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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THE YOUTH STRUGGLE AGAINST WAR<br />
to understand and define fascism from a new youth perspective. <strong>Fascism</strong> was not an<br />
economic system, but an ideology that utilized mass propaganda to mobilize nations for<br />
the sole purpose of war. <strong>Fascism</strong> rejected all notions of internationalism and egalitarian<br />
premises of human brotherhood that were central to the maintenance of peace. 4 <strong>Fascism</strong><br />
declared international law and disarmament initiatives aimed at peace anathema to their<br />
movement. 5 War was not a by-product of fascism; war was the goal of fascism.<br />
Dimitrov declared that a larger fascist world war was not inevitable. Since capitalist<br />
competition was a source of modern warfare, Dimitrov contended that capitalist cooperation<br />
could be utilized for maintaining peace if it was forged in alliance with the Soviet<br />
Union. Dimitrov identified that not all segments of the capitalist class supported fascism;<br />
fascism represented the interests of a small ultra-imperialist clique of the capitalist class.<br />
By exploiting this internal division, a unified working-class movement could lead a broad<br />
Popular Front against fascism and war to successfully halt fascist aggression. Peace<br />
would cause fascist regimes to collapse under their own internal contradictions without<br />
the need of a larger anti-fascist war.<br />
<strong>Fascism</strong> was portrayed as a rejection of civilization. Communists were portrayed as<br />
defenders of civilization. <strong>Youth</strong> were the future of civilization. World war threatened to<br />
decimate all aspects of modern civilization. The Popular Front identified where the<br />
interests of the capitalist democracies, the Soviet Union and the youth aligned on the<br />
issue of anti-fascism. Peace was the paramount issue to defend civilization, the future<br />
and the youth. Anti-fascism represented a clash of two mutually antagonistic forms of<br />
civilization. During the Popular Front, to be a young communist meant to be an antifascist.<br />
Thus while the form and content of youth propaganda changed radically, both the<br />
Leninist and Popular Front Generations justified their ideology through the vantage point<br />
of war and peace.<br />
By identifying this common thread of youth perspectives, we can understand how<br />
propaganda informed communist youth identity through the complicated twists and turns<br />
of inter-war Comintern strategy. When dramatic shifts occurred, the YCI consistently<br />
invoked symbols of war and peace to justify their changed position. Bolshevik and<br />
Stalinist political culture was not a faith based solely on blind obedience, but a complex<br />
negotiation of political identities that relied heavily upon propaganda to legitimize<br />
Comintern positions. When Comintern dictates appeared contradictory, communist<br />
propaganda invoked themes of continuity to rationalize change. The large membership<br />
fluctuations of the inter-war period, especially in the YCL's, reveal that communist<br />
propaganda was often ineffective in prescribing Comintern legitimacy to the youth.<br />
When youth did not agree with YCL positions, instead of mounting asserted internal<br />
dissent that would lead to expulsion, they often simply quit the YCL. What is far more<br />
fascinating in communist studies is not to identify these cases of dissent, but to address<br />
the phenomenon of youth consent. How did young communist propaganda utilize the<br />
theme of peace to maintain youth allegiance<br />
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