Jessen & Richter (Eds.) (25 page)

young people considered serving as the secretary of a primary cell organi-

zation or in another lower-level capacity less a privilege than a duty re-

quiring extra work. Ol’ga herself was elected after several people took

themselves out of the running, and did not experience any particular joy

over her election.37 Occasionally, though, controversies arose, particularly

when higher-level Komsomol organizations imposed candidates whom the

Komsomol members disliked, as Anatolii suggests. In these situations, a

higher-level official would come to a primary Komsomol meeting, for

example at a university class, suggest a candidate, “and look meaningfully

——————

36 Volodia, interviewed November 7, 2008.

37 Ol’ga, interviewed December 25, 2008.

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

95

at the hall”. Since the voting was an open process, by voting against the

proposed candidate, a youth placed her- or himself in direct opposition to

the university-wide Komsomol committee. Still, Anatolii underlines the

fact that young people certainly could, and did, enter such conflicts, and

found ways of achieving their aims. One method involved going upward,

to the next level of the hierarchy, and making reasoned arguments either

against a candidate or for a different candidate. A credible criticism of a

candidate may have been that the candidate “is rude”, while supporting a

candidate may have involved highlighting her or his achievements at work.

To some extent, this was a political game, one in which, as Anatolii recalls,

the Komsomol members “needed somehow to make an argument in such

a way that the real motives did not shine through”.38 The Komsomol

hierarchy also occasionally imposed leaders on associations under the

command of the Komsomol, such as Komsomol patrols. Ronkin describes

how at one point their university Komsomol committee installed a patrol

leader from outside of the patrol collective, and that this patrol leader,

Fedorov, proved to be a poor leader who rarely went on patrols. As a

result, the older members of the patrol, in opposition to the Komsomol

committee, kicked Fedorov out and elected another leader, censuring the

Komsomol committee for “imposing him from the top” (Ronkin 2003,

81–2).

Such criticism fitted perfectly with Khrushchev’s policy of developing

grassroots initiative and disparaging excessive bureaucracy, as the practice

of installing lower-level, supposedly elected cadres by higher officials con-

stituted one of the classic examples of the administrative methods cen-

sured by both Shelepin and Khrushchev. The KCC even specifically high-

lighted the fact that Komsomol election meetings in late 1963 and early

1964 frequently uncovered such problems. Documents for a March 1964

KCC resolution included a memorandum stating that “during elections the

style of many Komsomol committees was seriously censured” by the grass-

roots Komsomol members. Such reprimands included the comment that

“there is still a prevalence of directives from the top and a clear lack of

questions coming from below, from primary organizations, directly from

Komsomol members”, and that Komsomol cadres “do not pay enough

attention to suggestions and criticisms of Komsomol members”.39 These

——————

38 Anatolii, interviewed December 12, 2008.

39
Zapiska otdelov komsomol’skikh organov TsK VLKSM ob itogakh otchetov i vyborov v komso-mole.
(Moscow: “Molodaia Gvardiia,” 1964), 11.

96

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

comments again highlighted the Khrushchev-era Komsomol leadership’s

desire to unite with grassroots initiative, and against mid-level officials, in

order to achieve meaningful reforms in the style of political work within

the Komsomol.

Nonetheless, in certain instances, Komsomol election practices chal-

lenged not only the hard-line, militant cadres, but even the intentions of

the Khrushchev leadership itself. One example involves the expulsion of

misbehaving members, a process that required a majority vote from the

Komsomol members of the cell to which that individual belonged. In the

Thaw, this posed an unexpected difficulty to the Komsomol hierarchy.

Indicating the importance of the matter, the KCC passed a resolution cen-

suring the problems in the B. V. Shchukin Moscow theater institute. Ap-

parently, a female student named Nechaeva frequently partied and had

sexual relations with several prominent theater and arts personages, in-

cluding a family man, while also studying poorly, and insulting her profes-

sors and service personnel. As a result, the institute director expelled her.

The Komsomol members discussed her behavior at an October 1954 class

conference, but “the ‘sincere’ repentance by Nechaeva was so ‘touching’

that some students at the conference cried, while the absolute majority of

Komsomol members, including the Komsomol secretary, asked the insti-

tute administration to re-admit Nechaeva into the institute”.40 The require-

ment for voting on expelling members, a simple rubber-stamp procedure

in the late Stalin years, now posed a significant challenge, illustrating how

young people could manipulate practices associated with elections to

achieve personal, private goals that did not accord with the aim of building

communism.

In an even more direct challenge to the Khrushchev leadership’s aims,

criminal youth groups occasionally took over the Komsomol election pro-

cedures and used them in their own organization. A case in point was

when a group of youths, influenced by the American movie
The Magnificent

Seven
, created a criminal gang nicknamed “Alenushka”. According to the

February 1964 Moscow Komsomol city committee conference keynote

speech, “all that they learned in the Komsomol, they actively used in their

own work, holding meetings regularly, electing leaders in open elections,

taking turns keeping the minutes, even collecting membership dues”.41

Here, the Komsomol election practices informed the framework for the

——————

40 RGASPI, f. M–1, op. 3, d. 869, l. 5.

41 TsAOPIM, F. 635, op. 15, d. 188, ll. 51–52.

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

97

institutional structure of a criminal youth group. This case highlights the

unexpectedly negative consequences of young people expressing agency

through elections during the years of the Thaw even for the Khrushchev

leadership.

Conclusion

Using postwar and Khrushchev-era archival and published sources, as well

as contemporary memoirs and interviews, I have demonstrated how young

people wrote themselves into the election narrative by participating in the

organization of elections to the Supreme Soviet and local soviets. These

young people, for the most part activist Komsomol members, helped le-

gitimize the state by promoting and normalizing the Soviet “elections

without choice”, both through their direct function as agitators and per-

formers, and through lending their youthfulness to the service of the state,

allowing the government to appear as if it expressed the desires of the next

generation. Concomitantly, agitation at these elections and amateur arts

concerts devoted to them also functioned politically to socialize young

people by teaching them how to behave according to the political require-

ments of the Soviet state, and they imbibed communist ideology through

their choice to engage in behavior with heavy ideological content.

To a degree, therefore, elections should be seen as part of a spectrum

of Soviet celebrations, perhaps similar to the role elections played in other

authoritarian contexts, such as the GDR, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Elections, in parallel to other Soviet festivals, functioned to legitimize the

state by offering its citizens a sociopolitical contract that provided them

with the chance to receive pleasure from participating in the celebratory

elements of elections. Those who chose to experience pleasure engaged in

an agentive, if passive, affirmation of the Soviet government, a conclusion

that suggests the need to examine further the softer aspects of dictatorial

dominance as social practice.

While this remained true of youth engagement in elections to the Soviet

government organs in both the Stalin and Khrushchev years, elections to

Komsomol organizations changed under Khrushchev, highlighting both

the breaks and continuities associated with the ascendancy of a new leader-

ship. Some activist Komsomol members at the grassroots, building on

98

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

statements from the leadership encouraging Komsomol democracy and on

criticism from below of bureaucracy, began to introduce controversy into

election conferences. Acting as a “loyal opposition”, these young people,

while demonstrating public concordance with the pronouncements of the

Thaw era Kremlin and the goal of building communism, used the previ-

ously formulaic, rubber-stamp election conferences to make their voices

heard and achieve their goals, and thereby challenged the unwritten rules

of the game. These conflicts, played out within elections to local and even

regional Komsomol committees, habitually pitted pluralistic Komsomol

members, in alliance with the top leadership and local soft-line officials,

against conservative local bureaucrats. Arguably, this functioned to legiti-