Komsomol

   Nongovernmental organization. The Communist Youth League (Kommunisticheskii soiuz molodiozhi) or Komsomol was established in 1918 to train future generations of leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and inculcate the values of Marxism-Leninism. Members ranged from 14 to 28 years of age; younger children joined the affiliated Pioneers organization.

   At its height in the early 1980s, there were more than 40 million members. Under Mikhail Gorbachev’s twin policies of glasnost and perestroika, Komsomol came under criticism as an overly bureaucratic, corrupt, and bloated organization that did not adequately represent the interests of the country or the needs of Soviet youth. Market-oriented reforms introduced in the late Soviet period, however, granted special privileges to Komsomol members, enabling valuable networks of influence (blat) that shaped the development of capitalism in post-Soviet Russia. Reflecting the end of the CPSU, the organization held its last congress in September 1991 before disbanding. The media outlet of the youth league, the Komsomolskaia Pravda newspaper, survived the organization.

   See also Civil society.