Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf
Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf
Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf
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DEMOCRACY<br />
Young communists did not speak of themselves as "enemies of democracy," but as<br />
class enemies of the bourgeois state and champions of "Soviet democracy." In their early<br />
propaganda, the YCI emphasized that the YCL's central task was to "undermine the<br />
apparatus of the bourgeois state" and "the destruction of the bourgeois order." 12 YCI<br />
rhetoric embraced a language of urgency and action. Communists strove to make young<br />
workers "conscious of the fact that if they are to be able to live, the capitalist society must<br />
die" and that this "consciousness is the backbone of the will to fight for and set up the<br />
proletarian dictatorship." 13 Bourgeois democracy was intimately linked with capitalist<br />
economies. Faith in such a political system distorted the class nature of the state and in<br />
turn distracted youth from achieving "working-class liberation."<br />
Communist propaganda dismissed Western notions of citizenship and legality as<br />
"bourgeois illusions." Under the bourgeois state young workers were considered "oppressed<br />
and enslaved;" the dictatorship of the proletariat, representing a higher form of<br />
"Soviet democracy," enabled young workers to "become free citizens of the proletarian<br />
state." 14 As "slaves," young workers were encouraged to participate in both legal and<br />
illegal work to advance the revolution and undercut identification of young workers to<br />
the state. 15 The "proletarian state" would provide young workers "true" democracy and<br />
citizenship. 16<br />
The class nature of the state defined the phenomenon of both democracy and dictatorship.<br />
In one of his few theoretical publications, Stalin attempted to clarify the "Leninist"<br />
position concerning class, democracy and dictatorship:<br />
The dictatorship of the proletariat must be a state that is democratic in a new way (for<br />
the proletarians and the non-propertied in general) and dictatorial in a new way (against<br />
the bourgeoisie).... Democracy under capitalism is capitalist democracy, the democracy<br />
of the exploiting minority, based on the restriction of the rights of the exploited majority<br />
and directed against this majority.... Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, democracy<br />
is proletarian democracy, the democracy of the exploited majority, based on the restriction<br />
of the rights of the exploiting minority and directed against this minority. 17<br />
The Second International betrayed socialism by not addressing these class realities,<br />
putting their primary faith instead in parliamentary reforms. YCI rhetoric contrasted the<br />
strategic outlook of socialist and communist workers. An article on the Russian Revolution<br />
praised the clarity of Soviet workers who "did not expect any manna to fall from the<br />
parliamentary heaven." The article went on to scorn "all pseudo-Marxists" who pursued<br />
democratic reforms instead of preparing workers for "an armed insurrection" that would<br />
bring "an age of socialist brotherhood and equality." 18 In its initial programme, the<br />
Comintern insisted that the struggle against reformism could not be framed as a simple<br />
"theoretical difference of opinion." Such a movement necessitated an unyielding "struggle<br />
against the centrists and democrats" that supported "defense of democracy which<br />
preserves the private ownership of the means of production." 19<br />
The communist position against "bourgeois democracy" was formulated as a critique<br />
of its limited nature, not as a rejection of egalitarian concepts. By positing themselves<br />
101