Routledge Revivals

Youth in Soviet Russia

First published in 1933, Youth in Soviet Russia presents Klaus Mehnert’ s honest and personal account of the state of the youth in USSR. It contains themes like living human beings, student and class, student and the state, the idea of the Komsomol, the literature of the youth, youth and the theatre, the youth commune, trends and attitudes towards sex and marriage with the development of new morality. Mehnert, a German born in Russia offers valuable description of his personal experiences while living with Russian youth during four successive autumns. This book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of history, Soviet history, Russian history, and com- munist history.

Youth in Soviet Russia

by Klaus Mehnert First published in 1933 By George Allen and Unwin Ltd. This edition first published in 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1932 Klaus Mehnert and 1933 English Translation George Allen & Unwin Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.

A Library of Congress record exists under LCCN: 33023464

ISBN 13: 978-1-032-12029-4 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-1-003-22271-2 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978-1-032-12032-4 (pbk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003222712 YOUTH IN SOVIET RUSSIA

by KLAUS MEHNERT

TRANSLATED by MICHAEL DAVIDSON

LONDON GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD MUSEUM STREET The German original, “Die Jugend in Sowjetrussland,** was pub- lished by the S. Fischer Verlag in Berlin in 1932

THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION, SPECIALLY REVISED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTAINING A NEW CHAPTER, FIRST PUBLISHED 1933

A ll rights reserved

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY UNWIN BROTHERS LTD., WOKING IN PLACE OF A FOREWORD: There are a hundred million people under twenty-five years of age to-day living in the Soviet Union.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I. LIVING HUMAN BEINGS II

II. STUDENTS t h e “ é l it e ” as c r it e r io n 20 IN MOSCOW STUDENTS’ HOSTELS 22 STUDENT AND CLASS 2 $ STUDENT AND STATE 33 STUDENT AND SCHOLARSHIP 38

III. THE KOMSOMOL WITH NADYA AT THE “ Z.K.” 47 BLUE BANNERS 52 THE KOMSOMOL DURING THE CIVIL WAR 56 LENIN 59 TOWARDS THE SIXTH MILLION 62 KOMSOMAL AND FIVE YEAR PLAN 66 THE EDUCATIONAL FRONT 68 THE ECONOMIC FRONT 72 IN PLACE OF THE IMPULSE TO EARN 76

IV. THE LITERATURE OF YOUTH BOOKS 83 THE GIRL 86 THE QUESTION OF NERVES 88 THE YOUNG MAN 93 THE RED ARMY SOLDIER IOI THE PERIODICAL 108 8 YOUTH IN SOVIET RUSSIA CHAPTER PAGE V. YOUTH ON THE STAGE t h e r 6 l e o f t h e t h e a t r e 116 “ o u r y o u t h ” 119 “ b r e a d ” 125 “ t h e f o o l ” 130 YOUTH ACTS 132

VI. IN THE COLLECTIVISED VILLAGE THE CENTRAL ASIA EXPRESS 136 THE BEAT OF MOSCOW’S PULSE 141 THE MEETING 150

VII. THE YOUTH COMMUNE MY FIRST COMMUNE 159 FROM THE JOURNAL OF A COMMUNE 163 COMMUNE AND FAMILY 171 COLLECTIVE AND COMMUNE 179

Vili. MORALITY AND CULTURE THE INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVISATION 187 PROPERTY 193 THE NEW ARISTOCRACY 197 THE SEXES 203 LENIN SPEAKS 206 THE “ NEW” MORALITY 209 CULTURE 224 OUTLOOK ON LIFE 235

IX. ONE YEAR LATER VISIT TO THE COMMUNE 249 TWO THOUSAND SHOOT 257 A WALK IN THE NIGHT 261 RUSSIA AND OURSELVES 266 GLOSSARY

Besprisornyi : Homeless children. F.S.U. (F a b s a v u t c h i) : Factory schools. K o l k h o s : Collective farm . K o m s o m o l : Communist Youth Association. K u l a k : Independent farmer. N.E.P.: New Economic Policy. O ssoaviakhim : Society for the Protection of the Soviet Union. P io n e e r s : Communist children’s organisation. P y a t il e t k a : Five Year Plan. Ra b f a k i : Educational courses for workers. R a y o n : Municipal district. Su b b o t n ik : Days of voluntary work. T s -T sh e -O : Central Black-soil District. T r a m : Theatre of Working-class Youth. U d a r n ik i: Shock-workers. V s e o b u t c h : Compulsory general elementary education.

YOUTH IN SOVIET RUSSIA

I LIVING HUMAN BEINGS

i “The millions of workers who are creating the new life form the real basis of our Plan of production. Living human beings, ourselves, all of us; our readiness to work in a new way, our resolve to carry through the Plan, form the real basis of our programme.” With these words Stalin ended his now famous speech of June 23,1931. And Stalin was right. However significant material factors may be, it is surely the living human being, his brain and nerves and muscles, his beliefs and hopes and hatreds, that make history and determine development. Here is the point at which a proper evaluation of Bolshevism must begin. It may well be possible to squeeze an industry out of nothing with the help of foreign specialists and machinery, or to collectivise agriculture; but of what use are all the Socialist factories and “kolkhos” in the world if they are not operated by Socialist men and women? There was no necessity to sacrifice millions of human beings solely in order to mechanise the country; the sacrifice will only have been not in vain if a better human being is the outcome. The criterion of Bolshevism is the Bolshevik. And 12 YOUTH IN SOVIET RUSSIA when Stalin himself, the exponent of the materialist conception of history, speaks at the end of an extremely significant speech about the living human being, we may quite legitimately step in and ask: What kind of a man is this new human being of yours? Has a new kind of man already been produced from the new mould? Or rather, since Russia is still in the phase in which the old human being is in process of making a new mould for itself, are changes already to be seen in the old human being? And finally, what of your younger generation? The question of youth is of especial importance in the Soviet Union. The Revolution of October 1917 was prepared and carried through by the generation which fought for overthrow as long ago as 1905 and spent a great part of the period between the two revo- lutions in exile in the West; but the helm of the ship of State launched by this generation passed years ago to younger hands, younger physiologically and sociologically. Stalin himself celebrated his fiftieth birthday only two years ago, and the men who with him are determining the destiny of the State and filling the foremost positions are in many cases between forty and fifty, even between thirty and forty. The younger a man is, the fewer inhibitions does he bring towards the Bolshevist system, the more susceptible is he to the new era and its demands. That is why the rising generation receives the particular attention of Stalin and the Party. Nearly a hundred million people bom after 1907 are living in the Soviet Union to-day; people, that is, LIVING HUMAN BEINGS 13 who are under twenty-five years old, and who know nothing of the period before the war from personal experience; people whose development is a product of the war, the Revolution, the civil war, and the struggle to establish Socialism; who have never been across the border, and have grown up in an atmosphere of colossal uniformity. Every year a further five and a half millions are bom, and the preponderance of births over deaths amounts yearly to more than three millions. If, in order to get a picture of the relative strength of the generations in the Soviet Union, we cut out the children up to sixteen years and the old people over sixty, there still remain ninety million people in the active years between sixteen and sixty. Of these, those who were twenty years old or younger at the outbreak of the Revolution (that is to say, those who are between sixteen and thirty-six to-day) may be described as the “younger generation”; as the “elder generation” those between thirty-six and sixty may be distinguished. In round figures, then, it follows that the younger generation in the Soviet Union with sixty millions numbers twice as many as the elder with its thirty millions. This younger generation, of whom Lenin said that it, in contrast to the elder, would itself experience Communism, shall be the subject of this book: its features and character, its attitude to the State, to work, and to life, its notions of morality and spiritual values. I am very conscious of the difficulty of the subject, for I want to express in words a thing so new and so fluid that its capture must be a risky under- 14 YOUTH IN SOVIET RUSSIA taking. Nevertheless, an attempt to portray Soviet youth is needed. With a rapidity unusual in other countries these young people are advancing to decisive positions in State and life. In the next ten years we shall have to reckon very substantially with young Russia.

II Nowadays, whoever occupies himself publicly with the Bolshevist problem exposes himself at once to suspicion, even to slander. As this seems to be una- voidable, it is necessary to deal with the matter at once. The sceptic’s first question runs: “What do you want to say to us about Russia anyhow? As a foreigner you can’t form any opinion at all, for of course you’re one of those whom ‘Intourist’ leads round by the hand in blinkers, passing by the essentials”. This reproach forces me to a word about myself, a matter quite irrelevant in itself. I was bom in Russia in 1906, and grew up with the Russian language as a second mother-tongue, side by side with the German. Although my family had been in Russia for generations we were German nationals, and in the first winter of the war we escaped to Germany. And because Germany was not a matter of course for me, because I experi- enced her in her most difficult days as something new, I became like many “foreign” Germans more consciously a German than I would have become had I been bom in the Empire. I have spent each autumn of the last four years in the Soviet Union. Not as LIVING HUMAN BEINGS 15 tourist, nor as delegate, nor as specialist or as some such semi-official, exceptional person, but as the friend of some young Russians—students, engineers, work- men, soldiers, officials—whom, when returning from America in 1929, 1 got to know on a journey from the Pacific Ocean to Moscow; a journey made long and tedious, although sufficiently rich in adventure, by the war which had broken out between Russia and Manchuria shortly beforehand. Nearly all of them have been in the Party for many years; as boys they fought in the civil war; they have helped to build up the Komsomol, the Communist Youth Association; in 1929 they came through the “Tchistka”, the clean- sing of the Party, with honour; although still very young they are to-day holding responsible posts, proved sons of the Revolution. I count some of them among the best possible representatives of their generation. Each time I cross the Russian border and exchange the German language for the Russian, my town clothes for a grey sports-suit, my hat for the little embroidered Tartar cap which the young Russians like to wear now, I jump with both feet, consciously and without the least feeling of restraint, into Russian life. I never travel other than “hard class”; I have never stayed in a hotel. During the first days in Moscow I am grateful for the hospitality of German acquain- tances; then I go to my Russian friends. In comrade- ship with them I cease to be a stranger; I become a guest, an intimate even—“svoi tchelovek”, one of us, as the Russian calls it. And that is even more than i6 YOUTH IN SOVIET RUSSIA “tovarishtch”, comrade. I have lived in former nunneries, in sheds, in students’ and engineers’ hostels; an empty bed is generally to be found some- where. Some nights I have slept on the floor, some in straw, some not at all. Even the most sceptical of men, always on the look- out for stage scenery and “Potemkin villages” behind everything the foreigner sees in Russia, will not be able to believe that a man can be deceived for any length of limp in companionship so intimate and thorough as this. However distinguished as an actor the Russian may be on the stage, in personal, human companionship there is no one whose heart beats so close to the skin as the Russian, no one with whom a direct relationship, man to man, can be so quickly established. My friends trusted me because they saw that I came to them not with the intention of discovering the bad side of everything, but in order to live with them as comrade among comrades. They were pleased when I honestly expressed opinions differing from theirs in many matters and when I quite candidly argued with them, for they found in that not the grumbling fault-finding of a timid foreign “Burjui”, but rather the views and convictions of a representative of German youth. I was often enough present at social meetings, conferences, or discussions at which scarcely anyone and sometimes no one at all had an inkling that a foreigner was in the room. How far I succeeded in adapting myself to Russian life was shown me to my great joy when I was turned out of the “Torgsin” LIVING HUMAN BEINGS 17 shop in Moscow, in which goods may be bought only against foreign exchange, because my Russian appear- ance was not consistent with the possession of foreign currency. And not once, the whole time I was in the Soviet Union, have I been refused admittance any- where. I will not assert that no one bothered about me at all and that I was left free to go wherever I would; I imagine that the authorities were constantly informed of my movements, and to make this easier I never concealed anything and always announced my intentions beforehand. But there the matter rested, and nobody has ever tried to divert me from my plans and wishes or to place obstacles in my way.

Ill More weighty than the reproach of giving scanty or false information is the fact that at the present time everyone who expresses himself on the subject of Russia becomes classified as a matter of course, often before he has been heard, as either “pro” or “contra”. And the moment this classification is made, whatever he may have to say loses all its authenticity for those who occupy the opposite standpoint. I will therefore say here, right at the beginning and with all emphasis, that I am neither pro nor contra the Soviet Union, neither for nor against Bolshevism, but very resolutely for Germany·, and that I regarded everything I saw, heard, read and felt in Russia solely from one single aspect: What does that mean for us Germans? What can we learn from it? One needs a firm personal posi- 18 YOUTH IN SOVIET RUSSIA tion in Russia if one will escape falling a victim to uncritical enthusiasm or contempt, and this German position was my Archimedean point. If I should be asked, then, whether I intend to deal honestly and objectively with my subject, then I must reply: Honestly—yes, decidedly; objectively— no. The process of a physical experiment or a mathe- matical problem can be described objectively, but the man who hopes to write objectively on a Russian theme is only deluding himself and others and seeking to shirk his responsibilities and a clear definition of his position. One can expect from a young German who feels the fate of his nation to be his own fate, who is searching passionately for the causes of to-day’s suffering and for the possibilities of a recovery to- morrow, who measures Bolshevism not in terms of “good” and “bad”, regarding this aspect of the question as being unessential for us, and for whom it is not a matter of catchwords like “capitalism”, “socialism”, “collectivism”, but of the future of his country—from him one may expect no objectivity in the sense of impartiality and disinterestedness when he writes of the Soviet Union. For us Europeans Bolshevism is more than a theoretical problem; it is an eminently practical busi- ness. Not only because the Soviet Union covers one- sixth of the earth’s surface, because she touches the borders of Europe, and because her trade compe- tition is depressing the market prices of the world; but because she represents the most determined attempt to formulate a new economic, social, and LIVING HUMAN BEINGS 19 personal life, while we are still floundering in the liquidation of the old; and because familiarity with a neighbouring people which has ventured forward, in this search for new paths, into an unknown and perilous distance remote from the traditional highway, should help all who are selflessly seeking a new path for Europe to know themselves and to discover the European solution.