Fathers against sons/sons against fathers: the problem of generations in the early Soviet workplace.

Abstract

At the end of the 1920s, the Soviet Union underwent a series of massive and convulsive transformations that have been variously labeled the “second Russian revolution,” “Stalin revolution,” “cultural revolution,” and “revolution from above.” Among the many and complex elements of this period of revolutionary and transformatory fervor, the young communists, or Komsomol, stood out for their bold assaults on bureaucracy, on the older generation, and on the socialist status quo. Young communists responded to the party call to serve as the “light infantry” of the new drive for economic and cultural transformation, sending their shock brigades to storm the fortresses of class enemies and Soviet complacency alike. The youthful zeal of these Komsomol activists has been compared to that of youth movements in other revolutionary societies, particularly the Red Guards of the Chinese cultural revolution.1 The highly visible role of young Communists in the cultural revolution of 1928–30 seemed to vindicate a decade-long project of the Communist party to nurture, educate, and mobilize youth as the “next generation” of communism, as the key to the future of the revolution itself. Lenin himself set the tasks for youth