Soviet Youth

Putting on gas masks and learning how to shoot Kalashnikov rifles in grade school made Soviet children fear possible attack by Cold War enemies. But a more prosaic invasion of Colorado beetles in the 1980s turned out to be a far more real threat to Soviet families. Many had to master farming when the state, near its demise, no longer had the finances to pay salaries. One of the last generation of Soviet teenagers who tasted the political restrictions and propaganda, and the benefits and deficits of the communist state, the author recalls her early years in a Soviet school, a Young Pioneer inauguration ceremony, work on a collective farm, her family's plot of land and their fights against invasive insects, and her first breaths of post-Soviet freedom, which brought economic havoc and bitter disappointments, along with new hopes.

The study of Soviet youth has long lagged behind the comprehensive research conducted on Western European youth culture. In an era that saw the emergence of youth movements of all sorts across Europe, the Soviet Komsomol was the first state-sponsored youth organization, in the first communist country. Born out of an autonomous youth movement that emerged in 1917, the Komsomol eventually became the last link in a chain of Soviet socializing agencies which organized the young. Based on extensive archival research and building upon recent research on Soviet youth, this book broadens our understanding of the social and political dimension of Komsomol membership during the momentous period 1917–1932. It sheds light on the complicated interchange between ideology, policy and reality in the league's evolution, highlighting the important role ordinary members played. The transformation of the country shaped Komsomol members and their league's social identity, institutional structure and social psychology, and vice versa, the organization itself became a crucial force in the dramatic changes of that time. The book investigates the complex dialogue between the Communist Youth League and the regime, unravelling the intricate process that transformed the Komsomol into a mere institution for political socialization serving the regime's quest for social engineering and control.

No detailed description available for "The Soviet Youth Program".

First published in 1933, Youth in Soviet Russia presents Klaus Mehnert’ s honest and personal account of the state of the youth in USSR. It contains themes like living human beings, student and class, student and the state, the idea of the Komsomol, the literature of the youth, youth and the theatre, the youth commune, trends and attitudes towards sex and marriage with the development of new morality. Mehnert, a German born in Russia offers valuable description of his personal experiences while living with Russian youth during four successive autumns. This book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of history, Soviet history, Russian history, and communist history.

Studies the Komosol, the Communist League of Youth, as the chief instrument of indoctrination and control of young people ages fourteen to twenty-five from 1918-1959.

An in-depth study of late Stalinist youth and youth culture, illuminating the complex relationship between the Soviet state and its youth and providing a new framework for understanding late Stalinism and its impact on the future development of the Soviet system.

Soviet youth behaviour and contemporary problems are discussed, including culture and pop music, gangs and drug addicts, delinquents and deviants, providing an insight into their life and attitudes, and an opportunity to understand youth problems in another society and the ways they are dealt with.