From Comrade Kosarev's speech. March 5, 1937

Source: Questions of History, 1995, No. 12, pp. 3-5

Andreev (presiding.) I must warn all the comrades who are speaking to adhere to strict time limits. I will give no more than 10 minutes. Comrade Kosarev has the floor.

Kosarev.

Comrades, the counter-revolutionary, wrecking and espionage activities of the Trotskyists took place among individual organizations of the Komsomol; We have had such attempts on the part of the Trotskyist elements more than once, and they met with a rebuff on the part of our Party and on the part of the Leninist Komsomol. But, unfortunately, neither the party organizations nor the Young Communist League have so far taken into account all the serious possibilities available for the penetration of Trotskyist elements into our organizations in order to influence the youth and its individual strata.

We have many millions of young people born after the October Revolution. These young people do not have sufficient experience in the class struggle, sufficient training in the struggle for the Leninist-Stalinist line of our Party. The insufficient class tempering of the youth, the unsatisfactory knowledge of the youth of the history of the Party, of its struggle against the enemies of the Leninist Party, plus the unsatisfactory educational work of many Komsomol organizations themselves—all this opens up wide possibilities for the penetration of hostile Trotskyist elements into the milieu of the Komsomol and among our youth. The treacherous work of the Trotskyists also offended the Komsomol. This was expressed in the penetration of disguised Trotskyist-Zinoviev elements into a number of district and city organizations of the Komsomol.

In particular, Yarofitsky, an enemy of the party and Soviet power, was at the head of the Azov-Chernomorsky regional organization as first secretary for a long time. This Trotskyist work of Yarofitsky and his henchmen, as well as other Trotskyists, went along the line of training personnel for terror among the youth. True, it should be noted here that the Trotskyists could not and will not be able to recruit these cadres for terror, but they made a serious attempt in this direction. To this end, Trotskyist elements in the Komsomol are trying in every possible way to discredit the Party leadership, they are trying to sow dissatisfaction with the Party leadership and are trying to instill in the youth a feeling of sharp hatred for the Party. 

One of the most important aspects of Trotskyist work in the Komsomol was the struggle against the Party leadership, against the influence of the Party on the youth. Yarofitsky in his testimony substantiated this counter-revolutionary work as follows. Until the shackles of the Party on the youth are destroyed, until then it will be difficult to influence the youth and recruit supporters of Trotskyist work from among them. Trotskyist work in the Komsomol proceeded along the line of deliberately corrupting the Komsomol organizations and disrupting the educational work in the Komsomol, thereby organizing and provoking the bitterness of the youth and Komsomol members against the work of the leading bodies and the work of our party committees.

What contributed to this Trotskyist work in the Komsomol, and what are our mistakes? They are as follows. Stalin's instructions on educational work in the Komsomol and the subsequent decision of the Central Committee of the Party before the Tenth Congress of the Komsomol on educational work in the Komsomol are being carried out unsatisfactorily in the Komsomol. Political work in the Komsomol, the production of propaganda, and the political education of Komsomol members are poorly organized. Consequently, the Komsomol is being reorganized towards a decision on the upbringing and education of young people slowly and unsatisfactorily. The transition to organizing the education of the youth, to carrying out Comrade Stalin's instructions on the communist education of the youth, is being delayed and hampered. The Central Committee of the Komsomol is to blame for the fact that we have not yet been able to properly organize this work, we have not been able to place it as the central link in all our work. Many Komsomol organizations still continue to copy the work of economic bodies, they have not yet renounced economic work. And the local party organizations do not help us much in this. All of you are sitting here and you yourself know how you mobilized Komsomol members and Komsomol workers for various economic affairs and insisted on these mobilizations, so that the Central Committee of the Komsomol had to raise these questions several times for permission by the Central Committee of the CPSU (b).

The fact that Yarofitsky was a traitor became possible in the leadership of the Komsomol, this is also due to the separation of the Central Committee of the Komsomol from the Azov-Chernomorsk regional Komsomol organization, and the lack of control in the work of the regional committee from both the Central Committee of the Komsomol and the Komsomol organizations of the region. We violated the Bolshevik order, entrusted all the leadership of the regional organization to Yarofitsky, allowed the weakness of intra-union democracy - the Komsomol members did not know what the regional committee was doing, what the district committees and city committees of the region were doing. This made it possible for Yarofitsky's counter-revolutionary work. There was no self-criticism, and in general it is also unsatisfactorily staged in the Komsomol. Only because of this, Yarofitsky and his henchmen could carry out their treacherous counter-revolutionary work with impunity.

Everything that is said in the draft decision of the plenum, everything that is said in the report of Comrade Stalin, this, comrades, of course, applies to an immeasurably greater degree to Komsomol organizations than to Party organizations, and, of course, we are from this, we are - The Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League will draw real conclusions for itself and, with the help of the Central Committee of our Party, we will be able to ensure the restructuring of the work of the Komsomol in the spirit of the decisions of this plenum, in the spirit of Comrade Stalin's report. For this we have the strength, for this we have personnel. We also have the appropriate leadership of the Central Committee of our Party to solve this problem.

But in connection with these mistakes, comrades, we would like to raise questions about the Party leadership. Tov. Andreev, speaking at the plenum, speaking of the Komsomol, was absolutely right in pointing out the insufficiency of leadership by the Party organizations in the work of the Komsomol. Many regional and regional party committees and republican Central Committees perceive the instruction of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the party leadership of Komsomol organizations formally, they underestimate the importance of the Komsomol in all their work, while the importance of the Komsomol in political, economic, and cultural life country is growing every year and will continue to grow.

It is right that the Komsomol, Komsomol work (this will not be a mistake) has been handed over almost entirely to the Communists working in the Komsomol and to the Komsomol activists themselves. Comrades, this task for us, only for Komsomol workers, is clearly beyond our strength, we alone, without the help of Party organizations, will not be able to cope. Therefore, if we think about how to organize political work in the party, [...] on the organization of this political work, on the organization of Marxist-Leninist propaganda precisely among the Komsomol, among the youth. For take our factories, our collective farms, and you will see that many of them are almost half young workers. How is it possible to conduct organizational and political work, Marxist-Leninist propaganda, without affecting, passing by these cadres of young people?

Comrades, we listened to the report of Comrade Stalin with the greatest attention. I would consider it simply superfluous to say that this report, as is often said, is a report of world-historical significance, etc. This stereotype does not at all fit in with the essence, content and character of Comrade Stalin's report. I would like to say simply: after this report, much that was not clear became clear. This report imbued our party activists with a new understanding of the new tasks, nourished them with a new will to destroy these tasks. (Voices from the seats. That's right!)