Pledge of Honor
When I graduated high school, I got a special certificate I was absurdly proud of. It wasn’t about grades — students voted for these, supposedly to honor strength of character. The award was called the Pledge of Honor.
When you open it, the left-hand side has a quote attributed to Friedrich Engels: “A human is defined not only by what he does, but also by how he does it.”
I couldn’t find the official translation of this quote, so the above translation is my own. While I was searching, I found another quote: “The less you eat, drink, and read books, the less you have to shit, pee, and talk.” But I digress.
Before I explain what’s on the right-hand side of the award, a little context. I was a member of Komsomol, the Leninist Young Communist League in the Soviet Union. About 99% of students were members — not because of boundless zeal, but because not joining could hurt your chances of getting into college or landing a job. Back in high school, I was brainwashed into believing that the Komsomol was trying to do good, so I signed up as soon as I was eligible — I wasn’t thinking then about colleges or jobs.
Now I am ready to translate the right-hand side, which said: “The Komsomol organization of Moscow School No. 444 PLEDGES ON ITS HONOR that Tanya Khovanova will never, ever, anywhere disgrace the high calling of a Komsomol member.”
I lost my rose-colored glasses right after high school. How that happened is another story, but let’s just say the “never, ever” promise had a shelf life of about a month.
There was another, more prestigious certificate called the Torch-Carrier of Communism. Two students in my class received this honor. One of the torches soon moved to Israel.
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Felipe Pait:
Was the meaning that you were making the pledge, or the Komsomol organization?
Silly question: wouldn’t an official document refer a student using the patronymic besides name and surname?
8 September 2025, 5:40 pmtanyakh:
Felipe, the school’s Komsomol organization was promising my ‘good’ behavior.
To the second question. As it was the ‘youth’ organization, they used a less formal name.
9 September 2025, 10:53 amIvan:
This is an example of what a psychologist would call antropomorphic bias. The school organization of Komsomol guarantees with its ???honour??? that Tanya will behave in the manner the organization ???thinks??? appropriate.
I see the signature of the school principal on the document, which implies that the ‘honour’ of the school’s Komsomol is insufficient to give such a serious guarantee. As they said, TRUST BUT VERIFY.
9 September 2025, 10:39 pmabde:
Dear Tanya, do you happen to know Russian language resources for someone who eagrly wants to read Soviet-era mathaematics books ? Dictionaries/YT lectures/Enlglish-Russian Books … your advice is welcomed.
15 September 2025, 12:31 pm