Educating Igor.

EDUCATING IGOR 

KOMSOMOL, the youth wing of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, had lost three million members since 1985. On January 24, 1988, Pravda complained of a growing interest among young people in "abstract pacifism." Senior Soviet military officials writing in Red Star (May 7, 1987) are nervous about the increasing influence of Western music, styles, and fads, leading some young people to "parasitic dispositions." Igor Mikhailovich Ilinsky, a director of Komosol, writes in Kommunist (No. 6, 1987) that "the number of young people displaying political naivete, lack of interest in politics, nihilistic views of the future, and loss of clear class vision in the assessment of phenomena and events in social reality, has increased noticeably." Has the counter-culture finally hit Moscow?

The Kremlin is expressing more than a passing interest in these developments. Soviet officials place a great deal of emphasis on young people's attitudes as they strive to perpetuate Soviet rule into the next century. Thus Ilinsky writes: "This world of tomorrow will be largely the way young people conceive of it today . . . For it is through the young generations that society reproduces itself biologically and socially."

Soviet youth policy for the past twenty years has been defined by a program little known in the West. The Soviets call it "military-patriotic education": paramilitary summer camps plus mandatory classroom courses. By the time the average Soviet youth graduates from high school he will have gone through more than 180 hours of military training in the classroom. Schools employ more than fifty thousand military officials to teach Soviet children how to assemble, fieldstrip, and fire an AK-47 assaualt rifle, fire anti-tank weapons, handle explosives and grenades, build tank traps and other fortifications, and protect themselves from chemical attack. During the last two years of high school, graduates spend more time on military courses than on social studies, nature studies, music, and art combined.

Military-patriotic education began in 1967-68, as a partial substitute for long years of universal military service. At that time, Soviet industry had begun to suffer from chronic manpower shortages, and mandatory military service was reduced from two years to one for those serving in the ground forces, and from three to two for naval forces. Military-patriotic education programs, by partially training Soviet youths before they entered the military, were supposed to reduce the amount of training that new conscripts would need. However, the Kremlin now sees the program as an important propaganda initiative, by which Soviet youth can be imbued with "a fighting spirit" that will perpetuate Soviet rule.

Since Gorbachev's accession, military education for Soviet youth has been criticized, but not for being too militaristic. Instead, critics say, the current program is too soft. As a result, the Kremlin is intensifying its efforts to militarize Soviet youth, as part of Gorbachev's perestroika ("restructuring"), the very program that many in the West say will make the Soviets more "peaceable."

In June 1986, the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Council of Ministers passed a decree entitled "On Further Improving Party Supervision of the Komsomol and Enhancing Its Role in the Communist Indoctrination of Youth," which emphasized "the importance of military-patriotic indocrination of youth and of their preparedness to perform feats of defend the homeland." The decree "poses the task of raising such preparation to higher qualitative level. . ."

Soviet officials hope both to instill military values in Soviet youth and to teach them military skills more thoroughly, both inside and outside the classroom. With the decree, writes General M. Popkov in Red Star (May 7, 1987), "we have everything we need in order to intensify military-patriotic education." And changes are already beginning to occur. For example, Red Star on January 18, 1987, had reported that many of the military instructors assigned to the classroom had never seen actual combat and were often of lower rank. But by May 7, it was able to report that in Moscow 10 per cent of the instructors had already been replaced by "more qualified specialists."

Early Star

Other "improvements" under consideration include spending greater amounts of classroom time on military subjects, training children at younger ages, and militarizing other course subjects. On August 5, 1986 Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that the army was considering introducing Soviet children to "applied military and technical training as early as kindergarten in the form of interesting games and paramilitary contests," nothing that similar programs in East Germany have proven "successful." On October 22, 1987, Red Star said that serious consideration should be given to "physical-education classes with a military thrust." And on October 23, the same publication stressed that "even mathematics" should be imbued with military themes.

More and better military equipment for schools is also in the works. The current feeling is that not enough children have had access to such paramilitary facilities. So according to Red Star (January 18, 1987), the Kremlin has authorized construction of new firing ranges at many schools that previously had gone without them. And Za Rulem (November 1986) reported that for the first time children "will participate in exercises with submachine guns using live ammunition." By now more than 50 per cent of Soviet schools have their own firing ranges. Students are encouraged to win such awards as "Young Rifleman" and "sharpshooter."

Outside the classroom, military-patriotic education also includes a series of chillingly realistic summer paramilitary camps. David Powell of the Harvard Russian Research Center has estimated that some thirty million youngsters participate every year.

Zarnitsa ("Summer Lighting") attempts to introduce children aged seven to 14 to mock combat and basic military skills. In a heavily militarized version of capture-the-flag, Zarnitsa teaches children the basics of small-unit combat, reconnaissance, and methods of interrogation. One of the few Westeners who has witnessed these games tells of a Soviet child who had revealed the location of her detachment's flag after "torture" (her arm was twisted). A typical Soviet Account of Zarnitsa appeared in Akhazazrda Kommunisti (June 24, 1986). At "0600" the children were "in formation, in full array, and ready to move out. The exercise was very realistic, with plenty of smoke and explosions -- even chemical weapons -- and the treacherous enemy was beaten back within the hour." The paper also reported that the residents of nearby Dusheti were "startled out of sleep" by the noise.

Once they have successfully completed the Zarnitsa course, graduates can proudly display the official badge: a red star in a triangle clustered with an upward-pointing arrow, crossed by a bayonet.

Orlenok ("Little Eagle"), designed for 14- to 18-year-olds, is even more realistic. Besides polishing their skills in marksmanship and explosives, campers learn how to erect fortifications, engage in large-scale assault operations, and treat "wounded comrades." The games are highly competitive, and winning teams gain great prestige.

Perhaps what the Soviets are really groping for is a means by which restless youth can be imbued with greater loyalty to the state. Promoting martial values in children at an early age could do this in two ways. First, such values place supreme importance on duty and discipline (read: more obedience to the state): Second, this effort may also be a signal to the Soviet populace that in the the broader picture, the struggle with the Wast is not yet over. Despite rhetoric about "peace" and a "world without wars" (directed at the West), military-patriotic education says that not much has changed. Even with the INF agreement, increasing exchanges, and softer language, "vigilance" must be maintained.

War in Peace

IN BROADER TERMS, the intensification of military-patriotic education may be the Soviet leaders' best chance to maintain their grip on the Russian people. With the failure of the Soviet economic system to manufacture to manufacture the New Soviet Man, a "war culture" designed to promote xenophobia and autarchy is perhaps the only fulcrum upon which they can hope to move the Soviet people.

Mr. Schweizer is a national-security-policy analyst at the National Forum Foundation in Washington, D.C., and the co-author of The Soviet Concepts of Peace, Peaceful Coexistence, and Defence (University Press of America, 1988).