The book "Badges of the Komsomol” written by Shlyahtin.A.V.

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The book "Badges of the Komsomol” written by Shlyahtin.A.V.
The Leninist Young Communist League of the Soviet Union (Komsomol) was set up in October 1918. Almost every person belonging to the elder generation had a Komsomol badge. In 1984, the Komsomol numbered about 42 million members.
Such prominent persons as Mikhail Gorbachov, the last General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Eduard Shevardnadze, ex President of Georgia, started their career at the Komsomol.
The first woman-cosmonaut, Valentina Terechkova, was a secretary of the Komsomol Committee of the Krasnyi Perekop weaving mill. The following people were awarded with the badges and breastplates of Komsomol: Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee, Irina Rodnina, a famous sportswoman, writer Nikolai Ostrovsky, composer Alexandra Pachmutova, legendary pilot Alexei Maresyev, first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Marshals of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov, Ivan Konev, A.I. Pokryshkin, world chess champion Anatoly Karpov, and many others.
The first edition of my book was published in the Ukraine in March 1998. The book contained descriptions of 44 badges and 32 breastplates of Komsomol at the time. Since then I have identified a lot of interesting data about the Komsomol's badges and breastplates. As a result, several new chapters have been added to my book. This reference book is intended not only for the collectors of badges but also for all those interested in the history of Russia and the USSR. I hope that it will be used by collectors and museum workers worldwide as a reference.


It was in 1918. The enemies of the young Soviet Republic encircled it in a tight ring. The whole people rose to defend the first socialist country. Young boys of fifteen or sixteen often went to the front too and soon became Red Army commanders and commissars. Fighting in the ranks of the red Army, the Komsomol members helped to rout the army of Denikin at Oryol and Novorossiisk, they took part in defeating the Vrangel’s army in the Crimea, in driving the white Pole troops out of Ukraine and Byelorussia. They dealt smashing blows at white guard in the Far East.


IN THE FIGHTS OF THE CIVIL WAR
For outstanding services at the fronts of civil War and in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Red Army the Lenin Komsomol was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in 1928.

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2. Foundation of the Komsomol.

On October 29, 1918, delegates from youth organizations from all the regions of the young Soviet Republic that were free from interventionists and white guards gathered in Moscow for their First All-Russia Congress of workers’ and peasant’s youth leagues.
The 194 delegates represented the first twenty-two thousand members of youth organizations. At this congress the Russian Young Communist League was formed. The tasks of the League were formulated as follows: to take an active part in building the new social system, and to educate young men and women in revolutionary spirit.

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3

NIKOLAI OSTROVSKY
A soldier of the October Revolution, he volunteered to go to the front at the age of 16. He fought as cavalryman in Kotovsky’s brigade and in the legendary First Cavalry Army. He was badly wounded, and after the Civil War he underwent nine operations. He lost the power of vision and was paralyzed.
In 1934 his famous book “How the Steel Was Tempered” was published.

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4

ARKADY GAIDAR
Arkady Golikov, who was later known as the prominent writer Arkady Gaidar, was born into the family of a school teacher. He spent his childhood in the town of Arzamas. In 1918, he voluntarily joined the ranks of the Red Army. As one of the best Red Army men, he was sent to the military courses in Kiev. After graduation from the military courses he fought at the fronts where he showed courage and heroism. At the age of 16 he was appointed commander of a regiment. During the war he was wounded several times, and in 1924 he was demobilized from the army because of illness.
When the Great Patriotic War broke out, Arkady Gaidar was sent to the front as a Komsomolskaya Pravda war correspondent. He fought together with the partisans, he was a courageous machine gunner. He rescued a large group of wounded Red Army soldiers. He carried the wounded from the battlefield. He was sent to occupied Kiev as a scout.
Arkady Gaidar was killed at the end of October, 1941. He was buried in Kanev, a town on the Dnieper, where he had fought against the invaders.

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5.
The Third All-Russia Congress of the Russian Young Communist League (1920)
As the delegates to the Third All-Russia Congress of the Russian Young Communist League recollect, Lenin began his speech very simply and quietly. Standing on the edge of the stage, he spoke to the Congress:
“Comrades, today I would like to talk on the fundamental tasks of the Youth Leagues…The tasks of the youth…might be summed up in a single word: to learn.”
The delegates did not understand at first. To learn? At the time when the enemy was threatening the young Republic? At the time when there was no grain, no fuel, no clothes?
Lenin spoke to the young men and women of the 1920’s as to the builders of the future. He regarded them as the people of tomorrow, the hope for the new times. Lenin talked to the young people of the Soviet Republic as to his fellow-fighters. At the time the Republic was not even three years old. And yet Lenin’s words sound most up-to-date.

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6.
The Sixth Congress of the Russian Young Communist League
In July 1924, at the Sixth Congress of the Russian Young Communist League, the Komsomol was named after V.I. Lenin. This expressed the ardent desire of its members to follow Lenin’s behests and to be loyal to his teaching and his cause – the building of communist society.

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7.

The Order of the Red Banner of Labour
For the initiative shown y the Komsomol in the activists movement and in the socialist emulation that favoured the successful fulfillment of the USSR Five-Year Plan for National Economy Development, the Komsomol was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1931.

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8
A CITY IN THE TAIGA
One of the most important Komsomol construction sites of the 1930’s was the building of the city in the Far East taiga – Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
In response to the Party’s appeal, the first YCLers arrived in the taiga in 1932. They came to the uninhabited bank of the Amur River to build a new city, a city of youth, which was later called Komsomolsk-on-Amur, in honour of the YCLers of the 1930’s.

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THE MOSCOW METRO
Each generation of Soviet people has its own Komsomol construction site. In the 1930’s, among others, it was the building of the Moscow Metro, the first Metro in the Soviet Union. At the call of the Komsomol, thousands of young men and women from all the country began building the Metro in the Soviet capital.
Now the Moscow Metro is considered one of the best in the word.

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KOMSOMOL IN THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR
For outstanding services to the country in the Great Patriotic War and for bringing up the Soviet youth in the spirit of devotion to the Motherland, the Komsomol was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1945.
The Soviet state highly appreciated the role of the Leninist Young Communist League in the Second World War. It awarded 3 500 000 Komsomol members medals and orders. More than 11 000 soldiers received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Of these, 7 000 were members of the Komsomol.

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11
THE YOUNG GUARD
The Young Guard…This was the name of a Komsomol underground organization which acted during the Great Patriotic War in the town of Krasnodon in Donbas. It had some 100 members. They put out antifascist leaflets, liberated prisoners-of-war and rescued many of the inhabitants from slavery in Germany. The Young Guard Commissar, Oleg Koshevoi, was just over 16 years old. The fascists seized young patriots and tortured them cruelly. Many of them were thrown into a pit…The heroes of the Young Guard have remained alive in the memory of Soviet people forever.

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12
PARTICIPATING IN SOCIALIST RECONSTRUCTION
For outstanding services to the Motherland in bringing up the Soviet Youth in the spirit of communist ideals, for taking an active part in the reconstruction of the economy, and in commemoration of its 30th anniversary, the Komsomol was awarded the second Order of Lenin in 1948.

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13
VICTORY IN THE VIRGIN LANDS
For outstanding services of the Komsomol members and the Soviet youth to the Motherland, displayed in the socialist construction, and for selfless labour of Soviet youth at the development of the virgin lands, the Komsomol was awarded the third Order of Lenin in 1956.
In 1954 the first trains with young volunteers from Moscow and Leningrad, Kiev and Minsk, and many other cities and towns left the East, to take part in the development of the virgin lands. In two years, 36 million hectares of virgin lands were opened for tilling. This is an area equal to the sown land of Britain, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Japan, taken together. The development of the virgin lands helped to solve the grain problem in our country.
The Komsomol recommended 350 000 volunteers to fulfil this important task. For their heroic labour in the virgin lands more than 30 thousand Komsomol members were awarded orders and medals. About half a million young men and women received medals of the Central Committee of the Komsomol “For the Development of the Virgin Lands”.

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14
THE ORDER OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION
For outstanding services of the Komsomol and the Soviet youth in establishing the Soviet power, for the courage and heroism displayed in the struggle against the enemies of the Soviet Motherland, for active participation in the socialist construction for the selfless work in bringing up the young generation in the spirit of Lenin’s behests, and in commemoration of its 50th anniversary, the Komsomol was awarded the Order of the October Revolution in 1968.

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15
THE WORLD’S FIRST COSMONAUT
Yuri Gagarin’s character was shaped by Komsomol. As a boy of 14 he began studying at a vocational school in the town of Lyubertsy, not far from Moscow, to get the trade of a smelter. As one of the best trainees of the school, he was sent to the Saratov Indastrial Technical School to continue his education. He studied very well and quickly won the respect of his comrades. They elected him secretary of the Komsomol organization. Yuri dreamed of becoming a pilot, and in the evening he attended classes at the flying club. His dream came true when he graduated with honours from the School of Military Pilots in Orenburg.
At the time the country was preparing for the first manned space flights, and in 1960 he was among the twenty young pilots who had been chosen for the first unit of cosmonauts.
April 12, 1961, will never he forgotten. On that day humanity took its first step into space. The pioneer was Yuri Gagarin, a soviet citizen. Humanity called his exploit immortal.
Yuri Gagarin perished during a test flight. The memory of the first cosmonaut in the world lives on in the hearts of Soviet people. A new city of youth named after Gagarin is being built now. The YCL declared it the Komsomol construction project. New apartment houses, new streets, avenues and parks built in the city of Gagarin by the Komsomol members of the 80s are monuments to the pioneer of space.

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16

DRILLER FROM BRATSK
The construction of the legendary Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station, one of the first giants of Soviet energetics in Siberia, began in 1955.
In December 1957, just after his military service in Soviet Navy on the Pacific, Boris Gainulin came to the construction site and began working as a driller. It is not an easy thing to drill rocks with a hydraulic hammer, even for a former seaman, who was young, strong and full of energy. He soon mastered his new construction profession and became leader of his team. Some time later he was appointed leader of another team that was a backward one at the construction site. But honesty, capacity for work and organizing qualities of the new leader made the team one of the best.
In November 1958, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda carried an article about a Communist Labour Team at the Moskva Sortirovochnaya station. The members of Gainulin's team discussed article and decided that they would contend for this high title. And they achieved success. In January 1959, the team of Boris Gainulin was the first on the Bratsk construction site receive the title of a Communist Labour Team. Boris himself wrote the text of the "Solemn Promise", which all the members of the team were to give.
The motto of the team—"I am responsible for the whole team, and the team is responsible for me" — became the law of life for the team members. It was a very friendly collective. Soon the team became a complex one, the number of its members increased from 23 to 97. The team was like a united family.
But suddenly came a misfortune. Boris Gainulin fell down from a rock. When his friends ran up to him to help him, Boris asked them if his legs were intact. His legs were really intact. But something more terrible had happened— his spinal marrow was injured.
To stay in hospital even for a month was unbearable for Boris. But he did not know that the treatment would demand a much longer time. The doctors doubted whether he would survive. Long months and years of treatment in different clinics and hospitals followed. But now Boris could move only in a wheel chair.
For his labour and heroism Boris Gainulin was awarded the Order of Red Banner of Labour. The Union of Free German Youth conferred on him the highest decoration — the Gold Medal of Artur Becker. Boris Gainulin was the first to receive the Honorary Diploma of the YCL, the highest award of the Leninist Komsomol.