New Komsomol: More Charity, Less Ideology

Nine years after disbanding, Communist Party youth group Komsomol is again recruiting members

By Russell Working and Nonna Chernyakova*

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- It might have been a scene out of the Russian Civil War. Clad like a Communist Party commissar in a soldier's tunic, long leather coat, and worker's cap, a young man sought to stir up a crowd of women in red kerchiefs, men dressed as Bolshevik soldiers and curious passers-by.

He gestured and shook his fist, surrounded by banners and posters that read, "Youth for democracy and social progress," "The Komsomol is always in the advance guard," and "Vanquish illiteracy!"

"Long live Russian youth," he shouted. "Hurrah, comrades!"

"Hurrah!" cried the listeners.

But what perhaps resembled a historical street theatre recalling a vanquished communist philosophy had a more serious purpose in the minds of the organizers. The rally aimed to recruit the young people of this Russian far eastern port city of 700,000 to the Communist Party youth organization, the Komsomol -- a group that was disbanded in 1991.

With the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Komsomol in the far eastern Primorye region during the first week of November, nostalgic former members sought to re-establish the group that traditionally formed the penultimate step toward membership in the Soviet Communist Party.

With the help of a $1,450 donation from the regional administration, the Union of Komsomol Members of All Generations have lectured in schools, hung banners across boulevards, and held rallies on behalf of the organisation. The Komsomol, after all, was once central to the life of youth in the Soviet Union -- a political obligation, source of camaraderie, and seemingly bottomless labour pool for Communist Party leaders with grandiose visions to draw on.

While the revival has drawn the ire of former dissidents and victims of the communist era, many people -- communist or not -- say there are much worse things that could happen than a revival of the Komsomol. A lack of organisations -- especially those uniting an increasingly neglected youth -- is a major concern that some say could be alleviated with a group like the Komsomol -- minus the ideology.

Many recall their youth with nostalgia, without even thinking about the false ideological basis for the Komsomol, says Nadezhda Syroyed, a sociology and psychology professor at Vladivostok's Far Eastern State University. Perhaps with a changed face and a little less ideology, a new and improved Komsomol could be just what Russia's youth need.

"There are no youth organisations left [in Russia], so it is natural for young people to look for something that unites them," Syroyed says. "So, the Komsomol isn't the worst solution. Although the ideology was wrong, this organisation never caused harm to anyone, and its idea was positive. Now it can transform into a charitable organisation."

But there are probably just as many who would disagree that anything good could come from the Komsomol -- at least if history is anything to go by.

Nikolai Turkutyukov, a 73-year-old pensioner, spent five years as a slave labourer in Stalin's work camps after he openly praised American movies and industry following a World War II-era trip to Portland, Oregon. "I am outraged. I am horrified," Turkutyukov said. "The people who are organising all of this are former party and Komsomol secretaries. They were always sitting in warm places and making their careers."

"I feel only disgust seeing all these celebrations," said 64-year-old Natalya Litvinenko, whose close relatives were arrested under Stalin. "I remember people screaming slogans from a podium, but they were working for the Communist Party and were just using us. I never believed them. These were always the worst people..." "Now many Komsomol leaders are rich people. ... The same people who were trying to convince us that communism was the right thing now say that the market economy is the right thing," she said.

Many former Komsomol members see it differently, recalling patriotic songs, cruises at sea, and working together in the fields of the countryside. Oleg Podatkov, a 30-year-old tax inspector in the former Soviet state of Ukraine, heard from his brother in Vladivostok about the union's attempts to re-establish the Komsomol. He wasted no time in flying to Vladivostok to help out. Despite the predominance of old communist slogans at a November 4 recruitment rally in front of a suburban movie theatre, he says he isn't interested in the organization's old politics.

"This was the call of my soul. We have nothing like this in my country. I was always impressed by what the Komsomol accomplished in terms of developing Russia. I came here to learn more about the movement. I hope, though, that the modern Komsomol will be free from political issues," Podatkov said.

Former Komsomol members are not the only Russians who pine for the social structures and personalities of the Soviet era. Throughout the nation, thousands of mostly elderly communists met on November 7 to celebrate the 83rd anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Around 2,000 people gathered in Vladivostok's Central Square to wave red banners, recite political poems, and listen to speakers unleash torrents of invective aimed at former Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Tatyana Shishina, 50, waved a poster of Stalin as she listened to the speakers denounce Russia's leadership for post-Soviet hardships. "I like the life that we had in the past," Shishina said. "Now we have nothing. I wish Stalin were alive. He would have put the country in order."

At least as far as the communists are concerned, the Komsomol revival suggests their sacrifices on behalf of the revolution were not in vain.

The Komsomol, an acronym for the All-Union Leninist Communist League of Youth, was organized in 1918 in order to band together various youth organisations that had previously been involved in the revolution; many of these groups subsequently fought in the civil war. When the war ended in 1922, the group involved its members in health activities, sports, education, publishing, and various industrial projects.

Membership reached its height in the 1970s and early 1980s, with 40 million participants. In Soviet society, its members were frequently favoured in employment, scholarships, and other privileges. Active participation in the Komsomol was a big boost in gaining membership into the ranks of the communist elite.

In Vladivostok, where the pro-tsarist White Army held out against the Bolsheviks until 1922, the local branch of the Komsomol was founded two years after the national organisation, in 1920. The organisation was touted as combining the esprit de corps of the boy scouts with the muscle of a student labour brigade. Over the years, its volunteers harvested crops during worker shortages, built rural housing, and laid tracks for the Baikal-Amur railroad through the swamps of the Russian far east.

But others angrily recall the shortcomings. One of the greatest triumphs of the Komsomol, the railroad, has deteriorated and sunk into the swamps and is largely unusable today. And the group's leaders -- many of whom are major business and political figures in Russia today -- were often notorious for their greed, not to mention the lavish, drunken sauna parties.

"The Komsomol was all lies and hypocrisy," said Natalya, a 37-year-old beautician and former member. "At the Komsomol meetings, all they did is force us to collect fees regularly. We never discussed anything but this money."

With the advent of Gorbachev's reforms, young Russians began turning away from the party organisations of the past and toward the seductions of the West. As a result, the Komsomol was disbanded in 1991 and faded into the background.

This year -- for the first time since its extinction -- the Union of Komsomol Members of All Generations was created in Vladivostok to honour the group's 80th anniversary. Though it has no registered members and doesn't collect fees, it has sponsored rallies in major cities throughout the region. With the backing of the union, schoolteachers taught and students scratched out compositions about the heroic past of the Komsomol.

According to the union's leader, 46-year-old Valentin Labonin, there are similar groups in Moscow and the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and that he hopes "the movement will spread all over Russia."

But the Komsomol will have to market itself cleverly if it hopes to unite masses of youth. Despite the recruitment drive, some young people targeted by the November 4 rally were distinctly uninterested. Several teenage girls hanging out nearby said they had no idea what the Komsomol was, let alone any desire to join.

Natalya Shavlo, 12, however, said that she and her classmates had been studying the Komsomol and found it to be an attractive way to ensure a future for Russia's youth. "Last Friday, we had a lesson at school dedicated to the Komsomol, and people suggested that we join the new organisation," she said. "We even sang the old Komsomol songs. I think it would be nice if young people got more united."

While some in a nation struggling toward a market economy might regard the Komsomol as a dinosaur from an era of state control, Yevgenia Vodopianova, 33, an owner of a small business, said she continues to admire the organisation.

"I remember a lot of healthy things that were going on in the past," she said. And I know people who implemented their ideals, and life proved their wisdom. So we should learn from them. The human resources in the Komsomol were enormous, and now as a manager, I am even researching why it was such a success. Of course, there were funny and even ridiculous things, but we shouldn't reject everything that happened," Vodopianova said.

For all its role in supporting a totalitarian system, the Komsomol always proclaimed its goals in the language of international peace and brotherhood. It is this that which separates the Komsomol, despite its excesses and corruption, from the more notorious Hitler Youth.

Still, tones of nationalism continue to be one of the organisation's most solid foundations. It's not all campfires and camaraderie, "It's love for the motherland that unites people," said Sergei Mishchenko, a 19-year-old student from the nearby town of Arseniev, who has started a Komsomol youth club that offers educational programs and has recruited volunteer lawyers to help pensioners resolve their legal problems.

Igor Skorik, a 62-year-old pensioner, grew reflective while singing old Komsomol songs at a rally filled with red banners. "I entered the Komsomol in 1954, and in my soul I am still a Komsomol member," he said. "I worked in the northern Kuril Islands, in Sakhalin, in Magadan, and all my life I felt this Komsomol enthusiasm for improving my country."

*Russell Working and Nonna Chernyakova are freelance reporters based in Vladivostok, Russia.

See related sites about Europe

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.