Jessen & Richter (Eds.) (26 page)

mize the central government in the eyes of young people, and also enabled

the post-Stalin Kremlin to weaken hard-liners and therefore to ease the

passage of various reforms. At the same time, what was no less important

was the goal of teaching young people to take the initiative in solving social

problems, since the eschatological goal of the Soviet project—communist

utopia—meant, in the view of the Khrushchev leadership, the withering

away of the government and the emergence of social self-rule, which in-

volved the engagement of citizens in elections. Further research is needed

to determine the extent to which Thaw era young people acted as the

“loyal opposition” in elections.

Occasionally, though, Komsomol elections caused problems for the

Thaw era Party leaders, such as when the mass of local Komsomol youths

refused to expel their friends, or when Komsomol democratic forms be-

came co-opted by underground organizations. Overall, Komsomol elec-

tions under Khrushchev demonstrate that ordinary citizens of communist

states could, in certain cases, effectively express their agency and represent

their interests vis-à-vis various authorities through elections that, while not

determining higher governing bodies, certainly had great significance to

young people themselves. This also happened in elections in authoritarian

states besides Soviet youth elections—for example, when workers voted in

elections to worker councils in Czechoslovakia, as described in this volume

by Peter Heumos. Furthermore, in line with a number of other contribu-

tions in this volume, this chapter demonstrates that previously conformist

“elections without choice” had the potential, in times of change and un-

certainty, to transform an instrument of political socialization dominated

by the state into a source of instability and even subversion, into some-

thing that more directly served the interests of the populace.

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

99

The shift to more democratic, open, and meaningful elections within

the Komsomol in the post-Stalin years helps illustrate important differ-

ences between the Soviet authoritarian model and those in Fascist Italy and

Nazi Germany. In the Soviet Union, the concept of “democratic central-

ism” formed an important component of the intra-Communist Party po-

litical culture from the very beginning. While conveniently ignored by the

Party leadership for long periods, at other times—such as the Thaw or the

Gorbachev years—the concept could be drawn upon by the reform-ori-

ented top leaders who held power during this time to promote their re-

formist initiatives by appealing to popular support. In contrast, in Nazi

Germany and Fascist Italy, there was no concept of “democratic central-

ism”, and therefore there was less leeway for more democratic elections.

My findings suggest that only one of the four categories proposed by

Patzelt is applicable to youth engagement in elections to Soviet governing

bodies, and that none of them is applicable to elections within the Kom-

somol itself. Therefore, the model needs to be modified, and I would sug-

gest two concrete adjustments. First, the model needs to introduce a

chronological element in order to acknowledge the importance of changes

in election patterns within an authoritarian system, such as the Soviet Un-

ion’s transition from Stalin to Khrushchev. Secondly, it should take greater

account of the ideological goals of certain authoritarian states, as they may

well play crucial roles in shaping elections, as we witnessed for Komsomol

elections in the post-Stalin Soviet Union, which were designed to promote

societal self-management in the idealized communist future. A fifth func-

tion of elections might then be “ideological advancement”, when elections

have explicitly ideological goals.

Jessen’s and Richter’s introduction raises the question of whether au-

thoritarian elections contribute to state legitimacy. In my view, youth en-

gagement in the more democratic elections to the Komsomol in the Khru-

shchev era probably strengthened the loyalty of young people since they

felt represented in the political system. Ironically, though, these elections

might actually have delegitimized the Soviet system in the long run, since,

when these young people grew up and voted in elections without any

choice to local government councils, they probably experienced disillu-

sionment with the Soviet system. And this disillusionment may well have

contributed to the increasing delegitimization of the Soviet system in the

later Brezhnev years.

100

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

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