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The Komsomols—A Study of Youth under Dictatorship*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Merle Fainsod
Merle Fainsod
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

One of the most striking characteristics of modern totalitarianism is the conscious attention which it devotes to the organization and indoctrination of youth. The Soviet dictatorship is unique in having set the pattern of such activity; it has carried it on at a level of intensity and over a span of time unmatched by its now defunct Fascist and Nazi rivals. A third of a century has passed since the Bolsheviks rode to power in 1917; the membership of the Communist Party is today overwhelmingly composed of a generation which not only came of age since the Revolution but which also largely served its apprenticeship in the Young Pioneers and Komsomols. And waiting at the threshold of power is a new generation of approximately 10,000,000 Komsomols and 13,000,000 Pioneers, from whose ranks the Communist élite of the future is to be recruited.

What has been the history of this effort to assimilate and discipline the new generations? What manner of training are they receiving? What values does the present leadership seek to implant in them? What motives operate to induce affiliation with the Komsomols? How is the Komsomol organized? What are the activities of its membership? How are the oncoming waves of Soviet youth relating themselves to the society which has produced them? To what extent are they deeply loyal to the present régime? Is there evidence of disaffection among them, and if so, does this disaffection present any important threat to the stability of the régime itself?

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 1951 , pp. 18 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1951

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References

1 The interviews took place in Western Germany and Austria during the Summer and Fall of 1949. The great majority of those interviewed had left the Soviet Union during World War II; a small minority consisted of recent defectors from the Red Army and the Soviet Military Government in Germany. For a general treatment of the attitudes of Soviet non-returners and defectors, see Fainsod, Merle, “Controls and Tensions in the Soviet System,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 44, pp. 266–282 (June, 1950)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Quoted in Mehnert, Klaus, Youth in Soviet Russia (London, 1933), p. 49Google Scholar.

3 Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya [The Great Soviet Encyclopedia] (Moscow, 1930), Vol. 11, pp. 635–638Google Scholar.

4 For a copy of this resolution see VKP(b), O Komsomole i Molodyozhi [On the Komsomol and Youth] (Moscow, 1938), p. 76Google Scholar. This volume is a valuable collection of the most important Party resolutions on the Komsomol for the period up to 1938.

5 Mehnert, op. cit., p. 53.

6 Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, Vol. 11, p. 638Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., p. 640.

8 Ibid., pp. 645–649; also VKP(b), O Komsomole i Molodyozhi, pp. 80–82.

9 Mehnert, op. cit., pp. 60–61.

10 Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, Vol. 11, p. 649Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., pp. 649–650.

12 Ibid., p. 649.

13 Ibid., pp. 653–654.

14 See Mehnert, op. cit.

15 Ibid., p. 91.

16 Towster, Julian, Political Power in the USSR (New York, 1948), p. 140Google Scholar. Also “Twenty Years of the Komsomol,” Partiinoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 16, pp. 52–59 (August, 1938)Google Scholar.

17 Andreyev, A. A., “The Communistic Education of the Youth and the Tasks of the Komsomol,” Partiinoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 9, p. 10 (May, 1936)Google Scholar.

18 Ibid.

19 Kosarev, A. V., “On the Reorganization of Komsomol Work,” Partiinoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 14, p. 8 (June, 1935)Google Scholar.

20 Towster, op. cit., p. 140.

21 See the attack in the editorial “Raise the Bolshevistic Vigilance of the Komsomol,” Partiinoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 18, p. 8 (September, 1937)Google Scholar.

22 See, e.g., Smirnov, O., “Reshaping the Work of the Komsomol,” Partiinoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 12, pp. 23–27 (June, 1937)Google Scholar. See also P. Vershkov, “A Leninist-Stalinist Education for Soviet Youth,” ibid., No. 7, pp. 28–33 (April, 1938) where some typical expulsion figures are cited. In the Komsomol organization of Georgia, 1577 persons were excluded in the third quarter of 1937. Of these, 1182 were denounced as “hostile elements.” In the Omsk region during the same period, 1101 Komsomolites were excluded, of whom 731 were denounced as “hostile elements and double dealers.”

23 See Vershkov, loc. cit., p. 28.

24 Sobranie Postanolenii i Razporyazhenii Pravitel'stva SSSR, 1940, No. 27, Sec. 637; 1940, No. 29, Sec. 698.

25 Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, 1940, No. 37.

26 Towster, op. cit., p. 140.

27 See “Report of Mandate Commission, Eleventh Congress of the Komsomol,” Molodoi Bol'shevik, No. 8, p. 67 (April, 1949)Google Scholar.

28 See, e.g., the following articles: Ershov, V., “Do Not Exclude Without Foundation but Educate” (On the Mistakes of the Kemerovsk Regional Committee), Molodoi Bol'shevik, No. 21, pp. 39–43 (November, 1949)Google Scholar; Resolutions of the Second Plenum of the Komsomol Central Committee on the Work of the Komsomol Organizations in the Sverdlovsk Region and the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, ibid., No. 1, pp. 33–34 (January, 1950); “On the Style of Work of the Molotovsk Regional Committee,” ibid., No. 9, pp. 30–37 (May, 1950).

29 Molodoi Bol'shevik, in No. 23 (December, 1949), at p. 47Google Scholar, cites the Komsomol membership then as 9,676,000. This represents a gain of nearly 400,000 since the Eleventh Congress. Most recent accounts assume a membership of around 10,000,000.

30 Medynskii, E. N., Narodnoe Obrazovanie i SSSR (Moscow, 1947), p. 32Google Scholar.

31 For recent descriptions of Pioneer activities, see Kommunisticheskoe Vospilanie v Sovetskoi Shkole [Communist Education in the Soviet School] (Moscow, 1950), pp. 313–336Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., pp. 322 ff.

33 See the revised rules adopted at the Eleventh Congress of the Komsomol, April 6, 1949. They are reprinted in full in Molodoi Bol'shevik, No. 9, pp. 19–24 (May, 1949)Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., pp. 19–20.

35 Ibid., pp. 20–24.

36 See the report of the Central Committee delivered to the Eleventh Congress by First Secretary N. A. Mikhailov, ibid., No. 8, p. 36 (April, 1949).

37 The membership of these bodies is listed in ibid., No. 9, pp. 25–26 (May, 1949).

38 Ibid., No. 8, pp. 66–72 (April, 1949).

39 Ibid., p. 27.

40 Ibid., p. 29.

41 Young Communists in the USSR, translated by Rhine, Virginia (Washington, 1950), p. 19Google Scholar.

42 For descriptions of Komsomol relationships to Dosarm and Dosflot, see Major-General Golovkin, V., “Komsomol and Dosarm,” Molodoi Bol'shevik, No. 22, pp. 31–35 (November, 1949)Google Scholar, and Rear Admiral I. Golubev-Monatkin, “Komsomol and Dosflot,” ibid., No. 14, pp. 35–39 (July, 1950).

43 See Popov, D. G., “The Work of Komsomol Organizations in the School,” in Kommunisticheskoe Vospitanie v Sovetskoi Shkole (Moscow, 1950), p. 289Google Scholar.

44 Young Communists in the USSR, p. 7.

45 Ibid., p. 16.

46 Ibid., p. 51.

47 Ibid., p. 77.

48 Ibid., p. 79.

49 Ibid., p. 82.

50 Ibid., p. 76.

51 A very recent illustration is furnished by a report on the amalgamation of collective farms in the Zagorskii district of the Moscow region appearing in Molodoi Bol'shevik, No. 17, pp. 56–60 (September, 1950)Google Scholar. Prior to the amalgamation in June, 1950, Komsomol organizations existed in only 43 collective farms out of a total of 141. After the amalgamation, these Komsomol units were organized in 25 out of 32 collective farms. However, of the 141 new work brigades, only 30 contained Komsomol groups. It needs to be remembered that the Moscow region counts as one of the most advanced.

52 Op. cit., p. 77.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid., p. 79.

56 Ibid., p. 80.

57 Ibid., p. 11.

58 Molodoi Bol'shevik, No. 8, p. 25 (April, 1949)Google Scholar.

59 See Resolutions of the Second Plenum of the Komsomol Central Committee on the Work of the Komosomol Organizations in the Sverdlovsk Region and the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, Molodoi Bol'shevik, No. 1, pp. 33–44 (January, 1950)Google Scholar.

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