Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
75. Neil Barrett, "The Anti-Fascist Movement in South-East Lancashire," in Opposing Fascism: Community, Authority and
Resistance in Europe, ed. Tim Kirk and Anthony McElligott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 50.
76. Sharon Gerwitz, "Anti-Fascist Activity in Manchester's Jewish Community in the 1930's," Manchester Region History
Review 4, no.1 (Spring/Summer, 1990): 19.
77. Barrett, 54.
78. Gerwitz, 26.
79. W. Payne, A London Busman Reports on the Fight Against Fascism (London: European Workers' Anti-Fascist Congress
British Delegation Committee, 1934), 10.
80. Quoted in Gerald D. Anderson, Fascists, Communists, and the National Government: Civil Liberties in Great Britain,
1931-1937 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1983), 101.
81. James Eaden and David Renton, The Communist Party of Great Britain Since 1920 (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 49.
82. Ivor Montagu, Blackshirt Brutality: The Story of Olympia (London: Workers' Bookshop, 1934), 8.
83. National Council of Labour, What is this Fascism (London: Victoria House, 1934), 2.
84. This dynamic of using "public order" legislation was a replication of the trends that occurred in the Weimar Republic that
targeted the militant anti-fascist struggles of German communists.
85. Anderson, 120.
86. Anderson, 148.
87. John Gollan, Raise High the Banner: Speech of Comrade Gollan at the 6 th World Congress of the Young Communist International
(London: YCLGB, 1935), 14.
88. YCLGB National Council, "Organisation and Role of the League," Our Youth: Discussion Magazine of the Young Communist
League 2, no.2 (April, 1939): 110.
89. YCLGB, Ten Points, 14.
90. While many expressed critiques and hesitation about the potential "fascistic trends" embodied in the New Deal, the progressive
and radical nature of the program became more apparent as reactionary elements began attacking it. For a contemporary
"left critique" of the potential reactionary nature of the New Deal see Raymond Swing, Forerunners of
American Fascism (New York: Julian Messner Inc., 1935), Chp. 1. For discussion of some of the "reactionary" business
critiques of the New Deal see Paul K. Conkin, The New Deal (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1975), 33-34. For two divergent
critiques of the evolving CPUSA analysis and relationship to the New Deal see Bernard Bellush and Jewel Bellush,
"A Radical Response to the Roosevelt Presidency: The Communist Party (1933-1945)," Presidential Studies Quarterly 10,
no.4 (1980): 645-661 and Anders Stephanson, "The CPUSA Conception of the Rooseveltian State," Radical History Review
24, (1980): 160-176.
91. Although he consistently warned against "ultra-left" positions that mechanically equated the policies of Roosevelt and
Hitler, Earl Browder often highlighted the reactionary elements of early New Deal policies in 1933. "The "New Deal" is a
policy of slashing the living standards at home and fighting for markets abroad for the single purpose of maintaining the
profits of finance capital. It is a policy of brutal oppression and preparation for imperialist war. It represents a further
sharpening and deepening of the world crisis… Under the "New Deal," we have entered a period of the greatest contradiction
between the words and deeds of the heads of government." Earl Browder, What is the New Deal (New York: Workers'
Library Publishers, 1933),15,17.
92. At the time John Dewey described the New Deal not just as a political program, but as a progressive force transforming
the popular perceptions of liberalism and the nature of the state. Dewey contended the New Deal shifted liberalism away
from dogmatic "laissez-faire doctrine" to a new philosophical basis where "government had become popular and in theory
the servant of the people." See John Dewey, "The Future of Liberalism," in New Deal Thought, ed. Howard Zinn (New
York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 31.
93. The American left increasingly identified with Roosevelt in 1934 after public revelations of a supposed plot for a fascist
style coup funded by the Morgan and DuPont families. See Clayton Cramer, "An American Coup D'Etat," History Today
45, no.11 (1995): 42-47. While the Butler coup seemed like an extreme and unusual case of reactionary American politics,
US corporate support for international and domestic fascist initiatives was quite widespread throughout the thirties.
Executives from General Motors not only provided the Nazis with military machinery and technologies vital to Hitler's rearmament
program through their Adam Opel AG Germany subsidiary, but gave many public statements in support of Hitler
and the Third Reich. The DuPont family, who were major investors in General Motors, were known to have openly
financed such fascistic organizations as the Black Legion and the American Liberty League. Both organizations were rumoured
to have political associations with the American Nazi party and the German-American Bund during the 1936
presidential election campaign of Republican Alf Landon against Roosevelt. General Motors was not alone in their material
support of the Third Reich; a profitable relationship that was also replicated by Ford Motor Company. Ford's relationship
with the Third Reich was not just one of material but also ideological support. Hitler himself kept a life-sized photo
of Henry Ford in his office, praising him as a "great anti-Semite" and bestowing upon him the "Grand Cross of the German
Eagle" as a personal gift for Ford's 75 th birthday. Though both Ford and General Motors were later exonerated within public
memory for Allied production during WWII when they were coined as the "Arsenal of Democracy," their corporate alliances
with domestic and foreign fascist movements were well known and recorded during the thirties. The importance of
highlighting American corporate complicity with fascism is that for domestic anti-fascists the threat of fascism was not
just some distant phenomenon in Europe, but was perceived as a potential domestic threat to American democracy and the
working-class movement. See Joel Lewis, "Business, U.S. – Third Reich," in Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics,
and History, A Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia, ed. Thomas Adam (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005), 198; Charles
Higham, Trading With the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot, 1933-1949 (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1983),165;
Reinhold Billstein, "How the Americans Took Over Cologne—and Discovered Ford Werke's Role in the War," in Working
For the Enemy: Ford, General Motors, and Forced Labor in Germany During the Second World War, ed. Nicholas
Levis (New York: Berghan Books, 2000),104-105.
94. In a 1934 New York Times interview Eleanor Roosevelt stated, "I live in real terror when I think we may be losing this
generation. We have got to bring these young people into the active life of the community and make them feel that they
are necessary." Quoted in "National Youth Administration," in The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Online Archive
.
95. Michael, "The Sacrifice of Youth," The Young Worker: Organ of the Young Communist League of Britain 1, no.2 (September,
1923): Cover. Erik, "International Youth Day," The Young Worker: Official Organ of the Young Worker's League
2, no. 9 (September, 1923): Cover.
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