Frontline Komsomol Youth Brigades

a form of socialist competition among young people at enterprises during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45.

The movement to establish the youth brigades began in the autumn of 1941 under the motto “In labor as in combat!” The movement’s initiators were the Komsomol member M. Popov, a foreman at the Urals Heavy Machine-building Plant in Sverdlovsk, and V. Shubin, the leader of a toolmakers’ production brigade at the Gorky Automotive Plant. Young workers from many enterprises supported their initiative. The youth brigades set themselves the goals of completing their work for the front ahead of schedule and of increasing output with a minimum of workers.

In 1942 the movement became nationwide. The Central Committee of the Komsomol, in conjunction with the people’s commissariats, organized all-Union socialist competition among Komsomol youth brigades for the title “frontline.” The greatest number of brigades was established at plants of the defense industry. By July 1942 there were 10,000 brigades, with approximately 100,000 young men and women, and by 1945 approximately 155,000 brigades, with a membership of more than 1 million. Articles on the best brigades were published in the newspaper Komsomol’skaia pravda and in other periodicals for youth.