Book Reviews : Young Communists in the USSR: A Soviet Monograph Describing the Demands Made Upon Members of the Komsomol Organization. Translated by VIRGINIA RHINE. (Washington, D. C.: Public Affairs Press. 1950. Pp. 92. $2.00.)

• Published date: 01 December 1951
• Date: 01 December 1951
• DOI: 10.1177/106591295100400424
• Author: George V. Wolfe
• Subject Matter: Articles

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Young Communists in the USSR: A Soviet Monograph Describing the
Demands Made Upon Members of the Komsomol Organization.
Translated by VIRGINIA RHINE. (Washington, D. C.: Public Affairs
Press. 1950. Pp. 92. $2.00.)
The Operational Code of the Politburo. By NATHAN LEITES. (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. 1951. Pp. xv, 98. $3.00.)
The first of the two booklets under review is one of the monographs
in the Current Soviet Thought series, sponsored by the Joint Committee
on Slavonic Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies and the
Social Science Research Council. All monographs in this series are
straight translations of some important Russian text, with but a few
explanatory notes added by the translator. The present monograph is a
translation of a study-aid to the Komsomol By-laws published by the
Military Publishing House of the Ministry of the Armed Forces of the
USSR in 1947. In the meantime, as may be noted in passing, these by-
laws have been changed in 1949, still further subordinating the Organiza-
tion to the direction of the Communist party.
The study-aid contains those principles and sentiments with which
the rulers of the Soviet Union wish to imbue the Komsomol member-
ship, made up of young people between the ages of fourteen and twenty-
six. They are: (1) boundless devotion to the Socialist Motherland, mani-
festing itself in obedience to the party, protection of socialist property,
and willingness to defend the USSR; (2) self-sacrificing labor to strengthen
the might of the Soviet state, manifesting itself in labor productivity, strict
economy of resources, and labor discipline; (3) unceasing study of Marxist-
Leninist science; (4) acquiring the &dquo;culture&dquo; by studying (aside from
revolutionary theory and Marxism-Leninism) Russia’s national literature,
and by becoming a specialist in some particular calling. Last, but not
least, the Komsomol is exhorted to be a model of Communist morality.
There is little in the catalog of...