Rules of the Pioneers

the collection of the basic rules governing the life and activity of the members of the V. I. Lenin All-Union Pioneers Organization; the statutes present in a graphic form that is understandable to children the goals and tasks of the children’s communist organization, the basic principles of communist morality, and the moral and ethical norms of the Young Pioneers’ behavior.

The first Rules of the Pioneers were developed by a commission of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Youth League (RKSM) with the participation of N. K. Krupskaia and were confirmed by the Fifth Congress of the RKSM in October 1922. A basic law formulated in accordance with Lenin’s advice to youth—to study communism— is phrased thus in the rules: “I shall always, everywhere, and wherever possible, try to gain knowledge in order to use it for the welfare of the working people.”

The new text of the Rules of the Pioneers, confirmed in 1957 by the eighth plenum of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, reflects the changes in the organization’s activity that took place during socialist construction, its richer content, and the refinements in the forms and methods of its work. In 1967 the second plenum of the Central Committee of the Komsomol made some amendments to and changes in this text.

The Rules of the Pioneers states: “The Pioneer is devoted to the motherland, the party, and communism. The Pioneer prepares to be a Komsomol member. The Pioneer emulates the heroes of struggle and labor. The Pioneer reveres the memory of the fallen fighters and prepares to be a defender of the motherland. The Pioneer is persistent in study, labor, and sport. The Pioneer is an honest and loyal comrade and always stands courageously for truth. The Pioneer is a comrade and leader of the Little Octobrists. The Pioneer is a friend of other Pioneers and working people’s children of all countries.”

The children’s democratic organizations of other countries have their own statutes that reflect the specific features, national conditions, and primary tasks of their activity. As a rule, the statutes of different children’s democratic organizations have a provision on strengthening friendship among the children of the world and on class solidarity among working people’s children.

The Rules of the Pioneers differ fundamentally from the statutes of the scout organizations, whose aims are the defense of the “holy church, sovereign, and country” and bringing children up in the spirit of bourgeois morality.