Lenin and Stalin related to Young Communist League, Komsomol
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 League, Speech at the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) Conference on Work Among the Youth1 April 3, 1924
Stalin, Thirteenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) , May 23-31, 1924, Organisational Report of the Central Committee
Stalin, The 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 Countryside, Speech 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. Gorky, April 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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