Unlike the Soviet Union’s Komsomol, which had all but ceased to serve as an ideological tool for the Communist Party by the time the USSR collapsed, Nashi has been accused of harassing diplomats and the regime’s opponents – suggesting a closer resemblance to the Hitler Youth or even Mussolini’s Blackshirts. Indeed, while Nashi seems more like a collection of roguish hooligans, its members do receive paramilitary training to complement their ultra-nationalist ideological indoctrination.