That old-time propaganda with a new, modern twist

Sean blogs about recent youth-politics events in Russia and discusses a recent Nashi-sponsored event in Moscow called "Связной Президента" ("Connecting with the President" as Sean translated it, or "President's Liaison Officer" as ITAR-TASS translated it in their report).

Last week I saw a post on the LJ community ADVЁRTKA (devoted to images of and commentary on various ads - which I found via Vilhelm Konnander's blog - thanks, Vilhelm!) asking if anyone knew what a sticker-based guerrilla marketing campaign (techniques now as familiar in Moscow as in Western capitals - ah, globalization...) with the words "Связной Президента" was selling. Commenters speculated that it might be an upcoming film or book (well, one jaded commenter just said, "the font is shit. and by now I could spit on whatever they're PR-ing.").

But now we know what was actually being promoted - another Nashi PR-aktsiia. Even more interesting was a link posted in the comments of that ADVЁRTKA post, to a site where someone has posted the official event brochure with the following comments (I've translated the poster's comments and added links):

An event ["акция"] organized by the youth movement "Nashi" and involving thousands of people will take place on March 24-25 in Moscow. 10,000 [Nashi] comissars will gather in Moscow, living for two days in tent village on Sakharov Pr-t (this is practically a shortened 2007 version of Seliger). On the 25th they will all be walking around the city and offering passers-by to send an SMS to Vladimir Vladimirovich's mobile (strangely, during the last "direct line" broadcast with the President he said that he doesn't use a mobile phone) and receive an answer.

Just as they did before the event ["акция"] with the Santa Clauses, Nashi's print-shop has published a bright, colorful brochure for the commisars, explaining the crux of the event and the consistency of its participants' actions.

I wonder how much Sviaznoi [the chain of mobile phone stores] dropped on this... what great advertising!

The juiciest page of the brochure to me was this one (click to enlarge):



The money bags are labeled "To our friend Limonov," "To Kas'yanov," and "To Mr. Belykh." Soviet propaganda art techniques meet modern liberal-bashing! Actually, I think I've seen things like this before in Zavtra. What is new here is not just that from 1991 and up until a couple of years ago such imagery could be seen only in venues like Zavtra and maybe in the imagination of Vladimir Vol'fovich; it's also of great interest that while the cartoon bone is being thrown - predictably - to Khakamada, the dollar bill is labeled "Rogozin"! Rogozin's fall from official grace is old news, of course, but to suggest he's on on the take from Western sources given his politics...? I guess to Nashi's youth vanguard - and their actual, slightly older, comissars - they are all the same: irrelevant meddlers in the country's pursuit of the course set by Putin.

The brochure also makes the statement that "in another eight years, food will be rationed in the US and distributed only on holidays" and suggests that the upcoming Russian elections are recognized in the US as "the last chance to establish external rule in Russia." The US, of course, wants to do this in order to "sponge off our [Russia's] resources."

The whole brochure - exhorting "Nashisty" from the regions to come to Moscow and take part in this event - plays on some sick blend of provincial desire to visit Moscow and take part in a mass event; technophilia (with all the cell phone action); patriotism (not that there's anything wrong with that, per se); and anti-Americanism (that's the part I have the biggest problem with). It even manages to revert to the favorite Soviet move of referring back to World War II as relevant for contemporary discourse (without wanting to dishonor the memory of WWII and the blockade, in 1980's Leningrad WWII was more often used as an excuse for why this or that building was still "na remont" or why so many people downtown still lived in communal apartments).

Unlike some other bloggers, I don't use the term "Soviet" lightly. But this brochure, well, how can I put it? To paraphrase Pushkin, "Здесь советский дух - здесь совком пахнет!"

[Update: a paraphrase more true to the original meter from "Ruslan & Liudmila" occurred to me: "Совковый дух - совком здесь пахнет!" And check out this great electronic concordance of Pushkin's works.]

An addendum on translation - Multitran offers several translations of "sviaznoi": contact, orderly, messenger, communication agent, runner, go-between, and liaison officer (TASS chose its term of translation well, although I like "Connecting with the President" also). Sviaznoi is a mildly linguistically interesting word in that it's an adjectival form used as a noun.

The idea of using Nashi partisans as electronic "go-betweens" to/from the President (the passers-by receive special SIM-cards which will also be able to receive "all essential information about the movement's activities," per this description of the event) is an intriguing modern take on the Soviet idea of a loyal vanguard, though it's supposedly an exercise in "modern democracy" ("sovremennaia demokratiia").