1 Komsomol'skaja pravda, February 14, 1945.

2 On attempts at forming study groups, see Koms. pravda, July 5, 8 and 29, August 4, December 29 and 30, 1944.

3 Koms. pravda, February 14, 1945.

4 Pravda, February 22, 1945.

5 Ibid. Reference to “ideas of the Bolshevik Party” and to the “great historical part of the Soviet people” in the war effort appears to have been a hint that the prestige of the Army was not to be increased further at the expense of the Party.

6 See Koms. pravda, July 1, 1943 (Stavropol Territory), January 9, 1944 (Rostov), June 28, 1944 (Belorussia), September 29, 1944 (Lithuania), December 29, 1944 (Ukraine) and February 9, 1945 (Latvia). In May, 1944, Col. Vidjukov, Komsomol affairs chief in the Red Army political administration (Glavpurkka), instructed that it was essential to conduct “special work” with young recruits from liberated areas because “fascist propaganda has hidden from them the truth about the USSR and has tried by all and sundry means to stupefy them by false concoctions.” (Koms. pravda, May 26, 1944).

7 Komsomol'skij rabotnik, No. 19-20, 1945, p. 18.

8 Koms. pravda, September 12, 1945. Repatriated youth were said to be setting themselves apart from their homegrown equals. Scorn of native ways was manifested by peasant girls going to field work wearing cheap foreign bracelets with hair set in German fashion. Apparently to counsel Komsomol officials in the Soviet occupation armies in Central Europe, the editorial in Koms. pravda, May 27, 1945, remarked that, “it would be naive to suppose that the enemy will refrain from further attempts at waging ideological struggle.” Reference to the dangers of “the encirclement of an alien people” was made in an instructional article for military Komsomol officials by Lt. Col. Nosachev, reporting from Germany in Koms. pravda, September 6, 1945.

9 See the demand by Komsomol First Secretary N. A. Mikhailov for “a new flow of creative forces and energy” in the above cited issue of Pravda and the remarks of CG Secretary Mishakova in Koms. rabotnik, No. 19-20, 1945, pp. 12-13.

10 Bol'shevik, No. 23-24, 1946, p. 19. The carefree attitude of returning soldiers seems to have been captured by Ostrovsky and Fradkin in their popular song Ja demobilizovannyj.

11 Bol’shevik, No. 23-24, 1946, p. 19. “Apoliticalism” in the form of Komsomol members'- low interest in the first postwar elections, their failure to check with sufficient enthusiasm on lists of voters and decorate polling places, is cited in Koms. rabotnik, No. 1, 1946, p. 18. The discovery of “anti-artistic, vulgar and apolitical” sketches and vaudeville in higher schools of Saratov and Voronezh was probably symptomatic (see Sovetskoe studenchestvo, No. 1, 1947, p. 15). In this context “apolitical” probably signifies that the material lacked an educational significance. In regard to “lack of principle” [bezidejnost'], one must consider the low militancy of rural Komsomol units and the fraudulent schemes of young industrial workers (informative on the latter is the short story by D. Dar, Utro, in tyezda, No. 10, 1948, pp. 45-116).

12 Koms. rabtonik, No. 8, 1946, p. 31.

13 Bol'shevik, No. 23-24, 1946, p. 15.

14 Koms. rabtonik, No. 17-18, 1946, p. 3.

15 Ibid., p. 2.

16 See Pravda, February 21, 1939. The motivation at this time appears to have been a lack of qualified propagandists, a result of the recent purges.

17 Koms. rabtonik, No. 17-18, 1946, p. 3.

18 See the editorial in Koms. rabtonik, No. 17-18, 1946, pp. 1-4.

19 A course of lectures and seminars organized by Party city committees and devoted to a study of Party and general history as well as international affairs, the program being intended for cadres with a secondary education.

20 The Komsomol CC resolution of October, 1948, called for merger of all elementary groups and their convocation three times each month for a period of eighteen months. Basic type groups were to meet fortnightly over a period of two years, instead of weekly for one year (Koms. pravda, October 16, 1948). An instructional text reveals that higher type groups as well were to meet once fortnightly for two years instead of weekly for eighteen months. (See Spravochnik komsomol'skogo propagandista, Moscow, 1952, p. 382). In the absence of an official explanation for these changes, it would appear that students were to be given greater time to prepare for the exercises.

21 G. Eligulashvili and G. Fominov, VLKSM v cifrakh, Moscow, 1949, p. 114. Although youth allegedly derived tremendous inspiration from a study of the life of Stalin, after his passing the Komsomol was to create groups devoted only to the biography of Lenin (see Sovetskajapedagogika, No. 1, 1949, p. 95 and Koms.pravda, July 29, 1955).

22 Ibid.

23 In October, 1948, Komosol membership totalled 9,000,000 (Mikhailov in Pravda, October 30, 1948).

24 The demand for wider scope may be found in the Pravda editorial of March 30, 1949, political education enrollment is reported in Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 5, 1950, p. 16, and Koms. pravda, October 2, 1953. Membership is in Koms. Pravda, April 11, 1950 and Kommunist, No. 13, 1953, p. 13. At the end of the 1949-50 study year Mikhailov cautioned against a “race” for creating as many circles as possible, advising “We need not pursue quantity to the detriment of quality.” (Pravda, August 23, 1950). A shortage of qualified propagandists was probably behind this.

25 Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 5, 1950, p. 16.

26 A Moscow secondary school director noted in 1948 that the circle for study of the Stalin biography in his institution had seventy Komsomol members and twenty youth who were “not in the Komsomol but preparing themselves for entrance into it.” (Sovetskaja pedagogika, No. 1, 1949, p. 94). Although this statement was made when the candidate period, intended for political semi-literates or illiterates, was formally still in existence, the infinitesimal number of youth admitted as candidates in the period 1947-49 and the geographical location of the school in point would suggest that even in the following years it was common for a potential member to enter a polit-group. The attempt by some eager officials to portray the groups as a sort of social club where youth came to make friends and spend leisure time is problematical.

27 Pravda, August 32, 1950.

28 Spravochnik komsomol’ skogo progagandista, p. 386 tells of prescribed procedure while practice may be found in Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 6, 1948, p. 19, Koms. pravda, March 24, 1954 (speech of Masherov) and Molodoj kommunist, No. 4, 1954, p. 74. 29Koms. pravda, January 8, 1947, on Lenningrad, the editorial in ravda, December 18, 1948, on the entire Komsomol and Moskovskij komsomolets, September 25, 1951 on the premier organization.

30 See Koms. pravda, March 25, 1954 (speech of Ter-Gazariants) on the central approach and Molodoj kommunist, No. 3, 1955, p. 50 for impact on the local level. Koms. pravda, March 5, 1955, contains a typical instructional piece, based on investigation of the Mordov Province Committee.

31 Both programs with lists of recommended literature are in Koms. rabotnik, No. 23-24, 1946, pp. 20-35.

32 Pravda, March 30, 1949. In higher schools the political education of Komsomol members was for the first two years entrusted to compulsory indoctrination courses (“Foundations of Marxism-Leninism“), introduced into the curriculum in 1938. For juniors and seniors the institution's Komsomol organization was to arrange politinformatsija, which in “some” groups was a reading aloud of newspaper articles to the participants (Molodoj kommunist, No. 9, 1954, p. 48).

33 See Koms. pravda, July 29, 1955.

34 A good treatment of this may be found in N. Gradoboev, “Krizis komsomola,” Posev, October 1, 1950, pp. 8-10.

35 The text is V Pomoshch' slushatel'jam nachal'nykh komsomol'skikh politkruzhkov, Moscow, 1951. The need for study group leaders to emphasize Great Russian nationalism may be found in the remarks of Kaftanov in Koms. pravda, September 19, 1945, and the report on a central propaganda conference in Koms. pravda, September 21, 1945.

36 See V. S. Chapkevich and I. K. Karpov, Ukazatel’ osnovnykh pervoistochnikou vpomoshch’ izfichajushchim’ Kratkij kurs istorii VKP (b)', Leningrad, 1949.

37 Molodoj bolshevik, No. 5, 1950, p. 18.

38 Ibid. An authoritative definition of “scholasticism“is “unfruitful philosophizing, divorcement from life and practice, pedantry” (G. Aleksandrov, V. Gal'janov and N. Rubenshtein, Politicheskij slovar', Moscow, 1940, p. 556).

39 Ibid.

40 Moskovskij komsomol'ets, June 12, 1947 (ed.).

41 See particularly the editorial in Pravda, October 29, 1953. In propagandist training courses offered in the summer of 1955, “special” attention was to be paid to teaching the participants how to “penetrate their talks with current material and local facts.” (Koms. pravda, June 9, 1955).

41 Koms. pravda, March 20, 1954.

43 One progagandist affirmed several months after Shelepin's demand: “At times it is difficult to pick up examples from fictional literature, from our daily life. And without this, study proceeds sluggishly, without any upsurge whatever” (Koms. pravda, November 17, 1954). There have been interesting post-Stalin comments on indoctrination of the masses which are not without pertinence to the subject dealt with here. In a discussional article the ideologue Stepanian attacked “individual” philosophers who had committed “errors of an idealist order,” who thought it “possible to overcome the survivals of capitalism in the consciousness of people only by means of progaganda, by the path of enlightenment, scorning at the same time the decision of economic tasks, the need for an unswerving development of all public production, which creates the objective conditions for a raising of the material status and cultural level of the people” (Voprosy filosofii, No. 2, 1955, p. 85). A colleague, Yovchuk, attributed to Lenin the idea that, “In conditions of the Soviet system … . a genuinely socialist consciousness of the masses does not take shape and cannot be worked out as a result of scholastic training. For realization of an ideological and cultural revolution in the consciousness of the masses, especially the peasantry, there is demanded fundamental changes in the country's economy” (Ibid., No. 1, 1955, p. 9, emphasis own). But the very same issue of Voprosy filosofii conservatively demanded that writers be guided by “Communist sense of principle” and “Party spirit”, present a “Marxist comprehension of reality” (p. 12). There was need for a “struggle with the influence of the hostile world outlook in science” (p. 13) and note was taken of “distortions of Soviet ideology” (p. 15). Of course, only by mental drill could the desired attitudes be attained. As regards “linking theory with practice,” some doctrinal revisions on historical and sociological themes were, to be sure, made after Stalin. Most striking was the expedient discarding of the theory of “strategical retreat” in the first days of the war and the chauvinistic repudiation of foreign scientific and technical achievement. But these were minor revisions, not even a dent made on such fundamental myths as, to mention but a few, the working class being the ruling class in Soviet society, the voluntary entry into and continued desire for collectives by the broad mass of the peasantry, the absence of antagonistic class conflicts with all diverse social interests harmoniously reconciled by a single political party.

44 The case of Vladimir province was cited in February 1949. Here, 50-60% of study group enrollees failed to attend exercises regularly (Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 3, 1949, p. 31). In March, 1950, the secretary of the Komsomol of the Ukraine observed that normal work in “a number” of study groups was being interfered with by poor attendance. He reported an attendance of 45-49% in groups at the Kharkov Tractor Plant and in the Stalin county of Kharkov city (Ibid., No. 5, 1950, p. 34). At about the same time, in the majority of groups in the heavily industralized Molotov province attendance averaged but 30-40% of total enrollment (Ibid., No. 9, 1950, p. 30).

45 In the period August, 1946-May, 1947, only 350 or 15% of the 2,350 elementary study groups in Moscow city completed their work (Moskovskij komsomolets, June 12, 1947). At the beginning of 1948, 3,937 groups had been formed in Bashkiria, but only 1,615 ever completed their work (Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 14, 1948, p. 46). The cited October decision of the Komsomol CC disclosed that “many” groups throughout the country had failed to complete their work. In his critique of the 1949-50 study year, Mikhailov cited five province organizations in which 35% of the groups had failed to complete their study plans (Pravda, August 23, 1950). On the collapse of a “considerable part” of Moscow study groups see Pravda, May 21, 1950.

46 Koms. pravda, September 25, 1954.

47 Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 3, 1951, p. 44. A postwar defector who had served as secretary of a Regimental Komsomol Bureau in a guard's unit told the writer that there was never classroom discipline in the Party history study groups which he had been obliged to attend. He informed that many enrollees had been in the habit of telling the propagandist, “I don't understand .” Soviet sources are understandably mute in regard to such conduct.

48 See above.

49 Mikhailov in Pravda, March 30, 1949.

50 For a detailed account, see A. Primakovsky, Kak rabotat’ sknigoj, part of the series “Library of the Komsomol Propagandist,” Moscow, 1951.

51 Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 1, 1949, p. 54.

52 Kultura i zhizn', September 30, 1949.

53 During 1947, 457 theoretical conferences and 1,137 lectures and consultations were held for self-learners in Tbilisi. The consultants were young scholars, history teachers and senior course humanities students, each of whom had to be confirmed in his post by a Party rajkom (Koms. rabotnik, No. 6, 1948, pp. 6, 17).

54 See, for example, Koms. rabotnik, No. 1, 1946, p. 16 and the editorial in Pravda, May 24, 1948. It appears that enrollees in a large number of organized study groups were subjected to final examinations [zachety]. The previously mentioned individual who had served as an official in the army Komsomol has stated that upon completion of his Party history course and examination a certificate was presented him, hastening to add, “with which I could do nothing.” Contrary to procedure in the 1920's, no data has been published on the results of postwar examinations in the Komsomol study system.

55 Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 1, 1949, p. 46.

56 Ibid., No. 22, 1949, p. 4.

57 Political education figure from Koms. pravda, January 25, 1950, general membership from Koms. pravda, April 11,1950.

58 Pravda, August 23, 1950 and Koms. pravda, October 2, 1953.

59 Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 11, 1949, p. 11.

60 It is important to note that lower and not higher, so to speak “graduate,” study was typical. For example, in Leningrad city, February, 1949, of the 1,010 full-time Komsomol functionaries and primary organization secretaries in Party education, 700 or 69% were in Party schools and circles attached to primary Party units, 212 or 2 1% were in independent study and only 10% in Marxist-Leninist Universities and the Higher Party School, presumably correspondence course (Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 4, 1949, p. 49).

61 See reports on regional Party congresses in Pravda, February 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, March 2, 1954, the editorials of January 4, and February 1, 1954.

62 Koms. pravda, January 26, 1950.

63 Pravda, August 23, 1950. The previous year propagandists numbered 200,000, 80% had a higher and secondary education and 45% were Communists (Kultura i zhizn', September 30, 1949, and Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 8, 1949, p. 27). Regional dissimilarities were striking: in 1949, 95% of the propagandists in the Moscow organization were assigned to this work by Party units and were presumably Party members; in the Moldavian organization, 1949, a total of 45.3% of the Komsomol propagandists lacked even a secondary education (Pravda, September 20, 1949 [ed.] on Moscow and Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 12, 1949, p. 18 on Moldavia).

64 The course is outlined in Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 16, 1950, p. 54. Previously there were evening courses of six months duration for elementary circle propagandists. As of March, 1950, a “significant number” of individuals had completed such training (see Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 5, 1950, p. 16). A four-months course of two lessons weekly is reported in Koms. rabotnik, No. 5, 1948, p. 21.

65 Many of the local seminars were said to be working poorly, not offering serious profit to the participants. Those who led seminars in Stavropol, Rostov, Rjazan’ and a “row” of other provinces were censured for addiction to lecturing and “superficial coaching” (Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 5, 1950, p. 18).

66 Shelepin in Koms. pravda, March 20, 1954.

67 On the methodology of Komsomol progagandists see Partijnaja zhizn', No. 19, 1955, p. 6.

68 Koms. pravda, June 9, 1955. Additional meetings were to familiarize propagandists with specific tasks, as lectures on agrotechnics and the practice of Komsomol work among settlers in the virgin and fallow lands areas. As has been noted, special emphasis was to be placed on insuring that the propagandists be able to make wide use of local materials.

69 Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 5, 1947, p. 4, Mikhailov in Pravda, August 23, 1950 and Koms. pravda, January 26, 1950 (ed.).

70 Molodoj bol'shevik, No. 5, 1950, p. 17. On “vulgar simplification of Marxism” see Molodoj kommunist, No. 4, 1954, p. 75.

71 Moskovskij komsomolets, December 17, 1946 (ed.).

72 Koms. pravda, June 16, 1955.

73 Molodoj bol' shank, No. 2, 1949, p. 35.

74 The editorial in Pravda, May 17, 1954, is one of the more recent references to this.

75 See Koms. rabotnik, No. 16, 1947, p. 11.

76 Censure of such indiscreet tastes appears in Molodoj kommunist, No. 3, 1955, p. 65 and Partijnaia zhizn', No. 19, 1955, p. 59.

77 In March, 1954, only 2,548,000 or 13.5% of the total Komsomol membership were in rural organizations (Koms. pravda, March 20, 1954). For comment on rural political education, see the editorial in Pravda, January 30, 1948, Koms. rabotnik, No. 6, 1947, pp. 2, 4 and Ibid., No. 4, 1948, p. 16.