Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
ideological disputes, encouraging strict discipline to posit against any further factional
splits. 124 With its internalized outlook the YWL had very little influence on youth politics
in the twenties.
As we have seen, the Third Period intensified the oppositional culture of YCLs, advancing
an "ultra-left" condemnation of all other youth movements, especially the
socialist youth. For example, in a revealing pamphlet entitled Who Are the Young
Communists, the YCL attacked organizations like the YMCA, YWCA and the Boy's
Club Federation. The YCL insisted that these groups intentionally split the ranks of the
working-class youth, securing their allegiance to organizations that were "openly financed
and controlled by the bosses" to "fool the young workers." 125 The YPSL was
scorned for carrying on "no struggle against the bosses… [and] no militant fight against
war" which reflected how they systematically "betray the young workers." 126 The YCL
represented the "true class struggle" against the "misleaders of labor," encouraging
revolutionary unity "in the common struggle against the bosses and their government." 127
Though Third Period rhetoric frequently spoke of unity, the YCL contended workingclass
unity should only occur under their "correct" leadership.
Up to this point, the main initiatives for youth unity came from the National Student
League and the Student League for Industrial Democracy. 128 Robert Cohen observed that
because the NSL was created from below by students in 1931, it did not inherit either the
"extreme sectarianism" or "Comintern dogma" of the YCL, enabling pragmatism in
approaching socialist and liberal students. 129 The NSL facilitated student unity by initiating
common activities between communist, socialist and liberal youth. In March, 1932
the NSL organized a broad delegation of students to investigate a miner's strike in
Harlan, Kentucky. The Harlan delegation received major national press attention and
even political audience in Washington DC. 130 During this month, the Young Worker
carried only one brief two-sentence article about the delegation, dedicating the majority
of this issue to anti-YPSL statements in line with Third Period rhetoric. 131 Joe Lash of the
YPSL later recalled that the Harlan delegation showed how "Socialist and Communist
students and non-affiliated students could work together," even if it was a practice not yet
officially adopted or endorsed by either the Comintern or the YCL. 132
After the Harlan experience the NSL and SLID came into closer contact through joint
work linked with the Student Congress Against War that took place December, 1932 in
Chicago. At this conference the NSL showed a pragmatic and flexible spirit of unity
towards both young socialists and pacifist youth. The NSL rephrased their resolutions
that non-communist youth took issue with in order to build the largest consensus against
war. Young Worker articles contended that the SLID had "tried their best to disrupt the
Congress and prevent a real united front of students against imperialist war." 133 The NSL
and SLID held a very different view of the events than this propagated YCL opinion.
One socialist activist praised the mutually accommodating spirit of the event stating, "In
Chicago the most encouraging sign at the whole affair was the honest bid the Commu-
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