Istmol
Istmol
(Commission to Explore the History of the All-Union Lenin Communist Youth League [VLKSM] and the Youth Movement in the USSR), a body working under the auspices of the Central Committee of the VLKSM; established in 1921 by the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Youth League (RKSM).
Divisions of Istmol were set up under Komsomol central committees of the Union republics, oblast committees, and city committees. The commission concerned itself with the collection, examination, and issuance of materials and documents on the history of the youth movement in Russia and the USSR. It published stenographic reports of the first through fourth congresses of the RKSM (The VLKSM in the Resolutions of ItsCongresses and Conferences, 1918–1928 [1929]), documentary collections on the situation of young workers and on their working and living conditions and their participation in the workingclass revolutionary movement, and bibliographical information on Komsomol members who had perished in the revolutionary struggle and at the Civil War fronts. The commission brought out a great many literary sketches and popular pamphlets, laying the groundwork for scholarly historiography of the youth movement and the Komsomol in the Soviet Union. It was terminated in the early 1930’s.
G. D. ALEKSEEVA