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Lenin and Stalin related to Young Communist League, Komsomol

"The Young Communist League," Lenin states, "must be a shock force, helping in every job and displaying initiative and enterprise". Through the League's "practical work and activity" any worker will be able to see that the YCL is demonstrating the correct road to follow-correct because it leads to the liberation of all workers. Emulation of communist methods and actions will follow upon the successful solution to practical problems by the method of labor in common and as the youth prove that they can unite their labor. This is the standpoint from which one can judge the success of communist construction."

Stalin stressed the momentous importance of Party propaganda and the Marxist-Leninist education of the functionaries of the Party and the Young Communist League, of the trade unions and trade, cooperative, and economic organizations, and of government, educational, military, and other bodies.

Lenin, Speech at the First All-Russia Congress of Communist Students

23 June 1919

It gives me great pleasure to greet you. I do not know how many gubernias are represented here, or where you have come from. The important thing is that the youth, the communist youth, are organizing. The important thing is that the youth are gathering together to learn to build the new type of school. Now you have a new type of school. The old, bureaucratic school, which you hated and detested, and with which you had no ties, no longer exists. We have planned our work for a very long period. The future society we are striving for, the society in which all must work, the society in which there will be no class distinctions, will take a long time to build. At present we are only laying the foundations of this future society, but you will have to build it when you grow up. At present, work as your strength permits; do not undertake tasks that are too much for you; be guided by your seniors. Once again, I greet this Congress and wish your labors every success.

This Congress took place in Moscow between April 15 and April 21, 1919 and was attended by about 200 delegates representing 8,000 members of the Union of Communist Students. The Congress passed a resolution to merge the Union. of Communist Students with the Young Communist League. An instruction confirmed by the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) on May 11, 1919, made the Russian Young Communist League responsible for work among the working-class and peasant youth and among the student youth.

Lenin, The Tasks of the Youth Leagues, October 2, 1920 (click for the article)

Lenin, Comments on the Draft Resolution for The Eleventh Conference of the R.C.P.(B.) on the Party Purge

Dictated over the telephone December 22, 1921

With regard to Zalutsky’s draft resolution on the Party purge I would like to make two remarks.

1) In section 3 §a Zalutsky proposes that enrolment into the Party be suspended for 6 months. I think this is wrong. I would propose, on my part, not to suspend enrolment, but to lay down stricter conditions, namely: a long term of probation. If an eighteen-month term for real workers is considered too long, it can be reduced, say, to nine, or even six months, as Trotsky proposes. In the case of such short terms, however, I think we should require a qualified   majority in the bodies making enrolment decisions, for instance, that it should require a majority of not less than four-fifths to have the term of enrolment reduced, this four-fifths majority to be demanded not only from one Party body (the local cell making the admission), but from several bodies for the sake of mutual control (for example, from the Gubernia Party Committee in addition to the local cell, and so on). I would have nothing whatever against admission into the Party being made easier for genuine workers, but unless very strict conditions are laid down for determining who is to be considered a worker of large industry, we shall immediately find a mass of riff-raff crawling through the hole again. As regards Red Army men, I think we should have stricter conditions, since, for one thing, most of them are not workers, but peasants, and secondly, these people are too young and need testing.

2) In Section 4 §a Zalutsky proposes a revision of the plans of work among the Young Communist League. I believe stricter conditions should be laid down on this point to make sure that the members of the Y.C.L. admitted to membership of the Party have, first, really studied seriously and learnt something, and secondly, that they have a long record of serious practical work (economic, cultural, etc.).

Lenin

Notes

Lenin’s remarks on the draft resolution for the Eleventh Conference of the R.C.P.(B.) on the Party purge were taken into consideration by the drafting committee.

The conference discussed the results of the Party purge and adopted a resolution “On the Question of Strengthening the Party as a Result of the Verification of Its Membership”, which was drafted in its final version at a meeting of regional committees, regional bureaux and Gubernia Committees of the R.C.P. and endorsed by the Central Committee and the Eleventh Congress of the Party (see The C.P.S. U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenary Meetings of the Central Committee, Part I, 1954, pp. 597-98).

Lenin, From On the Significance of Militant Materialism (Click for the article)

(Starting from ; "In conclusion, I will cite an example which has nothing to do with philosophy, but does at any rate concern social questions, to which Pod Znamenem Marxizma also desires to devote attention.")

Stalin, Fourth Conference of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) with Responsible Workers of the National Republics and Regions, June  9-12, 1923

1. Draft Platform on the National Question for the Fourth Conference, Endorsed by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee . The General Line of party Work on the National Question

The line of Party work on the national question as regards combating deviations from the position adopted by the Twelfth Party Congress must be defined by the relevant points of the resolution on the national question adopted by that congress, namely, Point 7 of Part I of the resolution, and Points 1, 2 and 3 of Part II.

One of the Party's fundamental tasks is to rear and develop in the national republics and regions young communist organisations consisting of proletarian and semi-proletarian elements of the local population; to do everything to assist these organisations to stand firmly on their feet, to acquire real communist education and to unite the genuinely internationalist communist cadres, even though they may be few at first. The Soviet regime will be strong in the republics and regions only when really important communist organisations are firmly established there.

But the Communists themselves in the republics and regions must bear in mind that the situation there, if only because of the different social composition of the population, is markedly different from the situation in the industrial centres of the Union of Republics and that, for this reason, it is often necessary to employ different methods of work in the border regions. In particular, here, in the endeavour to win the support of the labouring masses of the local population, it is necessary to a larger extent than in the central regions to meet halfway the revolutionary democratic elements, or even those who are simply loyal in their attitude to the Soviet regime. The role of the local intelligentsia in the republics and regions differs in many respects from that of the intelligentsia in the central regions of the Union of Republics. There are so few local intellectual workers in the border regions that all efforts must be made to win every one of them to the side of the Soviet regime.

A Communist in the border regions must remember that he is a Communist and therefore, acting in conformity with the local conditions, must make concessions to those local national elements who are willing and able to work loyally within the framework of the Soviet system. This does not preclude, but, on the contrary, presupposes a systematic ideological struggle for the principles of Marxism and for genuine internationalism, and against a deviation towards nationalism. Only in this way will it be possible successfully to eliminate local nationalism and win broad strata of the local population to the side of the Soviet regime.

Stalin, On The Contradictions In The Young Communist LeagueSpeech at the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) Conference on Work Among the Youth1 April 3, 1924

StalinThirteenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) , May 23-31, 1924, Organisational Report of the Central Committee

StalinThe Results of the Thirteen Congress of the R.C.P.(B.), Report Delivered at the C.C., R.C.P.(B.)

Stalin, To the Teachers' Congress

January 6, 1925

The phalanx of school-teachers is one of the most essential units of the great army of working people in our country who are building a new life on the basis of socialism.

The path along which the working class is marching to socialism can lead to victory only if the vast masses of the toiling peasantry follow this path and march in step with the working class, only if the working class exercises unrelaxing leadership of the toiling masses.

The village school-teacher must realise that if there is no such leadership there can be no proletarian dictatorship, and if there is no such dictatorship, our country cannot be free and independent.

To become one of the links that connect the peasant masses with the working class—such is the chief task of the village school-teacher if he really wants to serve the cause of his people, to serve the cause of its freedom and independence.

J. Stalin

Uchitelskaya Gazeta, No. 2 January 10, 1925

Notes

1.The All-Union Teachers' Congress took place in Moscow, January 12-17, 1925. The congress was attended by 1,660 delegates representing 49 nationalities of the Soviet Union. Three-fourths of the delegates were village school-teachers. The congress heard and discussed reports on: the immediate tasks in the sphere of Soviet affairs; the teachers and the proletarian revolution; the tasks of education in the system of Soviet affairs; the Soviet school; the national question and the schools; teachers and the Young Communist League; the international position of the U.S.S.R., etc. The congress adopted a declaration stating that the teachers did not separate their tasks from those of the Communist Party, from its struggle to build socialism.

Stalin, The Active of the Young Communist League inthe CountrysideSpeech Delivered at a Meeting of the Organising Bureau of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.), April 6, 1925

Stalin, To all the Members of the Editorial Board ofKomsomolskaya Pravda, June 2, 1925

Stalin, The Tasks of the Young Communist League, Answer to Questions Submitted by the Editorial Board of Komsomolskaya Pravda, October 29, 1925

Stalin

The Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.)

December 18-31, 1925

The Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) took place in Moscow, December 18-31, 1925. The congress discussed the political and organisational reports of the Central Committee the reports of the Auditing Commission, of the Central Control Commission and of the representatives of the R.C.P.(B.) on the Executive Committee of the Comintern; and also reports on: the work of the trade unions; the work of the Young Communist League; revision of the Party Rules, etc. The congress fully approved the political and organisational line of the Central Committee, indicated the further path of struggle for the victory of socialism, endorsed the Party's general line for the socialist industrialisation of the country, rejected the defeatist plans of the oppositionists and instructed the Central Committee resolutely to combat all attempts to undermine the unity of the Party. The Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) has taken its place in the history of the Party as the Industrialisation Congress. The key-note of this congress was the struggle against the "new opposition," which denied the possibility of building socialism in the U.S.S.R. By decision of the Fourteenth Congress, the Party adopted the name of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) — C.P.S.U.(B.). (Concerning the Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) see History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, Moscow 1952, pp. 423-28.)

Extract

This first clash within the majority on the Central Committee was the expression of the fundamental difference between us on questions of organisational policy in the Party.

The second question that caused disagreements among us was that connected with Sarkis's speech against Bukharin. That was at the Twenty-First Leningrad Conference in January 1925. Sarkis at that time accused Bukharin of syndicalism. Here is what he said:

"We have read in the Moscow Pravda Bukharin's article on worker and village correspondents. The views that Bukharin develops have no supporters in our organisation. But one might say that such views, which in their way are syndicalist, un-Bolshevik, anti-Party, are held even by a number of responsible comrades (I repeat, not in the Leningrad organisation, but in others). Those views treat of the independence and extra-territoriality of various mass public organisations of workers and peasants in relation to the Communist Party" (Stenographic Report of the Twenty-First Leningrad Conference).

That speech was, firstly, a fundamental mistake on Sarkis's part, for Bukharin was absolutely right on the question of the worker and village correspondent movement; secondly, it was, not without the encouragement of the leaders of the Leningrad organisation, a gross violation of the elementary rules of comradely discussion of a question. Needless to say, this circumstance was bound to worsen relations within the Central Committee. The matter ended with Sarkis's open admission of his mistake in the press.

This incident showed that open admission of a mistake is the best way of avoiding an open discussion and of eliminating disagreements privately.

The third question was that of the Leningrad Young Communist League. There are members of Gubernia Party Committees here, and they probably remember that the Political Bureau adopted a decision relating to the Leningrad Gubernia Committee of the Young Communist League, which had tried to convene in Leningrad almost an all-Russian conference of the Young Communist League without the knowledge and consent of the Central Committee of the youth league. With the decision of the C.C. of the R.C.P.(B.) you are familiar. We could not permit the existence, parallel with the Central Committee of the Young Communist League, of another centre, competing with and opposing the first. We, as Bolsheviks, could not permit the existence of two centres. That is why the Central Committee considered it necessary to take measures to infuse fresh blood into the Central Committee of the youth league, which had tolerated this separatism, and to remove Safarov from the post of leader of the Leningrad Gubernia Committee of the Young Communist League.

This incident showed that the Leningrad comrades have a tendency to convert their Leningrad organisation into a centre of struggle against the Central Committee.

Stalin, To the Leninist Young Communist League

Greetings on the Day of the Tenth Anniversary of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League

October, 1928

Greetings to the Leninist Young Communist League on its tenth anniversary!

The Leninist Young Communist League was, and is, the young reserve of our revolution. Tens and hundreds of thousands of the finest representatives of the younger generation of workers and peasants have been trained in the ranks of the Young Communist League, received their revolutionary steeling and entered our Party, our Soviets, our trade unions, our Red Army, our Red Navy, our co-operatives, and our cultural organisations, to serve as the successors of the Bolshevik old guard.

The Young Communist League has succeeded in this difficult task because it has worked under the guidance of the Party; it has been able in its activities to combine study in general, and the study of Leninism in particular, with its day-to-day practical work; it has been able to educate the younger generation of working men and women and peasant men and women in the spirit of internationalism; it has been able to find a common language between the old and the young Leninists, between the old and the young guard; it has been able to subordinate all its work to the interests of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the victory of socialist construction.

It is owing to this alone that the Young Communist League has succeeded in holding aloft the banner of Lenin.

Let us hope that in the future, too, the Young Communist League will succeed in performing its duty towards our proletariat and the international proletariat.

Greetings to the two-million reserve of our Party, the Leninist Young Communist League!

Long live the young communist generation!

J. Stalin

Pravda, No. 252, October 28, 1928

Stalin, The Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B.)*

Speech Delivered at the Plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the C.P.S.U.(B.) in April 1929

The Sixth Congress of the Comintern was held in Moscow, July 17-September 1, 1928. It discussed a report on the activities of the Executive Committee of the Comintern and reports of the Executive Committee of the Young Communist International and of the International Control Commission, measures for combating the danger of imperialist wars, the programme of the Communist International, the revolutionary movement in the colonies and semi-colonies, the economic situation in the U.S.S.R. and the situation in the C.P.S.U.(B.), and endorsed the Rules of the Comintern. In its resolutions, the congress drew attention to the growth of the internal contradictions of capitalism, which were inevitably leading to a further shaking of the capitalist stabilisation and to a sharp accentuation of the general crisis of capitalism. The congress defined the tasks of the Communist International springing from the new conditions off the working-class struggle, and mobilised the Communist Parties to intensify the fight against the Right deviation, as the chief danger, and against conciliation towards it. The congress took note of the achievements of socialist construction in the U.S.S.R. and their importance in strengthening the revolutionary positions of the international proletariat, and called upon the working people of the whole world to defend the Soviet Union. J. V. Stalin took a leading part in the work of the congress, he was elected to the Presidium of the congress, to the Programme Commission and to the Political Commission set up to draft the theses on the international situation and the tasks of the Communist International.

Extract

The Intensification of the Class Struggle

Bukharin’s second mistake, which follows from his first one, consists in a wrong, non-Marxist approach to the question of the intensification of the class struggle, of the increasing resistance of the capitalist elements to the socialist policy of the Soviet government.

What is the point at issue here? Is it that the capitalist elements are growing faster than the socialist sector of our economy, and that, because of this, they are increasing their resistance, undermining socialist construction? No, that is not the point. Moreover, it is not true that the capitalist elements are growing faster than the socialist sector. If that were true, socialist construction would already be on the verge of collapse.

The point is that socialism is successfully attacking the capitalist elements, socialism is growing faster than the capitalist elements; as a result the relative importance of the capitalist elements is declining, and for the very reason that the relative importance of the capitalist elements is declining the capitalist elements realise that they are in mortal danger and are increasing their resistance.

And they are still able to increase their resistance not only because world capitalism is supporting them, but also because, in spite of the decline in their relative importance, in spite of the decline in their relative growth as compared with the growth of socialism, there is still taking place an absolute growth of the capitalist elements, and this, to a certain extent, enables them to accumulate forces to resist the growth of socialism.

It is on this basis that, at the present stage of development and under the present conditions of the relation of forces, the intensification of the class struggle and the increase in the resistance of the capitalist elements of town and country are taking place.

The mistake of Bukharin and his friends lies in failing to understand this simple and obvious truth. Their mistake lies in approaching the matter not in a Marxist, but in a philistine way, and trying to explain the intensification of the class struggle by all kinds of accidental causes: the “incompetence” of the Soviet apparatus, the “imprudent” policy of local comrades, the “absence” of flexibility, “excesses,” etc., etc.

Here, for instance, is a quotation from Bukharin’s pamphlet, The Path to Socialism, which demonstrates an absolutely non-Marxist approach to the question of the intensification of the class struggle:

“Here and there the class struggle in the countryside breaks out in its former manifestations, and, as a rule, this intensification is provoked by the kulak elements. When, for instance, kulaks, or people who are growing rich at the expense of others and have wormed their way into the organs of Soviet power, begin to shoot village correspondents, that is a manifestation of the class struggle in its most acute form. (This is not true, for the most acute form of the struggle is rebellion. J. Stalin) However, such incidents, as a rule, occur in those places where the local Soviet apparatus is weak. As this apparatus improves, as all the lower units of Soviet power become stronger, as the local, village, Party and Young Communist League organisations improve and become stronger, such phenomena, it is perfectly obvious, will become more and more rare and will finally disappear without a trace.”

It follows, therefore, that the intensification of the class struggle is to be explained by causes connected with the character of the apparatus, the competence or incompetence, the strength or weakness of our lower organisations.

It follows, for instance, that the wrecking activities of the bourgeois intellectuals in Shakhty, which are a form of resistance of the bourgeois elements to the Soviet government and a form of intensification of the class struggle, are to be explained, not by the relation of class forces, not by the growth of socialism, but by the incompetence of our apparatus.

It follows that before the wholesale wrecking occurred in the Shakhty area, our apparatus was a good one, but that later, the moment wholesale wrecking occurred, the apparatus, for some unspecified reason, suddenly became utterly incompetent.

It follows that until last year, when grain procurements proceeded automatically and there was no particular intensification of the class struggle, our local organisations were good, even ideal; but that from last year, when the resistance of the kulaks assumed particularly acute forms, our organisations have suddenly become bad and utterly incompetent.

That is not an explanation, but a mockery of an explanation. That is not science, but quackery.

Stalin, Letter to A. M. GorkyApril 1929 - June 1930

Greetings to the Seventh All-Union Conference of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League 1

July 8, 1932

Greetings to the Leninist Young Communist League fighters, to the delegates, young men and women, of the League's Seventh All-Union Conference!

I wish you success in the communist education and organisation of the vast masses of the working-class and peasant youth!

Hold high the banner of Leninist internationalism, work for peace and friendship among the peoples, strengthen the defence of our country against capitalist invasion, shatter the old world of slavery and exploitation, build and consolidate the new world of emancipated labour and communism, learn in all your work to combine powerful revolutionary enthusiasm with the sustained efficiency of Bolshevik builders, be worthy sons and daughters of our mother, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union! Long live the Y.C.L. generation!

J. Stalin

Pravda, No. 188, July 9, 1932


Greetings on the Fifteenth Anniversary of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League

October 28, 1933

Friendly greetings on its fifteenth anniversary to the Leninist workers’ and peasants’ Young Communist League, the organiser of our glorious revolutionary youth!

I wish it success in training our youth in the spirit of Leninism, in training our youth in the spirit of uncompromising struggle against the enemies of the working class, and of the utmost strengthening of international fraternal ties between the working people of all languages and races in the world.

The young men and women shock brigaders of the Y.C.L. have covered themselves with glory during the period of the building of new factories and mills, mines, railways, state farms and collective farms. Let us hope that the young men and women shock brigaders of the Y.C.L. will display still greater valour and initiative in mastering new technique in all branches of the national economy, in enhancing the defence capacity of our country, in strengthening our army, our navy, our air force.

During the fifteen years of its existence the Leninist Y.C.L. has boldly carried onwards the great banner of Lenin, rallying around it millions of young workers and peasants, millions of young working women and peasant women. Let us hope that the Leninist Y.C.L. will continue to hold high the banner of Lenin and will carry it with honour to the victorious finish of our great struggle, to the complete victory of socialism.

Long live the Leninist Young Communist League!

Long live the Central Committee of the Leninist Young Communist League!

J. Stalin

October 28, 1933

Pravda, No. 299, October 29, 1933

Stalin, On the Final Victory of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., 18 January 1938 - 12 February 1938


From the Archives,

Komsomol and rural electrification

Decree of the Bureau of the Central Committee ofthe Komsomol on “Komsomolskaya Pravda”

From Comrade Kosarev's speech, March 5, 1937

From the report of the information department of theOGPU on the shortcomings of the work of the Komsomol organizations in the countryside

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