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The purges were followed by a very high turnover of members of the Central Committee and in effect a new generation of leaders appeared, younger and more from the mass of workers and peasants than their predecessors. Members of this ‘second generation’ would dominate Soviet politics until the 1980s. The job‐slot system continued in the form it had reached in 1934, although there was now more stability and personal security. Examples of a new Stalinist generation were N. S. Baibakov and N. K. Patolichev, one a technocrat, the other a party generalist. The Central Committee was also much larger now, but had less real influence in politics, compared to the supreme leader and the Politburo/Presidium.

This chapter explores Russia’s attempts to come to terms with its Stalinist past in an endeavour to build a civil society based on the rule of law. It begins by examining the nature of Stalinist repression and the legacy of Soviet terror. It goes on to focus on halted official efforts at truth telling, and persistent unofficial efforts, led by the organization Memorial, at remembering and commemorating; this provides insight into the issues that daunted the quest for moral recovery. The chapter then looks at post-Soviet efforts to come to terms with the Stalinist past, and finally it assesses the impact of the discussion of past injustices, or the politics of memory, on Russia’s subsequent process of democratization. The information presented and the conclusions drawn are necessarily based on a number of scattered sources, including memoirs, interviews and official archives; Russia’s experience is unique, and difficult to compare with other post-authoritarian political systems, especially as democracy has not taken substantial hold, and, since the transition is so new, questions of accountability are only beginning to be addressed.

Adolf Hitler and Naziism are interpreted as an extreme example of Kierkegaard's aesthetic sphere of existence. Stalin and Russian Communism are interpreted as an extreme example of Kierkegaard's ethical sphere of existence. The varying forms of psychopathology they manifest make clear the consequences of human rejection of the divine call to spiritual growth. Naziism and Stalinism can also be interpreted as political religions, in other words, as modern forms of idolatry.

This chapter takes a detailed look at the years which removed the veil of silence from late Stalinism — not because late Stalinism became the explicit subject of many discussions, but rather because the life and culture of the years 1953–6 made visible (and audible) what had been growing under the heavy blanket of late Stalinist rule for many years. A quick glance beyond 1956 gives an impression of what happened to Soviet youth culture — both official and unofficial. The story of the Komsomol's spiritual decline and the rise of informal youth cultures is punctuated by various, ultimately ineffective, attempts to reinvigorate the Soviet youth project. Komsomol, official Soviet youth culture, and the Soviet Union itself all came to an abrupt end in 1991. Yet this book's final observations remind the reader of the curious fact that the last chapter of the history of Soviet youth is still happening.

This introductory chapter sets out the purpose of this book, which is to examine the transformation of Soviet youths from individuals rooted in the hierarchical and cultural structures of the Soviet system, into individuals keen to redefine their identity and those of their peers within Soviet society. It contends that young people who came of age in the later stages of Stalin's rule constituted an important bridge between two distinct Soviet epochs: the pre-war and wartime Soviet Union which directed its energies to the construction of socialist society, and the later years of so-called ‘mature socialism’ which sought to preserve. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.

This chapter examines the relationship between late Stalinist ideological campaigns and post-war youth, highlighting both the important role the topic of youth played in the execution and content of the campaigns and the ambiguous reaction young people had towards them. The overarching impression emerging from the analysis is one of confusion and ambiguity. The adolescent looking for ideological direction in the post-war period encountered multiple problems. First of all there were few directives that could help him in the quest for political meaning and ideological convictions. The policies and campaigns of late Stalinism were, especially in comparison with those of the 1930s, fought on a semi-abstract level and contained a host of unexplained keywords and concepts that obscured their underlying direction and purpose. At the same time the campaigns did leave a lasting, and mainly negative, impact on a small, but significant segment of youth. Young people who found themselves to be victims in the anti-Cosmpolitan and anti-Western drives lost their beliefs in the righteousness of a system, in which they had hitherto fervently believed.

Several historians have pointed out that, regardless of their factual democratic credibility, Soviet practices and rituals produced integrative powers and gave stable frameworks in which individuals were able to find identities and meaning. It is thus worthwhile to take a closer look at the practices and rituals that defined the life of young Soviets and examine them dispassionately in terms of their resonance and effectiveness. This chapter focuses on the mundane, yet crucial, fixtures of everyday Komsomol life such as the Komsomol assembly, Komsomol insignia, electoral practices, and the vexed question of expected and permissible discussion. It was the day-to-day practices that shaped people's relationship with the system. It was here that bonds were formed and it was here that ties were cut. It was also in the mundane where Soviet forms of thinking and behaviour proved to be most durable.

This chapter analyses to what extent official norms of interpersonal relations were accepted by youth and to what extent they found expression in everyday realities. Friendship, love, romance, and sex were all features of young people's lives under Stalin — and for many of them these elements make up the main and domineering part of their memories of this time. Yet the many forms in which these interpersonal relationships took place do not simply suggest that personal lives always existed, even under the most hostile circumstances. Rather, a detailed look at Soviet intimacy has revealed a much more complex picture of the relationship between state, individual, official, and private values. There is no doubt that the advice on and interference in matters of personal relations by the state was not only accepted but actively sought by many young Soviets. Emotional ties to other people were not considered to be in a realm separate from one's life as a member of the public. The conduct of personal relations served as an important identifier of people's position within the Soviet collective — both in the eyes of others and in the mind of the subject.

The official post-war diplomatic identity of the USSR continued to stress the strength of the great power alliance until the autumn of 1947. However, the population of the Soviet Union was not convinced and a series of war rumours and war panics broke out in the early post-war months. From late-1947, the Soviet press stressed above all the peace-loving nature of the USSR and its role as a defender of the oppressed, particularly in East Asia. The late-Stalinist campaigns for peace after 1948 were unusually successful in their attempts to mobilize the population of the USSR. Their success was a product of ongoing war anxiety but also the creative reappropriation of the campaigns into a platform through which participants could speak about the suffering they had experienced in the recent conflict. This behaviour offers an insight into certain aspects of the Soviet early Cold War mentalité

This chapter contrasts the Soviet relationship with prominent visitors who were ideological sympathizers with little-known, covert Soviet outreach to far-right nationalists, German “National Bolsheviks,” and fascist intellectuals. At the center of attention, in the first instance, are the sensational journeys of André Gide in 1936 and Lion Feuchtwanger in 1937 during the era of the Moscow show trials. In the second instance, the chapter gives an in-depth case study of a hybrid left-right German organization founded in 1932 to study the Soviet planned economy (ARPLAN), and more broadly Soviet-German political and cultural relations on the eve of the Nazi Revolution. Showing how foreign friends of Stalinism could suddenly become enemies and those considered enemies could potentially be converted into friends, the chapter ends by contrasting the emotional identification of many Western intellectuals with the socialist homeland with the foreign fellow-travelers of the fascist right, who were by definition excluded from the Nazi racial community.