Alexander Vasilievich
Kosarev
Born on November 1 (14), 1903 in Moscow in a working-class family. From the age of ten, Sasha Kosarev worked at a factory, as a fourteen-year-old teenager he took part in a strike during the days of the February revolution, in the October battles, and joined the socialist union of working youth “III International”. In 1918 he was one of the first to join the Russian Communist Youth Union, and in 1919 he was admitted to the party. In 1919 he took part in the defense of Petrograd. After graduating from the Komsomol political school, he worked in the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the RKSM, in 1921 he was elected secretary of the Baumansky district committee of the Komsomol of Moscow, in 1924 - secretary of the Penza provincial committee of the Komsomol. In 1926, Kosarev was sent to Leningrad with a brigade of the Komsomol Central Committee to fight the Zinoviev opposition, then worked as secretary of the Moscow-Narva district committee of the Komsomol in Leningrad. In 1928 he became secretary of the Moscow Komsomol organization, in 1929 - general secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee...
He never treated what he did as a service. Komsomol was his life, his passion, his calling. Spending himself without reserve, he carried out the most daring plans, success accompanied him.
He was a member of the Komsomol Central Committee since 1926. In 1927, he participated in the XV Party Congress and was included in the Central Control Commission. And so in 1929, the March plenum elected Alexander Kosarev as general secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee. His ten-year stay at the helm of the country's Komsomol life began.
The high post did not change anything in Kosarev’s friendly, sincere attitude towards people, in his lively, out-of-the-armchair style of leadership - Sasha was still loved by everyone who knew him.
The Central Committee workers quickly became his friends. After work, not having cooled off from a stormy day, we usually went to see him in Sokolniki, and here they would end work disputes or talk peacefully about new theatrical productions, about new books until they disagreed in their assessments - and then again They argued until they were hoarse. And then they arranged choral singing - in the Kosarevs’ house they loved song.
Alexander's wife shared all their concerns with them. Marusya herself did a lot of social work, both in the Komsomol - from the age of fifteen, and in the party - she became a member of the CPSU (b) in 1929.
This summer, preparations for the “great journey” began in Kosarev’s house. Six guys, led by Kosarev and Chaplin, decided to go down the Volga in boats. In the summer, the travelers left Moscow. We loaded onto the boats at a small pier before Nizhny Novgorod. We spent about a month descending the great river to Stalingrad. Sasha returned home, black from the sun, happy, rested, and filled to the brim with impressions. A flurry of stories about incredible adventures hit Marusya.
And a couple of years later, a new journey of men was undertaken - this time to Lake Seliger. The pristine beauty of the lake region, its generosity and expanse shocked Alexander. He thought about how offensive it was that such splendor was seen only by random visiting fishermen and “pioneers” like him and his friends. This is where the ideal place for organized youth tourism is - this idea belonged to Kosarev.
He did not forget his old friends, he helped them himself in difficult times, and went to them for help. Kosarev proposed sending Semyon Fedorov, who was at that time the secretary of the Komsomol of Tatarstan, as secretary of the regional Far Eastern Committee of the Komsomol. The situation there was extremely difficult, and Sasha wanted the local Komsomol to be led by a trusted person. Seeing off a friend to the Far East, he said: “You are a brave guy, Senka!”
And then, on every visit of Fedorov to Moscow, he dragged him to his home and asked him for a long time about everything. I listened especially attentively to Semyon’s stories about the exploits of Komsomol members during armed conflicts, which still happened there often. Soon, good news came to the Far East: the Komsomol Central Committee was rewarding distinguished sailors and officers of the Amur Flotilla with personalized watches for heroism.
It was the second year of the first five-year plan - the industrialization of the Soviet Republic began. Powerful power plants were built, including the Dnieper and Svirskaya. Huge metallurgical plants were founded - Magnitogorsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Krivoy Rog. The country began construction of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, the Gorky Automobile Plant, and the Rostov Agricultural Engineering Plant.
It was necessary to mobilize the Komsomol to carry out these grandiose tasks. Kosarev addressed the All-Union Komsomol Conference of 1929 with an unexpected proposal - to arrange powerful advertising for the Five-Year Plan. He proposed “in tens and hundreds of thousands of colorful prints, using all the printing techniques and the idle imagination of poets, writers, ditties, to tell the working masses about the five-year plan and wipe the eyes of the blind who do not believe in our five-year plan. Without knowing the five-year plan, you will not be able to organize the Komsomol public to implement it.”
A few days later, Komsomolskaya Pravda published a huge map of the country with all the new buildings, with figures for their capacity and launch dates. With this card, Komsomol activists could safely go to the masses to promote the Five-Year Plan.
In 1929, the Komsomol carried out its first mobilization for new buildings. 66 thousand Komsomol members left for Siberia and the Urals. In total, over 350 thousand Komsomol members worked on the most important construction projects of the Five-Year Plan. Of these, 200 thousand came there on vouchers from their organizations.
The composition of the proletariat changed significantly; the country needed workers of various specialties. In these conditions, training young people and disseminating technical literacy acquired particular importance.
Even speaking at the VIII Komsomol Congress in 1928, Alexander Kosarev gave a deep analysis of what the youth union should do at the stage of social, economic and cultural plowing of the country. He said that during the period of transformation of NEP Russia into socialist Russia, one of the core issues is the question of qualified personnel dedicated to the cause of the proletariat.
At the end of 1929, Kosarev received a letter from the construction manager of the largest tractor plant on the Volga. V. M. Ivanov wrote with alarm that there was less than a year left before the plant was put into operation, but it was still unclear who would work there - illiterate people who had not received special training would not be able to operate complex machines.
This letter became the impetus for a serious and lengthy struggle by the Komsomol for personnel. The question “On training workers for new factories” was raised at the Bureau of the Komsomol Central Committee. We decided to submit a specific proposal to the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR - to create factory apprenticeship schools and training centers in new buildings in order to prepare workers for them by the time the production workshops were put into operation. The goal was clear and beyond doubt.
In July 1930, the XVI Party Congress noted in its decisions the need to expand the network and contingents of FZU schools - the main form of training qualified workers from teenagers. The government has given instructions to provide the construction of FZU schools with everything necessary. Over the five-year period, the state allocated 200 million rubles for their needs.
The construction of FZU schools was organized as a real offensive. “The Komsomol Central Committee at that moment turned into a combat headquarters for construction,” recalls V. Zakharov, former head of the education sector for working youth.
The Central Committee of the Komsomol sent its representatives to fifty construction sites, who monitored the progress of work.
The Central Committee received dozens of letters and telegrams every day, many addressed to Kosarev. Each signal received an immediate response. Komsomolskaya Pravda regularly published reports on the progress of school construction. Much work was carried out by Komsomol organizations in Moscow and Leningrad, Ukraine and the Urals, Siberia, Kuznetskstroy, Magnitogorsk and Chelyabstroy.
Still, the situation improved slowly. The Komsomol Central Committee turned to the State Planning Committee and the Supreme Economic Council for assistance, Kosarev spoke with their leaders - V.V. Kuibyshev and G.K. Ordzhonikidze.
In an extremely difficult situation, the Komsomol Central Committee achieved the completion of the construction of several hundred schools. There were no water pipes or heating radiators at these sites. They were very expensive, and in order to obtain them, special permission was required from the Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council G.K. Ordzhonikidze. Business managers have significantly cut back on schools' requests for pipes.
Then Kosarev gave the Komsomol members the task: to arrange a duty in Ordzhonikidze’s reception room and to obtain the necessary equipment for construction sites. Sasha regularly found out how things were going. And yet at the end of the week the visa was received! And Ordzhonikidze even praised the Komsomol members for their resourcefulness and perseverance.
The long and persistent struggle of the Komsomol for the recognition of FZU schools ended successfully: if in 1929 73 thousand people studied in them, then in 1930 - 473 thousand, in 1931 - 585 thousand, in 1933 - 1200 thousand teenagers.
This was one of those Komsomol undertakings, the glory of whose implementation is rightfully associated with the name of Alexander Kosarev.
On New Year's Eve 1931, the Kosarevs' daughter Lena was born. The Komsomol secretary had new worries. Life now rang in him with a new, sweet string: his daughter, his daughter. He kept picking up the phone - how are you doing? And when he came home tired late in the evening and took the girl in his arms, his face smoothed out, brightened, he hid his eyes that shone with happiness.
He, of course, spoiled his daughter, but no one dared to reprimand him: the girl responded to her father with the same love. Going on a business trip was now turning into a problem for Alexander: no matter what happened to little Lena. Circumstances were such that he had to move to Stalingrad for almost a month.
In the spring of 1931, Sergo Ordzhonikidze returned from the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. The launch of the 5,000th tractor was scheduled for May, but the situation on the main conveyor was unfavorable, the task was half completed. And since eighty percent of the work on the tractor was mostly young people, Sergo suggested that Kosarev send there a brigade from the Central Committee of the Komsomol and Komsomolskaya Pravda to revive the Komsomol and production activities of the youth.
In May, five people, led by the secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee, left for Stalingrad. On the train they discussed a plan for working on a tractor. Kosarev warned that they were not going there to inspect, but to help the Komsomol organization of the plant.
The five went straight from the station to the factory. We were accommodated in a house for visitors, which replaced a hotel. The Pravda brigade was already living in the room next door. An intense struggle began for the full-fledged activities of the factory Komsomol.
The very next day after the arrival of the brigade, a meeting of the factory Komsomol committee and the Komsomol activists of the workshops was held, and a few days later - a factory-wide Komsomol meeting.
It was decided to ensure the production of the five thousandth tractor by May 27: Komsomol members outlined measures to mobilize all youth to fight for the five thousandth.
The secretary of the factory committee had little understanding of the complexities of the production and political life of the plant, and “didn’t handle” Komsomol affairs. It was necessary to find an experienced, strong leader. Kosarev went over in his memory the secretaries of the Komsomol district committees in Moscow, Leningrad, Ukraine, and the secretaries of large factory committees. Who can quickly stir up the Komsomol and the tractor youth, skillfully arrange forces to eliminate the breakthrough? At night, Sasha called the secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee Sergei Saltanov:
Please, quickly raise the issue of sending the secretary of the Frunzensky District Committee of Moscow to Stalingrad to the Central Committee Bureau.
But for now, the team members had to find ways out of the most unexpected situations themselves.
Sasha, we can’t talk to the young people who live not at the factory, but in the city,” Komsomol activists complained, “after work everyone immediately runs to the train, they have no time for meetings.”
Kosarev thought:
But what, committee members, if you hold a meeting on the way, on the train itself, since it takes more than an hour?
I liked the offer. Kosarev instructed brigade member Pyotr Listovsky, together with the Komsomol activists of the mechanical assembly shop, to prepare such a meeting.
They outlined the agenda, decorated one carriage of the work train with slogans, and made an inscription on the outside: “In this carriage, on the way from the factory to the city, a meeting of the non-party youth of the machine assembly shop will take place.”
The makeshift “hall” was conducive to a good conversation, everything went well. Since then, such meetings began to be held regularly, and young people fell in love with them.
Another problem that the brigade had to immediately tackle was the organization of mass technical training. But there was no technical literature. True, instructions arrived at the plant along with the American equipment, but everything was in English. It was urgent to translate them and publish them. Kosarev made an agreement by telephone with the management of the publishing house, and the plant soon received the necessary literature and instructions in Russian from Moscow.
This was the only style of business trips that Kosarev recognized; specific assistance was their goal and result.
The situation at the plant remained tense; they worked overtime - seventeen to eighteen hours. Members of the Central Committee of the Komsomol and Pravda brigades did not leave the plant until late at night. Some journalists later wrote a lot about those hot days. There are also lines about Alexander Kosarev in these notes.
Here is an excerpt from Boris Galin’s book “Far Time, Close Comrades,” dedicated to journalist Yakov Ilyin, a close friend of Kosarev.
“Kosarev, Sasha Kosarev, entered, or rather, flew into Ilyin’s room with a gang of Komsomol members, threw everything on the table - books, notebooks, pencils - and demanded that Yashka immediately tear himself away from his writings - and go to the Volga!
He was in blue overalls, his hands and face were blackened from the molding earth: Kosarev and the guys spent the entire shift storming the foundry, working on a subbotnik.
Kosarev, with a deft and strong movement, tore Ilyin and the chair off the floor and shouted:
Come on, Yashok, to the Volga!
Ilyin looked sadly at the table - the routine was broken, the papers were scattered. Kosarev stood behind him, urging him on.
Let me finish it,” Ilyin asked, pointing to the letter he had started.
Kosarev’s sly eyes, splashing with merriment, lingered on a large sheet of paper:
Who cares this long? Personal? Public?
There is one comrade in the regional committee in Ivanovo...
Severyanova? - Kosarev quickly asked. - This is my shot!
“Yes,” said Kosarev, leaned over Ilyin’s shoulder and with a pencil wrote letters on the edge of the sheet: “Ivanovo-Voznesensk. The secretary was obomol. Severyanova, the question of personal happiness is not simple!”
Having bathed until they got chills, the friendly company went to the house where the workers lived as an industrial and household commune. Kosarev was very interested in her. Here a heated discussion broke out about whether the guys were living correctly, whether their undoubted work enthusiasm was in conflict with an unsettled, abandoned life.
And what about transparent human relationships? - shouted the enthusiastic defender of the commune.
And then Kosarev seemed to be pierced - he jumped to his feet and, squeezing the thin shoulders of curly-haired Oska, in turn began to reprimand him in a whisper:
Oh, you fiery Titan! Clear transparent human relationships, eh?
And, firmly taking the boy by the hand, he quickly led him through the communal house. And all the communards rushed after them like a storm - from room to room, from floor to floor... Everywhere it was dirty, untidy, the toilets and bathrooms looked unsightly.
You guys are good. - Kosarev winked slyly. - Guys - fire! But look, look carefully at your life: God, what a mess you have created! After all, each of you is probably thinking: “Eh, let my neighbor clean up and tidy...”
To tell the truth, Sasha Kosarev liked these fiery guys from the production and consumer communes “Iskra” and “Motor”. Their fiery slogans, their readiness for assaults, for what could be called construction pathos, were striking.
But what should we do, guys, if the time of these violent assaults is becoming a thing of the past, if new times require us to solve new, qualitatively higher tasks in mastering the very equipment that we installed in the buildings of the plant? And here, guys, you won’t achieve anything by storming!
Before leaving, we held a rally for a long time on the porch of the house under the May starry sky.”
It became especially difficult at the plant just before the launch of the 5,000th one. We tried to meet the announced deadline - May twenty-seventh. The young guys did not leave their machines for forty-eight hours. An entire shift refused to leave the assembly line and worked an extra day to produce the anniversary tractor.
On the last night, the Pravda and Komsomol Central Committee teams went out to assemble engines.
And then came the solemn moment, for which so many heroic efforts had been made.
On May 27, at 23:15, tractor No. 5000, painted red, with the inscription on the radiator “Five thousandth to the Komsomol” was ready for descent. The honor of bringing it off the big assembly line was entrusted to the General Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee, Alexander Kosarev.
In the book “The Big Conveyor” by truth teller Yakov Ilyin, an eyewitness to the events, there is this episode.
“On the descent, Larichev climbed onto the tractor together with the secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee. I taught him how to drive a tractor off a conveyor belt; he knew how to steer, but the speed of the tractor was slow, and he sat tensely and sullenly on the springy seat. Thousands of eyes looked at him.
I understand, I understand,” he said to Larichev and pulled the lever towards himself.
Larichev stood behind him, correcting his movements, he already really understood what was going on, and, unexpectedly sharply pulling the lever, pulled the tractor off the conveyor.
...The tractor was already in the last nest. The Komsomol secretary stood on the side excitedly; he immediately had the look of a gambling worker, touched to the quick; girls passing by him whispered to their neighbors: “Who is the secretary, this little one?” And, looking at him, in overalls and a blue T-shirt, they said either disappointedly or approvingly: “This is ours.”
Yes, he really was “ours”... Here he stood as he is - short and dense, worried about only one thing - how to bring the tractor together without running into anyone, how to properly “turn on the speed.”
Larichev stood next to him, and this calmed him down.
Is it time? - he asked when the tractor caught up with him.
Yes,” answered Larichev, “climb.” - And he gave him his hand to make it easier to climb.
The secretary jumped up easily and sat down immediately on the seat. He grabbed the steering wheel with his right hand and placed his left hand on the head of the first gear lever.
So,” Larichev breathed into his back, “don’t be afraid, go for it.”
The secretary forcefully pulled the lever towards himself, and the tractor, having already stepped on the platform with its front wheels, shuddered and stepped off the belt.
When the secretary sat down at the helm, a rustle passed through the crowd - the Komsomol members recognized him.
Suddenly the workshop fell silent - the feeling of sudden silence, in which the crackling of the engine could clearly be heard, seemed to shackle the crowd. It became quiet, as in bad weather, before a thunderstorm, everything hid - and then a cry fell, fell like the first drop, fell, and was followed by thousands of other cries. The Komsomol secretary heard them remotely, or rather, saw them by the movements of his lips. The engine was noisy, and he put all his strength, all his muscle tension, into driving the tractor along the flooring for four or five steps and immediately stopping it. He pulled another lever and the tractor stopped. Wiping his forehead, the secretary smeared dust and sweat on it. Wiping himself with a handkerchief handed to him by someone from the crowd, he looked around and saw hundreds of heads, hundreds of eyes, joyful and excited, hundreds of smiles..."
Kosarev spoke at the solemn meeting on May 28. He set new tasks for the Komsomol members:
Today you won your first major victory. It would be a mistake to rest on this. You must, you are obliged to master the technique of work, become bearers of a planned regime, a clear organization of work...
Forward from five thousandth to fifty thousandth!
His words were met with a storm of applause.
The meeting participants’ greeting to the Komsomol Central Committee said: “Handing over the Komsomol Central Committee in the person of its General Secretary, Comrade. Kosarev’s five thousandth tractor, we ask the Central Committee, at its discretion, to award this tractor to the best Komsomol machine and tractor station.”
The idea of socialist competition among workers expanded, grew, and took on flesh in the country. The singers here were Komsomol members too.
Kosarev often went to perform in the Baumansky district. On March 4, 1930, Alexander participated in a meeting of non-party workers at the Kukhmisterov club. He spoke here about the new shock movement: “The working youth shows labor heroism, even their enemies admire them. It organizes shock brigades in mines, logging, and in tractor manufacturing. By joining the Union, you undertake the obligation to become shock workers of the Five-Year Plan and devote your strength to the benefit of the working class.”
After his speech, the conference participants collectively joined the Komsomol, declared themselves a shock brigade and appealed to all the youth of the Bauman region with an appeal to follow their example.
The entire union - one shock brigade - this is the prospect the Secretary General saw.
“Already by the time of the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks,” he wrote, “we had a wide wave of production competitions, roll calls and reviews among the proletarian Komsomol organization. This mass amateur movement... was of exceptional importance.
From here, from the ardent desire of the working youth of Moscow and Leningrad, the Urals and Ukraine to overcome the technical and economic backwardness of their factories and factories at all costs, socialist competition was born, the idea of which belonged to Lenin, and the initiative to implement it belonged to the Lenin Komsomol.”
But socialist competition will only become not an end in itself, but a means for creating the highest productivity of labor, when its participants turn into genuine revolutionaries of production. In the meantime, “the Komsomol has not yet entered into the rationalization movement at all.”
The beginning of innovation among young workers is directly related to the name of Kosarev. He stubbornly insisted on technical training for young people, on the creation of short-term courses - without knowledge, intervention in production matters is impossible. "We need fighters, not machine guns." Alexander addressed this problem more than once in his oral presentations and in numerous articles.
At the October plenum of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine in 1930, Kosarev spoke about the need to create a wide network of technical clubs and courses, establish joint work with specialists so that all types of technical studies have qualified teachers, and compile a good textbook for young drummers. It is necessary to involve Komsomol students as leaders of circles. Organizing technical training for young people is the vital work of the Komsomol committees, but they have not yet really taken up this matter. Everyone “recognizes the need to study technology, but how to get an engineer teacher, where to buy literature, where to get premises for a technical club, little work has been done on this.”
Shock training seemed to Kosarev to be too important a matter for the state to be left to chance. Therefore, the Komsomol Central Committee tried to attract all segments of the population, in particular the scientific and technical community, to participate in the new movement. At the beginning of 1930, at a joint meeting of the Central Committee and representatives of VARNITSO - the All-Union Association of Science and Technology Workers to Promote Socialist Construction - programs were drawn up for conducting technical and agricultural expeditions, for the production of scientific and technical literature, and for the organization of technical colleges. Two VARNITSO brigades, created under the Komsomol Central Committee, worked in these directions for several years.
The competition of young scientists received strong support from Kosarev. Its progress was repeatedly discussed at bureau meetings. Alexander demanded that Komsomol organizations take the lead in local consideration of scientific topics submitted by the competition participants.
When all the proposals, and there were about eight thousand of them, were collected and approved, Kosarev made sure that all the accepted topics found practical application in industry and other sectors of the national economy.
Assessing the competition of young scientists, Alexander said: “This is a tremendous success in educating the intelligentsia from among the people, dedicated to the cause of building communism.”
The more you learn about the life of Alexander Kosarev, the more you are amazed at the power of his thought and breadth of knowledge and, of course, the enormous, titanic work that this man spent in order not only to keep up with the new galaxy of boys and girls who grew up after the revolution, in new conditions, having received the opportunity to study - if only there was a desire, but to go ahead of the youth, to know more, to see further, as befits a leader, to be deeply aware of the interests of the party and the state. In 1930, at the 16th Party Congress, A. Kosarev was elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
The Komsomol epic rightfully included in the annals of the Komsomol's first five-year plans - participation in the construction of the Ural-Kuzbass. Tens of thousands of Komsomol members were sent there. Literally all Komsomol organizations sponsored the construction projects. End-to-end Komsomol control monitored everything related to the Ural-Kuzbass: from the execution of construction orders and the movement of goods at railway stations and ports to the passage of Ural-Kuzbass papers in institutions.
By agreement between the Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee V.V. Kuibyshev and A. Kosarev, the Central Headquarters of Komsomol Assistance to the Ural-Kuzbass, headed by Kuibyshev, was created. Kosarev constantly participated in his work.
In the summer of 1933, an event occurred that was of great importance for the further economic development of the country. At the enterprises of the Urals, a so-called socio-technical examination was held - a kind of competition for who knows their machine better and who works more productively. The initiative of the Urals residents received a massive continuation. 530 thousand boys and girls passed the socio-technical examination next year. This youth event resulted in a special form of socialist competition - the Stakhanov movement. The names of its glorious founders - Alexei Stakhanov and Dmitry Kontsedalov from the Tsentralnaya - Irmino mine in the Donbass, Makar Mazai - a steelworker at the Mariupol Ilyich plant, Evdokia Vinogradova - a weaver at the Vychuga factory in Ivanovo - soon became known throughout the country. The leading role in the propaganda of the Stakhanov movement was played by the Central Committee of the Komsomol.
In 1934, the XVII Congress of the CPSU(b) took place. At this congress, the General Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee spoke about the new task that time poses to the vanguard of Soviet youth.
Four and a half million Komsomol members are called upon to show examples of the communist attitude to work, socialist labor discipline, and increase its productivity. A new form of socialist competition - a socio-technical examination - will help young men and women master an exemplary culture of productive labor and become technically literate, advanced workers. All Komsomol members must receive secondary education without leaving work.
It was necessary to immediately begin implementing a huge program.
Soon after the party congress, Kosarev came to Nizhny Novgorod to the plant as part of a government commission. Her deadlines were very strict, she worked day and night. However, Kosarev managed to carefully become acquainted with Komsomol affairs. Especially with the progress of the socio-technical exam. He was interested in how many Komsomol members and young workers did not pass it, how often they break equipment. After checking the composition of the Komsomol organization, Kosarev found out that the vast majority of Komsomol members had primary education, and proposed creating evening schools for working youth at the automobile plant next year.
Schools were organized, but at first they had to huddle in unsuitable cold rooms. There weren't enough teachers. There were few pencils and notebooks. The Komsomol factory committee turned to Kosarev for help. After the energetic intervention of the Komsomol Central Committee, the situation changed radically - schools were strengthened materially and quickly gained authority and popularity among young workers.
Each year brought fundamentally new tasks, requiring the restructuring of work on a new course. We had just resolved the issues of preparing a work shift, we had just moved away from the exciting events associated with the launch of new buildings of the first five-year plan, when collective farm problems came up urgently on the agenda.
The difficult situation in the village required the constant attention of the Komsomol Central Committee. In June 1929, the VI All-Union Conference determined the tasks of the Komsomol in the struggle for collectivization of agriculture. In the same year, the May Day campaign for the harvest and collectivization took place. More than five thousand collective farms were organized on the initiative of Komsomol members.
In the fall, the Central Committee of the Komsomol began to receive signals about the weak participation of Komsomol organizations in grain procurements. Kosarev sent out an urgent telegram to Komsomol organizations with instructions on what needs to be done: to give a fighting pace to grain procurements, to attract masses of young people to this work, organizing socialist competition, to break the resistance of the kulaks, to create red carts, Komsomol members - malicious grain failures - to be immediately expelled from the union, reports on measures to strengthen grain procurements should be urgently sent to the Central Committee. Factory workers, technical school students and teachers, and factory apprentices began to help the village Komsomol members. They created teams and went to procure grain.
In the summer of 1931, Alexander visited the regions of the Voronezh region. Without warning - without calls or telegrams - he came to the next village, got acquainted with the life of the cell, with each Komsomol member. He asked how he lived, what he did, what he thought about. And the rural boys and girls, afraid to utter a word, listened to the General Secretary himself, who had come from Moscow to them in the wilderness - a seemingly ordinary guy in a young assault jacket, belted with a wide belt with a sword belt over his shoulder.
Kosarev and the regional committee secretary, moving from village to village, ate whatever God sent, that is, whatever they fed people: there were no traces of canteens in rural areas. Kosarev preferred to sleep not in huts, where flies and fleas swarmed, but in a haystack under the stars. True, spending the night in the open air was not so much a necessity as a pleasure for a city dweller.
In Philipp Nasedkin’s documentary story “Red Chernozem” there is an episode of this business trip, told from the perspective of the secretary of the district Komsomol committee:
“Members of the bureau of the district Komsomol committee, Komsomol members working in regional institutions, and members of the bureau of the Khava Komsomol cell came to meet with Kosarev.
We gathered at the district club. A long table was placed on the stage and covered with red cloth. Levka opened the meeting and gave the floor to me.
This was a report from the Komsomol district committee. Not official, like they do at plenums and conferences, but working, everyday. I spoke without theses or prepared data, I tried to talk about the most important things. It seemed that the less I stood on the podium, the longer Kosarev would stay on it. But we gathered because of him. But my efforts were in vain. They didn’t let me leave the podium for a long time. Questions flew from the audience one after another. This time there were for some reason much more of them than ever. And Kosarev himself did not want to let me go. He was interested in everything. And he often asked about things that had nothing to do with the Komsomol. Once, when Kosarev asked who works in the disabled artel as a procurer of raw materials, I could not stand it and answered:
Don't know. Yes, this is none of our business.
To this Kosarev, frowning, remarked:
No, ours. Everything is ours. We don’t have any cases that don’t concern the Komsomol...
And he immediately explained why he asked such a question. In the neighboring area where they had just visited, class aliens worked in a similar organization as procurement agents. With documents from this organization, they traveled to villages and campaigned against Soviet power.
And besides,” Kosarev said, looking into the hall, “if our activists were at this job, how many instructors would the district committee have.” With such a constantly moving asset, you can quickly help cells correct omissions and shortcomings in a timely manner...
The guys clapped their hands. And Levka loudly announced:
Comrade Kosarev has the floor!
We all applauded in unison. And Kosarev, stopping near the podium, raised his hand and said:
Comrades, what are these firecrackers for? We're not at a gala evening. Let's make less noise and work better.
I listened to him with bated breath. Komsomol secretary! Not everyone gets to see it. And we sat next to each other. And they could see small pockmarks on his simple face. And they listened to him just as they listened to each other.
And Kosarev spoke about the next tasks. He also did not have theses in his hands.
It’s still bad in the villages with collective farms. And the Komsomol has not yet manifested itself here. And the five-year plan must be fulfilled. And not only on time, but also ahead of schedule. What are you waiting for? Why don't you fight and fight? Maybe someone thinks that everything will come by itself? If there are any, then they are wrong. Nothing comes naturally. And the new is not at all friendly to gravity. It is won through labor and struggle...
When Kosarev finished his speech and sat down, there was silence in the hall. The guys continued to look at him silently. I was also silent, not knowing what to do next. Suddenly Levka clapped his hands. The guys responded with loud claps. It was a thank you for business advice. And Kosarev did not reproach us now. He just shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment, as if saying: “Well, what can you do with you!”
In those years when they fought for collective farms, Kosarev often traveled to villages, so he knew closely the life of collective farm youth. In his speeches, he always used his own observations gleaned during business trips. Rural meetings, conversations with village children in the field and on the threshing floor, overnight stays in the hayloft excited Alexander and gave him, a city dweller, a lot of impressions. He loved nature, clean air, the vast Russian expanses, the feeling of will and happiness that they give birth to. Trips to the village were always a joy for Sasha. From each he took away new acquaintances, new friendships. The village Komsomol members with whom he met later, without hesitation, came to Moscow, to the Komsomol Central Committee, some simply for advice, some for help. And it was not in vain that they made the long and tiring journey - the secretary never refused attention and support.
To strengthen collective farms, Kosarev used different ways.
At a meeting of the activists of the Leningrad organization on December 5, 1932, Kosarev, speaking about the results of the November plenum of the Komsomol Central Committee, set the main task for Komsomol members - to strengthen the economic and political position of collective farms. His report was called “Fire against the petty-bourgeois elements.”
The struggle for the peasant is not over. It is too early for the village Komsomol to rest on its laurels, even though the idea of collective farming has won. And the city proletariat should not remain aloof from this struggle.
Kosarev demanded activity and passion from Komsomol members, and criticized the leaders for arrogance and arrogance. “Be at the head of the masses, be in those areas where the greatest danger threatens, then the masses will believe you, and then the masses will follow you... But writing resolutions, convening commissions, making speeches - this will not surprise anyone. A Bolshevik is known in work, in struggle, and not in meetings or speeches.
Look at some of our active workers: make a speech - please, on any topic; creating a commission, writing a resolution is also a master, but going to a collective farm, fighting like a Bolshevik - they don’t want to do that, they don’t know how.”
The meeting was stormy. The hot, biting words of the Secretary General excited the youth; they wanted to prove that they were not afraid of difficulties, that they were not hiding in the bushes from the urgent task of the country - the fight for full-fledged collective farms.
After the meeting, the Leningrad City Committee sent two hundred of its best activists, indigenous proletarians, to work at MTS.
In February 1933, the first congress of collective farm shock workers met in Moscow. At it, Kosarev made a report “On strengthening collective farms, spring sowing and the tasks of the Komsomol.” Bolshevik adherence to principles and political acuity in posing questions - the distinctive features of Kosarev's public speeches - were manifested in the coverage of such a very important issue in those years as the transition to collective labor. In a report at the congress of shock workers, the General Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee literally lays out on the shelves the objects for the activities of the village Komsomol. First, you need to work better than everyone else and set an example for those lagging behind. Secondly, a Komsomol member is a master, not a guest, on his collective farm. A shock collective farmer, and first of all a young one, must not only work better than anyone else, but also learn how to organize the work of the collective farm as a whole. And for this you need to know your collective farm, what kind of people are on it; you need to know your collective farm the same way you once knew your personal farm.
The tasks of Komsomol members are to be vigilant sentries of the collective farm, to detect thieves of public property. The youth of collective farms must master agricultural machinery, love machines and protect them in every possible way. Komsomol organizations are obliged to establish genuine shock work on collective farms, to transfer the experience of competition from plants and factories to the socialist fields.
Kosarev’s speech played a significant role in improving the activities of the village Komsomol. It was a clear plan - just work. After the congress, collective farm shock work acquired a wide scope.
One day, the sailor commander Dushenov came to the Komsomol Central Committee. He was returning from a vacation, which he spent in his native place, in the Northern Territory. Dushenov said that there, on the Peredovik collective farm, there were not advanced Komsomol members at all. They not only work poorly, but also drink and behave hooliganly.
What if we address these Komsomol members with an open letter? - suggested Kosarev.
So in March 1934, a special letter from the Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee Kosarev to Komsomol members and the youth of the Peredovik collective farm appeared. The letter was copied and distributed to rural organizations. The text was harsh and impartial. “It turns out that you, Komsomol members and youth,” the letter said, “not only do not fight to strengthen your collective farm, but, on the contrary, undermine your common economy... Young people often go to those gatherings where hooligans operate, because you, Komsomol members , you don’t know how to organize it, because it’s fun there, but yours is boring... All your Komsomol members have low qualifications. Apparently, you decided to continue to run errands. And you have a lot of young energy, they need to be directed to useful things, then they will begin to respect you. Make sure that all the best that is on the collective farm is created by the hands of Komsomol members and youth. The best seeders are Komsomol ones. The best stables in the village are Komsomol stables. The best tractors are Komsomol ones. Drive out quitters and slobs from your midst. Make sure that the name of the Komsomol member becomes honorable and respected throughout the collective farm and in every collective farm family.”
After this letter, cultural and production work revived not only in this cell, but also in many others.
In January 1936, Kosarev spoke at a meeting in the Kremlin in front of leaders in grain yields, tractor drivers and threshing operators. He said that it was necessary to establish genuine socialist shock work on collective and state farms: “If there is no shock work, there will be no real collective farms.”
At the call of the Komsomol Central Committee, scientists and specialists came to the aid of the Komsomol members of the village. In a letter to A.V. Kosarev, academicians K.I. Skryabin, D.N. Pryanishnikov, I.V. Yakushin and others offered help to improve the cultural and technical level of village youth. “The Stakhanov movement, having turned into a nationwide movement of our country, requires an even greater connection between science and practice, because without knowledge of science it is impossible to fight for the production of 7–8 billion poods of grain and the rise of livestock farming.” Scientists proposed to start by increasing the agrotechnical knowledge of Komsomol activists, by holding special seminars and lectures.
The Central Committee of the Komsomol responded to this letter, and on August 15, classes for young collective farm chairmen and brigadiers began.
The Komsomol initiated the organization of schools and circles for the training of qualified personnel for state farms, MTS, collective farms, the initiator of the publication of textbooks for these schools, and the holding of agricultural technical examinations. At this time, fifty thousand young tractor drivers and twenty thousand combine operators-foremen were trained.
Under the leadership of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, a competition was launched between women's tractor teams, and special work was carried out with young horse breeders and grooms.
Hundreds of the best Komsomol members were sent to the village for propaganda work.
The Stakhanov movement became especially powerful both in industry and in the countryside during the preparation for the X Komsomol Congress, the central event of 1936 for young people.
Kosarev was pleased. His old idea won. The Youth Union became the country's five-million-strong shock brigade.
Questions of general culture and its influence on young people, especially rural ones, Kosarev never separated from production tasks. All this is interconnected; the general tone of youth life also affects labor success.
In 1932, Kosarev specifically studied the issue of meeting the demand of young people for cultural goods. And then he reported at the VII All-Union Conference of the Komsomol: “The Komsomol needs to come closely to the issues of expanding our cinema network, radio outlets, production of musical instruments, cameras, gramophones, records, etc. This is a very great need not only among working people, but also among peasant youth . None of the committees discussed the issue of cameras or musical instruments, and yet he lives next to working youth. Working guys scour the shops, looking for a guitar, violin, accordion - they don’t find it, and if they do find it, it’s five times more expensive than the cost price. They run for cameras, for records, but they don’t find them. Or gramophones. Have you seen the gramophones we made? They thought of making a good thing, but they made nonsense: gramophones that deteriorate from the first factory. And they still have the audacity to release them to the market. But each of you will willingly listen to the gramophone.
Or these records. I got acquainted with our record factory in Aprelevka. By the way, it is the only one in the USSR. The annual capacity of the factory is 2 million records. I'm not even talking about the high cost of records, the poor quality - you all know that. I want to talk about the themes of the records. I tried to buy records for the Far East. There is literally nothing to choose from.
Let me listen to good music, good classical music, good old songs, good songs from different nationalities! Old - I say in the sense of giving a sonorous, musical, beautiful song. This is not the case or very little. But how to harden metal, there are such plates. There is something about production and technical processes... We need to establish our strict control (but at the same time help) over this production and market.”
Thanks to the intervention of the Komsomol, a turning point was observed in the work of the music industry already in the thirty-second year. If in 1933 4 thousand pianos were produced, then by 1937 it was planned to increase their production to 60 thousand. It was planned to reconstruct the Red October factory and build six factories in Tiflis, Rostov, Moscow, Novosibirsk, the Urals and Ukraine. In 1933, they were supposed to start building a factory of bowed instruments. The plant in Aprelevka was subject to radical restructuring; its annual capacity was increased to 30 million records. The same factory was built in Ukraine. In 1933, the Gramophone Recording House opened in Moscow.
Alexander Kosarev constantly fought for loyalty to Leninist principles of leadership. He was infuriated by the indifference to the lives of ordinary working boys and girls that some leaders in the Komsomol allowed themselves. Kosarev was merciless towards them. He declared an eternal battle against bureaucracy, veneration for rank, indifference to human destinies and dishonesty in business. And from the time of the Baumansky district committee until the end of his life, he never laid down his arms for a day.
…For ten years, Alexander Kosarev headed the country’s Komsomol organization. At the XV Party Congress (1927) he was elected a member of the Central Control Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, at the XVI (1930) - a candidate member of the Central Committee, at the XVII (1934) - a member of the Central Committee, and was a member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR.
Died in 1939.
T. Merenkova. Alexander Kosarev.
In the book: “Leaders of the Komsomol.” Ed., 2nd, M., “Young Guard”, 1974.
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Biography
Alexander Kosarev was born in 1948, on April 16, in Moscow. After graduating from school, he went to work at a computer center. Then the army was called up. He served in the main intelligence unit of the USSR in Kamchatka. His time in service coincided with the outbreak of the Vietnam War, and Kosarev went into the war zone as part of a small group of Soviet soldiers.
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Creation
During his work and service, Alexander Kosarev visited many places in Russia, Turkey, China, Greece, Libya. He used the impressions and information accumulated during these travels to create action-packed adventure novels. It is noteworthy that the writer personally took part in many of the events described. The writer's favorite topic is treasures lost during the Patriotic War of 1812.
Kosarev is one of the correspondents for the magazine “Miracles and Adventures”, in which he publishes his original versions explaining mysterious cultural, natural and historical events. Now let's talk about the author's most famous works.
"Cardboard Stars"
This novel stands apart among all the writer’s works. The fact is that Alexander Kosarev took events from his adventurous life as the basis for this book. In particular, his time serving in the special forces of the GRU of the USSR, as well as the Vietnam War, in which Kosarev took part. The novel gives the reader the opportunity to see historical events through the eyes of a direct participant. Many of the published information and facts in this book are unique and cannot be found in the pages of history textbooks.
The novel was included in the “Military Adventures” series of the Veche publishing house.
"Mysteries of ancient treasures"
Alexander Kosarev appears in this book as a professional treasure hunter. It contains various stories about extreme situations in which people who made history found themselves. And only the discovery of material evidence of these incidents can refute or confirm what was considered a historical fact or a dubious legend. The book tells about such famous and mysterious Russian treasures and the secrets associated with them, such as the cross of Euphrosyne of Polotsk, “Batu’s Silver”, Kolchak’s echelons, the secrets of Lavrentiy Beria and others.
The work will appeal to lovers of not only adventure, but also history.
"Messenger of Death"
At the center of the book is a story that began in ancient times in Tibet and medieval China and unexpectedly continued during the Second World War, and reached its logical conclusion only in our days.
The main character of the novel, a Russian treasure hunter, finds ancient writings and mysterious objects of unknown origin, for which the fighters of the Nazi team from the famous Ahnenerbe, which was considered destroyed, begin to hunt. Paranormal phenomena and mysticism begin to intertwine with terrible secrets from the history of the world's largest states.
The book is amazing because it combines detective, documentary and adventure novel.
The repressive actions among the Komsomol youth remain a blank spot in the history of the Stalinist regime. In particular, in relation to the General Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee Alexander Kosarev, who would have turned 110 years old this year, but he forever remained 35 years old. It was at this age that he was shot.
Interest in his life and work arose after the 20th Congress of the CPSU and the condemnation of the cult of Stalin is not accidental, for he was one of those few, if not the only ones, who allowed themselves to act contrary to the direct instructions of the “leader and teacher.”
Alexander Vasilyevich Kosarev was born on November 14, 1903 in Moscow into a working-class family. He graduated from three classes of a parochial school. As a nine-year-old teenager, Sasha entered the working path. He worked at a galvanizing plant, where for two years he was employed in a hazardous production workshop, after which his hands remained rough for the rest of his life. And only shortly before the First World War, parents managed to get their 11-year-old son a job at a shawl and knitting factory.
Hard work and unfair wages hardened the teenager. He matured early and joined the class struggle.
After the creation of the Komsomol at the 1st All-Russian Congress of Unions of Workers' and Peasants' Youth on October 29, 1918, Kosarev joined this organization in November. In October 1919, he was admitted to the RCP (b) and, at less than sixteen years old, joined the army units defending Petrograd from Yudenich’s troops. A few months later, the Petrograd Provincial Committee sent Kosarev to the district political school for a three-month course, after which he headed the political courses at the Central Komsomol School, and already in early March 1921, a young and energetic party member was appointed instructor of the Vasileostrovsky district committee of the RKSM.
Feeling that Zinoviev’s Petrograd leadership did not like him, Kosarev returned to Moscow at the end of 1921 and worked as an organizer in the Bauman district committee of the RKSM. His activity and ability to work with people were noticed by party organs, and a month later he became the first secretary of this district committee. In the spring of 1924, A. Kosarev was elected a member of the bureau of the MK RKSM and then a delegate to the XIII Congress of the RCP (b). After the party congress, Kosarev made a meteoric rise to the post of general secretary. Stalin looked closely at the leader of the Moscow Komsomol members, who selected executive people for himself, preparing for the struggle for power with the opposition.
In June of the same year, Kosarev was sent to the Communist University, and three months later he was transferred to the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International.
But, as V. Krivoruchko, Doctor of Historical Sciences, notes, since the late 20s the Komsomol has been increasingly focused on finding a class enemy. Pursuing such a policy, the party also demanded that the Komsomol intensify this activity. The greeting of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to the Komsomol on the occasion of its 10th anniversary said:
“Learn and teach young people to expose the class enemy, to fight him tirelessly and irreconcilably” (see: “Youth, Komsomol, society of the 30s of the twentieth century: on the problem of repression among youth.” M., 2011, p. 42) .
Alexander Kosarev
Even Boris Bazhanov, Stalin’s personal secretary, noting the role of Lazar Shatskin in the creation of the All-Russian Youth Union, wrote that the newly appointed Secretary General Stalin in 1923 hastened to put the RKSM “in its place”, push it away from direct participation in political life, and for the first time called the Komsomol non-partisan an organization destined to play the role of executor of the will of the party.
In November 1924, Kosarev was sent to work as the first secretary of the Penza Provincial Committee of the RKSM. In June 1925, he was a delegate to the IV All-Union Conference of the RLKSM, and in December - a delegate to the XIV Congress of the CPSU(b).
In January 1926, as part of the brigade of the Central Committee of the RLKSM, Kosarev was sent to Leningrad to explain the decisions of the XIV Congress of the CPSU (b), taking into account the fact that the leaders of the regional and district committees of the Komsomol took the wrong positions.
At the VII Congress (March 1926), Kosarev was elected to the Komsomol Central Committee. A month later, he was transferred to work as the head of the organizational and distribution department of the Komsomol Central Committee and entered into the bureau of the secretariat of the Central Committee. On March 25, 1927, Kosarev was elected secretary of the Central Committee. And from 1927 to 1930 he was a member of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
At the request of the Moscow Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in May 1927, Kosarev was seconded to strengthen the Moscow Komsomol Committee. At the same time, he remained secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee. On March 24, 1929, at a plenum of the Central Committee, he was elected General Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee.
As A. Dobrovolsky notes, this position was very dangerous. True, he headed “only” the Komsomol. However, the country had a “communist king”, Stalin, who also held the post of Secretary General - the leader of the party. And such consonance could hardly leave the suspicious “father of nations” indifferent. And one day, seemingly jokingly, he said:
“We, Kosarev, are two leaders of this rank in this country. Admit it, you don’t want to go from “small” general secretaries to “big” ones, huh?” – Joseph Vissarionovich asked, seeming to laugh. But this joke gave off a grave chill.
Alexander Kosarev had to work in such an environment. And indeed, the Master’s patience did not last long.
On his instructions, in the early 1930s, security officers began to prepare a new large-scale case in the country - this time a “Komsomol” one. But more on this below.
Kosarev had the gift of being carried away and captivating others. Knowing this, the Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council G. Ordzhonikidze turned to the Central Committee of the Komsomol with a request for help to the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. Kosarev responded immediately.
Two brigades arrived in Stalingrad - the “Pravdists” and the Komsomol. The second included workers of the Komsomol Central Committee and Komsomolskaya Pravda. The general secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee, Alexander Kosarev, was the brigadier. At that time, already an experienced organizer and Komsomol worker, Kosarev understood that the main thing was to change the mood of people and support enthusiasts. After all, 60 percent of those working at the plant were young people.
Kosarev brought Komsomol meetings and assets directly to workshops, dormitories and even... on commuter trains. He tried to explain how important it was to stick to the schedule and not get carried away by storming.
And on May 27, 1931, obeying the hands of Kosarev, a “five-thousander” tractor rolled off the conveyor belt.
Reporting to the Bureau of the Komsomol Central Committee on the results of the work of the united Komsomol brigade, Kosarev set the task of completing technical literature for factories and attracting polyglots from KIM to help translate instructions for American equipment into Russian.
In 1933, Kosarev led the delegation of Soviet youth at the world anti-war congress in Paris, and was elected to the International Committee for the Struggle against Fascism and War.
On October 28, 1933, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR awarded A.V. Kosarev the Order of Lenin as a proven leader of the Lenin Komsomol, an outstanding organizer of the Komsomol masses in their struggle under the leadership of the party for the victory of the Five-Year Plan.
In 1934, Kosarev became a delegate to the XVII Party Congress and was elected a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and a member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
The Komsomol actively participated in socialist competition and the development of the Stakhanov movement. Kosarev supported the patronage of the Komsomol over the Air Force and other events of important socio-political significance. But his own wings were clipped.
Stalin did not miss an opportunity to strike unexpectedly and painfully. As if by chance, he turned to Kosarev with the question of what family his wife was from. Alexander said that her parents were Bolsheviks. My father led party organizations in the Caucasus and Transcaucasia. In Astrakhan and Azerbaijan he worked with Kirov. While telling the story, he noticed that the Owner probably knew Viktor Ivanovich Naneishvili.
Stalin interrupted him:
– I know Naneishvili well. This is my enemy, mind you. We argued with him about the national issue.
He glanced over Kosarev’s petrified face and, pleased with the impression he had made, abruptly changed the subject.
However, this clear warning did not stop Kosarev. He used the slightest opportunity to save his comrades, especially those whom he had known for a long time and for whom he could vouch. When he learned about the slander against them, he tried his best to avert suspicion and transferred him to work in other regions (later he would be reminded of this). Together with the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol Valentina Pikina, he went to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks A.A. Andreev to release the arrested Sergei Utkin and Zinaida Admiralskaya, leaders of the Leningrad and Ivanovo regional committees of the Komsomol. This succeeded, but only for a while.
Kosarev's character emerged in July 1937. Stalin blamed him for his reluctance to lead the work of exposing the enemies of the people in the Komsomol. After analyzing the materials of the August business trip to Kharkov, Kosarev made it clear to Stalin in a memo that he still stood his ground. It was a challenge, and Stalin remembered it.
On July 21, 1937, a conversation took place with Stalin, to which the secretaries of the Komsomol Central Committee A. Kosarev, P. Gorshenin, V. Pikina were invited. The conversation was depressing.
In Stalin’s office was the then People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, Yezhov, to whom he suggested that he acquaint the Komsomol leaders with “the kind of enemy work your Komsomol members are carrying out.” Yezhov read the “testimony” of the secretary of the Saratov regional committee of the Komsomol, Mikhail Nazarov, that he was allegedly recruited into a counter-revolutionary organization...
Pikina couldn’t stand it:
- This cannot be. I have known Misha Nazarov since childhood. We were neighbors on Vasilyevsky Island. We grew up together. A month ago I went on a business trip to Saratov. Nazarov is energetic, works normally, and raises three children.
– This is the data we have.
To which Kosarev exploded:
“We present you with facts, and you give us emotions,” Stalin objected.
Reproaches rained down: the Komsomol Central Committee does not help the internal affairs bodies to expose the enemies of the people in the Komsomol. And there are many of them not only among ordinary Komsomol members, but also in the Komsomol leadership at different levels. This hint gave me a chill. In parting, Stalin said distantly:
– I see that you do not want to lead this work.
But, instead of engaging in “cleansing of the ranks,” Kosarev went to Kharkov and Donetsk, where he took part in Komsomol meetings at which the personal affairs of those expelled were sorted out. And upon returning to Moscow, he sent a note to Stalin:
“In Kharkov alone, up to 150 applications were received about incorrect expulsion from the Komsomol and removal from work... Honest people are expelled from our ranks on the basis of simple rumors without the slightest verification.”
It was the voice of one crying in the wilderness...
Yu.B. Borin gives an example of a “gentle warning”.
At a gala reception in the Kremlin on the occasion of the return of participants from the North Pole drifting station, Stalin defiantly clinked glasses with the Komsomol Secretary General, hugged him and kissed him. There was applause. But Kosarev’s wife noticed that her husband’s face suddenly became deathly pale. Only leaving the Kremlin, he explained:
“Do you know what Stalin whispered to me after the kiss? “If you cheat, I’ll kill you!”
(See: Yu. B. Borin. “Staliniad”. M., 2010, p. 4).
A. Kosarev came to the leadership of the Komsomol at a time when the personality cult of Stalin was increasingly strengthened and promoted. Could he get off this chariot? Of course not, I couldn’t due to my position. He had to follow the official line with all the ensuing consequences. Therefore, for the sake of objectivity, we have to state that Kosarev did not always strongly condemn the indiscriminate declaration of people as enemies of the people. The situation in those years was far from simple, especially for the leadership in various areas of the country's life. But the epiphany did not happen immediately. For too long, Kosarev and his comrades unconditionally believed Stalin, and, therefore, his formula for exacerbating the class struggle under socialism. Under Stalin, younger contemporaries were promoted to leading Komsomol work and received parting words from him. Unnoticed by the uninitiated, a purposeful canonization of Stalin's theories, concepts and slogans took place. The everyday inculcation into people’s consciousness: “Stalin is Lenin today” has not yet been forgotten.
Therefore, one can understand how difficult it was for Alexander Kosarev, who was considered Stalin’s favorite, to still dare not just object, but also resist him. This was his lot. Kosarev is a complex, ambiguous and tragic figure.
I had a chance to read an article published in August 1987, which noted that Kosarev, due to undeserved accusations in the last two years of his life, began a process of personal attenuation. Discord with yourself. His appearances in print were not what they used to be. There was neither the former enthusiasm nor the bold formulation of problems in them.
True, bold thoughts and an innovative style remained in Komsomol work, but a premonition of trouble hung invisibly over him, and he could not help but understand it. Kosarev resisted the degeneration of the Komsomol, attempts to transform it from an educational organization into a punitive organization.
He had a lot to go through. Arrests and deaths of friends, painful questions to oneself, constant dialogues with Stalin.
N. Trushchenko’s book “Kosarev” from the series “Life of Remarkable People” provides detailed content of the extraordinary plenum of the Komsomol Central Committee (from November 19 to 22, 1938) - the last in the life of A. Kosarev.
It was attended by six secretaries of the party's Central Committee (I. Stalin, L. Kaganovich, A. Andreev, A. Zhdanov, G. Malenkov, V. Molotov). Opening the plenum, Zhdanov stated that the motive for convening was the ugly attitude shown by the leadership of the Komsomol Central Committee towards Comrade Mishakova.
For four days, six secretaries of the party's Central Committee escalated the situation and spoke out against Kosarev and those who remained loyal to him.
Briefly the story is this. At the end of September 1937, the Komsomol Central Committee instructor Olga Mishakova was sent as a representative of the Central Committee to the reporting and election conference in the Chuvash regional organization. Having exceeded her authority, she began to actively expose “enemies of the people.”
Compromising materials were fabricated not only on the first and second secretaries of the regional committee of the Komsomol, whom she accused of domestic corruption, connections with bourgeois nationalists, spies, as well as in planting enemy elements in the Komsomol committees, but also on the first secretary of the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) S. Petrov , People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Chuvashia Rozanov.
Mishakova called Moscow many times. But she did not obtain support for her actions from Kosarev. But she received the go-ahead from Malenkov. As a result, through provocations, blackmail and intimidation, she achieved the exclusion of the secretaries of the Chuvash regional committee of the Komsomol from the ranks of this organization.
When she returned to Moscow, her pogrom efforts were not approved. Kosarev did not allow her reports, in which she slandered dozens of communists and Komsomol members, to proceed. Mishakova herself was denied political trust, and the Bureau of the Komsomol Central Committee relieved her of her position.
At the bureau, Kosarev was brief and announced the decision, in which he indicated that Comrade Mishakova had made grave mistakes, due to which people who were pure before the party were included in the category of accomplices of enemies of the people. The decision accusing Comrade was overturned. Simokin and Terentyeva in aiding the enemies of the people. Mishakova was transferred from the position of instructor of the Komsomol Central Committee to another job.
But some “mysterious force” favored her. And in August 1938, the secretariat of the Komsomol Central Committee had to return to considering her application for release from work in the Central Committee apparatus, now at a personal request and even... with the provision of leave.
Now you can find out that Mishakova was an informant for Lavrentiy Beria (see in detail N. Trushchenko. “Kosarev”. M., 1988, p. 386).
Mishakova continued her dirty work. On October 7, she wrote a statement to Stalin, in which she again slandered many party and Komsomol workers, calling them enemies of the people.
“Why was my memorandum written in the name of Comrade Kosarev for Comrade Yezhov not handed over?”
This letter served as the pretext for holding the above-mentioned plenum of the Komsomol Central Committee on November 19-22, 1938. At this plenum, Stalin took Mishakova under his protection, and regarded the just actions of the bureau of the Komsomol Central Committee as aiding the enemies of the people. It became clear that this was the end of Kosarev and other Komsomol leaders.
A. Kosarev, V. Pikina, S. Bogachev and others were removed from work and expelled from the Komsomol Central Committee.
Here it is worth mentioning the facts cited by M. Dobrovolsky in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” (February 23, 2009).
As if tempting fate, the youth secretary general was a great enemy of Lubyanka.
Relations with Yezhov, who replaced Yagoda, did not work out after working together on the commission to investigate the murder of Kirov. Kosarev, who knew the murdered man well, allowed himself to doubt the accuracy of the conclusions drawn.
Beria remained. With him, too, Kosarev at one time made an unforgivable mistake. Beria was then secretary of the Transcaucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and constantly abused power, oppressed the old Georgian Bolsheviks, and persecuted people he disliked. During one of the festive feasts, Kosarev raised his glass:
– I drink to the Bolshevik leadership of Transcaucasia... which we do not have!
Those present looked at each other: after all, the Transcaucasian Regional Committee was headed not by anyone, but by Beria himself. Bagirov, who was present, put his glass on the table and left the hall. He reported what had happened to Lavrenty Pavlovich. Kosarev did not know that Beria had been transferred to the NKVD. Having headed the NKVD, Beria took the first opportunity to arrest Kosarev and his wife.
So he made another irreconcilable enemy. Beria did not keep himself waiting. Incriminating evidence was immediately presented: Kosarev is a foreign spy. It was even “established” that he was recruited in Poland, during a visit to the Zoological Garden.
After the last plenum (November 19-22) until November 28, Kosarev and his closest assistants waited for a further decision on their fate. He repeatedly called Stalin. He, of course, didn’t pick up the phone. But the receptionist answered:
“Don’t worry, Kosarev, there will be work.”
On the night of November 29, according to V. Pikina, Beria himself came for the enemy of the people A. Kosarev. This was the first time that Beria was present at the arrest. He hated Kosarev fiercely.
During the investigation, the leaders of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, led by Kosarev, remained steadfast, despite the most cruel torture. It was the resilience of Kosarev and his associates that prevented the NKVD from organizing an open, large-scale Komsomol trial. (see: R. Medvedev. “On Stalin and Stalinism.” M., 1990, p. 439).
While imprisoned, Kosarev wrote to Stalin:
“The Komsomol workers arrested in my “case” are not guilty of anything...
The destruction of personnel trained by Soviet power is madness...
At the last interrogation, Kosarev, bloodied and beaten, said with contempt to the executioners:
“You bastards, criminals, you are destroying Soviet power. You’ll have to answer for everything anyway, you bastards!”
On February 23, 1939, Kosarev was shot in Lefortovo prison by verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, which sat for only 15 minutes.
Members of his family were subjected to repression.
Alexander Kosarev may have made many mistakes, but he showed exceptional courage in the fight for his ideals. But alas... As time has shown, these ideals turned out to be false.
In 1954, Kosarev was posthumously rehabilitated and reinstated in the party.
In memory of him in 1973, a memorial plaque was installed on the famous House on the Embankment in Moscow.
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UDC 94
annotation: The article offers a detailed biography statesman of the USSR of the 1920-1930s A.V. Kosarev. Much of the data is taken from unique archival sources.
Keywords: A.V. Kosarev, repressed party leaders, history of the Komsomol, history of the Communist Party, history of the USSR.
Alexander Vasilyevich Kosarev, party and statesman of the USSR in the 1920-1930s.
Born on November 14, 1903 in an old house on Bolshaya Semenovskaya, on Balagush, the northeastern outskirts of pre-revolutionary Moscow. The area was proletarian - paper weaving, cloth, silk, dyeing factories. Mother Alexandra Alexandrovna sent her son to the Anisimov zinc plant at the age of 9, increasing his age by a year. In 1914, he moved to the Richard-Simon and Co. knitting and scarf factory and began working on knitting machines in the resheel workshop. This was the time on the eve of the First World War, a workers' upsurge, he immediately became a participant in workers' strikes, and learned about proletarian solidarity. From his first independent labor steps, he understood that it was necessary to demand from the owners improved working conditions, shorter working hours, and higher wages.
The beginning of participation in the movement of proletarian youth dates back to the period of the February Revolution. Autumn 1917 After
VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) joined the Bolshevik-supported Union of Working Youth " III International" From that time until the end of his life, he honed his political talent as a leader of youth. A year later, at the request of the Blagushe-Lefortovo district committee of the RKSM, he was transferred from the factory to work in the Komsomol, by which time he had five years of work experience.Immediately after the creation at the All-Russian Congress of Unions of Workers' and Peasants' Youth in November 1918 in
became a member of the RKSM. In October In 1919, during party week in Moscow, he joined the ranks of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - he was 16 years old.At the end of October 1919, Peter secretly went to defend a fence from Yudenich’s gangs in the combined detachment, which was listed as partisan, and its fighters were partisans and was in reserve. Kosarev indicated in his biographical information that he did not participate in the battles, but was wounded.
He was educated in three classes at a parish school. In the spring of 1920, the Petrograd Provincial Komsomol Committee sent him to study at a three-month regional political school, after which he was appointed head of political courses at the Central Komsomol School (Petrograd).
March 4, 1921 started working as an instructor for the Vasileostrovsky district committee of the Komsomol of Petrograd.
In December 1921 he returned to Moscow, it was the height of the NEP. He was sent to work as an organizer in one of the subdistricts of the Bauman district committee of the RKSM. On January 15, 1922, the Moscow Committee of the RKSM sent him to work as the first secretary of the Baumansky district committee of the Komsomol of Moscow, and in December he was appointed deputy head of the organizational department of the MK RKSM. On September 30, 1922, he was elected a member of the Baumansky district committee of the RCP (b) of Moscow. In May 1923, again first secretary of the Baumansky district Komsomol committee. On April 30, 1924, he was elected a member of the bureau of the Komsomol MK.
Was elected as a delegate to the XIII Party Congress (1924, May 23-31), participated in the work of the highest body of the RCP (b).
Taking into account Kosarev’s wishes, the Baumansky district committee of the RCP (b) on July 1, 1924 makes the decision: “To ask the Moscow Committee to send Comrade Kosarev to the Communist University as a completely seasoned comrade who has proven this in long practical party work. The district committee of the party believes that Comrade Kosarev needs to expand his theoretical knowledge for further work.” Colleagues in work and study noted the breadth of views, interests and knowledge of Kosarev.
September 2, 1924 b. By decision of the Central Committee of the RLKSM, he was transferred to work in the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International (KIM). However, on November 15, by decision of the Komsomol Central Committee, in agreement with the Central Committee of the RCP (b), he was sent to work as the first secretary of the Penza Provincial Committee of the Komsomol. This showed recognition of his organizational and political qualities, confidence that he would straighten out the situation in the provincial organization, and already in December he was to lead the X provincial conference of the RLKSM. And at the provincial party conference he was elected delegate X IV party congress with an advisory vote. In June 1925 he was a delegate IV All-Union Conference of the RLKSM, in December - delegate XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), at which he participated in the preparation of the resolution “On the work of the Komsomol”.
In January 1926 sent as part of the brigade of the Central Committee of the RLKSM to Leningrad to explain to the Komsomol members decisions XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, taking into account the fact that the leaders of the regional and district committees of the Komsomol took the wrong positions. He was included in the North-Western Bureau of the Central Committee of the RLKSM. Supporting Kosarev, the conference of the former opposition Moscow-Narva district committee of the RLKSM elected him, the first secretary of the Penza provincial committee, as the first secretary of its district committee of the Komsomol. During the Leningrad period of his biography, Kosarev’s formation took place under the influence of S. M. Kirov. On VII Congress of the RLKSM (1926, March 11-22) Kosarev spoke on behalf of the Leningrad organization and was elected to the Komsomol Central Committee. However, on April 23, he was transferred to work as the head of the organizational and distribution department (zavorg) of the Komsomol Central Committee and entered into the bureau and secretariat of the Komsomol Central Committee. On March 25, 1927, he was elected secretary of the Central Committee. He was elected as a delegate V All-Union Conference of the Komsomol ( 1927, March 24-30). This again demonstrated his high trust in the party and his appreciation of what he had done in the Komsomol.
It was this assessment of the qualities of an organizer that led him to a new position. At the request of the Moscow Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and with the full consent of the Central Committee of the Komsomol in May 1927, it was sent to strengthen Moscow Komsomol Committee, while remaining at the same time secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee.
He was a delegate to the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which elected him a member of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. (1927, December 2-19), delegate VIII Congress of the Komsomol (1928, May 5-16) and elected secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee.
March 24, 1929 Kosarev At the plenum of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, he is elected general secretary.
There is a mention in the literature that Stalin did not take action in connection with Kosarev’s marriage to M. Naneishvili, the daughter of an old Bolshevik, one of the founders of the Bolshevik underground in Transcaucasia, whom he considered a personal enemy, in order to keep him in line.
In 1929 he was a delegate of the V All-Union Congress of Soviets, where he was elected a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee; delegate VI All-Union Conference of the Komsomol; delegate XVI conference of the CPSU(b). In July 1930 there was a elegate XVI Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). In 1931, delegate to the IX Congress of the Komsomol; delegate to the VI All-Union Congress of Soviets and elected a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee. In 1932, delegate to the XVII Conference of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks; delegate VIII All-Union Conference of the Komsomol.
In July 1929 Participates in the work of the international anti-imperialist youth congress in Frankfurt am Main. In 1933, he headed the delegation of Soviet youth at the world anti-war congress in Paris, and was elected to the International Committee for the Struggle against Fascism and War.
Kosarev was involved in all areas of work with youth, introducing a lot of new and initiative into it. One of them is the development of industrial training institutions and the training of qualified personnel for them. On November 28, 1929, in agreement with Kosarev, an order was signed by the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR on the additional enrollment of 57 thousand teenagers in FZU schools to train specialists in mass professions. With the direct participation of Kosarev, the patronage of the Komsomol over the development of new regions of the country and the construction of industrial giants is unfolding; on the initiative of the Komsomol, the movement of shock brigades takes on an all-Union scale, socialist competition, and the “light cavalry” movement has acquired a mass character. At the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, Kosarev brought out the 5,000th tractor. He advocated studying Lenin from the originals, and not from quotation books, and for studying history - “to know the past in order to appreciate the present more.” He addressed the Komsomol’s social order to writers to create works about a young hero - proletarian literature should create a collective type of heroes of socialist construction and class struggle who would control the minds of millions from whom they could take an example. At Kosarev’s call, the Komsomol took patronage of the USSR Air Force. October 28, 1933 The Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee awarded A.V. Kosarev the Order of Lenin as “a proven leader of the Leninist Komsomol, an outstanding organizer of the Komsomol masses in their struggle under the leadership of the party for the victory of the Five-Year Plan.”
In 1934, delegate XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, elected member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks; in 1935 delegate VII Congress of Soviets of the USSR, elected member of the USSR Central Executive Committee. In 1936, Delegate X Congress of the Komsomol, elected General Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee.
In 1935 participates in the last meeting of the International Youth Conference for Peace, Freedom and Progress in Paris; at an extended meeting of the International Bureau for the preparation of the international youth rally in Paris, he heads the Komsomol delegation to VI Congress of KIM. In 1936, he participated in a meeting of the International World Youth Association for Peace, Freedom and Progress in Paris; at the World Youth Congress in Geneva, gives a report on the communist point of view on the problems of the world.
In 1937 and elected deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the first convocation. In 1938, he was elected at the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR as a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR; elected deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of the first convocation.
Kosarev met with Stalin quite often, which was completely natural. And Stalin showed respect for the Komsomol Secretary General. Noteworthy are Stalin's comments on the structure of the apparatus of the Komsomol Central Committee and Komsomol committees, which had a positive impact on determining the educational nature of the organization. Moreover, Stalin himself made amendments to the relevant document.
Kosarev often spoke to young people and on the pages of the Komsomol press; they listened to him with unflagging attention. Numerous transcripts of his speeches have been preserved. At the Tenth Congress of the Komsomol, Kosarev was called the leader of the youth, and this was true. He was a natural speaker and knew how to ignite the masses. He taught (really taught) Komsomol leaders to work in the midst of the masses, and not in the quiet of offices.
It is quite natural that the affairs and actions of the leader of a powerful youth organization were dependent on the general political situation, on the activities of the ruling party and the state. The party, and Stalin personally, constantly emphasized the need to strengthen vigilance and combat pests, saboteurs, spies, terrorists, and enemies of the people. Stalin's call to intensify the fight against the enemies of the people, his conclusion about the growing resistance of the remnants of the defeated exploiting classes were used to justify gross violations of the law and unjustified repressions. The Komsomol cadres were given the task of looking for enemies of the people in their midst. Already from the end of the 20s. All kinds of purges of the Komsomol ranks were actively carried out, and in 1937-1938. accusations of Komsomol cadres of hostile activities were allowed. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and Stalin personally escalated this situation, blaming the Central Committee of the Komsomol and Kosarev personally for insufficient work to expose the enemies of the people in the Komsomol. On August 29, 1939, in the editorial of Komsomolskaya Pravda, with the knowledge of the Party Central Committee, it was said: “Leading Komsomol workers and, above all, Comrade. Kosarev showed a direct underestimation of the penetration of enemies into the Komsomol. There were harmful sentiments among the activists that there were no enemies in the Komsomol, and there was a lack of political focus.” Numerous recordings of Kosarev’s speeches accusing Komsomol workers, documents sent to the NKVD, etc. have been preserved. How should we react to this? Of course, Kosarev, due to party discipline, was obliged to search for imaginary enemies, but one cannot fail to take into account that he often did this in an extremely rude and insulting manner; on his conscience there are many who died during these years. And, despite this, he was accused of insufficient activity in searching for enemies, was removed from work and was shot on February 23, 1939. Members of A.V. Kosarev’s family were also injured. His wife Maria Viktorovna Naneishvili and daughter Elena Aleksandrovna were subjected to repression. There is also a lot of evidence that Kosarev defended Komsomol members from slander.
A. Kosarev came to the leadership of the Komsomol at a time when the personality cult of Stalin was becoming more and more powerful and was being promoted. Could he get off this chariot? Of course not, I couldn’t due to my position. A. Kosarev cannot be separated from the post he held, from the official post of the head of the organization, which was the closest assistant to the party, part of the political system of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He always had to be an official with all the ensuing consequences. He had to, he had to stimulate the flourishing of the Stalinist cult. This was his lot. Kosarev is a complex, ambiguous, tragic figure.
Having started his career as a working boy, he devoted his whole life to organizing and educating young people. He began his labor and political career under V.I. Lenin, sought to translate his thoughts into practical deeds, an appeal to Leninism was constantly heard in his reports and speeches, but he spent the bulk of his activities under I.V. Stalin, under his direct leadership and control. He was a typical Komsomol leader for his time, a representative of the administrative-bureaucratic system, a fighter for the bright ideals of humanity, an active builder of socialism, infinitely devoted to the cause of the Communist Party, defended its ideals in internal party and Komsomol discussions, and fought opponents of the construction of socialism. He was a participant in all significant events in public life. He rallied talented Komsomol leaders - V. Chemodanov, D. Lukyanov, S. Andreev, T. Vasilyeva, P. Gorshenin and many others. He was characterized by truthfulness and honesty, he was a person devoid of the spirit of acquisitiveness, filled with concern for people, a sense of kindness to them, everyone who met him saw him first and foremost as a comrade. Nothing human was alien to him; in everything he was a man, not devoid of purely human manifestations and even weaknesses. Young people knew and loved him; institutes, border posts, and shipping companies bore Kosarev’s name.
Krivoruchenko Vladimir Konstantinovich - Deputy Head of the Department of Postgraduate and Doctoral Studies of Moscow State University, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Academy of Humanities
Born November 1 (14), 1903 on the northeastern outskirts of Moscow. He graduated from the 3rd grade of a parochial school. He began his career at the age of 9 at the Anisimov zinc plant. From 1914 he worked on knitting machines at the Richard-Simon and Co. factory. Together with the workers, he advocated for improved conditions and increased wages, participated in workers’ strikes, and “showed proletarian solidarity.” In the fall of 1917, he joined the Bolshevik-supported Union of Working Youth “III International.” From that time on, his whole life was connected with the youth movement. Immediately after the creation of the Komsomol in November 1918, he joined its ranks and, at the request of the Lefortovo district committee of the RKSM, went to work for the Komsomol. In October 1919 he joined the ranks of the RCP(b).
In the spring of 1920, in the direction of the Petrograd Provincial Committee of the RKSM, he studied at a three-month regional political school. He worked as the head of political courses at the Central Komsomol School in Petrograd. On March 4, 1921, he was approved as an instructor of the Vasileostrovsky district committee of the RKSM. At the end of 1921 he returned to Moscow and worked as an organizer in the Bauman district committee of the RKSM. E.A. Kosareva recalled: “When I returned to Moscow to work at the Baumansky district Komsomol committee, I surprised my mother by refusing to eat or spend the night at home. From St. Petersburg he brought the habit of living in a commune, where he and the Komso had in common a meager ration, books, and a single pair of “output” uniforms. He said to his mother: “You need to understand.” We are moving towards communism." On January 15, 1922, the Moscow Committee of the RKSM transferred him to work as the first secretary of the Baumansky district committee, and from December - deputy head of the organizational department of the MK RKSM. Since May 1923 - first secretary of the Baumansky RK RKSM. On April 30, 1924, he was elected a member of the bureau of the MK RKSM, on September 30, 1922 - a member of the Baumansky RKP (b), a delegate to the XIII Congress of the RCP (b) (May 23-31, 1924).
In July 1924 he was sent to study at the Communist University. On September 2, 1924, he was transferred to the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International. On November 15, the Central Committee of the RKSM sent him to work as the first secretary of the Penza Provincial Committee of the RKSM. In June 1925 he was a delegate to the IV All-Union Conference of the RLKSM, in December - a delegate to the XIV Congress of the CPSU(b).
In January 1926, as part of the brigade of the Central Committee of the RLKSM, he was sent to Leningrad to explain the decisions of the XIV Congress of the CPSU (b), taking into account the fact that the leaders of the regional committee and district committees of the Komsomol “took the wrong positions.” He was included in the North-Western Bureau of the Central Committee of the RLKSM. The conference of the former opposition Moscow-Narva district committee of the Komsomol elected him, the first secretary of the Penza provincial committee of the RLKSM, as the first secretary of its district committee. At the VII Congress (March 11-22, 1926) he was elected to the Komsomol Central Committee. On April 23, 1926, he was transferred to work as the head of the organizational and distribution department of the Komsomol Central Committee and entered into the bureau and secretariat of the Central Committee. On March 25, 1927, he was elected Secretary of the Central Committee. He was a delegate to the V All-Union Conference of the Komsomol (March 24-30, 1927). Member of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1927-1930.
At the request of the Moscow Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in May 1927, he was sent to strengthen the Moscow Komsomol Committee, while simultaneously remaining secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee. Delegate to the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (December 2-19, 1927), elected member of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Delegate to the VIII Komsomol Congress (May 5-16, 1928), elected Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee. On March 24, 1929, the plenum of the Central Committee elected him First Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee.
In 1929, he was a delegate to the V All-Union Congress of Soviets and was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR; delegate of the VI All-Union Conference of the Komsomol and the XVI Conference of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In July 1930, at the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee. In 1931, he was a delegate to the IX Congress of the Komsomol, re-elected first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee; VI All-Union Congress of Soviets, was elected a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee. In 1932 - delegate to the XVII Conference of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the VIII All-Union Conference of the Komsomol.
In July 1929, he participated in the international anti-imperialist youth congress in Frankfurt am Main. In 1933, he led the delegation of Soviet youth at the world anti-war congress in Paris and was elected to the International Committee for the Struggle against Fascism and War.
On October 28, 1933, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR awarded A.V. Kosarev with the Order of Lenin as “the experienced leader of the Lenin Komsomol, an outstanding organizer of the Komsomol masses in their struggle under the leadership of the party for the victory of the Five-Year Plan.”
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In 1934, he was a delegate to the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and was elected a member of the Central Committee, a member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1935 - delegate to the VII Congress of Soviets of the USSR, elected member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. In 1936 - delegate to the X Congress of the Komsomol, re-elected first secretary of the Central Committee. Participated in the investigation into the circumstances of the murder of Sergei Kirov.
In 1935, in Paris, he participated in the International Youth Conference for Peace, Freedom and Progress and in an expanded meeting of the International Bureau for the preparation of an international youth rally; headed the Komsomol delegation at the VI Congress of the KIM.
In 1936, he participated in the work of the International World Youth Association for Peace, Freedom and Progress in Paris; at the World Youth Congress in Geneva.
Member of the USSR Supreme Council of the 1st convocation (since 1937). He is credited with the slogan “Work productively, relax culturally!”
In August 1937, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks noted in a special resolution that Tsekamol, and first of all Comrade. Kosarev, “... showed intolerant political carelessness and overlooked the special methods of subversive work of the enemies of the people.”
At the VII Plenum of the Komsomol Central Committee (November 19-22, 1938), Kosarev was removed from the post of First Secretary on false charges. At the plenum, he stated: “I do not consider myself an enemy and will not consider myself... No one can prove that I am an enemy of the people... Personally, I feel absolutely calm, because my conscience is clear. I have never betrayed either the party or the Soviet people and will not.”
Arrested on November 28, L.P. Beria personally took part in the arrest. While in prison, he wrote to Stalin: “The Komsomol workers arrested in my “case” are not guilty of anything... The destruction of personnel trained by the Soviet government is madness... I demand that an honest, authoritative commission be created that will check all materials without bias and make objective conclusions". The statement of M.V. Naneishvili-Kosareva to Malenkov dated December 17, 1953 indicates a possible reason for Beria’s personal interest in Kosarev’s arrest. On February 23, 1939, he was shot by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court in Lefortovo prison. The body was cremated in the Donskoy Monastery. In 1954 he was posthumously rehabilitated and reinstated in the party.
Members of his family were subjected to repression:
wife Maria Viktorovna Naneishvili (daughter of the famous Bolshevik V.I. Naneishvili, sentenced to 10 years in labor camp as ChSIR).
Daughter Elena Aleksandrovna Kosareva was arrested in 1947 and sent into exile in Norilsk.
