As in the USSR people called the movement VSSO, and that such a construction team

In the USSR there was no unemployment. There was a complete opposite of this regrettable phenomenon - a permanent shortage of labor resources. This problem was especially acute for the country's leadership after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which indicated some liberalization of social relations. The labor army of the GULAG prisoners significantly decreased, the peasants had an opportunity, albeit limited, to avoid the dreary fate of the life-long serf-collective farmer. Nevertheless, the need for builders remained high. Especially it was felt in the fifties, during the development of virgin lands in Kazakhstan. It was then that the VCSS movement arose, inspired like any other mass phenomenon, by the Communist Party, the only ruling power in the Soviet Union.

The first stroyotryadovtsi-virgin

On the virgin land, the hunters were not enough to go. The first wave of immigrants consisted of two unequal parts, romantic enthusiasts (there were a minority) and those who were tempted to climb, having found themselves in an extremely difficult situation for various life circumstances. In other words, the second, more numerous category was those who had nothing to lose, including people with a criminal background. Once in the bare steppe, not provided with housing and supplies, enthusiasts and adventurers equally began to understand the complexity of the situation, many attempted to return back, but it was not possible for everyone. Then the party threw a cry to the students, and the Komsomol, as always, answered "is!" The first construction teams, as the people called the VCSS movement in the USSR, went to Tselina in 1959 and consisted of Moscow State University students. 339 students for the summer erected in Northern Kazakhstan, the place of exile of political prisoners, 12 houses, a rabbit and a couple of poultry houses. These modest achievements were more propagandistic than practical. Without the participation of any qualified builders and the considerable expenses for transportation, food and accommodation of young people, the erection of these facilities would be impossible. About how much each of them has earned, and whether this venture was at least self-supporting, history is silent.

Attempts to attract the labor resources of young students were both earlier and later. Beginning with the first five-year plans, the party leadership believed that students should not spend their summer holidays in idleness. In the years of "mature socialism" the tradition continued with regular shipments for autumn agricultural work in the sponsored collective farms. At the same time, most often the tasks carried out by the Komsomol members were not related to construction. In this regard, by 1983, the need for renaming had matured, since the people in the USSR called the VCSS movement still construction teams. Now they were labeled with a shorter abbreviation of CO (that is, student detachments), thereby expanding their scope of application. Students were used in industrial enterprises, experiencing difficulties, including seasonal ones, in labor resources. Usually in such plants and factories, labor was heavy, the norms were high, and the payment was very modest.

Organizational structure

Since its inception, the Komsomol has been a faithful assistant to the Communist Party. As in the CPSU, the fundamental principle in this organization was democratic centralism. He was also transferred to the offspring of the Komsomol, construction teams, as people in the USSR called the VSSO movement. Structurally, all units were managed by the central headquarters, which operates under the Central Committee of the Komsomol. Each individual unit (squad), consisting of thirty to forty people, was subordinate to the corresponding functionary of the Komsomol district committee. It was ruled by the commander and commissar. The former was engaged in general issues of leadership, the latter regulated the ideological side. There were other positions necessary for the proper work of the detachment, for example, an accountant or a cook. The best commanders chosen throughout the vast country took part in regularly organized rallies.

Flowering stroyotryadovskogo movement

The VSSO movement in the USSR reached its peak in the late sixties and early seventies. The student's life was often poor. The scholarship was 40 rubles (increased - 50), and living in hostels "out-of-town" had to look for earnings, especially if the parents could not help. Stroyotryady gave an opportunity for the summer to stock up in cash, sometimes significant. Their geography was extensive, and in some cases they paid extra charges, northern or for remoteness. To earn during the holidays is an ordinary matter for a student in any country, but nowhere has it received such an organizational scale as in the USSR. The people called the movement VSSO studios, construction teams, and sometimes just shabashnikami, but it did not matter. As long as the main stimulus was a highly paid payment, it developed, and the number of students taking part in it grew. Already by 1970 it exceeded the figure of 300 thousand, five years later it doubled, and by 1980 it exceeded 800 thousand. Then there was a decline.

The Decline of the BCCO

As long as the construction teams had a certain choice of the objects on which they had to work, things went relatively well. But by 1983, the party leadership realized that such a large able-bodied "mass" could be used more efficiently, which translated into the economic language was expressed by the simplest formula "pay less, work more and not where they want, but where they say". The number of those wishing to work under such conditions has decreased, and administrative measures have been taken into action, up to the threat of expulsion from the university in case of refusal to work out the summer in the construction team.

But still…

And yet those who are now 50-60 years old recall construction teams a kind word. Young people who do not even know what was called the VCSS movement, and how these letters are deciphered, it is difficult to understand the joy of the kind of barn built up all together, a sense of independence and the happiness of overcoming difficulties, but there were many of them. Mosquitoes were biting, everyday conditions often left much to be desired, and even the ration was not the same as that prepared by my mother, but all this did not matter. Songs by the fire, not always those that Pakhmutov composed about the "furious construction squad", baked potatoes, first love and a magical sense of freedom, backed up by the delicate crunch of self-earned money in his pocket - that's what is remembered by the then stroyotryadovtsam, and now quite respectable uncles and aunts. Such nostalgia can be desired by the current twenty-year-old.