VOL. V11 SHANGHAI. JULY 19 •• No.1
STALIN'S GRANDCHILDREN
By KLAUS ?tIEHNERT
Since tile publitalion. of Qu·r C1rticle "Sh(mlJer Strapa-Afld Then'" (February 1944). which deall 1/'ilh Ihe co"r811 Bolllllevi8m has take,. durit.g the la8t jetlJ year8. t111,,:I. IW8 happe/le,l Illat ullo'/J/I the "-A Ild Thul?" tu be 8un ir. a clearer light. Jr. IAe foUowilly, we have aingled oul one problllm-lhal oj the youngM' SOfJid genaation -to ...." it for Ihe nllalY8i8 oj 1I0llle oj Ihe P8Ychologi«Jl corMeqtUncu oj lhe war in Ihe USSR. The aut/lor has 81ltdied thll problem" oj Soviu youlh' Jor fifteen flcar. and written u book ,md rWIIIUOl/8 urlielM 'Woul il. .48 a Joreign corrupondent he 8pIlTit .everul moniliA in tile ycar8 betweCTI /929 atld 1936 in 8tudctll dormitunu and youth cumps in Ihe Sot·iet Utlion, and he wall ucqtUJinUd wilh mallY yotmg RtultWn8. Since lemnl/.Y Ihl1 USSR he hU8 kept ,fp urith developmenl8 among Soviet yott/h by jollowing i'" lilern/ure, (/8 i/ i8 reprullnied by book8, f1eW8papcr8 8UCh. cu the "Kom. 80molskaya Prcwdu" alld "Piollerlll.:aya Pravda," a"d magu:;lIu 8lJch aoB "Smeno," .. Vojaly;' alld ..Ogollyo{·... II oflen /wPl>a18 ill political liJe Ihat real.ily changu more rapidly ,/1(". our idea" abou' it. The 'ror/d a8 a whole 81il1 hall tdea8 oj SOlriu floWh whteA held good jor 1M Ihirliu. Our llI/IIuy ill an ulle1llp' 10 bri"g thulS ideail up.lo.dale.
T the outbreak of ·wa.r in 1941 there and to produce-must be carried out chiefly lived in the Soviet Union, within t.he by the younger generation. A borders of 193U, some 100,000,000 people who were bom after the Revolut.ion When speaking of the working youth of of 1917. The agc structurc of Soviet youth the Soviet Union, there are Cwo point.s to was lLt that time : be horne in mind. Up to the age of I) years 46 millions (1) The proportion of youth in the From 10 to 14 yours 17 milJiona population and its share in the state's .From Iii to 18 )'OUI'!l 15 millions total production ill greater than in any other l<'runl 19 to 25 years 22 milJiolUl state. The sbortage in manpower, which Never before ill the history of Russia and has become particularly acute since the hardly ever in the bistory of any other state start of the almost continuou8 offensivc8 in hlL!l yOllth played so important a part as it the summer of 1943 with their huge casual does today in the Soviet Union. The war ties, has led to the mobilization of millions has terribly decimated the ranks of t.he of children for economic life. In his book middle generat.ion, t.he men from 25 to 45; One World, Wendell Willkie describes his and the older gencration Ims very little to visit to the USSR in the autumn of 1942, lIlLY. Now and again pres.'! and radio men· long before the complete mobilization of tion lctters written by an elderly father to manpower which has taken place since, his son serving in the Red Army, or letters Yet e\'cn then Willkie saw childrcn of ten he had received from his son. But other working 66 hours a week in the airplane wise ha.rdly anything is ever heard about factory over \\·hich he was shown. After the old people in t.he country. And this is finding no men of military age, except the only natural. In tbe first place, com· director, in the kolkho% (collectivized village) paratively few old people bavc survived the he visited, Willkie remarked: "The wives strenuous events since 1914; and secondly, and children of the soldiers feed the coun the two main tasks set by t.he war-to fight try." " '- '.
2 THE XXtb CENTURY
YOUTH MEANS omLS &8 the true props of education, This led to such catastrophic consequences that the (2) Soviet working youth consists ma.inly Soviets attempted to consolidate the family of girls. This is especially true in the field again during the thirties and to place it as of agriculture. According to Soviet statis a third, equal factor beside the other two. tics, si· per cent of all tractor drivers, for But this period lasted only six years. The example, are women (Bolshevik, No.5, 1944, family has fallen back into a state of dis p. 3-l). The majority of them belong to the integration for reasons whioh are to be younger generation. found above all in the effects of the war, A letter addressed to Stalin by the kolkhoz and the forming of the younger generation women of a single province (Tambov) and is once again almost completely'in the hands reprinted in the 18Ve8tiya (17.6.43) con of schools and youth organizations. tains the following passage: Au examination of these two inBtitutions You, Comrade Stalin. know that many kol1cho: is particularly topical since both of them chainnon have gone to the (ront. Without hesita· underwent a series of important changes tion, their posta were taken over by WI women. during the last few months, in the course of In our province women have fined the (onowing posta : which a number of previously hidden facts have come to light. III villagll IOviet chairmen 408 kolkhoz chairmen FOUR SCHOOL REFORMS 3,056 heads of tractor brigad08 2,867 beads of cattle farlWl 17.275 group leadol'8 In the winter of 1943/44, Soviet schools 3;932 members of 1rolkJw% committ.oos entered upon a new phase. The most 1,110 chairmen of examination committees important Dleasures by which this phase is 3,235 stablo luwda , .. to be distinugished from the previous one and more than 50,000 other leading or special are: (1) a new system of school marks, (2) positions in the kollchozu of our province. the end of coeducation. (3) new rules for Not only in agriculture but in all other pupils, and (4) new rules affecting the spheres of economic life has the proportion visiting of cinemas and theaters by school of women riscn in an unparalleled manner. children. In the field of transport, for instance, it is At first sight these changes do not look 90 per cent, and even in the oil industry espt.-"Cially interesting. But in the Soviet with its great dernands on physical exertion Union things rarel! seem interesting at first it is 50 per cent (Mainichi from Moscow, sight. In contrast to the USA, for example, 10.3.44). To appreciate the significance of where national problems are cl.i2cussed in this, one must remember that the Russian public, that which is problematical in the woman has always been known' for her USSR is only fC\'ealed to the observer upon capacity for hard work. closer study. For officially there arc no To give an approximate idea of the present problems in the sta.te of the Bolsheviks. ago distribution among the two sexes in the Officially, everything is wonderful and runs younger generation behind the front we sIDoothly. In the first few years after the present the following figures which we have l~evolution, somo problelllil were still ac worked out on the basis of nil material and knowledged. Now, however, that the Bol factors (mobilization, evacuation to Ger sheviks have triumphed completely and have many, death, capture, etc.) known to us, but done away with the old classes-by "liquidat with no guarantee for accuracy: ing" the bou·rgeoisie and "dekulakizing" the farmers-there is, according to Marxist In MillioUB ideas, no longer grotmd for problems of Agll Bay" Uir's any kind. If wc arc to believe Soviet ac count.s, the Soviet state, Soviet' eco~omy, 10 to 14 7.5 7.5 15 to 18 4 6 Soviet education-indeed, the entire life of 19 to 25 1.25 9.5 the Soviet Union runs like a perfectly con structed machine. It is true that when a • In most other countries the family and machine is not lubricated properly it docs the school are the main pillars of education. not run so well. But that docs not imply Not so in the Soviet Union. During the a problem. The machine itself and its first eighteen years of its rule, Bolshevism cOllstruction remain perfect. All that is systematically weakened family influence needed is to add some lubricating oil, and and regarded schools and youth organizations the machine runs as smoothly as ever. In STALIN'S GRANDCHILDREN 3
-the eyes of the Bolsheviks, the reforms in it posseBBes a "significance ofthe first order." the field of education, too, are nothing but We shall return to this question later. fresh lubricating oil for a perfect machine. But are we to take their word for it? EXAMINATIONS DISOOVERED
GOOD OR 4! This is not the first time in the field of education tha.t the Soviets have proclaimed A new decree states that from now on the return to a prerevolutionary measure as ICliool mlU'ks are not to be expressed with an important innovation a.nd refonn. To tb~ words "excellent, good, satisfactory, give an example: after the victory of Bolshe imsatisfactory, bad" but by the figures 5, 4, vism in Russia, the system of examinations
3J 2, and 1. Obviously the difference is not formerly customary in Russia's education great. Is it not a matter of utter indiHerence was abolished. For fifteen years .there were or, at most, of taste whether the mark no examinations of any kind in the Soviet ia. called "good" or "4"? One is surprised Union. The soul of the child, so it was said, to find this change proclaimed as a "measure was not to be harmed by so reactionary an po8!Je8Sing significance of the first order" institution. The system favored was that of and as one of the most important among the "Progressive Education," imported from De)\' school reforms. Radio Irkutsk had the America, which left the child to its own following to say (24.2.44); devices as much as possible and which Since the new five·point system replaced the trusted in the child's innate good qualities. words "good, satisfactory. etc." in October, it ~ become' evident that this system, which was Suddenly, on August 25, 1932, a decree of in force in the old RUSllian schools for many decades. tho Central Committee of the Party stipulated makes it poasible to mark more accurately and that, starting with 1933, examinations were -ill tbis way to keep a better check on the pupil's to be introduced in Soviet schooIs. It was bowle
I • THE XXth CENTURY
Schools, it was claimed that exruninatioDB in tion lUlCOrding to the physical attributes or the BOXes and to secure the absolutely noctl8lltU'Y the Soviet state would differ fundamentally discipline of tho students. In the boys' schools it from tholle ill the Tsarist Empire. It turned haa facilitated the calT)'ing out of military training. Ollt later th/Lt, actually, there was no essen tial diffcrcnce betwoon the Soviet examina NEW RULES OF DEHAVIOR tions and those of the old days. But the The next two reforms deal with the pretence was maintained that they were an behavior of youth in and out of school. innovation. In 1944, however, the intro. The "Twenty New Rules" of which, in his dllction of the five.point system is com speech mentioned above, G. V. Perov de· mendL-d-as we have seen from the quota. clared that they had to be carried out tion of Radio Irkutsk-as an institution that "unconditionally as an obligatory demand proved its worth in Tsarist times. of the state," call for regular attendance at THE END OF COEDUOATION school; punctual homework; proper conduct at school, at bome, in public; and particularly On .the path of retrogressive "reforms" for respect toward the teacher. In his com· the abolishment of coeducation in Soviet ment on this last point, A. Mostovoi, director schools is a particularly intcresting step. of the 330th school for boys in Moscow. When, after the Revolution, coeducation writes : replaced the old syst~m with its strict seg· WllRt the rules require iB a reverent (pochtitel,IY> regation of the sexes, it W/l./! celebrated as behavior toward the teooher-not jWlt a COurteoU8 a great victory over the reactionary spirit or correct one, but precisely a reverent beha,,;or, of Tsarism and a8 a symbol of the equality an absolute submission to the orders of the teacher of aU human beings. The SovietoS stated (l81JUtiya. 6....44). that they wanted to eradicate the differences This is strange language in a country that not only between the classes but also be has long prided itself on having freed the twoon the sexes. And while women took younger generation from the tyranny of tbeir place beside men 88 workers in all adults. wa.lks of life, boys and girls were accorded equal treatment in the schools and youtb Another reform is contained in the new organizations. decree of the People's Commissariat for Education on movie and theater attendance: Now a complete about-face bas boon Pupils under the age of sixteen Sill! forbidden to executed. The end of coeducation "is an visit movies on week days without permission of important stage in the development of the tho hoad of the school. Silhool' directors are en· Soviet school," declared the conference of joined to pennit pupils to visit moviOll and theaters directors of Moscow girls' schools (Kom8071U>l only after school hours and in organjzed groups 4.3.44). And at the Fifth accompanied by adults, teachers, or ~'outh leadel'll. sk:aya Prm1da, Before granting penni88lon, the~' must consider Meeting of the Supreme Council of the the scholastic achievements and conduct of each RU88ian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, pupil, hiB preoccupation with school and bome G. V. Pcrov, the .Deputy Chairman of the work, 88 well as the suitability of the film for the Council of People's Commissars, stated demonds of educ.tion (TG8lI). (Pravda, 5.3.44); This measure, too, BOunds surprising in a The introduction of c1l188Cs separated according country that used to glory in the freedom t.o the sexell makes it possible to carry out educa. of its education and, incidentally, will not
.1 .. ••... ·.1 .... 0 be easy to enforce, as can be secn from the .... - following report from the city of Kirov appearing in the K0m80m0z"kaya Pravda. the central organ of the Communist Youth Organization, on February 27, 1944, i.e.• weeks after the promulgation of the decree:
CI888 11'68 over. Swinging their satchels, the· pupils of the Eighth Middle Scbool ran out on to the road. Some went bome, otbel'll Btood around undecidedly: where should they spend the rest of tho day! -· ...... "...~l -...",.ftllill....""' ...... ,...... c ...... "•• "Lot'l! go to the movies! There is a good picture· LONG, LONG AGO on today," Yuro. Berzink aud Volod~'a Shalayev "Our mothers almost boat each other up!" 8UggOllted. "'''hat do you expecU Alter all, t.hey Now the children are at the Progt'C88 Theater. still went to lIChool with boys." Quite a few Il('hoolchildren have arrived there (Cro
0.... has not been to IIOhool for five daY8. but he Dever misses a film. The children loit.cr about on t.he 8idowalks. ouwde the cinema. in tho lobby, in front of tho box office. Somo aro hawking cigarettos, other8 oIfor their service8 for buying ticket8, othel'8 again jUllt do misehief. One little fellow, who can hardly leach up to tho ~&8hier'8 window. hold8 up a three·ruble note: "Auntie. a ticket."
The kind Aunt,ie ('Mhier takes the money without - e...... ,...,.... •_ ...... _ .... _.,...... '•• n...- .... ~... _,...... hesitation. Another Auntie--the tickot co11ootol'- :.:. ...~~~--- - ,_ obligingly lel8 tho schooh:hildren pB8ll inlo tho audience, Mother: "How naughty Teacher: "How naughty you are! I 8h••11 l\tlk tho you arel I 8hall cnll tho ORIME AND PUNISHMENT school to keep I\n .'yo .\ttention of your pur· on your mannors." ent-'l to your mannors," If we look at the four reforms, we find (Crocodil~, No. 11/12, 10C3) that they aU deal in one way or another should be react~d to accordingly: at homt', upon with t,he problem of behavior IlJld discipLiue admission to university, when being engRged for both in school and out, The necessity for work, and upon cute-ring one or tbe other organi. passing these decrees indicates that 8Onle zation. thjng is not lUi it should be with the youth In otber words, Comrade Protopopovn. of the USSR. This is confirmed by count· has no other remedy to suggest than to less statements made in press IlJld radio Bud threatcn the younger generation that it.s of which we quote two examples. marks of conduct in school will accompany it throughout life lUI an ineradicable IItamp, (I) One of the 1x'st·knoWD Soviet educa· And this in a political system 'Yhich during tionalists, A. Protopopova, published an the initial period of it·s exii3tence absoluwly article on January 16, 1944, entitled "Obe rejected the employment of punishment in dience" (PO'uinOl:el/iye) in the Koms. Pravda, school as an infringemcnt upon the soul of in which she ur~ntly demands "a bolder the child. and more widespread application of puniHb ment," explaining: MAJOR BOB.7.ENKO IS SURPRISED Exemption from punishment demoralize8 tho pupil'8 will. it corrupts him, frees him of the in. (2) In the K01ns. Pravda of March 2, alterable nec~ity of concontrating upon the task8 1944, Major Borzenko relates his experience he h88 been set. Puni8hment promot~8 obedience. upon visiting the Boys' School No, 425 in A pupil has not done hi8 task once. twice, three the Stalin district of Moscow: times. What is ono to do with him when talking I entered the Ninth CI888. 1 ent.ered it with all to him. admonitions, expl8Jlatioll8, do not help? my decorations and modal8. But man)' of tho Puniah him. by all mOOJUI. A pupil haa broken pupil8 did not ri!lC although politeness and dis the rules of conduct. What is one to do, when cipline should havo demandod it. 1 88kod the remarks and explallationll do not. help! Puni8h pupil8 what thoy int.endod to become after the war. him, by all means. Perlll\plI. even punish him t.ho llnd I discovered that only the sons of omcers fil'llt time. int(lnded entoring t,ho war academy. A giunt, of Comrade Protopopova advises tbe employ· a Loy, who had grown a mustache, told me wiLh his handB in hill pookets and in a tone which brooked ment of "the rich arsenal of punishment.s" no oontradiet·ion: "The war wil1 soon be endod lllld a.vailable in Soviet education and answers hence it is uselel!8 to deal with questionll of t,ho her own questions: "Why bas the question war." Some of the other pupils agreed with thi¥ of punishment become 80 urgent? Why is opinion. there so much talk about punishment?" This scene did not take plare somewhere wit.h the words: "The truth is that, accord in America where soldiers are of not much ing to our practical experience in school, account except in wa,r time, but in the punishments often have lmt little effect." Soviet Union, where the Red Army hn..~ for She then goes on to describe how the cus· twenty.five years boon surrounded by a tomary school punishments do not exert nimbus of propl1ganda. Nor did it take the desired effect upon the modern young plaee in some forgotten corner of the USSR. people in tbJl Soviet Union because they but in its capital and, what is more, in the no longer take them seriously. She suggests Stalin model district. And finaUy it did the foUowing remedy: not happen to jU8t any old soldier but to a Eve~.....here an interest 8hould be taken in the celebrated officer who bears the highest mark8 given for a pupil's behavior. and thcso marks title of honor, "Hero of the Soviet nion," 6 THE XXth CENTURY and has also made a name for himself as an amounted to 11 millions. Of these, several author. millions' have been eliminated from the active work of the organization through KOMSOMOL death, capture, or serious wounds. They The Komsomol (the word is composed of were 'replaced by more than five million the first sylla.bles of the Russian words for new members (KomB. Pravda, 12.3.44). If Communist Youth Association) is the largest we assume that the losses and the new gains youth organization in the world. Its mem in members have more or less balanced each bership is composed of young people be. other, about half the membership of the tween the ages of fourteen and twenty-two. Komsomol would consist today of young CIO&'ly connected with the Komsomol is the people who have joined it since 1941. Espe Pioneer Organization, whose. members are cially in the smallest units of the Komsomol between the ages of ten and fifteen. The -the cells in the villages and individual following approximate membership figures factories-as well as in the next highest indicate the growth of the Komsomol : organs, the rayon (i.e., county) organs, oue third of the work of the organization had to 1918 22,000 1922 235.000 be placed in the hands of youngsters who 1924 500.000 joined the Kom80mol since the outbrcak of 1925 1,000,000 war (Kom4. Pravda, 12.4.44). Many of these 1927 2,000,000 proved themselves incapable and had to be 1931 5,000,000 1932 6,000,000 replaced. In 1943, for examp,le, in the 19-10 11,000,000 Province of Novosibirsk 1,500 secretaries of local organizations, i.e., about half of all The significance of the Komsomol is to existing ones, and forty.three of ,the fifty be found in the facts that first, its members two secretaries of the provincial headquarters are the future members of the Communist of the Kom80mol, were changed (Koms. Party, and secondly, that it represents the Pravda, 4.3.44). sole legal political organization of a youth which is at present at the peak of its im· In former times it was only tested Kom. portance. Since the number of adolescent somol members of long standing who were workers in the t.owos and in the .country is allowed to rise to the position of a rayon much larger than that of adult workers, the secretary. Nowadays, however, the Kom. Komsomol has gained very much in weight somol cannot wait. Seminaries for rayon. in comparison to the Party. N. N. Romanov, committee secretaries have therefore been Secretary of the Central Committee of the established. The KOmJl. Pravda .writes about Komsomol, recently declared that the Kom· these secret.aries (26.1.44): somol must "safeguard the fulfillment of They have only recently joined the leadel'llhip of state tasks, especially in those places where the organization. Almost half of all the aecr6tarietl were elected in 1943, BOrne of them even R8 recently thcre are no organizations of the Party" as two to three mouths ago. They pOB8e88 neither (Koms. Pravda, 12.4.44.). And N, M. Kalinin, experience nor the necessary knowledge. who holds more or less the position of For the current work of the Komsomol President of the Soviet Union, said: and for the daily contact with the millions In the villages there is at present no greater of its members the local secretaries are, of orgauiwtion than the Komsomol. The members of the KOffillomol are no longer the merry fellows course, far more important than the central who ull6d to march through the villages playing organ in Moscow. The war has given rise 'he harmonica-they bear a great I'08ponBibility to countless new problems which in mORt and must look aCter the life of the viJIages during cases must be solved locally as they cannot the war (KolII.!. Pra~'(/a, 12.12.43). wait for a decision from the provincial In view of thc extraordinary role played capital, much less ~rom Moscow. The KomB. by youth in production and war, statements Pravda of April 12, 1944, stated quite clearly suoh 8S these are no more than justified. that the success of the Kom80mol's work is But what does it look like iMide the Kom. in the last analysis detenni.ned by the work somol1 of the local organization of the Kom80mol. All this amounts to youth itself having to RAPID TURNOVER solve the problems of youth. Few figures have been published on the "GLOOMY OLD MEN" membership standing of the Komsomol during the last three -years. It sooms that During my first few visits to the Soviet at the outbreak of war its membership Union I was surprised to see how tTUBting STAL~'S GRA.NDCHILDREN .,.
the young people were, how ready to accept mental level. For that reason Varta.nova anything they were told. They felt every. turDS against an anonymous Kom80mol thing they possessed in the way of schools. secretary employed at a factory in her vacation homes, and future prospccta to be district: a gift of the Revolution. The young men He hM IILop~ being a youth leader. .•. He and gir18 who streamed into the Kom80mol, has somehow become gloomy. Ho is not a Kom m08tly from the industrial suburbs and somol fWldiollJlry but an old man! villa.ges, looked full of confidence upon tho Although this secretary is a good Bolshe· leaders of the Party and the KomllOlnol, vik and conscientiously soos to it that his who had brought all this abuut. Many had grouP.of workers punctually fulfills the pro· contributed. in one way or another, to the duction quota allotted to it, "it is not victory of Bolshevism, had made sacrifices enough simply to set l\ good example in work for it. to lead the younger generation" (Korns. _ Meanwhile, the aspect bas chl\ngOO: to Pravda., 7.3.44). the prescnt younger Soviet ge~eration, tho The time has passed' when the Party Revolution and tho Civil War are no longor possessed such an aura of authority that part of their personal experiences but sub· each of ita functionaries could lay claim to jects for history lessons. This generation the rellpect of the younger generation simply . haa not fought for BolshevisUl. It no longer by the fact that he was wearing the Parf,y fee18 the old confidence in the hitherto or Komsomol badge. dominating type of Kom80mol functionary. The anonymous - Kom80mol leader in ·Millions of members of the Kom80mol havo Yelena. Vartanova's letter was in her opinion gone through years of education in schoo18 dismissed with justification because "he has and, one-sided as this education was, it not kept up with life, and he obstructs the could not but develop the brains of theso KomsoDlO1 organization in ita creative a.nd young people. Adolescenta who have ab. full· blooded life." She has purposely not aorbcd a middle·school or even a university given the real name of the secretary, as her eduoation no longer look upon the leaders intention is not a personal accusa.tion but of the Party a.nd tho Kom80mol with the one of a general character. aarne naive respect as their elder brothers did who wore not yet ablo to read and write. So Komsomol leaders who have helped The war has shifted countle811 semiOOucated Bolshevism to gain its victory are now youngsters from schoolrooms into the process being accused of' "obstruoting the Komsomol of production and has raised in their minds organization in ita creative and full·blooded many new questions which would never life." They are regarded as "gloomy old have troubled them had they continued on men," indeed, almost as reactionaries, wh08e their nonnal course. By learning to think, authority resta upon their fonner great serv the younger generation has also acquired 0. ices. services which -are for the present certain measure of skepticism, and it is youth of the Soviet Union very much a inclined to look oritically upon the ordinary thing of the past. type of Kom80mol loader, some of whom are LAOK OF OONFIDENCE intellectually far inferior to these young people. In "Shoulder StraPS7And Then?" we pointed to this possibility of a conflict be An open"letter written by Yelena Varta· twoon the older and the younger generation nova, the Secretary of tho Ro§tokinsk Kom. in the USSR. The symptoms indicating aomol District Committee in Moscow, reads this have meanwhile grown in number. (Koms. Pravda, 20.2.44): Among thorn is one document in particular Nowada)·R. when the younger generation Btam to which we shall turn immediately. In upon its independent path of life at an early age. order to appreciate its significance one must the taak of education mUllt be more sharply de bear in mind that until recently the Kom fined...• In the faoLory, there are a lot of )'oung mon and girls with a mid -. THE XXth~y responsibility of production" (Kom8. Pravda, steep decline from its former powerful posi 12.12.43). Should the Party suddenly at tion when, on an equal footing with the tempt to deprive the Kom~mol of some of teachers, it shared in the development of the it.s influence, this would be an indication of younger generation. The very formulations its distrust toward the Komeomol. This of the decree are a blow to the Kom80wol's attempt is now in full progra88. prestige and would have been impossible & few years ago. Realizing that this must At the beginning of April 1944, the tweUth cause a good deal of apprehension and dis plenary meeting of the Central Committee content among the KomBOmol's most active of the Kom80mol took place. It declared members, Mikhlillov implored them to under the most important result of ita meeting to stand "that the increase of the teacher's have been its decree "Concerning Measures authority and the improvement of order in toward the Improvement of the Work of· the schools is a dire necessity and absolutely the Komsomol in the Schools." This decree unavoidable," and he requested all Kom. (the full wording was published in the somol members "to reach literally c\'ery Kom8. Pratoo, 9.4.44) sets the Komsomol student and to explain the meaning of the pne cent,ral task for the future, namely, "to re.forms to the young people." support the organs of education, the lIChool directors, and teachers in instructing and This then is what happened: on thc one educating the children." The decree defines hand, the war hll8 tremendously Increased the future position of the Komsomol Il8 the role of the Komsomol; on the other, the follows: Komsomol is showing so many signs of un· ruliness and lack of discipline that the Party The plenary meeting deems it ntlCtlSlllU'Y to is getting seriously alarmed and has begun I'tllIOIve : to take countermeasures. It is shifting (a) lhat tC60hel'8, n'g6J'llless of the fact whether responsibilit.y onto the teachers, who are they belong t.o the KOfTUlOmol or not, be preeent government employees and hence more to at all IItudent.KolD8Omol meet,ings and be a1l0\\'OO to panicipate in Ull'ir work; be relied on in fulfilling orders. (b) that in examining a student'lIl\pplicatlon for To round off the picture we must add that membcn;hip in the Komsomol, the teachers' opinion the Pioneer Organization is also not working of him be taken into conllideration; as it should. In the same speech, Mikhailov makes the strange confession that it is not (c) that the school director have the right to 8U11pcnd a mi8taken resolution of the IIchool· equal to its tasks "of instilling the children KomtlOmol organization.... with devoted loyalty for their country and for the Bolshevist Party." So we learn The further improvement of tho llChol68tie tu'hievement. of IItudenh depend. largely on an from ont' of the secretaries of the Kom80mol's improvcment in dillcipline IUld t·he introduction of Central Committee that devotion and loyalty the IItrictellt possible ordor in the school. The to country and party do not by any means decisi\'e role in t,his belong1! t.o the teacher. Only come naturally to So"iet youth, that the a lack of comprehen8ion for thill fact can explain t,hat HOme Komsomol organizations luwe permitt·ed instilling of the children with them is a task, criticillm of tcnchors in their meet-ingll. ••. a task, moreover, to which the Party's own youth organization is not equal. The Kom80mol organiZAtion at t.he school and the 8t.udtmt members of the Kom80mol are pro· hibited from interfetin~ with the work of t,he TIlE CROCODILE SPEAKS tJ1> teachertl and from crillcizing t.he latter at the Kom80mol meetings, IItudent meetingll or in waU Up to now we have been looking at the noticetl. situation in lIChool and Komsomol. We shall now see that in youth's attitude toward In his long speech at the plenary meeting, work. t.oo, everything is not l\8 it should be. N. A. Mikhailov, Secretary of the Central While t.he Soviet pre88 is telling the world Committee of the KOIDsomol, declared em· every day that the younger generation has phatically : so great a love for Stalin as well as for it.s Wilat IleCrets could the Komsomol organization Soviet cOlmtry that it has been seized by an have for l·he teacher who, 68 Il rule, knows the unparalleled enthusiasm for work, the same strong and wcak side of every 8ludent far better pre88 contains daily proof of the contrary. and ~ a much greater knowledgc of aU questions of educationl (KU1Il8. Pnwda, 11.4.-&4). Sometimes these proofs are e\'en in rhyme 8S, for instance, a poem published in the In other words, the Komsomol is to be magazine Crocodile (No. 41, 1943), in whieh come not much more t.han au assistant a young female office employee speaks to a taskmaster and whip to aid the teacher-a male visitor to her office: STALIN'S GRANDCHILDREN • • "The Martyr" The agitator-he is the ono at whom we must continue to direct our attention, if we 841rioualy by V. Lebedev.Kumach wish to improve the political work among the (1'r'amIated by Era K.rUmIaIeCr) mlL8llOll (K0m.9. Pravda, 13.4.44). The Party itself always stresses the in· dispensability of agitators for the carrying out of economic tasks. In their work, the agitators should exploit "t.he entire arsenal of Bolshevist agitation, lectures, discussions, books, magazines, newspapers, wall news papers, placards, posters, hit tunes, folk songs, fairy tales" (Pravda., 26.3.44). .A.8 an illustration of what happens when there are no agitators, we quote the following example. Forty Komsomol agitators were ordered P{1l61J6 do not ask mil anything about my job! Do )'OU believo 1 like to st.ick around hore! to proceed to one lumber camp in the I simply had to got established somowbere, dear, province of Arkhangelsk. But for various Te get the ratiolls for my daily grub. reasons only five of them showed up after A friend of Sophia'lI found this place for me. a long delay. ".And what was the resulH" How dull it is!-but I am still alive, )·ou 800. And then, )'OU know, tho chances which we stood exclaims the Korns. Pravda (9.2.44), "two or boing mobilized for chopping wood! thirds of the woodcutters and drivcrs did What. do I do? Tho dragging hours endure : not fill their quota.~." About me not a single pleasant face; I .igh and yawn, Rnd sit here at my place, The trouble is that today agitation no AU.d grunt into the phone, )·ou rna)' be sure. longer helps much. All the catchwords and Who knocks!-A visitor! The devil take him; jllilt' firmly close the door. slogans have worn 011 and have lost their 8ure, he can wait. Oh please don't go so soon; effectiveness. Even the campaign to rouse Sit down, and entertain me until noon. feelings of revenge against the Germans Now "'hat? Tho telephone? Ob, let it buzz! which we discussed in "The Science of On Woonesday evcning all our crowd has planned To meet at t.ho ;\larkovln's, and I undcrstand Hatred" (January 1943), has apparently not J.yovushka's koon on having )'OU join us. borne the desired fruit and is becoming more You r&8Cal )'OU, )·ou haven't &aid a word. difficult with the diminishing extent of Is 01)' dress nieo? Do 1 look well in blue? German-occupied Soviet territOFy. At pres· Well, have 1 cll/lIIged? No? Truly, urn I still tho same! ent the Party has placed more hopes in Who'. knocking now? mass competitions among the workers: Tovarist.ch, stop this noise, oh do! Above aU it is essential that all male and female JUlIt shut the door, and leave us bero in peace!!! workers, cnginoors, technicians, and clnployees ThUll goes each day: the people, phonCfl, abuse.... participate in t.ho competitions.... Tho factory But tell me somethiug humorous--some ne_ committees must see to it that there is not 8 single And, darling, s)'l1lpathize with mo a little, pleasel male or fl'!lnale worker at t.he factories who has For the magazine to publish such a poem not undertaken concrete obligations towurd in. creasing production, toward fulfilling and exceeding there must be more than one girl of this the tasks set t·he factory (V. V. Kuznetsov, President type in the country. For the Ilame reason of the Central Council of Trade UniOWl; Trud, the case' of Nadya Sonino. of Omsk who, 14.3.-&4). although 0. mernber of the Komsomol, de· Hence the so-called norms of work, which serted from ber work, led to so lengthy a used to play so great l\ part in the past, are discussion (Ko11Ls. Pravda, 3.2.44). in reatity no longer valid. Every day t.he ARMY OJ!' AGITATORS largest possible amount of work is to be squeezed out of every worker. The forced Press and radio are filled with the measures mass competitions-which take place in by which the Soviet state is attempting to public 80 that the production of each in· get the young people back in line. For dividual can always be checked-is at the carrying out these measures, the state 8ame time to provide the Party with the makes usc chiefly of the annyof Komsomol possibility of keeping an eye on the young functioDaries-of which there are 300,000 people in the factory just as the "Twenty alone in the ra.yon organizations of the Rules" are expected to enable it to super country (Konls. Pravda 12,4,44)-and of vise the sohoolchildren twenty-four hours a largo numbers of agitators (ill the USSR the day. In his book One World, Wendell word "agitator" is their official denomina Willkie, who professcs to be a great admirer tion). of the USSR, writes after his \rjgit to that .- ·' . THE XXth CENTURY country that the Soviet methods of exploit of manpower, the state cannot pay any ing and paying laborers would please the regard to family life. Thus, for instance, most antisocial-minded American capitalists. growing numbers of women laborers in industry and agriculture are induced-"to AND THE REASONS? avoid unnecessary traveling' back and forth," as Radio Irkutsk put it-to sleep at their Our. examination of Soviet youth today places of work, so that even in the evenings has brought to light so many problems that and at night the children are not under the we are justified in inquiring as to their cause. supervision of their mothers. How can we explain that, twenty-sev~n years after the victory of the Soviet system, This war-time disruption of family life; Soviet youth is passing through a crisis of the ,consequences of the evacuation of millions this kind? In every state, the younger. of people; the mobilization of numerous generation presents certain problems, espe teachers; the destruction of many school cially in war time. Hence we shall not deal buildings by the war or their employment with the morals of Soviet youth, the ques for other purposes-all t.hese reasons for tbe tion of conjugal faitWulness on t,he part of growing lack of discipline must not be over soldiers' wives, for example, which has looked. Yet it would appear to us that appeared in the Soviet press, or that of the Soviet youth, by reMon of its character and increasing number of food thefts. These are its previous education with the emphasis war phenomena. But the problems of on discipline and collective life, should have Soviet youth which we mentioned before been able to overcome this danger. Hence differ in principle from those of other coun we believe that the cause for this increasing tries. In the USA, for instance, the problem refractoriness must have deeper roots. of juvenile delinquency has become quite THE MEANING OF THE WAR acute, us is shown in our article "America Speaks." But in the USA this is a t!careely We must ask our readers to bear in mind surprising consequence of the influence of the f-act that this article deals with the "Progressive Education," which permits the psychology of human beings. This is why younger .generation to grow up almost the reasons for the crisis in Soviet youth without restrictions. M.oreover, America has cannot be given in hard figures but only, very liule of a tradition of discipline., The through the patient observation and analysis word "discipline" itself has for most Ameri of psychological factors. cans a disagreeable sound. During the first period of their rule the In the Soviet Dmon, ho~ever, the period Bolsheviks tried to enforce all the principles of liberal education only lasted from 1918 of their doctrine. True t.() their avowed to 1933. Since then it hM been replaced materialism, economic production was put by a system which putt! great 'emphasis above' everything else. Private life was 011 discipline and takes youth firmly in renounced and replaced by a collective one. hand. When staying in Soviet youth. or· Private emotions, such as individual love or ganizations or camps during the early romanticism, were accused of hindering the thirties, I was alwayt! surpriaed-espccially growth of collective production and collec in comparison to the far more self-willed tive conscience. The family was to be German yout.h-to see how easy it was to replaced by the "commune"-I - myself harmonize a group of young Russians and visited such conu,nunes and published the to make them obey and behave in an orderly diary of one of them. manner. Furthermore, no state has em • But gradually it was found that the llhasized more loudly than the Bolshevist people were not yet sufficiently "mature" st.o.te that it was identical with the youth for all these Bolshevist ideals and, being the of its country. realist he is, Stalin made a large number of To explain the refractory spirit of Soviet concessions. The family was reintroduced, youth it is not enough to say: the fathers the communes were abolished, books and and elder brothers of Soviet youth are at plays once again dealt with private emotions, the front or have fallen, and their mothers Shakespeare was put on the stage, pretty and older sisters are working in factories. dresses for women were encouraged, romance Doubtless tills is the case. Families have was no longer ridiculed. The people took to been rent apart in a manner probably un all this like fish to water. They knew, of paralleled in history. In its urge to squeeze course, that Stalin had never denounced the the last drop out of its decreasing reserves original Bolshevist aims as being wrong and ... STALIN'S GRANDCHILDREN 11 that he. con.sidered these changes only as of their inclusion in the process of production temporary concessions to the deplorable -their own income and a correspondingly 'immaturity of the people, a detour to an greater self-confidence. Hence it is on the unohanged goal. But they did not mind home front that we have found the greatest particularly, they were grateful for what evidence of the existing crisis. they had and enjoyed it while they could. . They did not bother their heads about EXPLORDlG YOUTH doctrines.. The Party is fully R\yare of the fact that Then caDle the war. the problems of the country's younger gen eration cannot be solved by the measures When you a~ lying at the .front. Rnd waiting enumerated so far. It has noticed with tenaoly evQr>' minute for what IS 80In~ to happen, one poe;;ibihty being that of your imminent denth. alarm how, llJ1der the influence of develop then your ro·think !Lnd ro-rael muny things which ments since the outbreak of the war, youth perhups never oecupied your mimI in the yearll has lost its bearings and become restless. of peace; )'ou re·tlUnk these things not only in ).our bend but in your whole IIOlr, your With its vast experience in mass psychology heart, your soul.. •• You think about the the Party realizes that the growing lack of meaning of Russia, love, loyalty, hnppinc88. And discipline is, in the last analysis, an expres everything "ppoon dilferent to you from tbe way sion of youth's unfulfilled desires and obscure it did before, even two )'ears ago. emotions, which are foreign to the reality oi This is how a speaker at an the Bolshevist state ami do important meeting of the official not find expression within the Writers' Association in Moscow structure of BolshevisUl. Fearing explained the emotions of the that these desires and emotions eoldiers at the front to his may crystallize in a manner listeners (Novy J-Jir, 1943, No.4). dangerous to Bolshevism, the By facing millions of young Party is endeavoring to give Russian soldiers every day with them definite directions of its the question of life or death, the own choosing. war hag forced them to get The Soviet press provides many down to the essentiltl issues of proofs that the psychology and human existence. Much sooner emotional life of Stalin's grand and far more c1ea,rly than if children has, of late, undergone .;;; ~'::"'~P'ot(I' \fro nol • ..,...... there had been 110 war, these - Cutu .lill'KN. r"...-. ,1:-" such changes that the Party . young RutlSians have begull to ~-, leaders are at a loss to compre lIElnse the discrepancy between U:-iUSUAJ. I~CJf)ENT hend it. The Party ;s constantly the true values of life and Bolshe First \VomlUl: "Aren't you fooling well! What urging its own and the Kom vism. Even far behind the front, did that rosenl do to somol's functionaries to study where the war has not been ex you'" Second \\'omRn: anew the sentiments and idcas perienced in the foml of actual "He said. 'Good morn· of the younger generation. It fighting, it has inflicted countless ing. Auntie,' and moved has lauded the custom of the mocks of the severest kind which out of my way!" "Komsolliol Fridays" and sim (Crocodik, No.3, 1044) have deeply stirred up the life ilur arrangements by which and the conscience of the people. "the Committee Members of the Komsomol Organizers of the factories can study At, first the psychological consequences youth, its troubles, requirements, and of war were less noticeable at the front. endeavors more deeply" (Pranla, 10. Here war fed the war. The individual waf! 12.43). "We must endeavor to know what ruled by iron discipline. He was only part is going on in the sehools and in the hearts of his company, his division; and his days of the students, and we must occupy our were flUed with his life-and-death struggle. selves with them more frequently," said He had no chance to give expression to 1\iikhailov at the last plenary meeting of the whatever problems may have beset him. KOllisomol (K011/.8. Pra"vla, 11.4,44); and on Behind the front, however, it is different. another occasion it was reported : For the young people at home, t.he war "'hen a conference Wl\!l held at a ~108COw Cacton' does not mean stricter ties 88 it docs for the on the subject of books deRling wilh the problcn~ soldiers at the front but, on the contra.ry, of love. Ca.ithfulne88, and friendJlhip, it was dis. cUJlllC<1 for many days alter in t he factory and at greater independence by reducing t.he effec the homes of the ,..orkell" In this way the Kom. tive influence of. family and school and by 8OfIloileadors found out a lot more about the noods giving millions of young people--as a result and interellla of )'out,h (Kom8. Prat'Cla, 19.2,44). THE XXth CENTURY The very fact that the Bolsheviks find it "Shoulder Straps-And Thenl"-we realize ..,0 urgently necessary to study the mental· that the new marking system is part of the ity of their grandchildren seems to us to be general appeal to the past and the pride in of paramount importance. It clearly re Russian history. . veals that the generations have grown apart Not until later times will it be possible to and do not think the same thoughts. tell how much of the Red Army's performance At the factories and in the kolkhous all has actually been due to Stalin's revival of over the Soviet Union, youth has found historical symbols. We expect that history new interests and ideas which are so foreign will attribute a very large part of the Soviet to the Party and Komsomol that they must fighting spirit to the inherent instinct for first be' studied. These studies sometimes defense to be found in every living creature lead to surprising results. On April 22, and particularly in a young nation like 1944, for instance, Radio Moscow saw itself Russia which has such good health that it induced to appeal for a fight against super has even survived a quarter of a century of stition, against "magicians and wizards," Bolshevism. Certainly, the appeal to his and this in a country which has raised its tory must not be underestimated as a stimu youth for a quarter of a century in strict lus for fighting; but one can hardly assume materialism. that it has become a decisive source of .. strength within so short a time. One must SHALLOW ROOTS bear in mind that the turn toward history One of the underlying causes of the in in the Soviet system of education did not trinsic instability of Soviet youth is a commence until June 1935, on the basis of peculiarity to be found only in the case of a decree of the Central Committee of the this youth. Party of May 16, 1934. It was some time before it could take effect. To begin with, The Soviet state is very young. Not teachers had to be trained to give lessons only in the sense that it was born from a in history, for the teachers themselves had revolution that occurred less than twenty grown up without any knowledge of history. seven years ago, but also because this rev Consequently, the teaching of history did olution consciously broke with the past, in not begin to play an important role until contrast to the National·Socialist revolution, just before the outbreak of war. which consciously took up the threads of German history. In 1941, Soviet society YOUTH WITHOUT HISTORY was like a large tree with very shallow roots. During the thirties, I read a Soviet novel, The first months of the war showed con OUT Youtk, written by Kin, at that time vincingly that with these shallow roots the still quite a young author (he was born in tree might not withstand the raging storm. 19(3). Its hero is a young Komsomol Hence the Bolsheviks have, during the last member by the name of Besais. I copied three years, been making frantic efforts to out the author's 'description of the hero, drive the roots more deeply into the ·soil as it could have been applied to many of of Russia. Realizing that Bolshevist slogans the young Soviet Russians I knew at that and quotatioDB from Marx and Lenin were time: not enough to fire an army to fight unto The world was a simple matter for Besais. He , death, the Party threw them overboard and believed that the world revolution would come appealed to the force of patriotism innate anyhow tho day Biter tomorrow. if not tomorrow. in every man. There can, however, be no He did not worry. be knew no problems and kept patriotism without reverence for one's coun no diary. And when he was told in the club that the merchant Smimov had been shot the night try's past and its symbols. before, he simply_ said: "Well, what of it? That's Let us return once more to the revival of quite right,," for he knew no otber use for mer· chants. He took everything that happened around the five-point system of school marks, which him for granted. He was neither surprised nor seemed so incomprehensible at first sight. shocked by broad queues. typhus, and night. We saw that the best the Soviets could say patrols in the streets. All that was as much a about this system was that it had proved matter of course as day and night. For bim the period before the Revolut·ion was a legend)ike the its merit for many decades in Tsarist times. Old Testament, and Nicholas II wa.~ as much t.o In recalling such other symbols as shoulder him as King Nebuchadnez~o'many curious straps, regimental flags, I van t,he Terrible, things had happened in tins worldI .'\..11 that did etc., which the Bolsheviks first detested and not concern him. The ouly things that still dUllg to his memory out of the past were the policeman abolished and then s·uddcnly restort'd to who used to stund opposite the bank, and the honor-dealt with in detail in our article letter Yat, abOlished afti3r the Revolution, that " . STALIN'S GRANDCHILDREN 13 W bothered him in the village school in tholMl encouraged to commit heroic deeds by dec .sa,.. He renounced God, the kind, bearded God, orations named after the Tsarist admirals rib .hom he bad spent the flnt fourteen yearll 01 hie life, eaaily and without Illly shattering of Usbakov (d.1817) and Nakhimov (d.I855). IOU1. There WliB nothing special in that. We whose very llames not one in t\ t,housaud 1impIy decided that there WWI no God. "He is young Russians had ever heard until two __ there," he Mid, in the way ono Kpeaks of years ago, we must ask with Hamlet: ~ who hlUtilleft I.ho room, He oxperienced .-mblo things, and yet he was only a boy. Cos. '\That's B"cuba to him or ho to Hecuba, .a CAIne in the night; by dawn Ibey hlld killod That he should wocp for hor! three hundred people. Holping 1.0 put I hem ill tbeir coffins WIIil, at liMIt disllgrccable to Beaais, And how can we possibly expect the ilut he got UllOO 10 it. ''That'" nothing Ilpecial," hundreds of thousands of soldiers of Tartar, be Mid to hil1ll\('lf. The Reds killed t.he Whites Usbck, Turkman and other non-Russian IIId the Whites the Heds; it WIUI all very simple. stock to become inflamed with the desire to Governments ClUno and ",ent, nailed decrees Ilnd proalamlltions on the fences, gave I.he sl ret-I·B now fight for BolsllCvism by an appeal to the UIDlII, erectoo triumphlll arches. I.ife was naked, memory of those Russian figures of the past IIlid bue to the lalll root. And seemed oxtrllordinar. who conquered their forbears? 111 plain and simple. Only tho most ind.ispensable lad fundamental words remainod. On('.o Be8ais Indeed, the Soviet leaders' endeavors to ~ hold of D0810yevliky's Grim;) Wid ['lIni"hme711; Will over Soviet youth by the revival of WIaen III had finished I.ho book 1\0 WAS vl'ry UJ<· tclailIhed. "B('II," he Mid, "what a lot of talk symbols liquidatA-'<1 by the Bolshe\;ks years about an old wornu.nl" before this you.th was born can only be explained by perplexity, de-artll of ideas, HECUBA AJ.'\D SOVIET YOUTH and the desperate hope that these symbols might help to satisfy the yearni.ng in the To a certain extent, every younger gen· hearts of youth. .emman start8 from tbe beginning again. B,a:t never has the ncgation of the past and HIDDE.'" WOULD • dC8ire to make a new start been as ~cal as in the case of the Bolsheviks. The Soviet tree is further weakened by Besaia bad at least had fourteen years with the fact that its roots, in addition to being GOd, but when Soviet youth went to war shallow, all grow in one direction only along the official lines of the Party. Until ill 1941 it bad only spent (L fraction of this time "ith Russia's histDry: How can one recently, the Bolsheviks not only refuted a:pect thc appeal to the heroes of thi~ history before 1917: they also acknowledged lhistory to make any deep impression on the later developments in the rest of the world young Russians ? only in so far as they agreed with the Bol shevist conception. The power of the Bol The great Jlames of Russian history may sheviks rested upon tbe fact that no ideas ave an effect upon the small remainder of contradictory to Bolshevism were allowed to peOple in the Soviet Union who belonged to arise among the people, cspecially among the • the upper classes in the days before the younger generation. They sought to achieve Bevolution and who grew up in CIOBO touch this by ruthlessly eliminating any ideas that with. the Russian past, just as they have did not fit i.nto the official lines as well 118 Id failed .during the last two years to bave the propagators of such idcas; also by con ·a oertain effect upon tbe Russil\n intel demning the inhabitants of t)ieir realm to a Jtgeot~ia living abroad and on the young constant primitive struggle for existence and Buaian emigrants who have been educated by suppressing all such interests lying beyond 'In the spirit of Russian history. But it is tho sphere of the Party 118 family, church, DOt for the benefit of people like these that and private property. The struggle for a the Soviet Union is reviving Russia's past. bare existence does away with most prob When the Ge'rman leaders appeal to the lems. The harder it is, the worse off people 1ioyI and girls of Germany with names are, the more similar do they become to lib Arminius or Barbaro!l.'m and other each other and the deeper do their dreams heroes of German history, this appeal is retreat into the innermost recesses of their elective because the National·Socialists have souls. And those of the dreams and dream. always proclaimed themselves their heirs ers that still rose to the surface were prompt and because German youth has always ly liquidated. PWD up with reverencc for their names No ideas from abroad which might en IDd the ideals thoy ~prescnt·, bas learned danger the Sovict system were admitted into poems and read books about thorn. But the country. The number of foreigners when young Soviet citizens are suddenly entering the Soviet Union was tiny, and the THE XXth CENTURY possibility of their coming into contact with by the Party. There was no possibility of the common people waa very litnited. Just having a life out.side of this form. This as tiny was the number of Russians allowed was recent.ly formulated as follows in the to travel abroad. To be given a !"O,mmdi· euphemistic language of Soviet propaganda Tat,ka to a foreign country was a distinction, by K. Trenev in an article "Lenin and the but a dangerous distinction. Afterwards Younger Generation" published in the Mos such persons were treated with suspicion. cow press and reprinted iJt the Shanghai This was the experienoe, for example, of two Novaya Jim on January 25, 1944: leading dramatists, Kirshon (born in 1002) The fortunate conditions of Soviet life have and Afinogenov (born in 10(4). In the early freed our youth from tho morbid contradi"tion of thirties and as a reward for their successful idea and rewity. The most ardent and most rosy literary activit,y, they were given permission dreams of yoUng people can be fulfilled in the to spend some time in European countries. Soviet Union where youth is the m8titer of illl own I met them in Berlin and saw them quite destin)'. often. It waa interesting to observe the Again and again youth was told that the imprellllion made by Europe upon these Soviet Union was all that youth could desire young authors who had grown up entirely and that there was no such thing as a prob. under the heavy pressure of Bolshevism. lem. Bllt this so·called unity of idea and In his play Bread, Kirshon reproduced reality which' was apparently brought about this impression. There is a scene in which by the coercion of the younger generation, two young Communists meet, one of whom, this outwardly apparently quite unproblem. called Rayevsky-who has been decorated atical existence, was exposed by the war. The with the "Order of the Red Flag" for his demands placed upon the entire personality deeds during the Civil War-has just reo by war arc tremendous. Especially at the turned from abroad. Let us quote a few front, where every soldier is faced daily lines: with the most profound of all problems, the Ra}'eVllky: rm exasperated by our stupid, mystery of death, man grows conscious of arrogant attitude toward everything we don't his intrinsic value, which does not depend know. on the "process of prodJICtion" and similar Mikhailov: You must be neurllllthenic ! Marxist constructions. The stupefying effect Rayevsk}': I wish you were the fin>t to sa}' that. Abroad thero's enough that one can lcarll. of the Bolshevist formulas vanishes, and the I'd liko to kill all t,he fatheads who .could see nnd Stwiet citizen experiences the liberation from heM nothing in Europe beyond the foxtrot. the chains of a lVeltan&dw.UUlIU built up ~ikhailov: 'Vere }'OU in German}'! entirely on the material side of life. Para Ra~'ev8k}': In Berlin, Hllmburg, DrelKlen. The doxical as it may sound, in the face of death country ill working liko a glistening mllchine. Soviet youth is awakening to life. When your aeroplane leaves Konigsberg. Gl'rmtmy IiCfl befo", ~'ou like the open workll of a clock. The unnatural values for the appreciation 1'1.0 voi<.'6 of the engines ill never silent; the cart h tromblell with the roar of dozens of underground of which Bolshevism has been trying to train liutlS. That'll worth experiencing, itfu't it? them for so many years are disappearing Olga: III it light in the towns at night! entirely from their horizon. They make no Raye\"llky: In some Berlin 8t~h ~'ou can't sense in the face of death and a·re being relld becuuilO of the brilliance of tho olect,ric lamI'll. replaced - at least for the time being There are buildingtl Booded with light from top to by values which have nothing whatever bottom. Above one of the "OUllell in the Fried· to do with Bolshevism. This is revealed richst l'allllC a wineglll88 suddenI)' gleams. a bottle Bares up, and champagne sparkles against the dark by a glance at the most recent Soviet sky. poetry. Kirshon and Afinogenov were not to enjoy By poetry we naturally do not mean the tbeir fame for long. Some time after their so to speak official poetry written by orders return they were ignominiously expelled from above, a good example of which is the from the 80\';et Writers' Association and new So';et anthem. What we mean is true liquidated-whether only in an ideological lyrical poetry, which expresses the inner sense or in a ph)'sical sense too, we do not most feelings of the writer. In this poetry know. At any rate, we have never read there is no mention of 8uvorov and Dmitry another printed line by them again. Donskoi, of shoulder straps and patriarchs, THE BROKEN FOR-1\{ of Five Year Plans, kolkhoWJ, or Soviets. The poems move arQund the eternal centers In this manner, youth had been forced by of alilyric~try-Iove,nature, friendship, every po88ible means into the form decreed beauty. STAL!N'S GRANOOHlLDREN 15 The m08t popular poem in RU88ia today He was sitting with a detachment of Red is entitled "Wait for Me" and was written Army men in a Stalingrad cellar. It was by Konstantin Simonov. It con8i8ta of the evening. Above, a heavy bombardment was simple, moving words a soldier saY8 to tbe going on. He writes : woman he lovcs. Thcy end: The Red IOldiers wound up the gramophone. How I have survived will know "Which one are you putting on1" one of them Only 1 IUld ~·ou. Mked. Immediately sevoral other voices an. Just because you waited BJI lIwered : No one et.e could do. "Put on our record, you know the one "'0 m~IlD." Simonov, one of the leading among young Then a curious thing happened. While the Soviet author8, has written many other soldier WM looking for the record, 1 wu thinking: how nice it would be to hear my beloved Iri8h poems of a predominantly personal and Table So,,'1 in this ruined, black cellar. And nonpolitical character. We quote excerpts auddenly a solomn melancholy voice wu octually from some of his best-known recent verses: ainging the BOng: And I dCAire t hat eveI')' day. "The stonn is raging outaide. •• ." That en'ry hour. and every fight, It WIl8 obvioull that t.he Red aoldiers liked the You'd follow like" shudow; n1\Y. IIOng very much. They wore all aitting in silence. That you would slllLre with me my broad. Ten times they repeated the same part: And shftre my Bullt'ring. to tears; ~~~uth, That. you be blinded when 1 JeO blind, "Milady we beeooch you to wait at the door .... And cold when J lun to cold resigned; That yours would alRO be mv feans These WOnJ8. this simple and inBpired music by And ~:our8 the wroth that clo'uds my head; Beethoven, 80Wlded indOllCribably powerful here. That all the words your lips dellign This 111'88 probably one of my deepeet impressions Would be just fled from mine. of the whole war. In war, man expori~ many , • great, joyful,. bitter, feelinga, be aperiencee Because of sorrow on my part hatred and longmg. pam and fear, love. _passion, re\'QIlge. But rarely men Will' by That I may not ftgain embmce you: are riIited in ~·ou molanchol)'. In th080 worda, in t.hia music b,. a Whilo parted. 1 shall not disgraclJ reqU~.t: Wit.h any weakncl 16 THE XXth CENTURY years. Last year he brought out a collec emphasize personal emotions in the life of tion of war stories entitled There Are Su.ch the soldier, that he should have endowed People, in which he describes various types spiritual experiences so far removed from of men he found at the front. The hero of Bolshevist reality with so decisive a power, the second of these stories iB Semyon, the is regarded as an unforgivable sin on Kassil's member of a submarine crew, whose phenom part, and a stream of abuse -is directed enal sense of hearing, besides being of against him. inestimable value to his submarine, is an object of pride for the whole fleet. During Kassil is by no means the only one who is an enemy operation, Semyon's eardrum is attacked in this way. Another influential damaged by the explosion of a depth charge, literary magazine, Novy Mir, accuses Boris and he is deaf when he arrives at the hospital. Pasternak of similar crimes, a man whose To him the loss of his hearing is as painful works were hitherto considered almost as the loss of a hand to a virtuoso. At the classics of modern Soviet poetry. In its hospital he is visited by Dusya, a waitress issue No. 7-8, 1943, the magazine severely in the canteen, whom he has loved for Bome censures his recent verses for the over time without ever having discovered any emphasis they put on the purely personal sign of love on her part. As she knows angle as the decisive factor for the behavior that he cannot bear her, she confesses to of the Russian soldier at the front. someone else who happens to be present that she returns Semyon's love. This con PULLING IN THE REINS fession penetrates Semyon's deafness, and During the last few months there were the sudden joy gives him back his hearing. many other indications that the Bolsheviks Happy ending. a,re afraid of having, out of consideration for We are not interested here in whether the war effort, gone too far in loosening the this is possible or not from a medical point iron grip in which youth was hitherto held of view. What does interest us, however, is by them. In his speech which we quoted that Kassil, in giving his hero back his hear above, N. N. Romanov, the Secretary of the ing, motivates this with a purely personal, Centrp.l Committee of the Komsomol, had intimate experience. That which overcomes to admit that even those of the Komsomol Semyon's deafness and makes him once again officials who have been in leading positions a valuable crew member of a submarine is for a number of years "lack the necessary neither the thought of Stalin, nor veneration political training." Hence Bolshevism ha.'J for the late Admiral Ushakov, nor faith in' suddenly been thrust into the foreground the Five Year Plan, nor a picture of Karl again. At a Kom80mol meeting in Moscow - Marx-it is a loving word from Dusya, the the reproach of "poor ideological education" canteen waitress. was raised against the Komsomol of the Moscow State University and other colleges -Kassil's collection contains other stories and the demand made: "The thorough too, in which the significance of personal study of Marxist-Leninist theories by all emotions is described. In the life of the students must be enforced "(Koms. Pravda, officer Batygin, for instance, a letter he 14.3.44). For "Marxism-Leninism is the receives from his wife after a long interval science of sciences" (Kom8. Pravda, 29.3.44). plays a decisive rolo, changing his entire life. The most interesting fact about Kassil's Immediately after the meeting, the Kom somol organizations in town and country book is that the Soviet leaders have taken it as an opportunity to make a sharp attack set about the practical application of the on the whole trend it represents. In the resolutions made at the meeting. A flood ., of lectures and discussions was poured forth issue No. 11/12 of the well-known literary ~ magazine Oktyabr, which went to press on the Komsomol. Since Moscow's example IS followed by the rest of the country, it is March 1, 1944, there is a scathing attack by M. Helfand on Kassil and his book (pp.165- interesting to study the themes proposed '171). Since Oktyabr is one of the leading for discussion in the Komsomol meetings in literary magazines in the USSR and ex that city: presses far more than the private opinions Soviet pedagogy 88 the 8cience of Communist of Comrade Helfand, this attack is tan education for the rising generation; Marx and Engels on the education of the all tamount to a command to Soviet writers round man; telling them how they are not to write. , Lenin and Stalin on the education of Soviet That Kassil should have dared so strongly to youth; • ,. .. STALIN'S GRANDCHILDREN 17 Subject.s and method of the Communist education The difficulties they are experiencing with of Soviet youth, etc. (Kom8. Pravda, 21.4.44). their own yotmgcr generation must neces· It haa been a long time since sllch themes sarily affect the Bolsheviks' attitude toward • have ~peared in so concentrated a form. the further course of the war. Although Moreover, in a recent speech Kalinin demand· Soviet youth haa not yet found a form in ed tha.t Russian history as well as other sub· which to express its new spirit in a politically jects of human knowledge be, more than effective manner and in one which might hithert..o, presented from the point of view threaten the hegemony of the Party, the of }Iarxism·Lenfnism (Propa,gulldist, 1944, potential energy of this youth is serious No.2). But the younger generation does enough for the Party to view the conse not seem to be displaying much interest in quences of the Army's return after the this: close of hostilities with· apprehension. De mobilizatioll is a serious problem for any Insufficient attention is being devoted among the students to the questions of education toward country, and the Bolshevist leaders have Communist morals. Discussions and lectures on often enough'proclaimed that the return of U1ese topics are but rarely arranged, and some· the Army from the front during the Great times they are of a poor intellect ual level, so that. War speeded up the internal collapse o~ the, they do not int.erest and cnpt.ivQt.e the young state. people (leading article in the Koms. Pravda, 12.4.44). •• • And how else than by an astonishing The pendulum of public opinion is always estrangement between state and youth is it inclined to swing from one extreme to the to be explained that after twent,y-seven other. While the world did not have a' years of Bolshevism Rnd three years of war very high opinion of Soviet youth up to the the sa.me leading article must raise the outbreak of the German-Soviet wal' and following demand : saw weaknesses everywhere, it has now The main tusk of the Komsomol student·s' completely reversed its opinion, at least in orgtllliztltion consists in acquainting all school. the Allied and neutral countries. The fact children wiM, t,ho great aims in whose name our people Bre fighting, and in Bwakening in every that the Soviet Union did not collapse in etudent the desire to partic.ipate in this struggle. the first year of war and has had a comeback in .the second and third has induced most Earlier in the war, in order to prevent people no longer to see any weak'llesses So\'iet youth from recognizing the flllula. whatever in the Soviet system ami its mental discrepancy between Bolshevism and youth. One view is as unjustified as the its own new spiritual life, tlJ.e· Soviet leaders other. abolished the institution of political com missars in the Red Army. These com We do not deny that the fa~ade of the iJ}issars had been.: entrusted with the task of Soviet state appears impressive, with the wat , , 18 THE XXtb CENTURY Bolshevism. But we do say that there is a them. But e\'en the Soviet press with aU I crisis, more serious now that the Red its supervision and censorship cannot hide • ~s are on the Pruth than when they the fact that the younger Soviet generation were still on the Volga. And it would is in a state of fermentation. So, a.fter all, be strange if there· were none. Great the Soviet state is not a perfect machine wa aJ.)yays ~ive J>irth to n_~w_ i~«::.~_~.!l __ that only needs to be lubricated now and new conditIOns and the Soviet state is again, but a machine whose problematical iiitflemidst 0 the greatest war in history. nature the young Soviet people are begin A crisis could only have been avoided if ning vaguely to perceive. youth and state, grandfathers and grand Soviet youth has not simply suddenly children, had been essentially identical. become unruly in the same sense as the But this, as we have seen, is not the case. youth of every country is, to a certain It is true that the grandchildren have, so extent, unruly. Soviet youth has become far, not been allowed to express those of unruly because it looks at the Soviet reality I' their ideas which could not be harmonized surrouuding it with other eyes than three with the dogmas of Bolshevism. Moreover, years ago, and because it is governed by their thoughts are probably still so over· emotions and ideas, yearnings and fore shadowed by these dogmas that they do not bodings, which have no intrinsic relationship yet know where the new trends are leading to Bolshevism and its state. CARTOON OF THE MONTH By SAPAJOU The Finishing Touches Before the Election