October 29 is the 90th anniversary of the founding of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, better known by its Russian acronym as Komsomol. Two-thirds of Russian adults today, tens of millions of people, were Komsomol members at some time. As th

A history of pride and annoyance

Practically all Soviet youth passed out of the Young Pioneers and into the Komsomol at the age of 14. The most striking thing about it in retrospect is the nonchalance felt about the event. An informal poll of former Komsomol members failed to uncover any excitement or warm feelings associated with the organisation. “The main reason everyone wanted to join the Komsomol was because they were tired of wearing the [Young Pioneers] tie,” a former Komsomol member recounted. “When you were 13 or 14, you felt too old for the tie.” The sign of Komsomol membership was a pin. Even those for whom the Komsomol played a decisive role in life were dismissive. “It was just coincidence,” a woman said about meeting her husband in the Komsomol, where they both had leadership roles. “Everybody was a member,” another said. “It was a formality, like going to school. It would have been strange, even dangerous, not to be a member, but it wasn’t like joining the Party.”

Indeed, it wasn’t like joining the Party, but belonging to the Komsomol was not always a formality. The Komsomol was founded under the sponsorship of the Bolsheviks – with 22,100 members in 1918. Russia was engulfed in civil war at the time. Two years later, when the victory of the Red forces was assured, it had 482,000 members, up to 200,000 of whom had participated in the fighting. Lenin addressed the third congress, telling them, “You can become a communist only when you have enriched your memory with the knowledge of all the riches humanity has developed.” Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Komsomol was at the forefront of educational efforts, helping countless thousands learn to read as part of the “liquidate illiteracy” campaign and enabling tens of thousands to receive an education. Komsomol members also contributed their labour to many of the era’s most grandiose development projects, such as the Turkestan-Siberia Railway, the town of Magnitogorsk and the Moscow Metro. During the Second World War, Komsomol members were trained as pilots and formed Young Guard units. Later, they tilled the Virgin Lands.

The Komsomol was never a political force. But it was a political organisation and a tool for indoctrination, keeping young hands busy and young minds occupied. An elderly lady Ekaterina Matveevna, who was a Komsomol member in the late 1930s relates, “I changed institutes and tore up my Komsomol card and told them I lost it. But they made me get another. All I remember is boring meetings and having to collect things.” Her daughter had similar experiences.  “All kinds of boring meetings,” she said. “I had as little contact with them as possible. Times were different then. They didn’t come after you as in Mama’s time. But Saturday volunteer work was still mandatory.” Collections and ‘mandatory volunteering’ are themes that repeat themselves throughout the history of the Komsomol. Fifty years after Ekaterina Matveevna’s tiresome collection tasks, another Komsomol member had the same complaints. “Scrap paper drives caused conflicts in the whole family,” he recalled. “They set quotas for us and made us bring old newspapers in week after week, but my parents wanted the paper too because they could get books in exchange for it.”

Benefits for the in-crowd

When perestroika began, the Komsomsol was criticised for being out of step with modern youth. The organisation’s leadership was reluctant to undertake changes, but it finally gave in to the demands of the times at its 20th congress in April 1987. The Komsomsol became the “school of capitalism,” as it was dubbed by popular jokes, and provided opportunities to do things normal people could not, like entering bars and hotels, meeting foreigners and trading Komsomol-related memorabilia.

Membership was made more competitive. Ekaterina Matveena could remember no membership procedure, and her daughter’s entry was quite streamlined: “I was sick for a long time that year, and when I went back to school, I found out I was a Komsomol member.” In the late 1980s, however, the Komsomol tried to create an air of exclusivity. Recommendations were needed from the applicant’s Pioneer division and from the school Friendship Committee, made up of the most active Pioneers and Komsomol members. Then the applicant had to study the Komsomol charter (the size of a small book) and finally be quizzed by the Komsomol district committee, which could reject an applicant for membership, in the presence of all the other applicants.

Members were given titles and functions: secretary, cultural organiser, “responsible,” and so on. Every group, called a “cell,” had its own motto, a bugler and ceremonial ribbons that were worn over white shirts for formal occasions. Members paid dues as well, 2 kopecks per month in the 1980s (“but money was different then”). The secretary collected the dues for the cell, and deposited them in the bank. The bank receipt was handed in to the district committee. Or at least that was the official procedure. “Another girl who was secretary of a cell in my neighborhood kept the money and bought beer and cigarettes with it,” recalled a former secretary from the final days of the Komsomol. “In two years, they never noticed.”

High standards

Everyone knew at all times that being expelled from the Komsomol would wreck an unfortunate transgressor’s life. But Komsomol membership had tangible advantages. A member from the late 1950s graduated from a prestigious language institute in Moscow and wanted to go abroad for her first job. She had a chance to go to India. “I needed a recommendation from the Komsomol that said I was morally stable and politically reliable. That meant I would not have a love affair with a local guy or say bad things about the Soviet Union. I could never have gone without it. Of course, I immediately got an Indian boyfriend there and told him terrible things about the USSR.”

The staff of female Komsomol translators at the Indian factory was closely supervised and held up to high standards. Among the activities that were forbidden to them was riding on the motor scooters that served as local taxis. One girl dared to break that taboo when her bus was late and was carpeted for it. (“There was literally a carpet, and it was red,” her comrade said.) Riding a motorbike with your arms wrapped around an Indian boy was inappropriate behaviour for a Komsomol member, she was informed. She could be back in Moscow the next day for it. Why would she do a thing like that, they demanded. “They treat every crocodile like a queen,” she explained, not helping her case. She was sent away with a warning, however.

Active Komsomol members could hope for positions such as “freed Komsomol worker” when they joined the workforce. “Freed” may conjure up strange associations to the uninitiated, but it meant freed from work. The freed Komsomol worker was a busybody who kept an eye on members and organised social activities for them and did nothing else. “The Komsomol was a career path for my mother,” a late member said. Her mother joined the Communist Party and served as a minor functionary. “I would have joined the Party too,” she said cynically, “but everything changed.”

Rank-and-file members ‘retired’ from the Komsomol at 28. The upper management of the organisation was hired. Joining the Komsomol on that level was also frequently a wise career choice. One of the lures of a Komsomol position was the possibility of moving to Moscow. It was a very slight chance, but the dream of millions. One woman said she almost destroyed her marriage when her husband was transferred to Moscow from a military settlement in the far North. “He came home and told me and I thought he was joking. I laughed in his face and said ‘They’d never take anyone like you!’” she recalled. But she was forgiven and they moved to Moscow. In a few years, they were given a large, new apartment. Her husband became an advisor in a government ministry under Boris Yeltsin and then moved into private business. Today he is the general director of a major Russian corporation. His experience was not exceptional. Other prominent figures to emerge from the Komsomol are Soviet leader Yury Andropov, St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko, former prime minister Sergey Kirienko and businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

All good things must come to an end

The Komsomol did not outlive the Soviet Union. “It was so long ago,” sighed the member who was deprived of her chance to join the Party. “There were different prices, different values. It seems like it wasn’t me then, before all the crises and changes. Your brain was stronger then. Young people today believe what they are told. They are free from ideology. But we said one thing at home and something else at work.” Some would give the young a chance to strengthen their brains again. The Revolutionary Communist Youth Union (Bolshevik), one of a number of leftist youth groups in existence in Russia today, held a conference in Moscow two weeks ago on the restoration of the Komsomol. Youth from Russia, Belarus, Tajikistan and Ukraine were in attendance. Participants discussed the formation of committees and the issuing of a declaration. The chances of reviving the Komsomol look slim.

Among the events to celebrate today’s anniversary will be an motor race in St. Petersburg. There will be ceremonies from Tyva to Kaliningrad at the monuments to the Komsomol, and the streets and squares named after it. Marches and concerts are also planned in larger cities. These events promise to be low-key, however. There is no evidence of preparations for them on the streets of Moscow.

Derek Andersen, RT