Russian President Vladamir Putin congratulated the defunct Komsomol today on its 95th anniversary. The Komsomol was the youth wing of the Soviet Communist Party.
The Hindu reported:
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has congratulated the long-defunct Komsomol, the youth wing of the Soviet Communist Party, on the 95th anniversary of its establishment, as the Kremlin seeks to revive a mass youth movement loyal to authorities.
In a message read out to 6,000 guests at a Kremlin function to mark the occasion, Mr. Putin called the Komsomol anniversary “an important date in the history of our state, in the lives of millions of people both in Russia and far outside its borders”.
“Because Komsomol is not only politics, it is true friendship and love, student years and the romantic appeal of new roads, common goals and dreams, and what is most important — it is being part of the fate of your homeland,” Mr. Putin said.
Komsomol, or VLKSM, an acronym for the All-Union Lenin Communist Union of Youth, was established in 1918, a year after the Bolshevik Revolution, and disbanded in 1991 when the Soviet Communist Party was banned in the wake of a failed coup organised by hardline party leaders.