Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

THE YOUTH STRUGGLE AGAINST WAR
not be trusted by the youth. An article in the May, 1939 edition of World Youth Review
associated Chamberlain and Daladier as conscious allies in the drive towards war:
The four plotters are still the masters in London and Paris, as they are in Berlin and
Rome. While two of them destroy the independence of people, strengthen their bases,
occupy new strategic points, the other two are busy scattering and weakening the forces
of peace. Two of them act: and the other two talk, and talk well sometimes. But their
acts deny their words. Their words serve only to placate public opinion.... Firmly attached
to peace, the younger generation has no desire to become the victim of that
"blackmail of war" which some are trying to complete by their theories of cowardice,
surrender and fatalism. The "blackmail of war" the theory of servility, can have no echo
in the hearts of the younger generation.... Chamberlain and Daladier at Munich preserved
the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini from destruction. 18
A potential contradiction was unravelling in Popular Front propaganda. Servility was
associated with capitulation towards fascism. Chamberlain and Daladier were contended
to be "pro-fascist" for capitulating to the fascist's "blackmail of war" at Munich. Chamberlain
and Daladier contended their diplomacy had saved "peace for our time." 19 YCI
rhetoric asserted youth would never stand for such a fatalist policy. How then could
propaganda interpret Soviet policy if Stalin reached a similar diplomatic agreement with
Hitler
Stalin had alluded to a potential diplomatic break with the West over the issue of an
anti-fascist war in his report to the Eighteenth Party Congress on March 10, 1939.
YCLers capitalized upon this speech to blame Chamberlain and Daladier for forcing
Stalin's hand. Although young communists asserted that the Soviet's diplomatic move
was one designed to maintain peace, they had a difficult time further rationalizing Soviet
positions in the upcoming months.
Political events began unfolding at a whirlwind pace, throwing extra complications
into YCL propaganda. On September 2, 1939, the day before the official British declaration
of war, the YCLGB ran a front page story urging youth that peace could still be
saved:
At this eleventh hour, let us, the youth of the nation, upon whose shoulders there rests so
great a responsibility, weigh up the situation. Let us decide what we can do, while there
is yet time, to avoid the catastrophe that will rob so many of us of our lives and which
may destroy our whole future... Let us be clear. Even now peace can still be saved. It
depends, not on Hitler, but on what the British people does now. Yet the youth movement's
whole attention is being directed into what tasks – perhaps all necessary – they
could perform in a war, instead of considering what action they can unitedly take now to
preserve peace.... The Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact has split and divided the
war-makers. It is a new blow for peace struck by the Soviet Government, which has
consistently opposed Fascist aggression.... We, the young people, who have most to lose
in war, appeal to the whole Labour Movement. In peace or war Chamberlain cannot be
trusted. 20
The YCL continued to invoke a continuity of images to propagate on the theme of peace
and the youth. Chamberlain had consistently been denounced as pro-fascist. The Soviet
Government was still personified as anti-fascist. The YCL struggled to continually
137