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ABSTRACTThe article presents an overview of differences between the fifteen Soviet republics in the field of political recruitment. The indicators of recruitment chosen are membership of the Communist Party and the Komsomol. The study covers the period 1956–73. The existence of significant differences is established. These differences tend also to remain over time. In the field of political recruitment, the western republics situated in the European part of the USSR behave differently from those of Central Asia. Finally, a connection between the differences in political recruitment and the differences in socio‐economic development is suggested. The political organizations tend, on the average, to have more members in the economically advanced areas and vice versa.

pt. 1. Gulag from the outside -- The NKVD : villain or protector? -- First acquaintance with Gulag NKVD : meeting at the Central Committee of the CPSU -- Meeting in the Cadres Department of Gulag NKVD -- 45 Days to Pechorlag -- pt. 2. Gulag from the inside -- At the Construction Administration -- Unit foreman, first contingent of prisoners : Soviet volunteer ski troops in the Finnish War -- The unit bosses -- A change in leadership at Pechorlag -- Transferred to the 93rd Unit, labor force : hardened criminals -- Attempted prisoner revolt in the 93rd Unit -- Boss and foreman at the 93rd Unit, labor force : political prisoners -- Threat of arrest -- The war -- Illness -- Recovery and return to work in the southern part of the camp -- Boss of a militarized section, labor force : captured German prisoners of war -- Boss of a railway division, labor force : professional railwaymen -- The "liberated" secretary of the Communist Youth Organization -- Fascist military landing force -- Deputy boss in the Political Department for Komsomol work at the NKVD's Road Building Camp No. 3 -- pt. 3. Interesting asides -- Some railroad recollections -- Peschanka, a village of de-kulakized people on the River Pechora -- The countryside of Komi on the River Usa -- Women at Pechorlag -- A fellow traveler from Abez to Pechora -- pt. 4. Final words -- The end of my story -- The real essence of the Gulag -- Afterword: The nature of memoir -- Appendix 1: Pretexts for arrest during the Stalin period -- Appendix 2: Article 58 of the RSFSR Criminal Code -- Appendix 3: Glossary

Introduction: Back in the USSR : the "glory days" of late socialism, fascination with the West, identities, and scholars -- The closed rocket city of Dniepropetrovsk -- Anti-Soviet crimes, poetry, and problematic nationalism, 1960-1968 -- The campaign against the novel Sobor and the end of the national literary revival -- The first wave of music from the West : the consumption of jazz -- Beatlemania, shocking blue, and the Ukrainian cossacks -- Sources of rock music consumption -- Western adventure stories and Ukrainian historical novels : problems of the homogenization of Soviet culture -- Crimes from the West : Westerns, the Mafia, and crime films -- Idiocy and historical romance from the West : comedy and historical films -- The democratization of rock music consumption -- Popular religiosity in the Dniepropetrovsk region : cultural consumption and religion -- Taming pop music consumption : from "Tantsploshchadka" to discotheque -- The Komsomol magazine Rovesnik and the ideology of pop music consumption -- Antipunk campaigns, antifascist hysteria, and human rights problems, 1982-1984 -- Tourism, cultural consumption, and Komsomol business -- Conclusion: "Between Moscow and L'viv" : the closed city as an ideological failure of late socialism

"Young people need their own theater, akin to their own spirit," wrote the actor Nikolai Kriuchkov in a memoir of his life in the theater in the 1920s and 1930s. While he acknowledged that the Soviet Union had developed a network of professional Komsomol theaters aimed at youth, Kriuchkov charged that in general these theaters simply duplicated the repertoire of conventional stages. But TRAM, an acronym for the Theater of Working-Class Youth (Teatr Rabochei Molodezhi), where Kriuchov got his start, was different. "It had its own topical themes, its own character, and young people went willingly."

Created in 1934, the Union of Soviet Writers facilitated the instrumentalisation of literature by the Soviet authorities: it was its main goal, explicitly proclaimed at the first Congress of this Union, and repeated until the 1980s. The Union of Soviet Writers was supposed to create and educate a "New Person" who would build and embody communism. Furthermore, the Union of Soviet Writers was the model of other creative unions in the USSR and in the Soviet bloc. For more than fifty years, it selected, guided and controlled writers; it participated to the censorship process, as well as to the purges and repression of dissidents. In exchange, the Union of Soviet Writers received very important material rewards, of which its leaders were the main beneficiaries. The Union of Writers developed as a pyramidal structure: it had organizations in every Soviet republic (in Russia, only since 1958) and in many towns, and they collaborated at all levels with the corresponding CPSU structures. During the Stagnation, it also reactivated functional links with the army, the Ministry of the Interior and the Komsomol, with kolkhozes and factories. The Union of Soviet Writers was infiltrated by the KGB, which contributed to spreading fear and sterilizing an official literature of which few works are still read nowadays.

Soviet officials routinely remarked that the Bolshevik Revolution had destroyed the socioeconomic base from which drug use and addiction sprung. Yet, authorities also anxiously reported rising instances of drug use among Soviet youth during the 1950s and 1960s. Through the use of recently declassified Komsomol and police documents from Russian archives, this article examines both the consumptive practices of youth and the measures taken by Soviet authorities to combat this development. Within the liberalizing climate of the Khrushchev-era "Thaw," youth authorities crafted educational and cultural strategies to draw youth away from narcotics. Beginning in the mid-1960s, their emphasis shifted to favor openly punitive strategies as a means of curbing the illegal drug supply and discouraging usage. Contrary to official rhetoric, the consumption of narcotics did not necessarily constitute a political statement or indicate opposition to Soviet power. Instead, drugs could provide an alluring alternative to state-sanctioned leisure practices.

The article analyses the survival of the children's centres, Artek and Orlyonok, during the post-socialist transformation. It is based on 50 interviews with employees who worked there starting in the late-Soviet era. Artek and Orlyonok were exemplary children's camps, subordinated to the Central Committee of the Komsomol. Since the early 1960s, they have functioned as schools for distinguished teenagers who were considered 'good examples' for other children. In this article, I have made an ethnographic analysis of Artek and Orlyonok employees' late-Soviet experiences. This analysis shows how the agency of Soviet counsellors and camp directors became a creative interpretation of the governmental order to raise the children as active Soviet citizens. Camp educators transformed it in line with the idea to base their agency on 'common human values', which was spread in the Soviet educational field in the post-Stalin era. As a result, the Soviet teaching experiences gained in these education centres were heterogeneous. When a child-centred paradigm was later introduced to the post-Soviet educational system, the camps adopted the most applicable practices from their Soviet experiences.

Acknowledgments -- Table of Contents -- Tables and Figures in the Text -- Prologue -- Part I. Youth and the Code of Informality -- 1. The Changing Concept of Youth in Modern Societies -- 2. Toward a Theory of Informality -- Part II. Three Paradigms of Youth Movements -- 3. The Emergence of European Youth Movements -- 4. The Loose Youth Movement: The German Wandervogel -- 5. The Established Youth Movement: The British Boy Scouts -- 6. The "Official" Youth Movement: The Soviet Komsomol -- 7. Conclusion: Informal Movements as Forerunners of Postmodern Youthfulness -- Part III. The Combinative Type: Israeli Pioneering Youth Movements -- 8. The Social Context of the Israeli Pioneering Youth Movements -- 9. Major Israeli Movements in the "Golden Period" -- 10. Major Transformative Patterns of the Israeli Youth Movements -- 11. Informal Activities in the Israeli Youth Movements -- 12. Informal Knowledge and Curricula -- 13. Moratorium in Three Socialization Agencies: A Comparative View -- 14. Informal Agencies of Socialization and Role Development -- 15. Informal Framework and Civic Culture -- 16. Preliminary Reflections on Western Youth: Europe and America -- 17. Epilogue: Postmodern Variations of Informality -- Appendix. A Comparative View: The Emergence of Postmodern Youthfulness in Non-Western Countries -- References -- Index

After the national republic had fallen in Azerbaijan in 1920 and the nation taken in the USSR, people's view of the world was reshaped. Foreseeing that the sustainability of the Soviet order depends on educating children, the Communist Party rapidly started to improve the children's literature. Furthermore, the Soviet ideology began to be transferred to the children in Azerbaijan via magazines and newspapers. Improved under the control of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijani children's literature maintained the goal of raising Soviet minded people thanks to the topics and heroes in the literature. Three stages were considered so that Azerbaijani children could be raised with communist mentality. These stages are: Oktyabryat (age 7-9), Pioner (age 10), Komsomol (age 14). Oktyabryat was the first title given on the way to the Communism. The Soviet government made use of the power of the press, magazines and newspapers in order to carve socialism ideology into people's minds. With the purpose of raising children with the Soviet mentality, the children's magazine called Pioner (1927-1990) began publishing in Baku, in 1927. The magazine was issued 11 times a year. 80 percent of the essays, stories and poems were served for the Communist propaganda. These praised the Soviet era, told stories about Lenin's success in school and included poems about the Soviet ancestry. National identity and national thoughts weren't even a matter of discussion. Following the magazine, a newspaper called "Azerbaijani Pioneer" began publishing. The purpose of this newspaper was to spread the Communist ideals among children. This assertion presents the development of children's literature in Azerbaijan from 1927 to 1990; the way the Communist propaganda was spread via essays, stories, riddles and poems published during the era; the way children were brainwashed; its negative impact; how atheism was first introduced; how the national conscious demolished; and their reflection in today's world. It should be highlighted that there have been no published studies conducted on the impact of these magazines on the children's education.

The rhetoric and the stylistics – the choice of text style, genre, and rhetorical devices – of Soviet bad news discourse is analysed in this paper. This discourse is represented by 193 reports regarding disasters, crimes, and violation of socialistic moral which were published in the daily paper Komjaunimo tiesa (eng. The Truth of the Komsomol) in 1970–1973. It was found that the bad news in the selection of official texts of this period distinguishes by a much lower register of Newspeak – unlike as in the articles of first pages, there is almost no pathos here, the militaristic metaphors are used in the text of the article only, but they cannot be seen in the headings. One of the main rhetorical devices is an irony, which is created by using phraseology, jargon, famous quotes, dialogues, etc., – everything, which looks like a daily colloquial language. The choice of text form which is more related to fiction than to journalism (essay, satire) may be treated as one of the pretexts which justify in the eyes of the readers an idea of an author to write in a different language than it was ordinary in the context of ideologized press language of that period. By using the corresponding rhetoric, they believed to accomplish the propagandistic aim of these texts more efficiently – to suggest an image of more safe, democratic, successful, and self-critical country than it really was.