The first sizable leftist youth organization in the country, then called the Union of Working Youth, was formed in 1926, and by 1940 it had a membership of approximately 15,000. It and the party furnished most of the partisan fighters that harassed the Germans and the pro-German government of the country during World War II. Both the party and the youth group grew stronger during the war, largely because the partisan cause was more popular than that of the government.
The youth organization became the Dimitrov Communist Youth Union after the war. The new name did not come about from a major reorganization or reorientation of the group; transition to its postwar status was smooth, but it saw fit to honor Georgi Dimitrov, who had by then become the most powerful and famous of the party's leaders. Even after its renaming in Dimitrov's honor, the organization has usually been referred to, in official government communications as well as in conversation, as the Komsomol, which is the name of the Soviet Union's youth organization.
The Komsomol became the organization through which the party reached the nation's youth. Its responsibilities were expanded, and its membership grew rapidly. In the ideal situation the entire youth segment of the population of eligible age, both male and female, would be members of the organization. In 1970 its 1.16 million members did include about 77 percent of those between fourteen and twenty-four years of age. Some of the organization's leaders, instructors, and exceptionally active members stay in the group beyond the upper age limit of twenty-four, but their number is too small to alter the membership statistics significantly. Male members outnumbered female members by a large margin; 88 percent of the eligible males were members, only 66 percent of the females. The disparity in membership by sex reflects the fact that more of the organization's activities—sports and premilitary training, for example—appeal to or are oriented toward the future needs of the males. Membership is either a prerequisite for admission to higher educational institutions or makes admission much easier.
Statistics notwithstanding, party and other national leaders complain that Komsomol membership is lower than it should be, but they have greater concern about the number who are members merely for expediency and who are apathetic toward the organization's activities. A low point in the Komsomol's appeal was reached during the 1960s and, sensing an urgent need to reattract the cooperation of the nation's youth, its programs were given a major reevaluation and overhaul beginning in about 1968.
The youth problem in 1968 was probably less serious in Bulgaria than it was in many Western countries and other communist countries, but it had reached proportions that warranted action. Among symptoms cited by the authorities was apathy toward education, work, and party ideology. Young people in rural areas seemed anxious to move to the cities, where idleness, crime, and so-called parasitic living were increasing. Consumption of alcohol by young people was up markedly.
Many young people were described as silent nihilists, persons who were characterized by unresponsiveness and vast indifference. No expression of group youth protest, for example, was recorded between the inception of the communist government and the late 1960s. When individual complaints were solicited, however, they appeared to come out freely. Some said that they would have cooperated but spoke of the anemic and empty lives of the youth organizations where the dull, boring meetings consisted largely of upbraiding sermons full of pious admonitions and reprimands. Others assumed an offensive posture, indulging in self-praise, pointing out shortcomings in party work, complaining about the lack of individual freedom and the lack of opportunity for showing initiative, and criticizing the older generation.
Consumption of alcoholic beverages is common enough in typical families so that early exposure to it is considered natural, but its use by young people became excessive enough to be considered a national problem in the mid-1960s. According to a survey published in 1971, more than 50 percent of the students in Sofia secondary schools consumed alcohol regularly. Percentages were considerably higher in provincial secondary schools. Few of the youthful users had consumed it over a long enough period to have become addicted, but more than one-half of the inebriated persons brought to sobering-up facilities in Sofia hospitals and clinics were young people.
Authorities blame advertising of alcoholic beverages, imitation of Western fashions, disillusionment, and monotony in daily living for most of the increase in youthful drinking. They also blame lax parental control, but the surveys concluded that the influence of contemporary social habits and the pressures of peer groups were forces more powerful than those exerted by the family.
Measures have been undertaken to reduce the so-called parasitic element that according to party and governmental spokesmen, is composed of those who neither study nor work. As early as 1968 the minister of national education was given six months to organize a nationwide program to cope with the problem, and the Center for Amateur Scientific and Technical Activities among Youth and Children was created to coordinate planning. The Committee for Youth and Sports, the State Committee on Scientific and Technical Progress (renamed the State Committee for Science, Technical Progress, and Higher Education), the Komsomol, and the trade unions were charged with contributing ideas and assistance. As a result of the center's activities, the next year each okrug was directed to organize schools with three-month-long vocational training courses and to canvass its area for young people who required the instruction. Enterprises in the okrug were directed to cooperate by indicating the skills they most needed, by furnishing facilities and, finally, by hiring those who completed the training.
As of 1972 the program had achieved spotty or inconclusive results. Most spokesmen considered it as satisfactory as could have been expected. They did not consider that it reflected badly on the effort when a few groups reported that about 30 percent of the students who completed their classes never reported to the jobs for which they had been prepared and that others stayed at work for only a short time. Other observers consider that the authorities are concerned over a problem much of which does not exist or that is blown out of proportion to its seriousness. For example, 85 percent of the offending group were girls or young women. A few of them were undoubtedly ideological malcontents, members of youth gangs, prostitutes, or criminals, but a large majority considered themselves living inoffensively at home or, at the worst, were working at small family enterprises. In rural areas they might have been attending the family's private agricultural plot or the privately owned livestock.