Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
saluted his clenched fist in the air. The image was brandished with the slogan, "La
unidad del ejército del pueblo será el arma de la Victoria," or 'The unity of the people's
army will be the weapon of Victory." 181 After the Austrian Anschluss in 1938, both
YCLs asserted the need for anti-fascist unity by reflecting on the experiences of the
International Brigades. One article on Austria and Spain stated, "Never forget for a
moment that your pals, your brothers, are fighting in the most difficult spots in Spain
alongside of the Spanish people… offering their lives in the supreme sacrifice in order to
halt the fascist advance." 182 The International Brigades "proved to the people of Spain
that it was not alone, that it had millions of friends, and gave them increased courage and
inspiration to carry on the fight." 183 The diverse ideological and international composition
of the Brigades showed youth the power of anti-fascist unity.
The ideas of the Popular Front significantly reconstructed communist youth identity,
tactics and relations with other youth movements. Gil Green reflected on this transition
stating:
Of course we've changed! So has everything else.... In those days, instead of cooperation
there was friction; instead of friendship and tolerance there was hostility and antagonism.
That was bad. We can all see that now. But whose fault was it.... The YCL in
those days had to swim against the stream.... Cordial relations between ourselves and
most other youth organizations were almost impossible. Because we refused to be lulled
into a false sense of security, because we refused to partake of the opium of illusion, we
were looked upon as troublemakers.... It took the economic crash of 1929, the subsequent
rise of fascism and drift towards war, to knock some sense (forgive the word) into
some people.... Our mistake in this whole matter was that we did not swiftly enough reorientate
to the new conditions. 184
Green's analysis contended YCL theory and practice was not static, but needed to change
with the times. The experiences of WWI and the early twenties led the Leninist Generation
to embrace a strict oppositional culture. Fascism forced the YCI to revise its previous
ideological dictates to transform the YCLs from small sectarian organizations into
broad populist youth movements. Cooperation, coalitions and broad unity were the
necessary tactics dictated by the era of fascism. Popular Front theory enabled young
communists to evolve from isolated propagandists into skilled political leaders of the
international youth anti-fascist movement.
In sum, by embracing Dimitrov's theory of fascism, the entire communist conception
of popular unity and coalition politics was transformed. Dimitrov identified that fascism
was only able to gain and consolidate power by exploiting divisions that existed within
progressive and working-class movements. The Leninist Generation insisted that collaboration
and consensus politics had enabled WWI and betrayed the revolution. As a
result, they intentionally facilitated division, contending they alone should dominate
working-class politics. The Popular Front Generation posited that without constructing
broad coalitions, fascism would be given free reign to unleash a new world war. Broad
appeals enabled effective alliance building to isolate fascism domestically and internationally.
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