Komsomol

For other uses, see Komsomol (disambiguation).

All-Union Leninist Young Communist League Всесоюзный Ленинский Коммунистический Союз Молодёжи
Founded	October 29, 1918
Mother party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
International affiliation	World Federation of Democratic Youth

The Communist Union of Youth (Russian: Коммунисти́ческий сою́з молодёжи), usually known as Komsomol (Russian: Комсомол, a syllabic abbreviation from the Russian Kommunisticheskii Soyuz Molodyozhi), was the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban centers in 1918. During the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Communist Union of Youth, or RKSM. During 1922 it was reformed as an all-union agency, the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), named Vsesoyuznii Leninskii Kommunisticheskii Soyuz Molodyozhi (VLKSM) (Russian: Всесоюзный Ленинский Коммунистический Союз Молодёжи (ВЛКСМ)  listen (help·info); English: All-Union Leninist Young Communist League).

Overview

File:Комсомольский билет.jpg

Komsomol membership card, (1983)

During the revolution, the Bolsheviks did not display any interest in establishing or maintaining a youth division. However, by 1918 the first Komsomol Congress met with the patronage of the Bolshevik Party, despite the two organizations having not entirely coincident membership or beliefs. By the time of the second Congress, a year later, however, the Bolsheviks had, in effect, acquired control of the organisation, and it was soon formally established as the youth division of the Communist party.

The youngest people eligible for Komsomol were fourteen years old. The older limit of age for ordinary personnel was twenty-eight, but Komsomol functionaries could be older. Younger children joined the allied Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union.

Komsomol had little direct influence on the Communist Party or the government of the Soviet Union, but it played an important role as a mechanism for teaching the values of the CPSU to youngsters. The Komsomol also served as a mobile pool of labor and political activism, with the ability to relocate to areas of high-priority at short notice. Active members received privileges and preferences in promotion. For example, Yuri Andropov, CPSU General Secretary for a brief time following Leonid Brezhnev, achieved political importance by means of the Komsomol organization of Karelia. At its largest, during the 1970s, Komsomol had tens of millions of members; about two-thirds of the present adult population of Russia is believed to have once been a member.

During the early phases of perestroika, when private enterprise was introduced cautiously, Komsomol was given privileges with respect to initiating businesses, with the motivation of giving youth a better chance. The Centers for Scientific and Technical Creativity for Youth were also established. At the same time, many Komsomol managers joined and directed the Russian Regional and State Anti-Monopoly Committees. Folklore was quick to develop a motto: "Komsomol is a school of Capitalism", hinting at Lenin's "Trade unions are a school of Communism".

The reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, perestroika and glasnost, finally revealed that the quality of Komsomol management was bad. Komsomol had long been characterized by conservatism and bureaucracy, and had always been largely powerless politically. At the radical Twentieth Congress of the Komsomol, the rules of the organization were altered to represent a market orientation. However, the reforms of the Twentieth Congress eventually destroyed the Komsomol, with lack of purpose and the waning of interest, membership and quality of membership.

The organ of the Komsomol, the Komsomolskaya Pravda, survived the organization.

Komsomol and NEP, 1921-1928

Overview

Monument to Courage, Firmness and Faithfulness of Members of the Komsomol in Sevastopol

After the Russian Civil War ended, the Soviet government under Lenin introduced a semi-capitalist economic policy to stabilize Russia’s floundering economy. This reform, the New Economic Policy, was accompanied by a new social policy of moderation and discipline, especially regarding Soviet youth. Lenin himself stressed the importance of political education of young Soviet citizens in building a new society.

This created conflict and disillusionment among Soviet youths who romanticized the spontaneity and destruction characteristic of War Communism and the Civil War period.^[1] They saw it as their duty, and the duty of the Communist Party itself, to eliminate all elements of bourgeois culture from society. However, the NEP had the opposite effect: after it was created, many aspects of bourgeois social behavior began to reemerge.^[2] Many youths were confused by the contrast between the “Good Communist” extolled by the Party and the bourgeois capitalism allowed to exist by the NEP.^[3] They rebelled against the Party’s ideals in two opposite ways: Radicals gave up everything that had any bourgeois connotations, while the majority of Russian youths were drawn to the Western-style popular culture of entertainment and fashion. As a result, there was a major slump in interest and membership in the Party-oriented Komsomol.

Party intervention in 1922-23 was marginally successful in recruiting members by presenting the ideal Komsomolets (Komsomol youth) as a foil to the bourgeois NEPman.^[4] However, the Bolshevik party was not very successful overall in recruiting Russian youth during the NEP period. At its highest, in March 1926, Komsomol membership during NEP was 1,750,000 members, only 6 percent of the eligible youth population.^[5] Only when Stalin came to power and the NEP was abandoned for the first Five Year Plan did membership drastically increase.^[6]

The Youth

The Bolsheviks saw Russian youth as ideologically promising because it was more removed, if not free, from pre-revolutionary influence. If the Party could create a mass of indoctrinated, obedient young people, the regime would be stable for years to come. Therefore, the Bolsheviks attempted to influence and politicize every aspect of youth culture, both public and private.

The Ideal Komsomolets

Not only was the ideal Communist youth an asset to his (or her) organization, but he also “lived correctly”. This meant that every aspect of a Komsomolets’s life was in accordance with Party doctrine. Smoking, drinking, religion, and any other activity the Bolsheviks saw as threatening were discouraged as “hooliganism”. The Komsomol sought to provide them with alternative leisure activities that promoted the improvement of society, such as volunteer work, sports, and political and drama clubs.^[7] These efforts proved largely unsuccessful, since the Bolshevik Party and the Komsomol were not in touch with Russian youths’ desires and thus were not able to manipulate them. Russian youth remained relatively politically unaware or uninterested during the NEP period.^[8]

Youth Reactions

Many youths were drawn to “hooliganism” and the Western bourgeois culture of entertainment, which included cinema and fashion magazines. It is no coincidence that these youths were primarily from the peasantry or working class. They saw Western culture as a way to elevate or distinguish themselves from their humble beginnings.^[9] The Soviet authorities eventually made their own films with ideologically “pure” messages, but it was not the same. Soviet pictures, which were often informational or political, lacked the draw of Westerns or romances from Hollywood.^[10] Both the authorities and the youths themselves blamed NEP for corrupting Soviet youth culture. Because the Komsomol was simply not as attractive to these young men and women, the government began to limit their cultural and entertainment options. This signaled the end of the NEP, and the end of the brief influx of Western culture in Soviet Union before Stalin’s reign.^[11]

There was also a small but significant minority of youths who held on to the values of War Communism and developed their own ideal Soviet youth. These militants were extremely upset by the NEP, seeing it as a betrayal of true Communism by the older revolutionaries. They also opposed the Komsomol, deeming it too theoretical and bureaucratic. In order to distinguish themselves from other young Russians, these militant Communists developed their own style of dress, speech, and style. They wore coarse clothing, deliberately cultivated bad manners, and had little concern for hygiene.

Militant young Communists were a threat to the older Bolsheviks because they had the potential to undermine the new, NEP-based society. The shift from destruction of an old state to creation of a new one, mirrored by the shift from War Communism to NEP, was necessary to maintain and stabilize the Bolshevik regime. The Party’s disapproval of young militants was necessary in order not only to define what was considered proper behavior, but also to maintain social and political control over the masses. However, after Stalin came to power and the NEP was abandoned in favor of the revolutionary, anti-bourgeois Five- Year Plans, many of the young radicals’ ideas were absorbed back into the mainstream and they no longer presented a problem.^[12]

Demographic Issues

Peasants

Soldiers returning from the Civil War, students in provincial towns, and workers fleeing the poverty of the cities established the first rural Komsomol cells in 1918. Most administrators, who wanted to retain the “proletarian character” of the organization, did not initially welcome peasants into the Komsomol. However, it soon became obvious that peasants were too large a part of the population (80%) to ignore. Also, peasants, who were benefiting from the NEP’s compromise with small producers, were in a better position to join than workers, who were struggling with unemployment and other economic problems and thus had less interest in joining.

Older peasants reacted negatively to the growth of the Komsomol in rural areas. They saw the administrators as intruders who prevented their children from fulfilling their family obligations. The Komsomol needed full-time commitment, and peasant youths, who saw it as a chance for social mobility, education, and economic success, were willing to abandon their traditional duties to join. At the end of NEP, the majority of Komsomol members were peasants, while the administration remained largely urban.^[13]

Gallery

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  1930 poster urging Komsomol members to join "the Bolshevik shock sowing".

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  Komsomol on construction of cities, 1958 USSR stamp to the 40th anniversary of VLKSM

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  1966 Soviet Union stamp dedicated to Komsomol

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  70th anniversary of VLKSM badge

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  Badge of Komsomol membership

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  Soviet Union stamp, 1970, CPA 3897. XVI Congress of VLKSM

Honors

The Komsomol received three Orders of Lenin, one Order of the Red Banner, one Order of the Red Banner of Labour, and one Order of the October Revolution. The asteroid 1283 Komsomolia is named after the Komsomol.

External references

• Komsomol Russia
• Komsomol Ukraine
• Komsomol Moldova
• Komsomol Belarus
• Komsomol Kazakhstan

Branches of the organization

• Armenian SSR: ՀԼԿԵՄ (abbreviation)
• Belorussian SSR: Ленинский Коммунистический Союз Молодежи Белоруссии, ЛКСМБ
• Estonian SSR: Eestimaa Leninlik Kommunistlik Noorsooühing, ELKNÜ
• Karelo-Finnish SSR: Ленинский коммунистический союз молодежи Карело-Финской ССР, ЛКСМ КФССР
• Latvian SSR: Latvijas Ļeņina Komunistiskā Jaunatnes Savienība, LĻKJS
• Lithuanian SSR: Lietuvos Lenino komunistinė jaunimo sąjunga, LLKJS
• Moldavian SSR: UTCLM (abbreviation)
• Russian SFSR: Ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи РСФСР, ЛКСМ РСФСР
• Ukrainian SSR: Ленинский Коммунистический Союз Молодёжи Украины, ЛКСМУ

Notes

1. ^ Gorsuch 1997, p. 565
2. ^ Gooderham 1982, p. 507
3. ^ Gorsuch 1992, p. 192
4. ^ Gooderham 1982, p. 509
5. ^ Gorsuch 1992, p. 201
6. ^ Gorsuch 1997, p. 573
7. ^ Gorsuch 1992, p. 191
8. ^ Gooderham 1982, p. 518
9. ^ Gorsuch 1992, p. 198
10. ^ Gooderham 1982, p. 512
11. ^ Gorsuch 1992, p. 200
12. ^ Gorsuch 1997, p. 569-77
13. ^ Tirado 1993, p. 464

References

• Gooderham, Peter. "The Komsomol and Worker Youth: The Inculcation of 'Communist Values' in Leningrad during NEP," Soviet Studies 34.4 (1982): 506-28. in JSTOR
• Gorsuch, Anne E. “A Woman Is Not A Man: The Culture of Gender and Generation in Soviet Russia, 1921-1928,” Slavic Review 55.3 (1996): 636-60. in JSTOR
• Gorsuch, Anne E. “NEP Be Damned! Young Militants in the 1920s and the Culture of Civil War,” Russian Review 56.4 (1997): 564-80. in JSTOR
• Gorsuch, Anne E. “Soviet Youth and the Politics of Popular Culture during NEP,” Social History, 17.2 (1992): 189-201. in JSTOR
• Tirado, Isabel A. “The Komsomol and Young Peasants: The Dilemma of Rural Expansion, 1921-1925,” Slavic Review 52.3 (1993): 460-76. in JSTOR