Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
6. Jim Fyrth argues that "Communist thinking moved rather more slowly towards unity" of the democratic movement based
on the social forces model of the Popular Front. See Jim Fyrth, "Introduction: The Thirties," in Britain, Fascism and the
Popular Front, ed. Jim Fyrth (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1985), 11.
7. G.D.H. Cole, The People's Front, 44.
8. Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile, "The Doctrine of Fascism," in World Future Fund Totalitarian Philosophy Archive
.
9. ECYCI, Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth, 42.
10. Ibid.,17-42.
11. ECYCI, Resolutions Adopted at the Fourth Congress, 81.
12. Beetham, 17, 19.
13. Tim Kirk and Anthony McElligott, "Community, Authority and Resistance to Fascism," in Opposing Fascism: Community,
Authority and Resistance in Europe, ed. Tim Kirk and Anthony McElligott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), 7.
14. McDermott and Agnew, 119.
15. Bolshevization and the purges of the Third Period resulted in the "creation of a solid rank of disciplined Bolshevik cadres
in the communist parties." Communists were willing to accept Comintern strategies out of general discipline, even if they
lacked conviction in their support. See Jonathan Haslam, "The Comintern and the Origins of the Popular Front 1934-
1935," The Historical Journal 22, no. 3 (September, 1979):687.
16. McDermott and Agnew, 126.
17. Wilhelm Pieck, "Report of the Activities of the Executive Committee of the Communist International July 26, 1935," in
Report of the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International (London: Modern Books, 1936), 40, 56.
18. Ibid., 61.
19. Georgi Dimitrov, "The Working Class Against Fascism: Report Delivered on August 2, 1935 on the Second Point of the
Agenda," in Report of the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International (London: Modern Books, 1936), 8.
20. Ibid., 17.
21. Ercoli, "The Fight Against War and Fascism," in Report of the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International
(London: Modern Books, 1936), 65. As an Italian political exile and member of the Comintern secretariat, Togliatti was
known internationally under the pseudonym of Ercole Ercoli.
22. Dave Renton, Fascism: Theory and Practice (London: Pluto Press, 1999), 77.
23. Dimitrov, "The Working Class Against Fascism: Report," 6-7.
24. Kermit E. McKenzie, "The Soviet Union, the Comintern and World Revolution: 1935," Political Science Quarterly 65, no.
2 (June, 1950): 237.
25. Once considered one of Lenin's closest associates and a hero of the Bolshevik Revolution, Trotsky became increasingly
marginalized and was eventually expelled from the Soviet Union and the Comintern after Stalin's ascension to power. As
Trotsky continued his critiques of Stalinism and the Comintern apparatus, the Comintern began internationally propagating
the assertion that Trotsky had become a "Gestapo Agent" and that his followers were saboteurs and conscious agents
of fascism. Regardless of the fact or fiction of assertions on both sides, throughout the thirties Trotsky became a rallying
symbol of Leninists opposed to the Popular Front and an increasingly demonized character within the Comintern, especially
after the infamous "Moscow Trials" began. According to Trotsky's critique, what was developing in the Soviet Union
under Stalin was not a "socialist society," but a system of "state capitalism" that was systematically betraying the
international revolution for the sake of consolidating Stalin's personal power. See Leon Trotsky, "Revolution Betrayed:
What is the Soviet Union and Where is it Going," in Leon Trotsky Internet Archive
.
26. Quoted in McNeal, "Trotskyist Interpretations," 30.
27. Leon Trotsky, "Whither France Once Again, Whither France Part II: Socialism and Armed Struggle,"
in Leon Trotsky Internet Archive .
28. Leon Trotsky, "On the Founding of the Fourth International," in Leon Trotsky Internet Archive
.
29. In a recent historical article by the American Socialist Workers Party contended that "Popular Front, as presented by Dimitrov
and applied by Communist Parties around the world in the 1930s and ’40s, had no continuity with the Bolshevik
Party." See Martín Koppel, "Bolshevism Versus Class Collaboration: A Reply To Young Communist League’s Defense
Of Stalinist Popular Frontism," The Militant 69, no.17 (May, 2005): 3. The International Bolshevik Tendency movement
contends that the Popular Front solidified Trotskyist splits due to their essential differences in "methodology and programme."
See International Bolshevik Tendency, "Marxist Bulletin: Bolshevism and Trotskyism, Defending Our History,"
in International Bolshevik Tendency Online .
30. Jay Lovestone, The People's Front Illusion: From "Social Fascism" to the "People's Front" (New York: Worker's Age
Publishers, 1936), 4.
31. Isaac Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), 417.
32. Lenin and the Comintern had previously condemned the League of Nations as a bogus institution that could not cope with
the modern problems of imperialist war and international peace. The Second Congress of the Comintern resolved that
"without the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, no international arbitration courts, no talk about a reduction of armaments,
no "democratic" reorganisation of the League of Nations will save mankind from new imperialist wars." The Popular
Front Generation instead posited that the participation of the USSR in the League of Nations could help to transform
the institution into a genuinely constructive international apparatus to preserve peace. See V.I. Lenin, "Terms of Admission
Into the Communist International," in V.I. Lenin Internet Archive .
33. Increasingly throughout the thirties the Western "democratic powers," most notably Prime Minister Chamberlain of Britain,
capitulated to fascist demands that overturned the power balance of the Versailles Treaty, enabling a German rearmament
leading toward WWII. During this period Western politicians continually clung on to the empty shell of the nonintervention
pact concerning Spain, even once it was clear that the fascists were actively assisting Franco. See G.D.H.
Cole, A History of Socialist Thought Volume V: Socialism and Fascism, 1931-1939 (London: MacMillan and Co., 1961),
23.
34. Quoted in Tom Buchanan, "Anti-Fascism and Democracy in the 1930's," European History Quarterly 32, no.1 (2002): 41.
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