Reviews for Youth In Revolutionary Russia

The average rating for Youth In Revolutionary Russia based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-10-27 00:00:00 Ernest Allen In Youth in Revolutionary Russia, Anne Gorsuch argues that her book's eponymous subject is worthy of critical examination because it was perceived by the regime as both a blank slate onto which revolutionary ideas could be dictated and a metric of its success in inculcating the socialist vision and ideology onto the population. Youth was also the future of the movement and its attachment to Bolshevik ideals was the sole way to ensure continuity, thus the central government prioritized both the promulgation of an "ideal" model for youth and the elimination of deviance. Most members of the youth, however, were not committed communists and thus the author seeks to uncover the multifarious ways in which they negotiated Soviet society and the demands and expectations of a regime leadership that marginalized them when they would not or could not conform to the "ideal". Following her introduction, Gorsuch provides a historical overview that shows how the idealized youth of the Civil War era, militaristic, masculine, and a member of the working class, was transformed during the New Economic Plan (NEP) into one who was disciplined, rational, obedient, and concerned with building a new order. The authorities intensified their focus on byt or "everyday life" during this period due to fears of outside influences and, since most felt that genuine proletariat culture was corrupt, they believed in the top-down diffusion of rules of conduct that would be the best way to clarify expectations in a period of boundary blurring and align societal priorities with the regime's. The second chapter highlights the realities of urban life, wherein the state failed to take over the responsibilities of women's family sphere as it had promised and instead tacked on an eight-hour workday to their list of duties, with which the men were never compelled to assist. This left many unsupervised youth and, with the return of soldiers after the Civil War, many unemployed ones as well who sought white-collar opportunities rather than factory work. Soviet youth became disillusioned with the Soviet project under these circumstances and the state began to see them as a potential danger. Gorsuch next turns her attention to the Komsomol movement, which focused on drawing working-class males away from the temptations of the NEP and deviance from the communist vision. Her third chapter explores the many issues that inhibited the organization from meeting the regime's goals of youth indoctrination: its suspicion of peasants and students, its obstruction of other youth groups, its emphasis on guidance from the party rather than parents (which made the latter hesitant to permit their children to join), its strict discipline and obsession with communality, its didactic approach to leisure and culture that turned many youth off of its benefits, its attacks on alcohol, religion, and "purposeless entertainment", its loss of revolutionary zeal, and its general attacks on tradition. The Komsomol and its collectives were attractive in times of hardship and did succeed in creating a common discourse of communism, but had a high turnover rate and seemed unable to get youth to truly understand and believe in the Bolshevik project. The author highlights two key groups who reacted to these developments: the "enthusiasts" and women. The former consisted of militant youth who blamed the excesses of the NEP on the old guard and the Komsomol. They supported Trotsky and disparaged the bureaucracy, neither of which endeared them to Stalin, and sought a return to the Civil War ideal of the revolutionary youth. In doing so they consciously rejected the disciplined dress promoted by the regime and instead went unkempt in protest of a focus on the external. This further clashed with the regime, which had appropriated bourgeois behavior and hygiene in the belief that one's external cleanliness was a reflection of their international goodness. These youth, therefore, negotiated NEP socialist realities and expectations by rejecting them, but did so because of their belief in a communist future rather than resistance to the system as a whole. The other group, women, faced a male fraternity with socialist movements that denied them an active role despite exhortations for equality from the central government. They remained connected with the private sphere within the minds of the male Komsomol members and were expected not to be political and to remain in traditional roles in addition to their burdens as collective members. Women were either forced to reject the socialist system by men or chose to do so voluntarily due to the economic security of remaining traditional. Although the regime purged enthusiasts and ignored women, it perceived two other groups as greater obstacles to the success of its objectives for youth: the bohemians and the besprizornye, or homeless children. The bohemians, and particularly their fixation on the foxtrot dance, were seen as the epitome of youthful frivolity, purposeless activity, and sexual deviance. The female "flappers", meanwhile, represented the bourgeois excesses of the NEP through their obsession with Hollywood fashion even in times of economic hardship. For the youth, however, leisure time and clothes were considered even more important than food because they symbolized success, independence, and sophistication, and were not conceptualized as dissent or resistance towards regime ideology. The besprizornye, however, were the greatest threat, since their deviance existed in the streets, which were public spaces for the regime. They outnumbered Komsomol members, lived lives of crime, drinking, and leisure, and "solidified their own identity through autonomous forms of social organization, language, and ritual" outside of the socialist vision. Despite the Marxist impetus to examine the social conditions that led to this state of affairs, the regime opted instead to move them from the public sphere and attempt re-education at detdoma institutions. These were intended to be like the Komsomol but, due to a lack of resources, there was often little in the way of food and shelter, let alone education, and most of the older youth simply transformed these institutions into a mirror of street life. Gorsuch's final chapter examines "discourses of delinquency" wherein hooliganism became connected with the failures of the NEP and the challenge of the Trotskyites and transformed from a political offense to one against public morality. Hooligans were considered "primitive" and the state attempted to accommodate and correct their behavior through the NEP, but they continued to represent the "other" and conflict with the cultural image and objectives of Soviet citizenry, which led to more crackdowns as they began to infiltrate the Komsomol. The other side of the coin was internal anti-social behavior and the retreat to the private sphere, where an epidemic of suicide was linked to isolation from the community. While the regime conceptualized this as a consequence of bourgeois elements, the author frames this as more of the end result of everything she has discussed previously: the regime's dual obsession with the ideal and deviant models of youth led to alienation of all types for the vast majority that did not fit this mold and were either marginalized or attacked directly by the state. Gorsuch further concludes that youth became disillusioned with the revolutionary project and that their presence underlined the gap between state and society. The Bolsheviks were unable to establish a cultural hegemony because they could not describe youth in realistic terms, and the end result was that the NEP was abandoned and the Five-Year Plans were promulgated as the new way to involve youth in the socialist project. Overall, Youth in Revolutionary Russia conveys a narrative that highlights not only the multifarious ways in which youth deviated from the regime, but the ways in which this deviance was less a form of conscious "resistance" and more a condition thrust upon them, inadvertently or otherwise, by the state. For its amount of detail and description alone it is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the Soviet Union, but serious scholars will find additional value in its fresh perspective and that way in which it ties together numerous sources in order to develop a rich portrayal of its subject.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-12-12 00:00:00 Raden Adnan The broad themes are quite typical -- urban youth culture, economic problems, the Soviet stabilization policy (and their reactions), gender, juvenile delinquency etc. It is well written and small anecdotes are fascinating.