Item Details
Skip Navigation Links
   ActiveUsers:1098Hits:21158686Skip Navigation Links
Show My Basket
Contact Us
IDSA Web Site
Ask Us
Today's News
HelpExpand Help
Advanced search

In Basket
  Journal Article   Journal Article
 

ID114455
Title ProperBefore national communism
Other Title Informationjoining the Latvian Komsomol under Stalin
LanguageENG
AuthorSwain, Geoffrey
Publication2012.
Summary / Abstract (Note)In 1959, Indriks Pinksis, Eduards Berklavs and Vilis Kruminš were among the prominent targets of Moscow's National Communist purge of supposed 'bourgeois nationalists' operating within the leadership of the Latvian Communist Party. A decade earlier all three had been active leaders of the Latvian Komsomol. This article explores the Stalin years of the Latvian Komsomol, and argues that the Komsomol was only able to win an acceptable number of recruits when it abandoned attempts to recruit on the basis of wartime activity or class allegiance and focused on recruiting ethnic Latvians. However, this raised the same issues later faced by the National Communists: as membership was extended to those with a 'doubtful' background, and the press played down 'proletarian internationalism', Moscow took fright. In early 1953 the Latvian Komsomol experienced a purge similar in tone to that which would take place within the Latvian Communist Party more broadly in 1959.
`In' analytical NoteEurope-Asia Studies Vol. 64, No.7; Sep 2012: p.1239-1270
Journal SourceEurope-Asia Studies Vol. 64, No.7; Sep 2012: p.1239-1270
Key WordsStalin ;  Latvian Komsomol ;  Latvian Communist Party ;  Ethnic Latvians ;  Moscow