Young Guard (Soviet resistance)

Moloda hvardiya) was an underground anti-fascist Komsomol organization, in the German-occupied Soviet city of Krasnodon (Ukrainian SSR, now Luhansk Oblast of Ukraine).

The organization was led by the local Communist Party underground of Krasnodon, headed by Filipp Lyutikov.

Lyutikov was the former head of the parents' committee of the 4th secondary school of Krasnodon, where many members of the organization had studied.

71 of them (including its head Filipp Lyutikov) along with members of the Communist Party underground, many of them still alive, were thrown into the 53-meter deep pit of Coal Mine Number 5 on 15, 16, and 31 January 1943.

The official story of the group, including Fadeyev's book, has been questioned almost from the day that Krasnodon was liberated.

Several researchers (both officially sanctioned and independent) revealed ambiguities and anomalies in the versions of the story promoted by Fadeyev, the groups survivors, and the Communist Party.

Some survivors and witnesses declared they were pressed to follow the official version of events until the end of Soviet era.

[citation needed] A stamp was issued in 1944 honoring the leadership of the Young Guard, and featuring Ulyana Gromova, Ivan Zemnukhov, Oleg Koshevoy, Sergey Tyulenin, and Lyubov Shevtsova, all of whom were awarded Hero of the Soviet Union.

The Pravda article referenced below, written in 2003, names the leadership as Koshevoy, Shevtsov, Ostapenko, Ogurtsov, and Subbotin.