Who celebrates the Day of the Komsomol and why

Since 1991, the Komsomol Day is not a state holiday. It is noted by those who connect their young years with this former largest youth organization in the world and are nostalgic for the Soviet past.

There is a story about an elderly man who was asked when it was better, now or under Stalin. "Of course, under Stalin!" Answered the old man. Also has explained, that then, some decades back, at it all teeth were the, on a head the dense head of hear grew, and women very much liked it. And now what? One disgrace!

How the Komsomol was created

The need for a youth communist organization arose almost immediately after the October coup, and it was framed at the height of the Civil War, in 1918. October 29 (November 4, according to the Julian calendar) was proclaimed the creation of a socialist union of youth, soon renamed the Communist (KSM). The next 72 years on this day and it was customary to celebrate Komsomol Day. The date is conditional, since the organization was renamed repeatedly, and the young assistants of the Bolsheviks were also earlier.

On the badge, which appeared in 1922, nevertheless stood the abbreviation "KIM", which was deciphered as "the Communist International of Youth". According to the official version, the author of the idea of creating a young avant-garde and some preliminary stage of the future members of the Bolshevik Party was himself VI. Ulyanov (Lenin). This version confirms the fact of the theoretical elaboration of the issue, confirmed by the work "Tasks of the Youth Unions", published in 1920. However, this happened already at the III Congress of the KSM, which took place in the same year.

Boris Bazhanov, who escaped abroad (1928) Stalin's secretary, insisted that the opportunity to celebrate the Day of the Komsomol members was obliged to Lazar Shatskin, a prominent figure in the Bolshevik Party, who was shot, like many others, like him in 1937.

Why the new generation of Leninists was raised

Whatever it was, membership in the VKSM, (after the death of Lenin , the letter "L" was added, and the union became Leninist) in the first years of the organization's existence was as dangerous as in the RCP (b). Soon after the end of the Civil War, peasant unrest began, connected with the tough policy of the surplus-appropriation, and on the edge of the class struggle were poorly prepared, often illiterate representatives of the rural or young people sent from the city, where the plundered rural population broke their discontent, sometimes very cruelly.

Actually, the CSM has never been an independent organization, its tasks included carrying out the party's line on all the fronts it announced. On the Day of the Komsomol it was customary to pay tribute to the memory of all the young Leninists who perished during the conduct of collectivization and in all the wars in which they had to participate.

Particular attention was paid to the participation of members of the organization in children's upbringing. The system of ideological suggestion in the USSR had four levels. In October, the children born in the Land of Soviets became in the primary classes, then they were accepted as pioneers, and only after that, at the age of 14, the Komsomol.

What do the aged Komsomols yearn for?

The reasons why today some of our fellow citizens celebrate the Day of the Lenin Komsomol are different. For some, these are nostalgic memories of a carefree youth that has passed into calm and prosperous years, others still believe religiously in the bright ideals of communism; the third, perhaps, really were very well arranged at various district committees-regional committee-city committees. In addition to labor and military feats, there were special buffets, and distributors, common with party structures. And in conjunction with youth, how not to get bored with such benefits?

What can be learned

And nevertheless there is a rational grain in the idea of encompassing young people with some useful lessons. Despite many unjust actions, the leadership of the country took care of the children to be engaged in circles, sections at palaces of pioneers and sports societies, and absolutely free of charge. Perhaps, on Komsomol Day, many people remember this, looking at how today's young generation is painfully searching for their way.