Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

NOTES
scribe themselves and the persons and the things they like and all the concepts of the unfavourable connotations to describe
the persons and things they dislike… Each side contends that the other does not sincerely believe what it says." See
William Glaser, "The Semantics of the Cold War," The Public Opinion Quarterly 20, no.4 (Winter, 1956-57): 691-716.
For another insightful commentary on Cold War language, symbols and propaganda see Ole R. Holsti, "The Study of International
Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows: Theories of the Radical Right and the Radical Left," The American Political
Science Review 68, no.1 (March, 1974): 217-242.
66. See V.I. Lenin, "Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International," in The V.I. Lenin Internet Archive
.
67. By its very nature, periodization is an artificial historical tool that can obscure trends of continuity by focusing on dramatic
divergence and change. The decision to reperiodize the inter-war era by generations was not an artificial choice, but
flowed directly from the language utilized in Popular Front propaganda. Communists contended that the Great Depression
and the Nazi Reich redefined world politics, necessitating a new approach to communist theory and practice. Popular
Front propaganda contended that the youth of the thirties had a distinctly different world outlook and that this "new generation"
was far more receptive to Popular Front theory and tactics. The Comintern and YCI therefore put great emphasis
upon themes of "youth" and an "anti-fascist generation" in their Popular Front program. For a communist comparison of
the distinctions between generations see Earl Browder, "Your Generation and Mine," Young Communist Review 4, no.3
(May, 1939): 4-6.
68. To "deny" that the communist movement was directed by the Comintern distorts the realities of this period and democratic
centralism. The problem with studies like Thorpe's is that it focuses on individual cases of dissent that dismiss the
Comintern's ability to coerce conformity. Numerous examples from the inter-war period show that continued dissent typically
resulted in expulsion and demonization. The problem with the Haynes-Klehr approach is that it focuses upon the
treasonous and slavish mindset that facilitated consent to the Comintern, not addressing the historical context or propaganda
that bred active consent in "Stalinist" culture. The Comintern was consciously formed as a highly centralized institution
for strategic reasons and continued to exert its leadership until it was dissolved in 1943. Individuals followed
Comintern directives because they were interpreted to them through effective propaganda that bred consent and active
agreement; communists were also well aware that active dissent could be met with coercion. High membership fluctuation
in this period reflects the tensions involved in this process and relationship.
VANGUARD OF THE RED DAWN: THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE LENINIST GENERATION
1. Quoted in Victor Privalov, The Young Communist International and its Origins (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1971), 7-8.
2. ECYCI, Remove the Frontiers! An Appeal for the International Organization of all Young Workers (Berlin: ECYCI,
1920), 4.
3. The Communist International, also known as the Third International or the Comintern, was founded in March, 1919 under
the leadership of V.I. Lenin to create a new, highly centralized organization of international revolutionaries. The goal of
the Comintern was to replace the "discredited" & reformist leadership of the Second International with a "World Communist
Party" to lead the working class in an international socialist revolution.
4. The Bolshevik Party was established in 1903 during a split within the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party between
Menshevik reformists and Bolshevik revolutionaries. In 1918 the Bolsheviks changed their name to the "All-Russian
Communist Party (Bolsheviks)," often known simply as the "Communist Party."
5. The Second International, later known as the Labour and Socialist International, was founded in 1889 as a federalist body
of political parties and labor unions to continue the movement for international socialism under the Marxist traditions of
the First International. After the death of Engels in 1895, the Second International increasingly came under the "reformist"
influences of the German evolutionary socialist Eduard Bernstein. With the outbreak of WWI, the Second International
fell into disarray, helping to facilitate the establishment of the Comintern.
6. Rejecting the Wilsonian vision of post-war reconstruction, the SYI came to accepting the basis of Lenin's April Thesis that
capitulation to capitalist traditions and institutions under the post-war era of "Imperialism" would serve to strengthen capitalism,
betray the revolution and in turn enable the perpetuation of future imperialist wars. See Arno Mayer, Wilson vs.
Lenin: Political Origins of the New Diplomacy 1917-1918, (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1964).
7. See R. Craig Nation, War on War: Lenin, the Zimmerwald Left, and the Origins of Communist Internationalism (London:
Duke University Press, 1989), ix.
8. Karl Liebknecht, "Anti-Militarism of the Old and the New International" in Karl Liebknecht Internet Archive
.
9. Quoted in Nation, 10.
10. Albert S. Lindemann, A History of European Socialism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 188.
11. V.I. Lenin, "Socialism and War," in The Lenin Anthology, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1975), 183.
Historical discourse has rarely addressed the continuities concerning peace that existed between the Second and Third Internationals.
See Martin Ceadal, "The First Communist Peace Society: The British Anti-War Movement 1932-1935,"
Twentieth Century British History 1, no.1 (1990): 58-86.
12. See V.I. Lenin, "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism," in The Lenin Anthology, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York:
W.W. Norton, 1975), 204-274.
13. Karl Liebknecht was a member of the left wing of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and is considered the main
founder of the Socialist Youth International. Despite several terms in prison, Liebknecht consistently fought for a revolutionary
anti-militarist policy, being the only member of the German Reichstag to vote against war in December, 1914.
14. Victor Privalov, The Young Communist International and its Origins (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1971), 29.
15. Cornell, Revolutionary Vanguard, 11.
16. Privalov, 28-29.
17. Karl Liebknecht, "Anti-militarism in Germany and German Social-Democracy " in Karl Liebknecht Internet Archive
; Karl Liebknecht,
"The Anti-militarist Tasks of German Social-Democracy " in Karl Liebknecht Internet Archive
.
18. Karl Liebknecht, " The Future Belongs to the People: Education in Germany in War Time" in Karl Liebknecht Internet
Archive .
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