Soviet-era snoopers return to ensure Russians stay loyal to Putin

Soviet-style “political commissars” are to be introduced in Russian government departments and state companies as the Kremlin seeks to stamp out dissent and ensure loyalty to President Putin, according to sources in Moscow.

Deputy heads of federal ministries, agencies and state companies will send staff “signals” about the Kremlin’s political line and report back on their “emotional climate and mood”.

The measures will be co-ordinated by the internal politics division at the Kremlin, where the new monitors are referred to as “politruki”, a term used in the early Soviet era for commissars in the Red Army whose task was to ensure soldiers obeyed communist doctrine.

The idea was first broached last year but gained new impetus after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, three sources close to Putin’s administration told the Kommersant newspaper. One said that individuals in each department had already been appointed to inform staff about events in support of the Russian armed forces.

The head office was issuing posters to exhort staff to attend, the source said, while flashmobs, sporting events and other activities in support of the army were also “welcomed”.

Opinion polls indicate that a large majority of Russians support the war, but sociologists say the results are unreliable in an autocracy and a swathe of society may hide its lack of enthusiasm because they fear punishment. A number of Russians are being prosecuted under a new law which makes it a criminal offence to disseminate “false information” about the armed forces.

State television is working hard to push pro-war propaganda, with many programmes suspended in favour of talk shows that constantly lambast Ukraine and the West.

Staff at one of Russia’s largest and oldest educational publishers have apparently been ordered by management to remove “inappropriate” references to Ukraine and Kyiv from school books.

 “We have to make it look as if Ukraine simply does not exist,” a source at the Prosveshcheniye (“Enlightenment”) publishing house told the Mediazona website.