Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

NOTES
Socialist Party." See Earl Browder, The Meaning of Social-Fascism: Its Historical and Theoretical Background (New
York: Workers Library Publishers, 1933), 14-15.
96. The ECYCI was forced to warn the youth on multiple occasions that the YCLs had gone "too far left," undercutting their
ability to mobilize a mass movement of the youth. The primary concern of Comintern pronouncements of this period focused
on the "right danger" as the chief problem facing the adult movement. Divergent to this trend in the adult movement,
the YCI Plenum of 1930 increasingly began discussing the "left danger" that faced the youth movement. The YCI
denounced the YCLs for their "discrepancy between word and deed," asserting that "The Young Communist organizations
have in doing so often covered up their political passivity and organisational helplessness with radical phrases." See
ECYCI, "Results of the YCI Plenum," The International of Youth: Organ of the Executive Committee of the Young Communist
International (no vol.), no. 1 (April-May, 1930): 3-7.
97. Though many communists later denounced the excesses of the Class Against Class period as a "suicidal move" directed by
the Comintern, the militancy of this era did not represent a deviation from Leninism, but a militant intensification of traditional
oppositional Leninist methods. While the Comintern and YCI spoke of their work during the Second and Third Periods
as essential in building up a "truly Leninist" movement, communist leaders like Trotsky condemned the tactics and
theories employed after 1924 essentially as heresy against the principles of Leninism, asserting that his international opposition
represented "the real disciples of Marx and of Lenin." For Trotsky's detailed critique of the "revisionist trends" of
the Comintern after 1924 and a denunciation of the "Class Against Class" program adopted by the Sixth World Congress
see Leon Trotsky, "The Third International After Lenin, The Draft Program of the
98. Communist International: A Criticism of Fundamentals," in The Leon Trotsky Internet Archive
.
99. McDermott and Agnew, 98-99.
100. ECYCI, "The YCI Before its Fifth Congress," The International of Youth: Organ of the Executive Committee of the Young
Communist International (no vol.), no. 7 (August, 1928): 8.
101. ECYCI, Programme of the Young Communist International (London: YCLGB, 1929), 80.
102. Ibid., 82.
103. Otto Kuusinen, XII Plenum ECCI: Prepare For Power (London: Utopia Press, 1932), 29.
104. Susumu Okano, "The War in the Far East and the Tasks of the Communists in the Struggle Against Imperialist War and
Military Intervention Against the USSR," in XII Plenum ECCI Theses and Resolutions (London: Modern Books, 1932),
49.
105. "Fifth World Congress of Communist Youth," The Young Worker: Official Organ of the Young Workers (Communist)
League 7, no.11 (September, 1928): 6.
106. Gil Green, "The War Danger and the Youth," Young Worker 8, no.15 (July 21, 1930): 5
107. "Geneva Points to War," Young Worker 8, no.23 (November 17, 1930): 4.
108. Agitprop Department of the Executive Committee of the Young Communist International, "Read and Learn: To All Readers
of the Youth International," The International of Youth: Official Organ of the Executive Committee of the Young Communist
International (no vol.), no. 1 (April-May, 1930): 39.
109. YCLUSA, Who Are the Young Communists (New York: Youth Publishers, 1931), 21.
110. V.E. Chemadanov, Young Communists and the Path to Soviet Power: Report to the January Plenum of the Young Communist
International (New York: Youth Publishers, 1934) 29.
111. ECYCI, Resolutions Adopted at the Fourth Congress, 77.
112. Ottanelli, 215.
113. M. Young, "Twenty Years Ago and Now," The International of Youth: Official Organ of the Executive Committee of the
Young Communist International 1, no. 6 (August, 1934): 5.
114. As a sector of society that had been mobilized for war by taping into national sentiment, youth could potentially have been
mobilized by the revolutionary left by translating disillusionment into a revolutionary national discourse. George Mosse
has offered an interesting theoretical critique of the failures of the early communist movement for neglecting the national
polemic in applying their political lines in the West. By centring their militant language within an international discourse
centring on Bolshevik slogans, communists failed to adequately tap into "the power of veterans in defeated or disgruntled
nations" whose strong sense of camaraderie could have been mobilized to establish "some new social order when peace
time came." While Mosse's commentary is interesting in hindsight, it is largely a-historical to contend that young communists
would have operated much differently since their internationalism was formed in revulsion to the nationalist sentiment
that facilitated the war. See Georege L. Mosse, "Two World Wars and the Myth of the War Experience," Journal of
Contemporary History 21, no.4 (Oct, 1986): 496. Some of the greatest successes in youth mobilization after WWI came
with Mussolini in Italy by fusing together national sentiment with disillusionment from the war. See Michael A. Ledeen,
"Fascism & Youth," in Universal Fascism: The Theory and Practice of the Fascist International, 1928-1936 (New York:
Howard Fertig, 1972), 3-25.
115. ECYCI, Remove the Frontiers!, 7, 5.
116. ECYCI, Draft Programme, 81.
117. Ibid., 77-78.
118. YCLGB, Results of Two Congresses, 12.
119. Communist International Executive, Principles on Party Organization, 20.
120. YCLGB, Results of Two Congresses: Being an Abridged Report of the 6 th Congress of the Communist International, and
5 th Congress of the Young Communist International, Held in Moscow, July-September, 1928 (London: YCLGB, 1928),
16. In openly proclaiming their attacks against the Second International, the YCI destroyed any illusions socialist youth
had of their intents; Cornell arguing that young socialists became keenly aware of "the patent insincerity of the Communist
proposals" for unity. See Cornell, Youth and Communism, 28.
121. The communist position against class collaboration was based on the Marxist conception of history, or historical materialism.
Communists firmly believed that the working-class was an independent agent of historical change if given "correct"
communist leadership to guide them in their revolutionary historical mission to overthrow capitalism.
122. Gorsuch, 17.
123. ECYCI, Fundamental Problems, 17,19.
124. Bolshevik rhetoric of historical change further intensified youth sectarian outlooks with consistent over-optimistic statements
like "History is on our side, we will surely win." See J.L. Douglas, 22.
125. V.I. Lenin, "The State and Revolution: The Marxist Theory of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution,"
in The Lenin Anthology, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1975), 315.
159