Pioneer Whistleblowers and Suffering for Idea: How Young Communists Suffer at the Hands of Adult Avengers

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the 1930s, the Soviet leadership cultivated and encouraged the practice of denunciations among children. The symbol of the heroism of that period was the pioneer Pavlik Morozov, who was allegedly killed at the hands of his denounced relatives. Meanwhile, there were enough ideological pioneers who gave their loved ones to the authorities for reprisal before. Each issue of the Children's Communist Movement of that period featured stories of the heroic deeds of the pioneers with their full names and large portraits. Readers could familiarize themselves with the full texts of denunciations of parents, teachers, neighbors, counselors, friends. The young Pavliki Morozovs were convenient for the authorities in the difficult circumstances of collectivization, but the children who went to denunciations remained defenseless against the cruel lynching that threatened them.

Ideological variations on the theme of the pioneer feat

In the era of Stalinism, the involvement of children in denunciations received powerful state support. The education of informers has become an important area of ideological work. Denunciation was presented as an obligatory quality of a Soviet person - open, honest and striving for a high civic goal. Ilyich's widow Nadezhda Krupskaya appealed to the pioneers with an appeal to observe those around them, identifying and recording any manifestations of possessive vestiges. And a certain journalist Smirnov even published a book "Young Watchmen", where he spoke in detail about how to identify enemies of the people, where and in what form to write denunciations and how to avoid interception of slanderous letters.

The People's Commissariat of Education issued an order according to which any child could prosecute even his own parents if they carried out any illegal actions. A. Gusev, editor of the newspaper "Pionerskaya Pravda", in his book "Children at school" urged the pioneers to monitor the teachers and the quality of their teaching. From a young pioneer organization, in fact, they made a smithy of informants. The children watched the hungry fellow villagers gathering scraps of the harvest in the fields for their families, exposed the “kulaks”, neighbors, parents and other “pests”. The names of the leading pioneer heroes were entered into the All-Union Red Book named after XVII Congress of the Communist Party ". And in the summer of 1934, two hundred of the best pioneer patrolmen went to Artek as a reward for their faithful service to the Motherland.

Ukrainian Pavlik Teslya, who handed over his father to the Chekists

One of the first documented was the massacre of a boy named Teslya from the village of Sorochintsy in Ukraine. Teslya was a true little communist who handed over his own father to the Chekists for reprisal. Morals in 1927 were extremely simple, so the inhabitants of the Gogol village simply got together and decided on the traitor. The regional authorities, of course, undertook retaliatory reprisals against the murderers, but the days were alarming, there were enough problems. The fate of the boy who suffered for the idea did not seriously interest anyone.

The murder of Kolya Myagotin, who reported on fellow villagers

In the midst of the show trial of the murder of Pavlik Morozov in a Kurgan village, another boy, Kolya Myagotin, was shot and killed. According to official data, the responsible pioneer wrote to the district newspaper about the criminal intrigues of the kulaks. After another report of a major theft of collective farm grain by class enemies, Kolya was overtaken by reprisals. The local fist Sychev persuaded his fellow villagers to kill the informer.

The teenager's life was cut short by a point-blank shot. True, some modern historians argue that Myagotin was neither a hero, nor even a pioneer, and this story was fabricated by the Chekists of the 30s. Over the following years, this case was reviewed more than once. As a result, the investigators came to the conclusion that Kolya was stealing the grain himself, for which he was caught by a Red Army soldier guarding the collective farm field. After the altercation, the flushed man shot the child. This case was used to "expose" the local kulaks, and Kolya was enrolled as a pioneer in absentia, giving history an ideological coloring.

Pioneer Balykina, who denounced her parents

In the spring of 1934, a pioneer Olya Balykina wrote a denunciation of her father, revealing, in addition to her relative, all his friends who stole and sold collective farm grain. This idea came to her after being enrolled in a pioneer cell, where she was taught how a true pioneer should grow. Olya's parent and sixteen of his accomplices were sentenced to long terms in the camps. Some time later, unknown persons attacked the girl, severely beating her. Historians associate this episode with her denunciation.

Almost all the newspapers in the country wrote about the brave pioneer. School students were told about her act, setting Balykin as an example. But over the years, she became a victim of her own methods. During the Great Patriotic War, the girl was captured by the Germans. After the end of the war, neighbors reported on her about cooperation with the Germans. Olga was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Later she was rehabilitated, with a couple of lines remembering the woman in the newspapers.

Attempt on the informer Yatyrgin with a happy ending

In the course of the campaign to dekulakize the distant Chukchi region, a couple of Bolsheviks came from the district center to the village of Anadyr. Authorized outsiders who came to fight the local exploiters and create a collective farm thwarted the plans of the locals. During the night, the newcomers were killed. A boy named Yatyrgin, who learned the identity of the murderers and their places of hiding from the overheard conversation, decided to report this to the city police.

The culprits were seized, after which at night the neighbors lay in wait for Yatyrgin, struck with a heavy object and threw him to die in a deep hole. By some miracle, the child managed to find the strength to get out of the ditch. As the Pioneer Chronicle later said, soon Yatyrgin was initiated into a pioneer, and the mentors decided to give him a new name in honor of the legendary Pavlik Morozov. These data were recorded in his passport. After receiving his education, the newly minted Pavlik Morozov joined the ranks of the Communist Party and worked as a teacher, happily and comfortably living up to the end of the 70s.

Fully imbued with the spirit of that time, you can on a selection of propaganda posters.