Jessen & Richter (Eds.) (23 page)

politically loaded events, as well as at less ideologized concerts and festi-

vals. In 1950, the same year that it held the evening for young voters, the

Moscow food industry club organized another youth evening entitled

“Peace will defeat war”.22 In 1951, the same collectives of clubs that per-

formed in the election campaign of the Krasnopresnenskii district also put

on concerts dedicated to various official Soviet celebrations, and evenings

of leisure of district enterprises and clubs: for example, the amateur arts

collective of the Sugar plant.23 For the 1957 Moscow International Youth

Festival, the amateur arts collectives prepared a series of events and con-

certs.24 According to a 1960 report, the club of the factory “Dukat” held

amateur arts concerts for the workers and service personnel of the factory,

as well as the neighborhood population, with all collectives apparently

preparing a major concert program dedicated to the 43rd anniversary of the

October revolution.25

These parallels between the festive aspects of youth participation in

elections to the Soviet government, and other more or less ideologically

and politically loaded events, open a window onto the role of elections as

——————

18 TsAGM, f. 44, op. 1, d. 19, ll. 3–4.

19 TsAOPIM, f. 667, op. 2, d. 33, l. 11.

20 I use only the first name and interview date in order to protect anonymity: Irina, interviewed November 8, 2008.

21 TsAOPIM, f. 667, op. 2, d. 41, ll. 127–28.

22 TsAGM, f. 44, op. 1, d. 19, l. 4.

23 TsAGM, f. 1988, op. 1, d. 9, ll. 8–10.

24 TsAGM, f. 1988, op. 1, d. 45, ll. 8–9.

25 TsAGM, f. 1988, op. 1, d. 85, ll. 23–24.

88

G L E B T S I P U R S K Y

celebrations of legitimacy. Certainly, we need to realize the role of political

socialization inherent in these festive occasions: the youth who performed

in amateur arts concerts at election sites engaged in political rituals, in par-

allel to the young Komsomol agitators who lectured to crowds, as high-

lighted by the comment of the GITIS Komsomol representative. A link

can also be made between the celebratory components of elections in the

postwar years, and extant research on festivals in the NEP and Stalin-era

Soviet Union. In both cases, celebrations served the purpose of promoting

communist ideology and Soviet political discourse (Petrone 2000; Rolfe

2009, 7–10; Rolfe 2000, 447–73). Considering the celebratory elements of

elections provides further insights into the Soviet system’s rituals of politi-

cal legitimization. The voluntary and often enthusiastic participation of

young people in amateur arts concerts, including at elections sites as well as

other ideologically-loaded celebrations, and their popularity among the

population, sheds light on how the Soviet government used consumption

to garner political legitimacy. By supplying merry-making at election sites,

the Soviet government, with extensive youth engagement, expanded elec-

tions from political practices that determined political power to include

festive aspects that, like mass attendance at parades or rallies, affirmed

government legitimacy. These “elections without choice” to the organs of

the Soviet government did, then, involve a choice. Individuals could

choose to come and enjoy, and gain pleasure from, the festive atmosphere,

as Irina did—or not. As Arjun Appadurai rightly notes, “where there is

consumption, there is pleasure, and where there is pleasure, there is

agency” (Appadurai 1996, 7). Therefore, by enjoying themselves, by experi-

encing pleasure, individuals expressed their affirmation, however passive,

of the political legitimacy of the Soviet government.

Intriguing comparisons can be made to elections in the GDR, in Nazi

Germany, and in Italy under Mussolini, where, according to the contribu-

tions of Hedwig Richter, Markus Urban, Paul Corner and others in this

volume, festive elements played an important role. This indicates the wide-

spread role of consumption management for political legitimization within

authoritarian states, and suggests the need for further examination of the

softer, less coercive side of the dictatorial dominance of the election proc-

ess as social practice. In relation to Patzelt’s model of elections in authori-

tarian states, youth engagement in elections to Soviet governing bodies can

be said to fit the category of “preference falsification”, through creating a

widespread impression of ubiquitous support for the government.

I N T E G R A T I O N , C E L E B R A T I O N , A N D C H A L L E N G E

89

Youth and Internal Komsomol Elections: Challenge and Loyal

Opposition

While youth participation as agitators and amateur arts performers in elec-

tions to the Supreme Soviet and local soviets remained relatively un-

changed from Stalin to Khrushchev, a marked shift took place in elections

within the Komsomol. The period after Stalin’s death witnessed the new

General Secretary Khrushchev re-energizing the drive to progress from

socialism to communism. An integral component in the project of ideo-

logical renewal involved the attempt to shift governing functions to the

citizenry in a populist move intended both to mobilize the population and

to achieve the eventual goal of communism, an ideal future where the

government withers away (Breslauer 1980, 50–70; Park 1993; Ilic 2010, 1–

8).26 The Khrushchev leadership believed that the engagement of the

young was particularly essential in this project, as they would not only

build, but also presumably live in, the communist utopia that represented

the primary goal of the Soviet experiment.27 This reasoning underpinned

the novel Khrushchev-era shift in emphasis on inspiring voluntary youth

grassroots activism. In the postwar Stalin years, the Komsomol leader-

ship’s rhetoric focused on the need for youth discipline and organization,

as opposed to youth initiative and autonomous grassroots activism.28 How-

ever, the resolution of the Twelfth Komsomol Congress in March 1954,

the first after Stalin’s death, underlined the importance of “guaranteeing

the appropriate realization of Komsomol democracy, development of

criticism and self-criticism, especially from below, the strengthening of

Komsomol member control over the activities of Komsomol organs, the

escalation of activeness by Komsomol members”.29 Here, the stress lies on

democratic, voluntary activism from below, by engaged Komsomol mem-

bers who criticize and impose control over the elected Komsomol organs.

In his speech to the Thirteenth Komsomol Congress in 1958, Khrushchev

went even further, proclaiming that “Bureaucratic organization of [Kom-

——————

26 See, for example,
Voprosy ideologicheskoi raboty
(Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1961), 144–158.

For a classic study of these ideologically-motivated goals of the Khrushchev leadership, see George Breslauer’s work, and for a more recent take, see Soo-Hoon Park’s contribution. For how this drive fitted into broader Thaw era governance, see Melanie Ilic’s study.

27 See
Spravochnik partiionogo rabotnika. Vypusk IV
(Moscow: 1963), 681–84.

28 See
Rezoliutsii i dokumenty XI s’ezda VLKSM
(Moscow: “Molodaia gvardiia”, 1950), 20.

29 RGANI, f. 5, op. 30, d. 38, l. 127.

90

G L E B T S I P U R S K Y

somol] work may harm the upbringing of youth, and push it away from the

Komsomol [...] Life in Komsomol organizations needs to boil, overflow

with initiative”. More than that, he criticized “some of our comrades, who

are so used to bureaucratic forms that even now, when we need to reject

these forms, they are fearful”.30 Illustrating the stress on grassroots activ-

ism and criticism of bureaucratic methods, such tropes grew ubiquitous

within the discourse aimed at youth under Khrushchev (Tsipursky 2010,

629–49).

Designed to devolve governing functions to the population and to mo-

bilize young people to build the communist tomorrow, as well as to differ-

entiate itself from the Stalinist past, such language inspired some Komso-

mol members to act as a “loyal opposition” in Komsomol elections. These

young people, while expressing full support for the Khrushchev leadership

and the goal of building communism, demanded that elections within the

Komsomol conform to democratic norms as promoted by official Soviet

Thaw era discourse, particularly in its emphasis on youth initiative. Their

actions advanced a pluralistic vision of a communist future that often con-

flicted with the ideas and methods of hard-line cadres who opposed many

of the post-Stalin reforms, yet in many cases drew the support of pluralisti-

cally-oriented officials. This finding offers support for those scholars who

argue for the important role of such struggles within the Soviet govern-

ment of the Khrushchev years (Ilic 2010, 1–8; Taubman 2003; Jones 2006,

1–18; Cohen 1980, 11–31), and goes against some recent historiography

that takes a more critical view of the significance of such tensions (Bittner

2008; Dobson 2009).

Elections in Komsomol cells occurred at election conferences, usually

held annually in each local Komsomol organization. These events included

a report on the Komsomol cell’s activities over the past year, a formulation

of a plan for the upcoming year, and election of the Komsomol committee

who would manage that cell’s activities for the year. In the postwar years

before Stalin’s death, the election conference closely followed the direc-

tions of officials from the Komsomol hierarchy and the local Party cell,

with any criticism highly formulaic and in no way challenging either the

——————

30 N. S. Khrushchev,
Vospityvat’ aktivnykh i soznatel’nykh stroitelei kommunisticheskogo obshchestva
(rech’ na XIII s’ezde VLKSM 18 aprelia 1958 goda)
(Moscow: “Molodaia gvardiia”, 1961), 33–37.