The article was written by A. Gerasimov, currently serving a lenghty prison sentence in Ukraine for allegedly attempting to organize the armed rebellion against the Ukrainian government of Kuchma. In the dungeons of Nikolaev and Odessa the police and Secret Service tortured him along with a number of other them to obtain confessions. In case of Igor Danilov, the interrogators drove needles under his finger nails and repeatedly smashed his head against the wall.


THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT AND YOUNG PEOPLE. "THE YOUTH ISSUE” - 2
A. GERASIMOV, a political prisoner in Ukraine

Nearly 4 years ago I wrote an article entitled "The Youth Issue" which was published in “RKP” (Raboche-Krestyanskaya Pravda) № 10, 2006. The article attracted the attention of many comrades and caused many disputes. I was criticized for painting a too gloomy a picture in the paper, for making too harsh an assessment, and for placing a question, that I did not give an answer to. However, so far, the entire communist movement as a whole has not given an intelligible and satisfactory answer to this "Youth Issue."
Comrades, we have let our enemies get away with a lot, and that has been very well used by them. And now they are the ones on horseback, while we are sprawling about on the ground. Either in the very near future we start to break to pieces the situation in our favor, and the youth start to replenish our ranks, or we will continue to languish, which is shameful for the followers of the Great Communist idea! Moreover, the Nazis are a growing force. Young people are increasingly filling their ranks, made insane by brown propaganda attracting young people into the ranks of fascist gangs by the activity and aggressiveness of Nazi organizations. This situation increases the threat of the establishment of a fascist dictatorship. And if such a scenario is ever realised, then a large proportion of the blame for this will lie on our leftist movement.

On the trail of the article the "Youth Issue"

I wrote this article during the information famine I was still subjected to in the early years of my imprisonment. Therefore, I showed the situation in Ukraine which I saw myself during the reign of Kuchma, i.e. the "Kuchma period", (early to mid 90-s). In the main, of course, I was not mistaken, but I did not take into account a number of particular details, although, had I have described them, the picture would have looked even more dismal.
However, with all its sharpness, my article is not intended to be an exhaustive analysis of the situation with young people in general during the period of restoration of capitalism in our country. But naturally, this will need to be done. Of course, this would require a whole series of materials, because we can say that we are just beginning work on this topic. A great deal needs to be said, but much more must be actually done to finally start moving off from the article I wrote, entitled "Point of Death". In that particular article, I touched upon the themes of informal youth and school education, as well as the psychology of adolescents at the turn of the century. The situation in these particular issues has undergone several major changes over the past few years. However, these changes do not cancel my old conclusions in the main.
So, in working with young people, a class approach is needed. And this time, its use will be more successful than 10-15 years ago, when many comrades approached young people not even from a Soviet point, and naturally, repeatedly failed. Now, when the capitalist system is already well established and has proven to be a dead end, for anyone able to think, the situation is somewhat simpler. But you still need to take into account the mass of moments. In the “Youth Issue” article, basically, it was about teenagers, that is, adolescents and youth of secondary and senior school age, as well as some of those between 18-25 years old. But, 30-35-year-olds are also young! Anyway, the official border separating youth from maturity is 35 years old.
It is obvious that the approach to 30-35-year-olds and 13-15-year-olds should be very different. And the 25-year-old young man, too, differs from both the former and from the latter. Actually, I would single out the age groups, differences which we have so far taken into account:
1) up to 15 years old;
2) 15-17 years;
3) 17-21 years;
4) 21-25 years;
5), 25-30 years;
6), 30-35.
These differences are, of course, sometimes very important, and sometimes rather arbitrary. And the factors causing these differences, vary quite a lot. We consider them below. But meanwhile we shall take a look at how youth work is carried out by parliamentary leftists.

Young people and the opportunists
Nowadays, officially the left spectrum is represented by the CPU (Communist Party of Ukraine) and the PSPU (Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine). The latter, however, as the "parent" organisation of the SPU (Socialist Party of Ukraine can be called "leftist" only by the colour of the flag). The socialists and their leader Moroz have long been assigned to the political junkyard. Well, the Natalia Vitrenko supporters club is a pro-Russian chauvinist party worker, and in our present context, nothing can be said about her! But it is worth talking about the Communist party of Ukraine.
Today's situation completely confirms my words four years ago. Formally, the CPU leadership is deeply involved in rejuvenation of the Party ranks, and on paper it looks pretty good. And so it is with agitation: More than fifty thousand Komsomol "New Wave"newspapers are published weekly. And that is a lot, but there was a time when the circulation thereof reached one hundred thousand copies!
However, as the last presidential election showed, the efficiency of the enormous financial cost of the effort was close to zero. The leader P.N. Simonenko came in a shameful 6th place - the best proof of this. The slender (on paper) ranks of “young communists and Komsomols" is in fact - fiction! "Dead souls" and a devoid of ideology amorphous ordinary mass with the same unprincipled careerists at the head - that's the standard Komsomol organization! Of course, there is a small percentage of youth who entered the CPU and Komsomol because they are not satisfied with the existing order, but for the most part, the CPU youth are supporters of "moderate progress in the framework of the rule of law." However, all too rarely are the revolutionary youth encountered in the CPU. This is natural. But they get into the party and Komsomol not because of CPU agitation-propaganda, but in spite of it. Once in the organization, such young people very quickly understand the true nature of the opportunists and: either in general move away from political struggle, or (which happens very rarely) go in search of true revolutionaries, while often falling into the arms of the so-called left-wing opportunists, who in fact are more mongers and hypocrites than the right opportunists in the CPU.
The current Komsomol reminds me of a provincial pioneers' palace. Overgrown foreheads relax and have fun on CPU money: summer camps, KVN, mini-football, rock festivals ... In general, not much different from purely bourgeois youth hangouts. Komsomol party-goers are absolutely sterile in ideological terms, and these differ for the worse, from old men - members of the CPU, of which there are still enough educated Marxists, and most, though not shining in political literacy by themselves are honest decent Soviet people, who sincerely and selflessly lead and conduct party work. Well, young people without financial incentives will not do a thing. A large part of the ‘Komsomols’ and 'young communists’ (rank and file) are party membership card mercenaries who stand at agitation stalls and go to rallies and meetings for money. Still, I must say that the best part of the Komsomol is doing something useful. First of all, it opposes the Ukrainian Nazis, including by forceful confrontation. And it does this certainly at a disadvantage, because the Nazis are superior to the groups of Komsomol both quantitatively and qualitatively! It is easy to assume that sooner or later this will end with a true clash (es) with dozens, maybe even hundreds wounded and killed, and the subsequent defeat of the Left.
But the party leaders have no time to think about the possibility of such a turn of events, as they need something quite different from young party members and members of the Komsomol, as well as the mass of young people in general. The CPU sees the youth only as voters in elections. If we carefully study the Komsomol newspaper "New Wave", this is easy to verify.
This as an all-Ukrainian newspaper published since the beginning of 2008. During this time, it has not found its face and has not won over the masses among thoughtful readers. This is not surprising. The empty form of "New Wave" is based on pale Soviet patriotism and the general line of the CPU. The newspaper wants to persuade young people to vote for the CPU. And it is directed solely at people aged 25-35. For younger people, "New Wave" is too boring. For the ideological activist, it is too apolitical. Even within this age, it is only for a narrow layer of the so-called middle class “on the rise”. Moreover, if the "adult" CPU press (though among others) turns to workers too, then "New Wave" ever more tries to persuade the “successful young people”, that they should only vote for the CPU, showing them that it is quite a "respectable" party, and not a gathering of "old farts", "suckers, losers, tramps and moreover -"bloodthirsty Bolsheviks." In the Komsomol newspaper, of course, there is no overt anti-Stalinism, "repentance" for "mistakes" and "brutality" of the Bolsheviks during the revolution. And it must be fair to say that quite good and literate notes are given by former first secretary of the Komsomol E. Tsar'kov and the editor himself of "New Wave" A. Bondarenko. But everything else, to put it mildly, in general, leaves much to be desired.
Readily apparent is the age egocentrism of the Editorial (editor of a team of regular contributors from the localities). This is complemented by almost Baptist humility. And the output is a toothless, grey newspaper, weaving inside the deep tail of even that age and social group to whom it is more than anything else designed for.
We shall "digress" and now pay attention to the following (especially the older comrades, for whom the Internet is - Terra Incognita). As shown by recent events: the fire in the "Old Horse" (a nightclub in the city of Perm), the death of Polish President Kaczynski and the entire Polish "elite" around Smolensk, and the story of the coastal mystics – the Russian Internet was seething with malice and hatred towards the rule of the bourgeoisie! Some people may think that dancing on the bones of our enemies may seem sacrilegious, but I think this is a very good sign. This is - class hatred - terrible for the oppressors, but holy for the oppressed!
And now here is something to ponder over. First, the bulk of Internet users are young people and I am not mistaken if I say that these and other similar events are most actively embraced by people aged 25-35. Secondly, regular use of a computer means that these people are not the poorest but: the labour aristocracy, "office plankton”, engineers and technicians, but not loaders and handymen. And here even such "respectable" people are happy to see the bourgeois "babies" beaten, and yearn for more blood. I do not think that the Ukrainian contingent in this age of social groups is fundamentally different from the Russian one. Even more so when the power in favour of the oligarchs is increasingly trying to fuck people over by the tonsils!
Rising prices, increasing the retirement age, bureaucratic and police brutality are slowly but surely bring the masses to boiling point.
But the early attainment of this point is not needed by the CPU, it needs the votes and voters. The Party bosses do not want the risk and hassle, and fear the response by the bourgeois state for an aggressively rebellious youth. And therefore it does not aim at involving rebellious youth in the communist movement.

What should have been said in the beginning
Of course, the youth is not a separate class with differing fundamental interests from all the well-known classes, and moreover, it is incorrect to see it as a revolutionary new class that has somehow replaced the proletariat. These misconceptions arose in Western Europe and the U.S. in the 1960-s, and the restoration of capitalism in the USSR has moved that misconception over towards us. The apparent failure of such representations of reality limits the scope of their fans, a small handful of "armchair Marxists." But just as the passivity of the proletariat, the inability and unwillingness of some young comrades to do the dirty work for their organization, and the lack of understanding of the causes of the current passivity of the workers, from time to time generate a search for a “fifth corner”, that is, a new revolutionary class, which contradicts Marxism and common sense.
Yes, young people are found within those classes to which belong they by birth, and from the moment of entry into independent life, clearly occupy a place in the social pyramid, and usually close to their parents. Much confusion confounding our party leaders and theorists of the basements had its place during the first years after the bourgeois counter-revolution, because then, the classes of capitalist society had only just formed. Moreover, it should be noted that the bourgeoisie had formed much faster than the proletariat. Quite often, yesterday's workers became petty and even middle bourgeoisie. Not every young worker is a proletarian, moreover, a working pensioner or a person close to retirement age who has a large array of personal property: apartment, cottage, car, etc., can not be called a proletarian either. It is not uncommon. And even if an older worker does not have a position in a company corresponding to "labour aristocracy", he very well may use his own personal property for enrichment and may not be heavily dependent upon selling his own labour power. How much the rotting Soviet working class became proletarian can be judged by the intensity of strikes and other protests against unpaid wages. The intensity of this struggle is clearly low. Consequently, the proletariat is still being formed, although this process is nearing completion.
Such a bourgeois worker does his utmost to push his offspring to a higher social level, even if not to the level of an exploiter, then at least to the level of an exploiter’s lackey. Such aspirations are the result of bourgeois middle-class psychology, putting reason to sleep and producing monsters.
It is clear that the history of the shoe shiner who became a millionaire is a fairy tale for social Down Syndromers. But how can townsfolk not believe in the purpal dream of capitalism, if in front of them there is a "mass" of examples of those very same successful sluts "who come from the common people", paving by their charms a road to the marital lie of the bloated rich?! Nobody, however, thinks that to the one "lucky" girl there are thousands of those whose road, having started out in numerous model agencies or on the margins of show business, failed to reach "stardom", but instead, the hellhole of brothels and the "hundred metre sidewalk" across the entire world. It is a recognized fact that bourgeois Ukraine is one of the leaders in the "export" of female flesh to the streets of the red light districts of Europe and America! Likewise, the "shoe shiner", malnourished and downtrodden, and then, finally, opening his own business, and enriching himself in the eyes of the rest of us! To one successful bourgeois from the "common people" there are thousands of those other people that from "tricks in the market paradise," have been led to a broken trough, who have been brought to ruin and strangled by debt!
However, we have been a bit distracted by the question now under consideration. I have already painted a fairly bleak picture, and, at first glance, contradicting myself, noting first, that children remain in the class to which the parents belong to, and then, after that describing how the modern Ukrainian workers are pushing their children into the class of the bourgeoisie or its subservients.
In fact, there is no contradiction, because involved in this one layer were bourgeoisified Soviet workers, which in modern conditions were close to the exploiters and their lackeys. But this is far from most of today's employees.
Ignoring the fact of workers becoming bourgeois and the consequential impact of this phenomenon in young people is not the only mistake of the Left.
In the 1990-s, spreading the youth "along shelves”, the left tried to shove them into three cells: the bourgeoisie, the students and the workers. In this case, it remained unclear: to what level was it necessary to enlist the criminal youth?
To understand how society became engulfed in criminality, it suffices to recall that in "independent" Ukraine, that is, in less than 20 years, more than 10 million people have been convicted! It is also clear that youth have been the most affected by criminality.


Path of blood
To understand this phenomenon it is necessary to understand not so much the youth, but the last few generations, and the epoch and reasons for our failures.
We need to start "digging" back in the 1980-s when crime began to take hold with an ever greater force. There has always been crime, but before the 1980-s it existed only in the darkest corners of Soviet reality. Crime is an indicator of the true state of society. For capitalist society, this is the norm and an integral part of it. Under socialism, i.e., on the road to communism – these are the dying "birthmarks" of the past.
However, in the late USSR, these "birthmarks" on the contrary, began to grow. And, above all, this appeared not by the increase the number of pickpockets, burglaries, burglars, robbers, thugs and assassins, although the total number of domestic crimes, including murder, continuously increased with the increase in alcoholism. But it is no secret that before perestroika, the streets of Soviet cities were virtually crimefree.
However, by the 1970-s, a significant number of people became accustomed to bribe-takers, speculators and "pilferers”. Moreover, tens of millions of supposedly Soviet people were, in fact just those types!
The classic underworld, which lived according to the system: "those who stole, drank – off to prison”, grew and developed on namely this nutrient layer. It is always advantageous though harder to rob a crook than an honest man. But gradually there appeared another crime to unite and protect the crooks. Bribe-takers from the nomenclatura united with speculators and plunderers of socialist property. On the outskirts of the Soviet Union began to appear "red" clans, where the authorities were the real mafia.
Even in affluent regions, the young bureaucratic elite, leaders of the Young Communist League and the children party bosses increasingly felt like sovereign and uncontrolled masters of life. Ordinary people saw it all - and the “process had begun”.
Already by the mid-80's, there are widely known examples of the actual capture of major cities by youth gangs. The most famous in this regard, was Kazan, and in Ukraine in this sense, the notorious Krivoy Rog.
Gangs controlling the urban areas, discovered their attitude towards each other with the help of all appropriate materials at hand, including firearms, not to mention knives and brass knuckledusters, resulting in dozens of teenagers being killed and hundreds wounded and maimed. Those who do not believe a word, I advise you to find the relevant statistics. It was not limited to mass slaughter of any stranger inadvertently caught in another district, even a person not being in a rival gang risked if not ones own life, then ones health. But even "their own people" who did not want to stray into the animal herd were subjected to constant abuse. It is also worth noting that the youth gangs established a system of total racket, pressurising all the teenagers in the area, without exception.
Such an atmosphere forced the youth to join the gangs en masse. Of course, I outlined the toughest situation, but that situation grew out of the softer forms of street life, which won itself more seats in the realities of the 80's, in the face of which out of lack of strength, the family, school, party and Komsomol retreated.
This was a youth rebellion against the system of decaying "socialism" against the fate of the "happy" vegetable, which was forced upon the masses by the school, the Komsomol and the party - "the leading and guiding," "the mind, honor and conscience of the era." Well… and the family? Birdbrained philistines generally imagined little of what actually happens in reality. Old communist philistines and those opportunists who now present pre-Gorbachev USSR as the "promised paradise”, after reading the above, perhaps, will announce that it is "slander"... But against what? And why did this all happen?
You can, of course, suggest that the young thugs were steered by adult crime, not pursuing any other purposes other than their own narrow-corporate interests, but not in the case of Kazan or similar cities, where clashes between young people took away dozens of lives. In answering these questions, the possible options are: either the phenomenon escaped from under the control of its creators, or, conversely, everything was very well orchestrated. But in any case, this situation meant only one thing: the utter bankruptcy of the system. The bankruptcy of the formal educators: the school, the Komsomol, and the Komsomol had to be not just a formal mentor, but also an informal one. The Komsomol began to abandon the latter informal function a long time ago, but its complete collapse became evident by early the 80's.
Likewise, the power structure of the state demonstrated its bankruptcy. The militia and the KGB could not cope with the lawlessness among the youth. Meanwhile, such an atmosphere nurtured "rank and file soldiers of the market."
Exactly the same, was the touching unity with crime as demonstrated by Soviet sport.
Another phenomenon of informal youth self-organization were the "repairmen". Youth gangs from workers’ districts and the suburbs of cities (the most infamous were the "Luberos") declared war on the prosperous city centre and the youth who fell under the influence of the West.
Here these were the Soviet Hunveibins! And here I cannot say a word against them: better to be a Hunveibin, than a Deng Xiaoping! And the bankrupt officialdom in its conservative section met this movement with support. It should be noted that under officialdom, I understand to be the Soviet nomenklatura, including security officials, who grumbled about perestoika, but did not enter into open conflict with the governing "democrats". In the "communist", though more in the radical-conservative resistance, from the start, an entirely different ideal of the youth was founded.
It was already in the late 80's, and the communist resistance could well have found an approach to these youth groups. Of course it could have done, if it had really wanted to. But it chose to appeal to pensioners and mature philistines, fearful of the methods of the youth.
One can talk a lot about this topic, but it is better, comrades, to work things out yourselves and understand the situation not via militia reports of that time, but through the power of art. A good presentation of what has been said above is given in the film "My name is Arlekino"(1988 – crime drama), and books by V. Krapivin: "A boy with a sword" and "Lullaby for my brother". The last books show, including the informal struggle (or rather, its attempts) against the growing rot in Soviet society, and the attitude of the officialdom to such conflicts. Incidentally, from there grew the legs of the so monstrous and virtually open-stamp, that says, "a good man has to simply be a victim."

* * *
Crime is generated by social factors. The deepening and accelerating stratification of society into rich and poor led to an increase in crime in the Soviet Union. Perestroika began, and then – the open restoration of capitalism. The processes that were taking place in the Soviet Union were very similar to those that occurred in Western countries over the past 500 years. Start-up capital, like a few centuries ago, was invented under a "Jolly Roger" flag. The youth went for this flag at that time. Crime become the surest way towards a speedy climb to the top of society, or rather, it created such an illusion. But inaccessible to the masses on the whole, this way became very real, for individuals even. Moreover, this method providing high vertical mobility by several orders of magnitude, is more real and easier that the old capitalist fairy tale about the "hardworking" petty bourgeois. It is this illusion that kidnapped huge masses of young people.
Again then, the real "heroes of our (recent) time" are shown in the film "Brigada". In the 1990’s, such heroes for the youth were landmarks and symbols of success, and you would not evoke any more sympathy and respect among the people towards those at the top, especially if they were traders-merchants. Fear of the "sacred right of private property" was not instilled into the people, and people were allowed to use their instincts to survive to the fullest. Therefore, preaching cheap pseudo-socialist morality and patriotism yielded no results.
And once again I have to raise the topic I have touched upon many times. Namely - the role and power of the heroic example. Communists throughout the 20 years of capitalist restoration, if they ever gave an example, it would only be an example of - masochism and bullshit (balabolstvo). How many times have comrades pledged to punish the traitors and enemies of the people? Have any of these traitors and enemies of the people incurred their deserved punishment?
The answer is obvious. Moreover, in some places, in the Soviet patriotic press, prattle flashed around about "cursed people." In a word – they have arrived! But such passages are written and published by those who consider themselves to be communists!
Actually the communist movement could not develop in the 90's, and was only able to develop in the form of circles of intellectuals (even if calling themselves "parties"), but with Soviet patriots - both formal and actual (and the latter was 99% - there was no difference in the parliamentary or extra-parliamentary parties and movements) –they got caught in a trap. Constantly repeating the assertion about an "occupation" of the USSR, they did not make a single step that would be necessary in the case of a real occupation ...
On one side of the scales, for young people there was the enticing prospect of wealth, a beautiful life and all sorts of pleasures, and on the other side of the scales - a grey miserable mass, describing the delights of a warm stall for working animals! And in fact that is what propaganda many communist parties was like, who called for a return to the Soviet past, which, firstly, some people found too boring and monotonous, and secondly, it is accepted that young people like to hope to achieve everything by relying upon their own strenght. And what was promised by the Left, was either not needed by the youth, or that the youth would do this themselves, with the help of a fist or though the barrel of a gun.

To be continued
A. GERASIMOV, a political prisoner in Ukraine