The Boy Scouts existed in Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. It was however the province of White Russian Scoutmasters. So the Scouts were reimagined to fit the new system. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The visual on this stamp is not the usual fare. Countries like to put their best foot forward on their stamps. So to see a crime being committed, the hooligan on the right is breaking into a mailbox, is surprising. Thankfully the boy on the left is not a part of the gang but rather a Young Pioneer. So he can be trusted to put a stop to this mischief. If only life was so black and white.
Todays stamp is issue A323, a one Kopec stamp issued by the Soviet Union in April 1936. The 6 stamp issue honors the Young Pioneer scouting organization. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1. An imperforate pair of this stamp is worth $1650.
In the first years of Communist rule there was much questioning if Scouting should be allowed to continue, Many Scoutmasters were supporters of the Czarist regime and many had fled. Others could not be trusted to train the young to be a part of the new system. Vladimir Lenin’s wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, proposed a new scouting system that would promote communist values. The remaining loyal Scoutmasters proposed that the existing Scouting system be taken over and this was done. The new organization began in 1922 and by the end of the year there was a national organization named the Vladimir Lenin Spartak Young Pioneers Organization.
The organization grew rapidly and was open to girls as well as boys. By 1940 there were nearly 14 million members and by 1974 that number reached 25 million. Most of their activities were standard scouting stuff but there was an overlay of preaching about the greatness of the Communist Party. Last year in America it was considered controversial that President Trump spoke to the Boy Scout National Jamboree, so politics no longer mix with Scouting.
This tie in to the Party proved the organizations undoing. When the Communist Party was dissolved in Russia in 1991, that was also the end of the Young Pioneers. There as been a much smaller revival of the Pioneers in modern Russia and a few of the former Soviet Republics still close with Russia.
Well my drink is empty and I have a special surprise for you. Below is a Soviet film about 10 minutes long about a Pioneer summer camp circa 1940. It is in Russian of course but still easy to follow and a window into a different time. Enjoy. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.