Protect The Children – How The State In Russia Monopolizes Knowledge

"All I have sought is to be of service to the state. We do not need smart people. We need loyal ones."

– Hard To Be A God by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

It is hard to imagine that a maturing dictatorship would refrain from influencing minds. Yes, we are no longer dealing with mere authoritarianism but a full-blown totalitarian regime – and it is no longer enough for it to simply steal. It demands our admiration, unquestioning and, above all, sincere submission. As Orwell put it: He truly loved Big Brother.

Elvira Vikhareva

"A World Where The State Assumes It Can Monopolize Knowledge"

It makes sense, then, that this submission is instilled in minds from an early age. What existed in the USSR and was temporarily interrupted during the early years of post-Soviet Russia has now returned in full force: schools have become factories forging nails to seal the coffin of Russia's future. Let us start with the revival of the pioneers. Although they are called something else now – "The Movement of the First"[1] – the continuity is undeniable.

A pioneer is still the first and always ready. Layered onto this is its military wing – the "Young Army."[2] Children in military uniforms march in formation and disassemble and reassemble rifles for speed. Naturally, this is all accompanied by massive efforts to brainwash young minds.

Lessons, extracurricular activities, manuals, excursions – all meticulously designed. The Putin regime has long and successfully worked on shaping young minds so they emerge uniformly square. By 2029, there will be no variation in school textbooks – they will be standardized nationwide. It will not matter where you live or what your priorities are; everyone will study the same content on the same day. For now, this has been implemented for Putin's favorite subject – history, falsified as much as possible by his former minister of culture, Vladimir Medinsky.

Give it five years, and everything will be standardized. This mimics Soviet practices, where a student could turn on the TV and find material aligned with that day's lessons. Convenient – for a world without the internet. A world where the state assumes it can monopolize knowledge. Much has already been done to achieve this.

YouTube is slowed, major social networks (except Telegram) are blocked, numerous websites are banned, and most significantly, a censored clone of Wikipedia – "RuWiki" – has been created. The original encyclopedia awaits prohibition, with its non-anonymous administrators harassed and labeled foreign agents. Thus, the brainwashing system is already up and running successfully. But this is only part of the problem – the issue is much larger.

Schoolchildren in the Russian city of Tver joined the Russian movement "Movement of the First." (Source: Tvernews.ru, January 26, 2023)

On May 28, 2020, the Russian "Young Army" movement celebrated its fourth anniversary. (Source: Hour24.ru, May 28, 2020)

"State-Mandated Patriotism"

Schools have introduced the infamous "Conversations About Important Things" weekly class hours during which teachers nationwide must preach state ideology.[3] Although formally banned, this ideology is expressed through these lessons, with their state-mandated patriotism, reverence for authority, approval of conquests – a full suite of soul-crushing propaganda. Sadly, many teachers mindlessly follow federal guidelines. Deviate from the script, and they risk denunciation by students or their parents.

The ideology is accompanied by rituals. Mornings begin with the national anthem, and weeks start with flag-raising ceremonies at schools. The anthem, of course, is Soviet, written under Stalin and reproduced with minor changes by Putin's regime. From children, no civic stance is expected. All that is required is to stand at attention, blending into the crowd that will later, upon graduation, be sent to fight "for the Motherland, for Putin." And to think it all began so innocently.

First, they reintroduced school uniforms, erasing the wild 1990s. Gradually, schools were squeezed into a metaphorical uniform: experimental elective courses were eliminated, paperwork increased, children were placed under control through electronic diaries and official state school messengers – the so-called "Sferum." Seemingly harmless changes combined to create an extremely dangerous system. In this framework, the subject "Basics of Life Safety" (OBZh)[4] was strengthened – essentially initial military training disguised under a different name. Religious education was introduced into schools (though one could opt for secular culture, under the wary gaze of the teaching staff).

A "Conversation about important things" dedicated to the "Defender of the Fatherland Day" was held in Murmansk on February 27, 2023. (Source: Rgo.ru)

The third issue in 2022 of the magazine "Basics of Life Safety." (Source: Natlibraryrm.ru)

"Basics of Life Safety" is a monthly methodological journal of the Russian Emergencies Ministry for teachers of "Basics of Life Safety" in secondary and higher educational institutions. (Source: Milportal.ru)

"We Do Not Need Smart People – We Need Loyal Ones"

This brainwashing, as I have said before, proceeded slowly but surely. In the last 20 years, there has been no easing, no steps toward creative freedom. Every state action only tightened the screws, leading to mindlessness. Physical education hours increased (naturally, at the expense of other subjects), oversight from higher authorities intensified, and schools were consolidated, rendering teachers powerless and faceless before distant administrations. The stifling pressure of the state also extended beyond academics. Consider the age markings on books, where bureaucrats, not children or their parents, decide what can be read at a given age. The "18+" label, far from being a recommendation, has become a command, an order. At the same time, joining the army at 18 is unquestioned. To this end, university admission rules were significantly tightened, with continued rhetoric that fewer people should pursue higher education, and more should opt for vocational or technical training.

The reasoning is clear: "We do not need smart people. We need loyal ones." as noted in the Strugatsky brothers' famous novel Hard to Be a God.[5] And so here we are, at a point where students are sent from the classroom to the front lines, where critical thinking is scorned and replaced with blind faith in Putin – a man under whose rule many Russians have been born and died in southeastern Ukraine. Dismantling this system will be difficult: education and upbringing have been systematically and deliberately broken, and the consequences of such "enlightenment" will plague us for decades to come.

*Elvira Vikhareva is a renowned Russian opposition politician based in Russia. In 2023, she was poisoned with heavy metal salts.