All-Union Lenin Communist Union of Youth (VLKSM or KOMSOMOL)

A youth political organization. It was created during the First All-Russian Congress of Worker and Peasant Youth on October 29, 1918, and was initially called the Russian Communist Union of Youth (RKSM), RLKSM from 1924, and VLKSM from 1926. The Union's first program specified that it was affiliated with RKP(b) (Russian Communist Party (of the bolsheviks)) and saw "its task in spreading the ideas of communism and involving the worker and peasant youth into active construction of the Soviet Russia." Additionally, the Komsomol's task included the communist upbringing based on the involvement of the worker youth in the political struggle, supplemented by theoretical education. Besides that, the Komsomol was a more popular organization than the party since the party was a leader of the proletariat, its members were supposed to possess at least a minimal political qualificaton. Komsomol was an organization aimed at upbringing, it could accept even "raw material", uninitiated young proletarians. Sturcturally, the Komsomol (TsK VLKSM) was directly subordinate to the party (TsK VKP(b)). The 22nd Extraordinary Congress of VLKSM (September 1991) decided the role of VLKSM as a federation of communist unions of youth to be completed.