Youth Vanguard
| Youth Vanguard 청소년 선봉대 Chŏngsonyŏn Sŏnbongdae | |
|---|---|
| File:Chongsonyon Sonbongdae.png Emblem of the Youth Vanguard | |
| File:Sonbongdae flag.png Flag of the Youth Vanguard | |
| Chairman | Hong Dae-won (2009-present) |
| Secretary General | Yi Chang-min (2013-present) |
| Founded | July 10, 1988 |
| Preceded by | Red Guards of the Revolution |
| Headquarters | 120 Revolution Avenue, Donggyong |
| Ideology | State socialism Menghean nationalism |
| Mother party | Menghean Socialist Party |
| Newspaper | Jŏguk Jŏnjin |
| Website | www.chongson.mh |
The Youth Vanguard (Menghean: 청소년 선봉대, Chŏngsonyŏn Sŏnbongdae) is a mass youth organization in Menghe and the official youth wing of the Menghean Socialist Party. It is open to citizens between the ages of 15 and 25, and serves as the successor to the Joguk Janyŏ for children ages 6 to 15. In 2016, approximately 85% of the eligible Menghean population were members.
History
From the 1960s through the 1980s, many young students in the Democratic People's Republic of Menghe were required to join the Red Guards of the Revolution, a communist youth organization that served as the youth arm of the Menghean People's Communist Party. Similar to the Youth Vanguard, membership was open to citizens between the ages of 14 and 28, though the uniform featured a red kerchief rather than a blue one, and the Red Guards' activities centered on teaching Marxist-Leninist doctrine.
After the 1987 Decembrist Revolution, the Interim Council for National Restoration formally disbanded the Red Guards, prohibiting meetings and laying off administrative staff. In its place, they established the Youth Vanguard for Rebuilding the Homeland, later shortened to "Youth Vanguard." This organization took over the old headquarters of the Red Guards, but staffed them with personnel loyal to the Menghean Socialist Party, which formally led the Youth Vanguard. The new organization was formally inaugurated on July 10th, 1988, but required several years to fully encompass the Red Guards' former scope, as the Socialist Party and the military government had to screen new leaders for their loyalty and revise the content of the group's teachings and activities.
Once rebuilt, the Youth Vanguard played an important role in the Socialist Party's consolidation of power and redirection of policy. During the 1990s, it was central to Choe Sŭng-min's effort to build a personality cult. At other times, however, the organization proved more flexible than its anti-market and anti-establishment predecessor. When the central government formally legalized private enterprise in 1998, high-rated members of the Youth Vanguard were given priority in registering new firms and buying up state-owned enterprises, on the basis that they would be less selfish in the handling of money.
Structure
Leadership
The leadership structure of the Youth Vanguard mimics the leadership structure of the Socialist Party. Every five years, local sessions of the Youth Vanguard elect members to travel to the National Congress, which elects a Central Committee and several General Committees. The Central Committee then elects a General-Secretary from among its members.
While the General-Secretary is an important figurehead for the Youth Vanguard, and is often featured in propaganda and embellished news stories, their status within the organization is largely that of a figurehead. Real administrative power lies with the Chairman of the Youth Vanguard Administrative Council, a senior Party member who is appointed from above to run the organization. Decisions of the Administrative Council may be passed by the Central Committee and the National Congress for added legitimacy, but these bodies may not overturn an Administrative Council decision.
Currently, the General-Secretary of the Youth Vanguard is Yi Chang-min, and the Chairman of the Administrative Council is Hong Dae-won.
Membership
Citizens of Menghe can enter the Youth Vanguard at the Standard age of 15, and usually do so after graduating from Middle School. Membership is not obligatory, and social and administrative pressure to join is not as great as it is for the Joguk Janyŏ, meaning that a non-trivial proportion of 15-year-olds decline to join the organization. Non-members, however, may face social stigma or limited hiring prospects, and they lose access to the Youth Vanguard's state-sponsored outings and activities.
Entrants who were formerly members of the Joguk Janyŏ account for a vast majority of the group's incoming recruits, and transfer their membership at mass initiation ceremonies in which existing members of the Youth Vanguard come forward to replace their red kerchiefs with blue ones. New members are also required to swear an oath of loyalty, which since 1996 has included a personal reference to Choe Sŭng-min.
From the age of eighteen onward, members of the Youth Vanguard can concurrently join the Menghean Socialist Party, but this application is more selective and currently only 9% of the national population are Party members. Once they have entered the Youth Vanguard, members remain in the organization until they reach the age of 25, at which point they "graduate."
While an individual is a member of the Youth Vanguard, their group leader maintains a "personal file" of their behavior and loyalty, which is periodically audited by higher-level officials in the organization. The Gunchal maintain a similar record for soldiers in the military. When Youth Vanguard members apply for work, especially in government or Jachi-hoesa jobs, it is common for the employer to request access to the personal file or arrange an interview with the group leader, creating an incentive for members to maintain a constant appearance of loyalty and diligence. Individuals who did not join the Youth Vanguard, or who dropped out under suspicious circumstances, face particularly limited career prospects.
Duties and activities
Reading and discussion meetings
Within Menghe's political system, the Youth Vanguard is an important site for ideological inculcation and mass mobilization. At weekly "reading and discussion" meetings, group leaders introduce lower-ranked members to the proper interpretation of the Menghean Socialist Party's doctrine, which is nominally socialist but more closely resembles corporatism or corporate statism. These meetings also include "supplementary history lessons," which present ideologically embellished versions of selected periods and events in Menghean history.
Lessons focusing on Marshal Choe are no longer as central to Youth Vanguard teachings as they were in the 1990s, but still receive considerable attention in ideological training. Members are expected to read the official biography of Choe Sŭng-min and to learn his collected sayings, as part of a broader curriculum of studying Choe Sŭng-min Thought. As in regular school history lessons, both Choe and the Party more generally are given an embellished role in the Decembrist Revolution and the Menghean economic miracle. The details of these sections, however, vary by school: at vocational high schools, political inculcation receives much greater priority, while at top-ranking college-prep high schools they resemble regular supervised study sessions for material learned in class.
In addition to providing ideological instruction, these weekly and after-school meetings keep teenagers and young adults under community supervision during their free time, and are a contributing factor to Menghe's low rates of delinquency, violent crime, and drug abuse. A popular, if cynical, saying holds that "the top students are locked up all night studying engineering, the rest are locked up all night studying socialism."
Cultural outings
These weekly meetings are supplemented by large-scale "cultural outings" conducted as part of a local Youth Vanguard group. These outings serve a similar nationalist purpose to reading and discussion meetings, and often focus on important monuments, historical museums, or government buildings. The Museum of the Struggle against Colonialism north of the de-facto border with Altagracia is a common destination for Youth Vanguard outings, as are Heroes' Square and the National Museum of Menghe in Donggyŏng.
Military preparedness
A special type of cultural outing is the annual "military preparedness weekend," an extended weekend where members travel to a military base to hear lectures from officers and take part in training activities. The latter part includes familiarization with weaponry and vehicles, physical fitness tests, and target practice on a firing range. For most Menghean youth, this constitutes their first experience handling firearms, which are tightly restricted in Menghe
Because male citizens of Menghe become eligible for conscription when they turn 18, the first four years of military preparedness exercises are important for identifying recruits with promising physical and mental fitness and preparing them for military service. They also ensure that all current and former members of the Youth Vanguard have a minimum level of military training. While this is of only marginal military value, as the Menghean Army has developed to a point that it would not rely on youth militia in an emergency, Party leaders consider it important for building discipline and national pride, especially among members of the younger urban generation born into a more comfortable lifestyle.
In recent years, Youth Vanguard units have increasingly encouraged female students to consider enlisting as volunteers in the armed forces.
Norm enforcement
As part of their training, Youth Vanguard members are expected to not only live up to their lessons in everyday life, but to spread them to the general population, especially after their first four years of training are complete. During the 1990s and early 2000s, this frequently took the form of organized public demonstrations against the "three poisons" of alcohol, tobacco, and narcotics, or against the encroachment of Western culture.
By the early 2000s, the Youth Vanguard had shifted to a more constructive approach, encouraging hard work and discipline in everyday life and promoting Menghean traditions among their own membership. Even so, the organization's charter still encourages members to "present a shining example of oneself to society" and conduct "everyday criticism of comrades who have departed from the proper path."
Symbols
Like the Menghean Socialist Party, the Youth Vanguard uses azure and gold as its official colors, in a bow to Menghean tradition. This distinguishes it from the Joguk Janyŏ, which uses red flags and kerchiefs.
The emblem of the Youth Vanguard consists of a shield with the organization's name on top (청소년 선봉대). Beneath this is a stylized sunburst, meant to symbolize the goal of "bringing about a new dawn over the homeland." This emblem is also featured on the flag of the Youth Vanguard.
Youth Vanguard uniforms are similar to those used by the Joguk Janyŏ, and consist of a white button-down shirt with the Youth Vanguard badge stitched into the upper half of the left sleeve. Both male and female members wear full-length black trousers. The Youth Vanguard neckerchief is azure with gold trim on the edges, and is tied in a knot, without use of a woggle.