The process of the formation and functioning of youth associations and organizations in today's Russia (whether on the basis of their formal registration or without it) can be looked at as a manifestation of personally and socially important active involvement. Participation in their activity is based on freedom of choice, value preferences, and motives of great variety: from convictions and ideas to the pursuit of entertainment. In any case, there are always one or several factors that are attractive to young people, which can lead them to get involved in a youth organization. This paper reports a study that examines the current state and civic positions of activists who are involved in youth movements today. This study on young Russians attending the Seliger Forum indicates that the activists who are members of youth associations do not differ from their less active peers either in regard to the set of their chief life values or in terms of the basic social problems that they have focused on. (Contains 7 tables and 2 notes.)