ABSTRACT
Agitprop operated under the assumption that the youth were an easy target of Communist propaganda, as the young are always likely to be attracted to revolutionary ideals. The job assigned to Komsomol [Young Communists’ League] was to tap into this creative energy, to provide recruits to the party, and to spread the Communist message among the youth. Agitprop’s message to youth was that a new society was to be built, a just society of workers and peasants, with great opportunities for the downcast, free from exploitation and from the landlords and capitalists led by the vanguard of the proletariat, the Communist Party. The task, then, was to overcome the legacies of the preceding capitalist order such as avarice and greed, religious superstition, and bourgeois tastes and manners. A model Komsomol member was supposed to excel in loyalty to the Communist Party, and be driven by Communist ideals as an honest, dedicated, and conscientious proletarian. Communist propaganda has largely succeeded in representing the Komsomol as a mass organization of young Communists, eager defenders of Soviet power, a reserve battalion, a pool of recruits, a transmission belt, and a striking force in the socialist offensive, involving hundreds of thousands of young men and women in socialist construction.
