Revolutionary Manliness Visual Essays
Komsomol Types -- the Activists
Older Communist authorities projected their image of the "new man" onto the Komsomol. These young people, most of whom had known chaos and deprivations for most of their lives, would have none of their ascetic ideals. They wanted, for the first time in their lives, to live it up and break a few rules. The following images, though, represent some of the stereotypes of austere Komsomol that they overcame.
Models & Counter-models of Gender
The images, created as NEP gave way to the muscular austerity of the Cultural Revolution, counter-posed the ambiguities of revolutionary femininity to the easy hyper-masculinity of the times.
