Expansion of Hubbardists in Perm
Hubbard adherents lead offensive in the Urals
Perm, Russia
July 4, 2001
Nezavisimaya GazetaIn the more recent Russian and foreign press there have been stories more often than not about the wide circulation the Church of Scientology has attained. In many countries the activities of the Scientologists are forbidden by law or are subject to close scrutinization by society and government. Branches of the Church of Scientology operate in Moscow, Omsk, Nizhni Novgorod, Yahkar-Ole - it can be assumed that it is active in all the large cities. The Church of Scientology, in essence a totalitarian cult, was founded in 1954 in Los Angeles by American science fiction writer Ron Hubbard. Over time it split into branches which operate independently of each other in well disguised organizations, and it strives for world domination. Hubbard colleges - training centers for Scientologists -spread his ideology, which is masked as modern technological management, and endeavor to attract into their ranks politicians, administrators and company owners for the purpose of gaining control in political and commercial areas of operation. In 1995, under circumstances which are not clear, the (now) deceased director of the Moscow ventilator company, Alexander Miron, joined Scientology. A few years ago, when he was directing a bank in Nizhni Novgorod, Sergei Kirenko took a course at a Hubbard College (The "Berliner Zeitung" reported on this March 29, 1998). And those are only the two most sensational efforts by Scientologists to convert leading business representatives and the political elite to their faith. According to the "Nezavisimo Gazeta's" information, an unusually large amount of activity by the Church of Scientology is evident in Perm.
In mid-June of this year Perm, for the first time in many years, made news in the western press. In one of its articles, which was dedicated to the activities of the so-called "Church of Scientology," which was founded by Ron Hubbard in the 1950s, the New York Times called the Russian city on the Kama river (Perm) one of the "large Hubbardist centers." In this article it talked about Perm several years back as though it was the only city in the world where practically all the government agencies were being monitored by the Church of Scientology.
Although today it would be stretching the point to call the capital of the western Urals (Perm) a "large Hubbardist center," the influence of the Dianetics adherents in Prikamye state political and business circles used to be great. More than that, according to information at hand, Perm Scientologists intend to greatly strengthen their representation in local government agencies. Specifically, they are gathering votes to use to this end in the Perm region legislative assembly, which is planned in December of the current year.
According to estimates, the Hubbard school supports quite a banal goal - power over the world. Therefore it is entirely logical that first its students become representatives of that power. And when it comes to Perm, the seed of Dianetics fell on fertile soil, and power has expressed itself as a readiness to learn new "technological control."
The fact of the matter is that the existence of Perm's Hubbard College came to an end in 1996, or at least that's when it stopped operating on its license. In that year it lost its status and its main patron of Perm Scientology - Vladimir Fil lost the election for mayor of Perm to Yuri Trutnev, a big businessman (Trutnev is now the governor of the Perm region.) And as far as the new town governor goes, at no time has he ever taken an interest in Hubbardism (he was even more of an enemy adherent); the Dianetics adherents' wealth was "short-lived," and that would have been a fitting end to them.
But the Hubbardists had already sewn too much of their profound seed in the western Urals, and abandoning the position that they had won with such ease was not something they wanted to do. Even with the losses they suffered, Scientologists still continued to actively lay the groundwork with Perm's elite. The fact of the matter is that once they were brushed aside in the play for power, they began to get more cautious. In their dictionary of recent years, the words "Dianetics" and "Scientology" are hardly used. It's now all under the title of "Modern Management Technology."
Some time after its untimely demise, the Hubbard College in Perm emerged as the "Cooperation" association, the head of which was, of all people, Aleksei Andreyev (association president) and Georgi Gordeyev (general inspector). Into its staff entered managers of a string of the western Urals' leading industrial corporations, many of whom had already spent time in the Hubbard College. One of the chief goals of the "Cooperation" was ostensibly "improving and developing the organization and technology of corporation operation in the NII and KB's of the region."
From the moment it was started up to this day, the "Cooperation" association has been actively engaged by organizations and is conducting various seminars, conferences and forums for corporate problems. In the way of lecturers we quite often find that former teachers of the same Hubbard College are speaking. A reasonable question comes to mind: doesn't the "Cooperation," to some extent, do everything the school of Hubbard technology did, except it has a different sign on the door?
To questions like that Mr. Andreyev replies that his involvement in the management system is his personal business. Of course that would be right if the conversation were about the candleworks or about the production of ice cream. But after all, "Perm Production Science Instrumentation Company, Inc.," as we mentioned before, is a large, strategic enterprise which employs almost 3,000 people. And all that goes on there is by no means the personal business of a solitary general inspector.
But it looks like these things are a bit too small for the government to bother...
Mikhail Samarin
NII is a "scientific research institute" and
KB is an "engineering design company"
Translator's Note
That sentence about the New York Times may be the product of misinformation, from whom I don't know. The word "Perm" is mentioned in a NY Times article of June 14, 2001 about Putin in Russia, but it was the Perm-13 gulag in Sibera, not the city of Perm. Additionally, I have never heard the term "Hubbardist center" used by a US American.