managed to avoid party patronage: “We have a wide variety of trends represented at the HSE, the professorship is very different, there are supporters of United Russia, there are liberals, there are non-liberals. Here is my deputy (Professor Leonid Polyakov, co-author of the social science textbook for the 11th grade "Global Peace in the 21st Century" - The New Times), for example, a supporter of United Russia. Choose what you like. It is not our business to interfere in the system of students' political choice."

But the system itself has long been "stuck". The governing structures of United Russia now include more than 90 rectors of higher educational institutions, according to the party's website, but it is not specified which universities are meant. The New Times conducted its own analysis and found that in 41 regions of the country the rectors of the largest universities are somehow connected with United Russia, in 40 regions the heads of the largest educational institutions are not engaged by the ruling party. As they say, there is room for party work.

career if you support the main party in the country United Russia Young Guard activist and student at the State University of Management told The New Times how you can make a began in the 10th grade, when I was sent from school to the council, to an organization called the Youth Council of the District. There I began to show my activity, a month later, as I really wanted to, I became the head of this council. He lit up, a deputy of the municipal assembly saw me: “Well done, Lesha, organized the youth ...” He called me to the “Young Guard of United Russia”. Six months later, he became deputy chief of staff of the MGER, and there were already more responsibilities: plans, reports ... Then he became the head.

I became a cool, well-known person in the area, I was a member of the council, and the municipality, and the prefecture, and I began to ride in the Moscow City Duma. I also became an assistant to a deputy of the Moscow City Duma, and she says to me: “Alexey, don’t you want to connect your fate with politics, with state power?” I agreed. For a month I helped her, she gave advice, set me on the right path, and promoted me. A couple of months later, in our district, a position of deputy head of the executive committee became vacant, and on January 1, 2009, I already took this position.

We are holding events. A lot of paperwork: how many guys do you plan to accept in the EP. They can call at night and say: “Tomorrow we are organizing a rally near the Georgian embassy, ​​you call 500 party members who live in your area during the night, collect flags and move to the embassy.” Cool activities. My official salary is only 8 thousand rubles. But for each event you draw up an estimate: 10 thousand according to the estimate, you buy everything for 5 thousand, you keep 5 thousand for yourself. There is no other way to make money in our country.

At the university, sometimes I campaign. But there are few young people who are ready to work on a voluntary basis. Everyone wants to get money for every action, some other reward. In my submission are 11-graders and students of I-II courses. Now I understand much more about politics and I feel that what the teachers at the State University of Management, where I study, are telling us, is very consonant with what I understood during my work in United Russia...