Pioneer Leader

the director of a Pioneer group or detachment in a school, Pioneer camp, or Pioneer settlement; a representative of the Komsomol in the Pioneer organization. The term “Pioneer leader” first appeared in 1922.

The leaders’ activities, rights, and responsibilities are defined by the Statute on Senior and Detachment Pioneer Leaders of the Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization (1967). With teachers, Komsomol members, and patron organizations of the Pioneers (enterprises, kolkhozes, sovkhozes, and so on), the Pioneer leader fulfills the tasks of communist upbringing, basing it on the initiative and independence of children.

In 1971 there were over 80,000 senior Pioneer leaders in the USSR whose work is equivalent to professional teaching and who have all the rights and privileges established for teachers; some 35,000 senior leaders and 800,000 detachment leaders, (workers, collective farmers, military personnel, students, senior pupils, and others) worked with the Pioneers on a voluntary basis. Special sections of pedagogical schools train senior Pioneer leaders (in 1971 there were 60 such schools in the RSFSR, 30 in the Ukraine, and 16 in Kazakhstan), as do republic schools for senior Pioneer leaders. Training sections for raising the qualifications of Pioneer leaders exist in 20 pedagogical institutes, and in 1969 the Kostroma Pedagogical Institute opened a correspondence Pioneer department. Special camp assemblies and seminars are organized for detachment Pioneer leaders; special clubs are established in Pioneer Palaces, Pioneer and School-children’s Homes, and in schools. The Pioneer leader’s work is extensively dealt with in the journal Vozhatyi and in newspapers and journals for youth and teachers.

The term “Pioneer leader” is also used in the Pioneer organizations of the socialist countries and in the children’s organizations of several other states.