1928-1932 - The Youth Cultural Revolution

• Capitalist individualism within education was removed and "Bourgeois" and non-Communist teachers were sacked.
• Textbooks, homework, exams, uniform and school discipline were all seen as part of a capitalist education system and removed in many areas.
• In some extreme cases, all of the children in a school were trained to do jobs such as poultry farming and nothing else.
• In universities, a quota system was set up to ensure that 70% of students were from proletarian backgrounds although this was rarely achieved.
• Komsomol played a very important role in the Cultural Revolution of 1928-32.
• The young Communists were very receptive to government indoctrination and were easily motivated to attack bourgeois culture and class enemies.
• Komsomol members disrupted plays and vandalised works of art that were considered "bourgeois" as well as attacking churches and priests.
• Many Komsomol members volunteers to work in new industrial cities such as Magnitogorsk to act as "shock workers".

  • Others supported the drive for collectivisation which became increasingly violent and confrontational from 1929.
• Pavlik Morozov at just 14 years-old, testified against his own father, the chairman of his village soviet, for associating with kulaks.
• Morozov was murdered by his grandfather and cousin and was seen as a hero and martyr with statues erected in his honour.
• Other young people were told to inform on anyone, even family members, who were guilty of "bourgeois" behaviour.
• The Cultural Revolution was getting out of control and in 1932, Stalin signalled that the chaos and upheaval of the period since 1928 needed to brought under tighter control.