Komsomolskaia Pravda

the all-Union young people’s newspaper; organ of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League (Komsomol). It is published in Moscow six times a week. The newspaper was created on the basis of a resolution of the Thirteenth Congress of the RCP (Bolshevik) in 1924. The first issue appeared on May 24, 1925.

Komsomol’skaia pravda is the organizer of Soviet youth in the struggle to fulfill the goals set by the Communist Party. During the first five-year plans, the newspaper directed the efforts of young people to socialist construction. It was one of the initiators of the development of socialist competition. It raised questions regarding the general, vocational, and technical training of young people and brought up active fighters for the industrialization of the country, the collectivization of agriculture, the cultural revolution, and the strengthening of the defense capability of the USSR. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), Komsomol’skaia pravda mobilized young men and women for a selfless struggle against the fascist German aggressors and for heroic labor in the rear, and it brought them up in a spirit of selfless service to the homeland.

Komsomol’skaia pravda elucidates and generalizes the experience of the work of Komsomol organizations, teaches young people to apply advanced labor methods in industry and agriculture, and prints articles on the life of students, Pioneers, and school children. It devotes a great deal of attention to Soviet literature and art and to the aesthetic education of young people. In the newspaper, problems of the military-patriotic upbringing of young people and the development of physical training and sports occupy an important place. Komsomol’skaia pravda propagandizes the peace-loving foreign policy of the USSR and provides information on the international democratic youth movement. Characteristic of the newspaper is a wide variety of topics. Readers have, in particular, expressed their appreciation of material published under the headings “Pages From Leniniana,” “Leninist Lessons,” “Listen, Comrades From Future Generations,” “People With Impassioned Hearts,” “Letters, Diaries, and Notes of Our Contemporary,” “The Fatherland,” “In the World of the Beautiful,” and “Problems, Polemics, Search” and of the special pages entitled “Club of the Inquisitive,” “The Scarlet Sail,” “Eureka,” and “Club of the Nine Muses.”

Komsomol’skaia pravda has been awarded the Order of Lenin (1930), the Order of the Patriotic War First Class (1945), and two orders of the Red Banner of Labor (1950, 1957). Its circulation was almost 9 million in 1973.