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When the ban on the Communist Party in Russia was lifted at the end of 1992, the party reformed as the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) in February 1993 and, capitalising on the impoverishment of Russian society since privatization, grew to the point where it was the largest political party in Russia. The Party's youth movement, the Union of Communist Youth – Russian Federation, better known by the abbreviation of its Soviet-era predecessor, the Komsomol, is a comparatively small but active organization that aims to continue many of that predecessor's traditions. Communism for many in Russia represents the past and a failed economic experiment that has little relevance in the twenty-first century. The young people who are drawn to the Communist Party, mostly new recruits who had never been members of the Soviet-era Komsomol, as opposed to the older members of the CPRF, nostalgic for the economic security of the past, are joining what has been derided as a 'party of pensioners', against the prevailing trend amongst the young either to support President Putin or to abstain from voting and interest in politics altogether. This paper examines the extent to which young Communists in Russia are trailblazers, their motivation in supporting an ideology that has been rejected by the majority and the challenges they face. |
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