A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term communist party was popularized by the title of The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As a vanguard party, the communist party guides the political education and development of the working class (proletariat). As a ruling party, the communist party exercises power through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Vladimir Lenin developed the idea of the communist party as the revolutionary vanguard, when the socialist movement in Imperial Russia was divided into ideologically opposed factions, the Bolshevik faction and the Menshevik faction. To be politically effective, Lenin proposed a small vanguard party managed with democratic centralism which allowed centralized command of a disciplined cadre of professional revolutionaries. Once a policy was agreed upon, realizing political goals required every Bolshevik's total commitment to the agreed-upon policy.
A pioneer movement is an organization for children operated by a communist party. Typically children enter into the organization in elementary school and continue until adolescence. The adolescents then typically join the Young Communist League. Prior to the 1990s there was a wide cooperation between pioneer and similar movements of about 30 countries, coordinated by the international organization, International Committee of Children's and Adolescents' Movements, founded in 1958, with headquarters in Budapest, Hungary.
The Communist Party of Finland was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944.
The Young Communist League USA (YCLUSA) is a communist youth organization in the United States. The stated aim of the League is the development of its members into Communists, through studying Marxism–Leninism and through active participation in the struggles of the American working class. The YCL recognizes the Communist Party USA as the party for socialism in the United States and operates as the Party's youth wing. Although the name of the group changed a number of times during its existence, its origins trace back to 1920, shortly after the establishment of the first communist parties in the United States.
Youth organizations have always played an important role in political regimes.
The Labour Youth Union of Albania was the youth organization of the Party of Labour of Albania. Founded on November 23, 1941 as the Communist Youth it was officially described as the "greatest revolutionary force of inexhaustible strength" and a "strong fighting reserve of the party" it was a key organization for political socialization in socialist Albania. It was affiliated with the Democratic Front.
The Young Communist League of Norway was until April 2006 the youth league of Norges Kommunistiske Parti (NKP). The NKP declared on 1 April 2006 that the NKU was no longer its youth organization, and that all youths interested in joining the movement should contact the party directly. The NKU still persisted as an organization, however, and held a congress in the middle of May 2006, where it declared its wish to cooperate with the NKP, but also to continue on its own if necessary. At the same time the NKP organized a conference of their own, where they established a new youth organization for the party, with the same name and logo as the original NKU. This has led to a conflict over the rights to the name, logo, history, international contacts and property of the NKU, which lasted until July 2008. The conflict ended in court, where both the NKU and NKP were found responsible for the problems that had arisen. However, it was decided that the NKU still had the right to their name and logo. Therefore, the NKP's re-established version of the Youth League, which had taken up several new members since 2006 had to change its name from Young Communist League of Norway to Youth Communists in Norway and also change their logo. UngKom took over for the NKU as the NKP's youth league and view themselves as an incarnation of the NKU.
The People's Republic of Bulgaria was the official name of Bulgaria, when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) together with its coalition partner, the Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union. Bulgaria was closely allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, being part of Comecon as well as a member of the Warsaw Pact. The Bulgarian resistance movement during World War II deposed the Kingdom of Bulgaria administration in the Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944 which ended the country's alliance with the Axis powers and led to the People's Republic in 1946.
The Union of Communist Youth was the Romanian Communist Party's youth organisation. Like many Young Communist organisations, it was modelled after the Soviet Komsomol. It aimed to cultivate young cadres into the party, as well as to help create the "new man" envisioned by communist ideologues.
The Workers Youth League (WYL), often referred to as Rems, was a youth organization in Bulgaria, tied to the Bulgarian Communist Party. The organization was founded in 1928. RMS was illegalized in 1934. During the Second World War, the organization led partisan struggles. In 1938, its ranks were joined by the members of the underground Young Communist League of Bulgaria.
Dimitrovist Pioneer Organization "Septemberists" was a pioneer movement in Bulgaria. The organization was founded in September 1944. DPO "Septemberists" organized children between 9 and 14 years old. Its day-to-day affairs were supervised by the Dimitrov Communist Youth Union. A 1967 estimate put its membership to about 700 000. There were also an organization called chavdarcheta – these were the youngest children, which later became pioneers. The difference between the two was the distinctive scarf, which was sky-blue in the chavdarcheta movement and red in the pioneri movement.
The Zhivkov Constitution was the third Constitution of Bulgaria, and the second of the Communist era. It was in effect from May 18, 1971 to July 12, 1991.
Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party was a reformist socialist political party in Bulgaria. The party emerged from a division at the Tenth Party Congress of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party held in 1903. The 'Broad Socialist' faction had appeared inside the pre-split party around 1900, when Yanko Sakazov had started the magazine Obshto delo. The Broad Socialists, analogous to the Mensheviks in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, argued in favour a broad social base of the party and broad class alliances.
The League of Socialist Youth of Yugoslavia (SSOJ) was the youth movement, member organisation of the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia (SSRNJ). Membership stood at more than 3.6 million individuals in 1983.
The Young Communist League is the youth organization of the Communist Party of Cuba. Its membership is voluntary and selective, and counts more than 600,000 active members. Its symbol shows the stylized faces of Julio Antonio Mella, Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara. The motto is Estudio, Trabajo, Fusil and means "Study, Work, Rifle".
The Communist Party of Cuba is the sole ruling party of Cuba. It was founded on 3 October 1965 as the successor to the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which was in turn made up of the 26th of July Movement and Popular Socialist Party that seized power in Cuba after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The party governs Cuba as an authoritarian one-party state where dissidence and political opposition are prohibited and repressed. The Cuban constitution ascribes the role of the party to be the "leading force of society and of the state".
The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, a syllabic abbreviation of the Russian Коммунистический Союз Молодёжи, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it was officially independent and referred to as "the helper and the reserve of the CPSU".
The Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, abbreviated as the Young Pioneers, was a mass youth organization of the Soviet Union for children and adolescents aged age 9–14 that existed between 1922 and 1991. Similar to the Scouting organisations of the Western Bloc, Pioneers learned skills of social cooperation and attended publicly funded summer camps.
The Ho Chi Minh Young Pioneer Organization is a communist youth organization operating in Vietnam named after former Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh. It operates as a constituent part of the Communist Party of Vietnam and had approximately 12 million members as of 2009.
The Czechoslovak Socialist Youth Union (SSM) was a mass organization which served as the youth wing of the Communist Party in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1970 to 1990. It existed alongside the Pioneer Organization, which was geared towards younger children who were expected to join the SSM in their teens. Membership stood at 1.6 million in 1982.
