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What is a shock-work construction project?

p The history of the Komsomol’s participation in the development of the socialist economy has been long and eventful. One of its most vivid pages is the Komsomol’s systematic assistance and patronage of key national economic projects. Such construction sites, known as shock-work Komsomol projects, exist in every Soviet republic or administrative area. The Komsomol members work at such projects under the motto: ‘The Project— Ahead of Schedule; the Work—of Top Quality!’

p The Komsomol’s patronage of key construction projects dates back to the years of the First FiveYear Plan which laid down the foundations of the socialist industry. It began with the first YGL appeals urging its members to work at such sites. The first all-Union appeal was launched in 1929, following a YCL Central Committee resolution, with the aim of assisting the construction of one of the first Soviet tractor works, in the city of Stalingrad (later renamed Volgograd). Such appeals 116 to the country’s youth have since become common practice with the YCL Central Committee and local Komsomol bodies.

p The enthusiastic desire of the Komsomol members to volunteer for work in the most harsh climatic conditions testifies to their high sense of patriotic duty and political and moral maturity. Country-wide appeals are also of great socio-economic significance since they help to redistribute manpower and provide labour to vast administrative areas and industries by drawing large numbers of young people into production. In 1960 the government-sponsored campaigns for recruiting workers for key construction projects were stopped. At the same time the countrywide appeals to the Soviet youth enhanced the League’s prestige and proved its capacity to mobilise young people for big construction projects by the sheer force of example and persuasion. In the course of the ninth five-year plan period, for instance, Komsomol members participated in some 3,000 economic projects.

p The initiative of young people has brought about some new forms of patronage, such as shock-work construction brigades. In 1978, for example, one such brigade, named after the 18th Komsomol Congress, and including young people from Moscow, Leningrad and all Soviet republics, left for the construction sites in Siberia and the Far East.

p The construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway (BAM) has been justly regarded as a symbol of the courage and labour heroism of the Komsomol members in the seventies. This railway, stretching 117 for over 3,000 kilometres will cross Eastern Siberia and the Far East areas, provide access to the remote and wild areas of the taiga and open the way to tapping colossal natural riches.

p The climatic conditions are very harsh, as is the engineering and geological situation faced by the builders along the route. Rails are laid on permafrost and require marshes to be dried and passes to be cut through mountain ridges. The builders have to erect over 3,200 tunnels, bridges, dams and other engineering structures. This is a formidable challenge which only strong-willed and determined people can take. That is why the 17th Komsomol Congress proclaimed active participation in the century’s biggest project as an honourable undertaking of the entire League.

p When the 17th Komsomol Congress was still in session, a 600-strong group of volunteers headed by Victor Lakomov, young Communist and Hero of Socialist Labour, left for the construction site.

p Every construction project, big or small, begins with a blue-print and with the first stake being driven into the ground. People usually think that volunteers who come to the construction site begin their work in this way—from scratch. However, this is not quite so. The Komsomol’s many years of experience in doing this kind of work have been very helpful for each new venture, including the BAM project. The plan of the Komsomol’s patronage of the project takes into account various initiatives and practical proposals made by the YCL organs and other organisations. Young 118 workers at the BAM-supply factories do their best to fulfil BAM’s orders ahead of schedule and with high reliability.

p The programme of capital construction, advanced by the 25th Party Congress, made high demands on the Komsomol in terms of displaying initiative when patronising big construction projects. Thus 140 construction projects to be implemented during the tenth five-year plan period are proclaimed shock-work Komsomol projects.

p The mass participation of Soviet young people in tapping the country’s natural riches and developing production inevitably breeds scepticism among bourgeois ideologists, and a desire to present the positive features in a negative light. They claim, in particular, that the mass participation of young people in shock-work construction projects is not based on enthusiasm but is a direct result of the ‘pressure’ applied by the Party and Komsomol organs.

But this is very far from the truth: the Komsomol is proud of being given a chance to distinguish itself by accomplishing difficult and responsible jobs, and that its assistance is needed by the Communist Party and the entire Soviet people. Every young worker at a shock-work construction project is proud to feel that he is a direct contributor to the country’s welfare, and a sort of pioneer or trailblazer in his chosen field or industry.

What are students’ construction brigades?

p Those romantically-minded students who teamed up to form the first students’ construction 119 brigade could not realise that they were trailblazers of a new venture. They simply wanted to be of help to their country even before graduating from university. They wanted to take on a new and challenging task, and in this way test themselves and harden their will.

p The development of the virgin lands began in Northern Kazakhstan in the late fifties. This was a memorable page in the history of the Leninist Komsomol. Many young people volunteered to participate. People had to begin from scratch— building houses, schools, hospitals and production facilities. And since builders were in high demand, students decided to start doing building jobs, at least for a time, themselves.

p In late May 1959, the first students’ construction brigade, made up of students of the Physics faculty of Moscow University, came to the virgin lands. When in October the results of their work were summarised it turned out that they had built 16 small houses and done 250,000 roubles’ worth of other work.

p Other students followed suit: during the Ninth Five-Year Plan alone some three million students worked in such brigades and built projects worth of some 5,000 million roubles. The Soviet government gave awards to about 1,700 participants and organisers of such brigades in recognition of their hard work, vigorous studies and scientific research, and passionate activism. In 1976 some 533,000 students worked in these construction brigades. Students’ construction brigades are formed by 120 university and college students in accordance with certain legal provisions. Each brigade is headed by a team leader and foremen who are also students. Such brigades undertake various—mainly civil engineering—jobs with industrial or agricultural enterprises across the country. Students refer to that part of their summer holidays which they spend working in construction brigades as the labour semester.

p Much has changed since the emergence of the first students’ brigades but this patriotic movement has turned into a stable production factor, which has to be reckoned with in the state economic plans. Nowadays, students’ construction brigades may be found everywhere.

p Students no longer confine their summer-term jobs to civil engineering, but do odd jobs ranging from working as passenger train conductors and picking up fruit and vegetables in the fields, to processing fish at canneries, and other jobs in the food and light industries. Since 1971 students’ brigades have also worked at restoring architectural monuments. Each summer the members of students’ brigades, clad in special uniforms, can be seen on the construction sites of roads and railways, gas pipelines, power transmission lines and other big industrial projects. Quite recently, following the example of students in Moscow, Kiev, Riga and some other places, members of students’ brigades began doing summer jobs in the service industry and retail trade. As a rule, students are given summer jobs in line with their future profession. Thus, 121 future doctors go to remote places in the summer to give medical treatment to the local population (for example, to shepherds on far-away mountain pastures). During the period of the Tenth FiveYear Plan the numerical strength of students brigades has reached its peak.

p Of course, it is not always easy to organise the activities of students’ construction brigades for it requires a great deal of preparation by the Komsomol bodies. Besides, each member should acquire the necessary knowledge of engineering safety rules, and practically every third member should be given the vocational skills of a joiner, bricklayer or other construction worker. Well in advance, the Komsomol bodies, in collaboration with relevant state ministries and administrations, plan the future distribution of students’ brigades within the network of projects, including the supply sector, and discuss the problems of their accommodation.

p After taking their summer-term exams, members of students’ brigades are given free tickets to travel to their assigned places of work. Before the main body of the brigade arrives, an advance ‘ quartermaster’s group’ is sent to the place to prepare the necessary accommodation, such as tents, summer kitchens, etc. When students arrive for work at large industrial enterprises they are usually accommodated in hostels and have their meals in the workers’ canteen.

p An interesting new feature characterising the attitude of the students’ brigades to socialist labour is the emergence of students’ communes. It is a 122 voluntary association based on the principles of democratic self-government and the communist attitude to work, in which all problems concerning the brigade’s life and activities are resolved by the students themselves. This is also a method of distributing the money earned among the brigade’s members. First, each member of such a commune receives money for his or her work in accordance with the established norms and rates (which reflect the quantity and quality of the work done), and then the wages are redistributed with each participant getting an equal share. The decision on whether to form a commune or not is taken by the brigade’s general meeting.

p In the mid-1970s a new type of students’ brigade—communist brigade—appeared in the Soviet Union. Its members work voluntarily and free of charge, contributing their earnings to some important public fund, such as the Peace Fund or the Solidarity Fund with the Patriots of Chile (and of other countries fighting against reactionary regimes), or the fund of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.

p The majority of youths and girls that form students’ brigades are Komsomol members. In the summer over 110,000 students assume the posts of brigade and team leaders and foremen, thus undergoing a practical course in economic management.

p Besides working on assigned projects the members of students’ brigades carry out a large number of social, political and cultural activities among the 123 local population. Thus, in the summer of 1975 alone students delivered over 200,000 reports and lectures and gave some 78,000 amateur performances. In the places where students’ brigades are stationed, students set up special consultation posts where anyone can obtain information on how to prepare for university or college studies and how to cope with the difficulties of taking up a university course, etc. Secondary school leavers and senior-grade schoolchildren often come for advice.

It should be mentioned, however, that the movement of students’ brigades would be practically impossible, were it not for the assistance of the Party, and the local state and government organisations. Each year Party groups involved in forming the brigades in universities and colleges recommend over 20,000 young Communists to be included in students’ brigades. Besides, over 8,000 lecturers and post-graduates with experience of working in the brigades, also join their ranks. Young Communists, either students, post-graduates or lecturers, who act as organisers and commissars, cement the discipline in the students’ brigades.

What is the main idea of socialist emulation?
What role does the Komsomol play in its
development?

p The main idea behind socialist emulation is to effect the transition first of foremost and then of ordinary workers from passive participation in material production to a creative attitude towards the fulfilment of every production assignment; from forced discipline to conscious discipline; and 124 from individualism and concern for one’s quota to comradely mutual assistance. Socialist emulation has revealed a fundamentally new attitude to work. The credit for this goes to the socialist revolution which put an end to the exploitation of man by man and changed people spiritually.

p Even in the first post-revolutionary years socialist emulation became one of the most important stimuli of efficient labour; it radically changed the production relations between people and transformed the labour process itself.

p At all stages of building socialist and communist society socialist emulation has been a powerful tool for awakening and developing the people’s creative urges, for moulding the spirit of collectivism, raising the productive forces, improving production relations, educating working men and drawing them into enterprise management.

p The Komsomol’s history is closely associated with the organisation and development of socialist emulation, which had its forbears in the form of shock Komsomol production teams. They were named ‘shock’ teams because they were foremost in dealing with various problems arising in the course of work. These teams were characterised by their high labour productivity and their ability always to put in that bit extra to meet planned quotas.

p When the 14th Party Congress (December 1925) proclaimed a policy of industrialisation, the entire Komsomol turned into a shock group of workers. Socialist emulation among shock Komsomol teams 125 helped to produce the first results of the industrialisation policy—the first blast furnace, the first turbine and the first Soviet-made tractor.

p The YCL sponsored mass-scale socialist emulation, and the movement became universal in 1929. On January 26, the YCL set forth its attitude to socialist emulation and suggested that all Komsomol organisations join the drive to lower production costs and improve the quality of output. This is what Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote on the occasion: ‘We contrast socialist emulation to capitalist rivalry, careerism, individualism, moneygrubbing, exalted and morbid fervour and phoney patriotism of individual persons and groups. The principles of this emulation rest on dovetailing individual and public interests, and on the basis of socialist education and drawing broad sections of the population into the country’s reconstruction.

p The year of 1929 saw the first contracts on socialist emulation concluded between work teams, sections, workshops and whole industrial enterprises. The Komsomol was in the forefront of the socialist emulation campaign, aimed at increasing labour productivity and discipline, saving time and raw materials, encouraging care to be taken of equipment, increasing output and fighting those guilty of wastes and shoddy output.

p The Komsomol’s efforts in developing socialist emulation were highly esteemed by the Communist Party and Soviet government: the League’s central newspaper—Komsomolskaya Pravda— was awarded the Order of Lenin (in 1930) and 126 the YCL itself the Order of the Red Banner of Labour (in 1931).

p In 1935, with the emergence of the Stakhanovite movement, the socialist emulation campaign reached a new height. This movement was named after Alexei Stakhanov, a young Donbas miner, who in one shift produced 102 tons of coal, operating a simple pick-hammer, against a daily quota of 7 tons. Twenty days later Stakhanov set a new world record by turning out 227 tons in one workshift.

p The labour exploit of this young miner became for the Komsomol members of those days a symbol of man’s limitless potential when work is regarded not as man’s hard and routine duty but rather as a source of profound personal satisfaction and a deed of great social import. Therefore the Komsomol organisations became ardent propagandists of Stakhanovite methods of work. In fact nothing extraordinary was behind the labour achievements of Alexei Stakhanov and his followers: they were a result of more rational organisation of work and the introduction of advanced technology. Members of the YCL were the first to follow suit and became pioneers of the new methods of work among broad sections of young workers. The Party approved and guided the Komsomol’s patriotic campaign.

p During the Great Patriotic War the heroic traditions of efficient labour were further developed and multiplied. The slogan ‘Everything for the War Effort! Everything for the Victory!’ well 127 reflected the aspirations of youths and girls (often in their teens) who came to work at factories in order to replace their fathers who had gone to fight the fascist invaders. The young workers demonstrated examples of heroic labour by overfulfilling their daily quotas, helping their comrades learn the secrets of the trade, making savings of raw materials and electricity, and introducing various technological innovations aimed at rationalising production.

p ’Front-line’ Komsomol production teams became the best form of organising the more advanced young workers at industrial enterprises. The first such teams appeared in the Urals and the Volga area. Mikhail Popov, a young worker at the Urals Heavy Engineering Works, was the first to propose the formation of such teams in October 194-1. This is what he stated on the occasion: ‘From this day on we shall consider ourselves front-line workers who take an oath to perform any assignment for the Red Army without sparing our efforts.’ The words ‘In Work as in Battle’ became the motto of the Komsomol front-line production teams distinguished by the rational assignment of duties, high discipline and comradely assistance.

p In the post-war period the new generation of Soviet youth have become worthy followers of their elders’ achievements in the field of socialist emulation.

p The emergence of a new drive for a communist attitude towards work—the newest and highest form of socialist emulation—presupposes, apart 128 from achieving the highest possible productivity of labour, the obligatory ideological, political, ethical and cultural growth of the individual. This drive is also associated with the Komsomol’s name. A team of Komsomol members working at the Moskva-Sortirovochnaya depot of the MoscowRyazan Railway initiated this campaign in October 1958, when a joint Party-Komsomol meeting declared ‘Let us work and live in the communist spirit’.  [128•1 

p Work teams or collectives of workers who meet their commitments are given the title of communits^labour enterprises or teams, and individual workers who are not organised into teams, are given the title of shock workers of communist labour. The decision to award these titles is taken by the workers’ general meeting, in which representatives of the Party, Komsomol and trade union organisations also participate.

p This communist-attitude-to-work movement is spreading over the whole country, and the credit 129 for this goes largely to the Komsomol. The competition for the communist-labour titles helps individual team members mould their character, raise their cultural levels and broaden their world outlook.

p Socialist emulation, then, has had a rich and eventful history. The Komsomol regards it not only as a school of economic management, but also as a means of communist education since it affects, apart from the sphere of material production, also people’s spiritual and cultural life and the social relations.

p Following Lenin’s principles for organising socialist emulation, the Komsomol strives to publicise the results and disseminate the best experience. The YGL committees at enterprises set up special bodies to organise socialist emulation. Their main activities include: helping young workers map out their personal commitments (which must be economically and technologically validated if plans are to be fulfilled); maintaining wide publicity; drawing new participants into emulation; supervising the competition; and stimulating advanced workers morally and materially. As one might expect, each passing year enriches the Komsomol’s experience in this field.

p An important document which gave new impetus to socialist emulation was an appeal to the youth of today signed by veteran shock-workers, the first participants of the Stakhanovite movement, and veteran soldiers of the Civil and Great Patriotic wars. ‘We are proud of the glorious years 130 of the country’s past and we are sure that the youth and Komsomol members of the 1970s will multiply the revolutionary, militant and labour glory of the Soviet people.’ With these words, the veterans’ appeal (dated 18 January 1973) called upon young people to carry on the older generation’s cause.

p During the tenth five-year-plan period some 200,000 Komsomol production teams (out of a total of 500,000) fulfilled their two-year quotas ahead of schedule. It is indicative that 96 per cent of the young workers in these teams continue their education, taking either evening or extracurricular courses.

p The desire of young workers to carry on the heroic Komsomol traditions took a new form when two young workers from Moscow, Irina Bondareva and Igor Skrinik, volunteered to fulfil two daily production quotas: one for himself or herself and the second for an unknown young worker who volunteered to join the Army during the Great Patriotic War and lost his life in the battles against fascism for the honour, freedom and independence of his socialist Motherland. This patriotic movement combined the desire to achieve high labour productivity with the desire to preserve the memory of the courageous deeds of fallen heroes and of those who had worked in the ‘front-line’ Komsomol teams. This was also a testimony to the present-day youth’s aspiration to inherit the moral values of the older generation. The new campaign received the support of the YCL Central 131 Committee and was enthusiastically welcomed by millions upon millions of young workers across the country. The Komsomol proclaimed the entire League to be a shock force of the tenth five-year-plan period (1975-1980). This means that Soviet young people strive to mark each working day with high labour productivity, high-quality output, good progress in their studies and exemplary service in the Armed Forces. The Komsomol has started a movement to make young people’s enthusiasm and creativity serve the fulfilment of the current five-year plan whose main aim is to increase efficiency and the quality of output. This movement points to the problems which young workers have to resolve in the course of the Tenth Five-Year Plan. They demand analysis of the results of previous Komsomol activities and improvements in their methods. Young people wish not only to follow in their fathers’ footsteps, but also to surpass their elders’ achievements. Therefore, the main goal of the movement is to give new impetus to their social activism and enthusiasm.

Socialist emulation is an important element of young people’s upbringing. By encouraging a young person’s ambition to be first in his work or studies, it provides him with an incentive to upgrade his professional skills and increase his general education level. It also helps him to solve problems arising in the course of production, and develops the positive qualities of his personality. Since socialist emulation and comradely assistance are inseparable, a feeling of collectivism is moulded in 132 young workers. While striving to attain a general rise in production, each worker derives great satisfaction from the atmosphere of comradely assistance.

How do young people, including Komsomol
members, contribute to the development of science
and technology?

p Contributing to further progress in science and technology means, above all, benefiting society as a whole. To participate in this process is a good thing for young people.

p It is not accidental that the desire of young people to master the latest achievements of science and technology and introduce them into mass production has become a broad movement. It illustrates their striving to test their abilities and creative talents. The Komsomol organisations take this fact into account when encouraging the development of young people’s creative abilities in the field of science and technology. The idea behind this movement is to encourage higher efficiency and quality of output, i.e. to solve those problems which the Party regards as first-priority matters.

p The 24th Party Congress (1971) pointed, among other things, to the merging of the results of the revolution in science and technology with the advantages offered by the socialist system. The realisation of this task is an essential requisite for creating the material and technical basis of communism. The working people strive to make full use of the broad opportunities offered by the 133 socialist system for bold experiments, creative activities and all sorts of innovations.

p It is only natural that the YCL, being the Party’s closest assistant, cannot stay on the sidelines of this important task. Therefore, the Komsomol organisations lead the young people’s movement for the acceleration of progress in science and technology.

p When encouraging young workers, students and other people specialising in engineering and scientific jobs to act creatively, the Komsomol relies on the qualities which are most typical of youth: striving for everything new, energy, initiative and quick wit.

p Some objective factors (for example, the fact that in conditions of mature socialism workers with the highest educational level in history are involved in production) also contribute positively. Today, over 90 per cent of young industrial workers have either high, secondary or incomplete secondary education. This objectively broadens the opportunities available to the Komsomol for encouraging the rising generation to participate actively in scientific and technical progress.

p Komsomol members patronise the introduction and commissioning of new technology and automated production lines at industrial enterprises. They also help modernise plant and equipment and set up completely mechanised enterprises. To this end special youth committees are set up which study the situation as regards plant and equipment and propose ways and means of modernising them. 134 Combined teams of young designers and technologists are also organised. These teams solve many problems, beginning with the project design stage and elaboration of the technological flow chart, and ending with the installation of radically improved parts and units.

p Another area in which young people try to ensure technical progress lies in raising production standards. The Komsomol organisations are anxious to mould in every young worker a conscientious attitude to his work and to finding latent production reserves. They, for example, show concern for the most efficient use and storage of metals and organise the collection of metal scrap.

p The efforts of the Komsomol organisations to encourage the work of young inventors and of those young workers who are keen to rationalise existing technology have been commended by the Party. This movement is characterised by the development of collective work and the setting up of joint teams of young workers, technologists and engineers, in an attempt to resolve the most complex and urgent production problems. The collaboration of young production workers, Komsomol members, with young researchers and academics may take varied forms—councils of young technologists, designers’ and economic analysis groups, etc.

p In an effort to improve the system of scientific and technical inventions by young production workers, the YCL coordinates its activities in the field with those of the trade unions, the USSR State 135 Committee for Science and Technology, the USSR Academy of Sciences, various state ministries and administrations, including such public bodies as the Scientific and Technical Society and the All-Union Council of Inventors and Innovators. The numerous branches of the last two organisations ( central, republican, and regional) have special youth sections. In 1977 the number of these young inventors’ sections and groups totalled 351,000 across the country. During that year, some 1,200,000 proposals made by young inventors and aimed at improving existing technology, were introduced into production.

p There is not a single sector in the entire Soviet economy where young people would not try their hand at making proposals for innovations. Every fourth student in apprentice or vocational schools is a member of the Young Inventors Club and every second student does part-time work in design bureaux, research and development institutions and experimental laboratories.

p The drive for technological innovations is encouraged by such public campaigns as contests for the best innovation proposal held at enterprises throughout the Soviet Union. Proof of the efficiency of such campaigns can easily be found at the annual exhibitions of young people’s achievements in designing and inventing. The first such exhibition was held in 1967 on the occasion of the October Revolution’s 50th Anniversary. While some two million youths participated in the first All-Union Review of Young Inventors’ 136 Achievements in 1967, nine years later, in 1976, their number had risen to 11 million. A display of young inventors’ achievements, to which innovators from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries contributed, was staged in Moscow in May 1976 on the grounds of the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievement and was very impressive.

p The YCL organisations also run ‘Best in Trade’ contests for young workers of different professions. The system of these contests, starting from local competitions and leading to the all-Union contest, has been designed to find the most skilful workers in the most common trades, such as lathe operators, drilling-machine operators, gas welders, brick-layers, painters, and the like. The contests are held in the best workshops and only the best and most up-to-date equipment in used. Only the winners of preliminary contests can go on to the all-Union finals. The winners are chosen by special juries which include well-known scientists, veteran workers, designers and innovators.

p Similar contests are also being introduced for rarer but nonetheless important trades. The appropriate state ministries and the YGL Central Committee were put in charge of these competitions with the task of encouraging both veterans and novices to compete. The contests of young tyre-press operators, log-cutters, land-developers, ploughmen, cooks and waiters have become a tradition. At some enterprises mixed contests between boys and girls with the same qualification are also staged.

p To sum up, these contests help meet the growing 137 requirements in improving work skills and raising the technical knowledge of young workers under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution. As for their social aspect, they encourage the creative initiative of individual workers in the interests of society as a whole and are instrumental in moulding their professional pride, class consciousness and civic spirit.

The Party and the Komsomol regard the interest of young people in scientific and technological innovations as an important element contributing to the establishment of the material and technical basis of communism and as an inseparable link in the system of instilling in them the right attitude towards work.