Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

NOTES
44. "Minutes of the Second Congress of the Communist International: The Statutes of the Communist International," in The
History of the Communist International Internet Archive .
45. The Comintern avoided ideological debates on Leninism by using an associational language centred on betrayal, playing
on the disillusionment and fears of the youth. Zinoviev portrayed youth's association with the Comintern as a natural phenomenon
for those who felt betrayed by the actions of the Second International. Denunciations of the Second International
and appeals to the martyrdom of Liebknecht became a standard formula in the formation of political culture for the
Leninist Generation. Comintern literature continually stated that if youth did not take part in a revolutionary "war against
war" under their "correct leadership" that their generation would be plagued with further imperialist war in the future.
Throughout the war Lenin published articles dealing with the slogan of "war against war," insisting that such slogans were
simply empty phrases unless such a struggle was led under a "correct revolutionary leadership." One article in 1915 on the
subject of "defeatism" stated, "A "revolutionary struggle against the war" is merely an empty and meaning less exclamation,
something at which the heroes of the Second International excel, unless it means revolutionary action against one’s
own government even in wartime. One has only to do some thinking in order to understand this. Wartime revolutionary
action against one’s own government indubitably means, not only desiring its defeat, but really facilitating such a defeat.
("Discerning reader": note that this does not mean "blowing up bridges," organising unsuccessful strikes in the war industries,
and in general helping the government defeat the revolutionaries.)… A revolution in wartime means civil war; the
conversion of a war between governments into a civil war is, on the one hand, facilitated by military reverses ("defeats")
of governments; on the other hand, one cannot actually strive for such a conversion without thereby facilitating defeat…
Without such action, millions of ultra-revolutionary phrases such as a war against "the war and the conditions, etc." are not
worth a brass farthing. See V.I. Lenin, "The Defeat of One's Own Government in the Imperialist War," in The V.I. Lenin
Internet Archive .
46. Cornell, Youth and Communism, 21.
47. CPGB, The Role and Tasks of the Young Communist League (London: CPGB, 1927), 5.
48. O. Carlson, "Our Martyrs," in Manuals For Proletarian Anniversaries, No. 1: January Fifteenth, The Murder of Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, ed. ECYCI (London: YCLGB, 1923), 7,8.
49. For commentary on the importance of the formation of the Comintern sponsored Red International of Labor Unions
(RILU) in 1921 in winning over working-class adults see William Z. Foster, History of the Three International: The World
Socialist and Communist Movements From 1848 to the Present (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), 318-326.
50. Witold S. Sworakowski, "The Communist Youth International," in World Communism: A Handbook 1918-1965, ed. Witold
S. Sworakowski (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1973), 93.
51. Cornell, Revolutionary Vanguard, 27.
52. Lazitch and Drachkovitch, 221.
53. The Program adopted by the YCI at its first meeting in November, 1919 boldly stated, "The working class youth is the
most active and revolutionary part of the proletariat." Though later statements by the YCI invoked a greater degree of deference
to the leadership of the Comintern, especially to the Russian Bolshevik Party, the early public statements of the
communist youth asserted that they were the most revolutionary elements of the communist movement, leading the adults
away from reformism and the influences of the Second International. See ECYCI, "The Program of the Young Communist
International as Adopted at the Berlin Congress of the YCI, November 1919," in The Programs of the Young Communist
International (Berlin: Publishing House of the Young International, 1923), 23.
54. Sworakowski, 93.
55. The "Twenty-One Points of Admission" were consciously designed to exclude all reformist elements from the Comintern
and to show an organizational break with the federated structure of the Second International. See L.J. Macfarlane, The
British Communist Party: Its Origin and Development Until 1929 (London: MacGibbon and Key, 1966), 63.
56. ECCI, "The Communist International and the Communist Youth Movement," in The History of the Communist International
Internet Archive .
57. Since the Comintern posited they were a "World Communist Party," references to the "vanguard" role of the Communist
Party can also be understood as a suggestion of the Comintern's leadership since it was the role of the Communist Parties
to apply the "correct decisions" of the Comintern within their national context.
58. ECYCI, The Draft Programme of the Young Communist International (London: Publishing House of the YCI, 1924), 22.
59. After Lenin's death in Jaunary, 1924 the YCI linked together memorials of Lenin with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl
Liebknecht. The month of January was utilized in communist youth propaganda to highlight the teachings and legacies of
these leaders and their importance to the youth movement.
60. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, "A Call to the Workers of the World," in the Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive
.
61. Arvid Vretling, Youth in the Class Struggle: Being a Short History of the Young Communist Movement (ECYCI, 1926),
15.
62. "International Liebknecht Day," Youth: Official Organ of the Young Workers League 1, no.1 (February, 1922): 3.
63. O. Carlson, "Karl Liebknecht," in Manuals For Proletarian Anniversaries, No. 1: January Fifteenth, The Murder of Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, ed. ECYCI (London: YCLGB, 1923), 15.
64. The Comintern directed its critiques not only against the Second International, but also internally stating that communists
were "incorrectly" applying Comintern directives or too mechanically attempting to apply directives "based on Russian
conditions." The Comintern was receptive to internal and external critiques, but their early public statements never critiqued
the "revolutionary potential" of the masses. See V.I. Lenin, "Five Years Of The Russian Revolution And The Prospects
Of The World Revolution Report To The Fourth Congress Of The Communist International, November 13, 1922," in
The History of the Communist International Internet Archive .
65. F.L. Carsten, Revolution in Central Europe, 1918-1919 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 325-326.
66. D. Kirby, War, Peace and Revolution: International Socialism at the Crossroads 1914-1918 (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1986), 151.
67. In 1921, after loosing their youth leagues to the Comintern, the Socialist International and the Amsterdam International
(2.5 International) each set up new international youth organizations, the Young Workers International and the International
Working Union of Socialist Youth Organizations respectively. With the amalgamation of the Amsterdam International
back into the Socialist International in 1923, the IWUSYO followed suit and joined the Young Worker's
International.
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