Active Membership

the most progressive, active, enterprising, and experienced members of a Party, Komsomol, trade union, industrial, or other organization. The active membership is the mainstay of the leadership of an organization and the source of its replenishment. An important role is played by the meetings of the active membership, at which most important questions of work are discussed and the experience of the leaders is enriched by that of the masses. The CPSU, the Communist Youth League (Komsomol), and the trade unions maintain permanent schools or offer short-term courses in which the active membership obtains the knowledge necessary for successful work.

The active membership of the Party has great political importance in the life of Soviet society. Its efforts are directed first and foremost toward solving the Party’s main tasks, the mobilization of the Soviet people for the building of a communist society, the insurance of the constant political, economic, and cultural growth of the country, the strengthening of its defense capacity, and the promotion of the welfare of the Soviet people. “Meetings of the active membership of the raion, oblast, and krai Party organizations and of the Communist parties of the Union republics are called to discuss important Party decisions and to work out measures for their implementation and also to consider questions of local life” (CPSU Rules, 1967, par. 29). From among the active membership of the parties, members are elected to the leading organs (local to central) of the Party, the Soviet of Working People’s Deputies, trade unions, and other public organizations and are also appointed to leadership positions in government departmental agencies and enterprises.

The active membership of the Komsomol organizes the activity of the Communist Youth League under the guidance of the CPSU. The efforts of the active membership of the Komsomol are concentrated first of all on solving the main task of the Communist Youth League: “… to bring up boys and girls on the great ideas of Marxism-Leninism, on the heroic traditions of the revolutionary struggle, on the examples of selfless labor of working men, kolkhoz members, and members of the intelligentsia, to instill and strengthen in the young generation a class approach to all aspects of life, and to prepare steadfast, highly educated, and work-loving young builders of Communism” (CYL Rules, 1968, pp. 3–4).

The active membership of the trade unions are the members of the trade unions of the USSR who mobilize the efforts of the masses for further progress of the national economy, for the expansion of socialist competition, and for the movement of communist labor, in order to constantly raise the level of the material welfare and culture of the workers.

The active membership of the national economy is the most active and experienced part of the workers of managerial organs and enterprises—that is, of departments, factories, plants, transport and communication enterprises, construction organizations, etc. It includes progressive workers, engineers and technicians, economists and planners, and managers of enterprises and establishments. Among the most important matters that occupy the active membership of industry are the scientific organization of labor, the improvement of production, and the search for ways of obtaining the greatest economic success at a minimum cost of production.

L. A. ZAVELEV