Donald sits down with Sean Guillory from the SRB Podcast to discuss the Komsomol, or Soviet Young Communist League, which was often one of the only organizations that provided a link to the early soviet state in many small towns. They discuss the way the early Soviet state was structured with attention to how soft and hard power was transmitted, communist values, gender relationships, the rebirth of social conservatism, and the meaning of comradeship.
Here’s a list of sources on the topic provided by Sean:
Anne Gorsuch, Youth in Revolutionary Russia: Enthusiasts, Bohemians, Delinquents.
Matthias Neumann, The Communist Youth League and the Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1917-1932.
Seth Bernstein, Raised under Stalin: Young Communists and the Defense of Socialism.
Sean Guillory, “The Shattered Self of Komsomol Civil War Memoirs,” Slavic Review, 71:3, Fall 2012, 546-565.
Sean Guillory, “Profiles in Exhaustion and Pomposity: the Everyday Life of Komsomol cadres in the 1920s,” Carl Beck Papers, no. 2303, 2014.
Sean Guillory, “We Shall Refashion Life on Earth! The Political Culture of the Young Communist League, 1918-1928,” PhD Dissertation, 2009.
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