Post Occupation Kalmykia: Patriotism of the Younger Generation as a Factor for the Sustainable Revival (a Content Analysis of the Leninsky Put Newspaper, 1943)

Abstract

The paper deals with activities by members of Kalmykia’s republican office of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (Rus. VLKSM) and non-associate young individuals in the post-occupation period mirrored in the pages of the Leninsky Put (‘Lenin’s way’) newspaper. Materials of periodicals contained in the funds of the National Archives of Kalmykia testify of increased patriotism among youths and their work for the good of the motherland. Analysis of articles published in Leninsky Put ― a primary publication of the Kalmyk Executive Committee and Elista City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) ― reveals some patriotic youth initiatives, self-sustained activities of the younger generation manifested in new forms of labor, such as dekadnik (‘a ten days’ work’), mesyachnik (‘a month-long work’), movements of stakhanovsty and foremost workers who overfilled the prescribed norms. The published materials that dealt with the topic expressed the deep meaning of unity between those engaged in defending hostilities and the domestic front. 
At the same time, the analysis of printed materials testifies that special attention was paid to the economic restoration, diverse fundraising arrangements for the republic, country and Red Army. Approximately half of 1943 published materials of Leninsky Put examined multiple fundraising activities voluntarily performed by the republican youth. Such works could significantly vary from outdoor cleaning and sanitary treatment of streets and buildings to farming operations, reconstruction of residential and office facilities, creation and restoration of farm vehicles and implements. Both youths and schoolchildren joined such economic restoration activities that were held both at places of residence and at the district / republican levels.
Every sixth article described fundraising arrangements initiated by the youth. Such arrangements included collecting of money, seeds and farm implements for rural activities, and also that of presents for Red Army soldiers, ferrous and non-ferrous scrap metal. 
The examined printed materials of Leninsky Put once again confirm the fact that throughout the republic the younger generation directed all their efforts for the good of the common motherland. Not to take anything away from the print media’s mobilization of youths for more productive labor, but the newspaper covered no issues of political cleansing against Komsomol members that had cooperated with the fascist occupants, ignored such problems as youth crime, though there were standing heads as ‘Court’ and ‘Public Prosecution’.