Russia's Youth and Its Culture: A Nation's Constructors and Constructed by Hilary Pilkington

Author:Hilary Pilkington [Pilkington, Hilary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781134876433
Google: Hta7rmTcbOAC
Goodreads: 17504691
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1994-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

Putting the youth policy into practice

While the Central Committee of the Komsomol continued to struggle for political and economic influence at the national level, however, the effective devolution of power which had taken place following local elections in 1990 meant that the struggle had to take place at both national and regional levels. In Leningrad and Moscow there were moves towards the abandonment of the VLKSM structure and the creation of federative organizations of independent groups. In August 1990, a youth parliament of Leningrad was created and a Council of Youth Organizations formed including the Komsomol and nine other organizations (Potekhina 1990). By October of 1990 the Moscow City Komsomol organization was advocating the development of the organization into a federation of youth organizations—as, indeed, had already happened in some of the constituent districts of the city—which would allow the participation of new kinds of formations (corporative, functional and entrepreneurial) as well as traditional territorial and production organizations and even non-Komsomol organizations (Samoilova 1990; Shabanov 1991).

At the same time, however, the Komsomol continued to develop its social service role, establishing in many cities, committees and centres of social help for youth as well as information consultation services, child help-lines and a student welfare service (Teletaip TsK VLKSM 1991a; Teletaip TsK VLKSM 1991b). One article, whose aim appeared to be to explain to Komsomol workers what the new social service actually was, described the lynchpin of the new service as the district or city-level Centre for Social Help for Youth which would be a kind of ‘social polyclinic’ for young people—thus underlining the VLKSM’s new approach to youth as the sickly child in need of its protection (Aleinikov and Chepurin 1991: 23). The positive experience of a number of cities was cited including Nizhnii Novgorod and Yaroslavl where the VLKSM had become joint founders of centres advising on employment, young people’s rights, business opportunities, help for disabled people and psychological counselling and rehabilitation services (24). In Moscow, at least, the ultimate aim of the Komsomol policy—to position itself at the centre of the new state youth service—was not realized, however. The Moscow city council rejected the Komsomol’s proposal for the formation of a public-state youth organization and opted instead for the creation of a youth service based on the experience of other countries. The draft for this new youth policy was drawn up by the youth sector of the Moscow council executive committee. Youth policy was to be organized through: a permanent Commission on Youth Affairs of the Moscow council (whose role was essentially legislative); a Committee on Youth Affairs attached to the executive committee of the Moscow council (whose role was informational, co-ordinating, organizational and controlling); a Youth Fund (which was to fund projects not included in the budget, and to oversee academic input and training in the formation of youth policy); and cooperative, private and social organizations offering specific youth services. The basic concern of the new policy was to provide young people on an individual basis with the

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