The arrival of spring? Changes and continuities in Soviet youth culture and policy between Stalin and Khrushchev

The terms ‘Thaw’, ‘youth’ and ‘spring’ have always enjoyed a strong correlation in the minds of political observers and historians of Khrushchev’s Soviet Union. Just as the thawing of ice and snow reveals the buds of spring flowers, which, against all odds, force their way through the frosted soil, the political Thaw after Stalin’s death was seen as an awakening of the powers of youth after the long hibernation of the Stalinist winter. Like flowers, young people were ascribed natural powers that made them persistent opponents of everything that was old, encrusted and frozen in Soviet society and politics. After 1956, youth once more became the centre of attention for Sovietologists, who now saw in the young generation less the spark of Revolution than a glimmer of hope for victory in the Cold War.1 The enormity of the expectation placed on this new and rebellious generation of Soviet youth was best represented by Klaus Mehnert, who compared youth’s mood after Stalin’s death with the atmosphere prevailing among young Russians after the death of Nicholas I. Then, too, initial reforms had been followed by partial retreat, which ultimately led ‘to a life-and-death struggle between the regime and the people, particularly the young generation’.2