Syedyshev Oleg
Syedyshev Oleg

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Humorous Essays Based on students' memories

"All have died
except for those who are alive, and those whom we remember"Confucius

Essay 46. Young Communist League (Komsomol)

"I will not part with the Komsomol and will stay young forever..." - this line from a song is for sure not about me. I tell you honestly, I do not remember, how it happened that I did not become a Komsomol member when at high school. As then it was a mandatory requirement for everybody. Though, that was the way it happened. When I arrived to the institute to submit my papers, I honestly draw a dash in the column "Komsomol Membership". A girl who was accepting my documents told me that I would 100% have a problem with entering the institute. She advised me to join the Komsomol urgently.

Oleg Syedyshev

Oleg Syedyshev

I decided not to put the matter into the back burner and on the way home from Kirovskiy district visited the Regional Committee (RC) of Young Communist League of Rudnichniy district, which was located next to a Miners' Entertainment Center. It was easy to find the RC. I entered the building, and found out that it was empty, all rooms were locked. I checked all of them one after the other on the first floor, then went up to the second floor, and there was a janitor washing the floor there. She told me: "Everybody is on vacation, my dear." I froze in shock. When I was coming there I thought that that would be a simple formality to join Komsomol, but the complications arose. The janitor turned to be a tenderhearted woman, she noticed that my face changed and I was standing still, she said: "Well, my dear, is it urgent? It seems that "the third" is in his office now, maybe he will help you with your need." And she pointed where the office was. I even did not thank her, went directly, practically ran to "the third". It was later, when I learned that the third secretary was in charge of ideological activity in the district, and it was the second one, who was responsible for enrollment. When I entered the office followed by a receptionist, I became dumb-founded, as the office was of a size just a bit smaller than an assembly hall at the institute. Somewhere very far away there was sitting a frail man. There are young guys, there are mature, and there are ones of indeterminate age. So, "the third" was exactly one of those. He listened to me first, and then said that he was very sorry, but everybody was on vacation, and he could not do anything to help me. Though I barely made a move to get up and leave, he exclaimed: "Oh, I know how to help you." There was democracy among the Komsomol members even then, so "the third" asked me to call him by his first name and addressed me in a similar way. So, he told me that he would dictate to me the application, and I would write it word for word, and he would try to enroll me to Komsomol quickly. And he added that the RC's meeting would be the next day, and he would put a question of my enrollment in the agenda. And right in my presence he wrote: "#3 Enrollment of O.P.Syedyshev in Komsomol." in the agenda which was in front of him. Then he started dictating, and I was writing like a dictation: "... and when there was a Komsomol enrollment campaign at our school nobody explained anything to me. And I did not understand the reason why it was necessary to become a Komsomol member. Though I was constantly concerned about the question, so I had an appointment with a Rudnichniy Young Communist League RC secretary comrade such and such (well, I do not remember his name and last name), and only after having a conversation with him, I became aware about what Young...".

The comrade asked me to repeat the text of the application the next day at the meeting. Why not? I promised. The meeting was scheduled for 11a.m. the next day. I arrived at 10 a.m. and was hanging about in the RC's hall and in the street and at the entrance. Boredom, hesitation and anger at myself, there were the feelings that were tearing me apart then. Approximately five or ten minutes before the meeting two young women walked into the building and a "Volga" car arrived with one passenger inside. "This is from the very Regional Committee" - the yesterday's janitor informed me. I had said "thank you" to her, and she felt sympathetic to me. "These are our instructors", - she told me about the two women". The RC's meeting was on the first floor in a room as big as the office of "the third", and there was a "Conference Hall" doorplate on the door. As I remembered my question was number three, so I was ready for long waiting, and the janitor told me, that their meetings were long and added a cool thing: "They have nothing else to do".

Though it happened the other way; in about ten minutes after the meeting had started one of the young women called me: "Are you Syedyshev? Let's go. "There was a long black table in the room; the four having a meeting were sitting at one of its ends, and I was standing at the opposite one, at about ten meters away from them. The woman who had brought me inside, read my application, and the one who had come by car asked me a question: "Is it true that nobody explained anything to you?" I replied "Yes, nobody did." - "Well, you have problems there, we will deal with them in September, put it in the agenda" - he addressed "the third". -"Shall we vote? Unanimously!". Then to me: "Congratulations!"; and "the third" added that I waited for him in the hall. In about ten minutes more "the third" went out of the room, and we headed to his office on the second floor. There he took from his desk a signed and stamped red Komsomol membership card.

He told me that I did a good job and delicately showed me out of the RC to the very entrance.
An idea that they were going to have some merrymaking flashed across my mind, but I had not time to reflect on that, I was in a hurry to the selection commission at Kirovskiy district. Later I learned that they had a new "the second" at Rudnichniy Young Communist League RC.
The girl, who had warned me and sent to solve the problem a day before, was very surprised to see the Komsomol membership card in my hand and with the very same date on a stamp of issue!!!
That time I filled in all columns in the form and submitted the documents. And nobody noticed that I had one and the same date of filling the form in and of joining Komsomol. And do you know why? Simply because nobody cared.
Perhaps the story will not be complete, if I do not say a couple of words about how I discontinued my membership in Komsomol. That was quite simple. After I arrived to a village of Chashi of Kargopolskiy province of Kurgansk region, I was given a huge merchant's mention to stay in,


which had a great stove. So I threw my Komsomol membership card in the very stove, but did not make sure that it burned completely. And a horrible according to those days thing happened. I had to stay longer at a hospital because of a surgery, and asked a medical assistant from an ambulance to burn the stove to make it warm when I got home. So that scum, Volodya Ostanin was the name of the stinker, saw an almost burned Komsomol membership card in the stove, there was just a corner of it, no last name, nothing; and he went to Komsomol regional committee of Kargopol and gave his finding there.

He did not say a word to me. I learned who had done what when in the RC. To cut it short, I managed to get out of a scrape, but the problem could be huge. And how I extricated myself from the situation is "an absolutely different story" - as a well-known actor Kanevskiy says.

august, 21 2011

© Copyright: Oleg Syedyshev, 2012
Publishing licence #21204250912

Translated by Viktoria Potykinato content ↑


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