The militarization of life of the Soviet youth in 1920s - early 1930s

This article discusses multiple aspects of militarization of life of the Soviet people in the 1920-1930s. The authors explore the reasons for this phenomenon, which lay not only in the foreign environment, and in the domestic politics, but also in the ideological foundations of the totalitarian state and society. Special attention is paid to the role of the Komsomol in the militarization of youth education, participation in the economic, political and social life, attempts of militarization of everyday life and private life in general. The article also reveals the role of the universal military duty and military service in preparation for a young person’s life, the participation of the army in dealing with economic and political problems. Attention is drawn to the militarization of culture and ideological indoctrination of the youth. The article investigates the tragic fate of the inter-war generation. This generation was at the same time the basis for the deployment of a wide social experiment to educate the new man at the heart of aspirations and expectations which would lay the ideas of socialism as a “bright future” of all mankind. These experiments, which began in the years of civil war, turned in many areas of culture: architecture, art, literature. They represent a strange mixture of modernism and Marxism. All these experiments were subordinated to the main goal - the education of the “new man”. Since the inevitability of military confrontation with the “capitalist encirclement”, it seems clear that the militarization of the country’s life is comprehensive.