Oktiabriata

Oktiabriata

 

(Little Octobrists), in the USSR, schoolchildren between the ages of seven and nine who join groups sponsored by their school’s Pioneer brigade. Oktiabriata groups prepare children for membership in the V. I. Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization. The first Oktiabriata groups were founded in 1923–24 in Moscow under the auspices of Pioneer detachments for children who had been born the year of the October Revolution of 1917.

An Oktiabriata group is organized in the first grade and exists until the children are old enough to form a Pioneer detachment. Upon joining an Oktiabriata group, children are issued a badge —a five-pointed ruby-colored star with a portrait of Lenin as a child. The group is presented with a small red flag. Each Oktiabriata group is subdivided into several stars, each consisting of five children symbolizing the five-pointed red star. The leader is a Pioneer or a Komsomol member. The Oktiabriata’s activities, primarily play, are organized by teachers and leaders on the basis of principles established by the Central Committee of the All-Union Lenin Communist Youth League: “Oktiabriata are future Pioneers. Oktiabriata are diligent children who love school and respect their elders. Only those who enjoy working are called Oktiabriata. Oktiabriata are brave and truthful, deft and skillful. Oktiabriata are friendly and merry children; they read and draw, play and sing.”

An all-Union Oktiabriata Week is celebrated each year from April 16 to 22. The all-Union magazines Veselye kartinki (Merry Pictures) and Murzilka and various republic magazines are published for Oktiabriata. Pioneer newspapers also include material for the groups, and each year the Malysh Publishing House issues the Little Star table calendar for the children. Methodological material pertaining to work with Oktiabriata regularly appears in such magazines as Vozhatyi (Leader), Nachal’naia shkola (Elementary School), and Vospitanie shkol’nikov (The Upbringing of Schoolchildren).

Many other countries have associations of younger schoolchildren sponsored by Pioneer and other children’s organizations.

REFERENCES

Dokumenty TsK KPSS i TsK VLKSM o rabote Vsesoiuznoi pionerskoi organizatsii imeni V. I. Lenina, 3rd ed. Moscow, 1970.
Kniga vozhatogo, 6th ed. [Moscow, 1972.]
Panova, N. S. Uchiteliu o rabote s oktiabriatami, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1972.
Priglashaem v Oktibriatsk! Kniga vozhatogo zvezdochki. [Moscow] 1971.
Estafeta pionerskikh pokolenii. [Moscow] 1972.

V. V. LEBEDINSKII and N. P. CHESNOKOVA