09 June 2004 21:28
Russia`s Motherland Party creates youth wing
Moscow, 9 June: Dmitriy Rogozin's Motherland Party has acquired a very determined youth wing. The creation of
the Union for the Motherland [Russian: Soyuz "Za Rodinu"] was announced at an informal meeting in the
capital's fashionable Che Guevara club today, where Dmitriy Rogozin himself was given a place of honour beneath a
poster with the comandante's historic slogan "Motherland or death!".
The leader of Motherland's youth wing, Oleg Bondarenko, announced that he and several of his supporters had
broken with the Communist Party and decided to join Motherland. In his view, former globalists and national patriots, in
addition to former Komsomol members, will form the backbone of the new organization, which is to be
"incorporated" in Rogozin's party. "Young people need heroes, and we shall find them," he
promised.
In conversation with an ITAR-TASS correspondent, Dmitriy Rogozin, who was in Cuba on a student attachment in the
early 1980s, described himself as a socialist on the economy and a traditionalist in politics. Stressing that
revolutionary fervour did not worry him, Rogozin added: "Che Guevara was a strong personality and knew what he
wanted."
["Our task is to put an end to the inert nature of politics, and that is why we need young people today. The
party has 28,500 members, and their average age is 29," RIA news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1653 gmt 09 Jun 04
quoted Dmitriy Rogozin as saying at the Union for the Motherland launch. The agency also quoted Rogozin as stating
Sergey Glazyev would not be expelled from the Motherland faction.]
[ITAR-TASS news agency] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
