Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
Civil War have also commented on phenomenon of the International Brigades as a "generational youth struggle," positing
the experiences of young people's generational experiences with WWI and the Spanish Civil War. The primary data on
the Brigades in YCL propaganda dealt specifically with deaths, often revealing little about the numbers and identities of
YCLers fighting in Spain since international "non-intervention" regulations prohibited "outside" interference in Spain.
Many volunteers commented after their return, especially in the United States, about the intense state persecution that they
experienced, which may have been a factor in the YCL's discreteness of revealing information about members volunteering
in Spain. See John Gerassi, The Premature Antifascists: North American Volunteers In The Spanish Civil War, 1936-
39: An Oral History (New York: Praeger, 1986.).
136. John Gollan, "British Youth and the Struggle Against Chamberlain," World Youth Review 1. no. 1 (January, 1939): 4.
137. See Joe Cohen, "In Review – War Our Heritage," 6.
138. "Long Live Republican Spain!," World Youth Review 1, no. 3 (March, 1939): 45.
139. "The Situation in Spain and the Tasks of the Youth," World Youth Review 1, no. 3 (March, 1939): 47.
140. Raymond Guyot, "International Youth Day – Anti-War Day," World Youth Review 1, no. 9 (September, 1939): 170.
141. Bob Cooney, "The British Volunteers," The Volunteer for Liberty: Organ of the International Brigades 2, no.35 (November
7, 1938): 8.
142. See Edward Bennett, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Search for Security: American-Soviet Relations, 1933-1939 (Wilmington:
Scholarly Resources, 1985).
143. Ottanelli, 178.
144. Carl Ross, "Youth in the United States," World Youth Review 1. no. 1 (January, 1939): 10.
145. Rudy Ward, "Why We Want the War to Stop," Young Communist Review 4, no.9 (December, 1939): 23.
146. Renton, Fascism: Theory, 112.
NATIONALISM: FROM POISON TO PATRIOTISM
1. Jim West, "The YCL Speaks to the Catholics," Young Communist Review 3 no.5 (July 1938): 25.
2. YCLGB, Constitution and Principles of the YCL (London: YCLGB, 1943), 7.
3. YCLGB, A Short History of the Young Communist International, 9.
4. VI Lenin, "Critical Remarks on the National Question," in VI Lenin Internet Archive .
5. While initial British WWI propaganda imagery centered on nationalist appeals to traditional Imperial values, the tone and
visual rhetoric became transformed as the war dragged on, especially after the entrance of the USA. Later visual appeals
centered around concepts of citizenship with appeals like "The Nation Needs You!" Perhaps the most infamous appeals
centered on citizenship and nationalism was Lloyd George's appeal that when British troops returned, they would come
back to "A Land Fit For Heroes." For a lengthy discussion and visual reproduction of the US and British propaganda
campaigns during WWI see Martin Hardie and Arthur Sabin, War Posters (London: A & C Black, 1920) and Maurice
Rickards, Posters of the First World War (New York: Walker, 1968).
6. US entry into WWI was largely facilitated by an intense propaganda campaign by President Wilson asserting that the war
was one to "Save Democracy" and that this would be "The War to End All Wars."
7. Though Lenin's strict analysis ultimately forged Comintern policy, not all contemporary revolutionary socialists shared
Lenin's condemnation of nationalist movements in the West. For these socialists who based their conception of nationalism
within republican conceptions of citizenship, there was no inherit internal contradiction between their socialist internationalism
and nationalist aspirations. Identifying that the socialist movement first had to be advanced within its national
context, these revolutionaries expressed a socialist form of nationalism that was tempered by a greater internationalist perspective.
James Connolly and John MacLean were two of the most influential and articulate contemporaries of Lenin who
espoused this divergent perspective on nationalism. Although it was unlikely that Connolly and MacLean could have won
over the hard-headed Lenin to their positions on nationalism, the exclusion of their important voices within the initial
Comintern meetings limited the scope of debates on the nationalist question in the West. Though Ireland was a unique
case in Western Europe that theoretically fit within Lenin's criteria of an "oppressed nation," Connolly's conceptions of nationalism
and internationalism were divergent to Lenin's. For Connolly and other Irish socialists, the struggle for the Irish
Republic was always set in the rhetoric of a socialist nationalism that was in turn developed into an internationalist view:
"Always presupposing that the rapprochement is desired between Sinn Feiners who sympathise with Socialism… Socialists
who realise that a Socialist movement must rest upon and draw its inspiration from the historical and actual conditions
of the country in which it functions and not merely lose themselves in an abstract ‘internationalism’ (which has no
relation to the real internationalism of the Socialist movement), on the other." (James Connolly, "Sinn Fein, Socialism and
the Nation," in the James Connolly Internet Archive .)
The main criterion that Connolly used to conceptualize nationalism was the class content of the movement and the ultimate
socialist goal of the nationalist movement. Connolly contended that Irish nationalism could "not merely a morbid
idealising of the past," but needed to assert a concrete socialist "political and economic creed capable of adjustment to the
wants of the future." The advent of the Irish Socialist Republic would not just serve the needs of the Irish, but would act in
an internationalist role. Connolly contended that such an Irish Republic would "be of such a character that the mere mention
of its name would at all times serve as a beacon-light to the oppressed of every land." (James Connolly, "Socialism
and Nationalism," in the James Connolly Internet Archive .) While the form of nationalist agitation would have similar characteristics to bourgeois nationalism,
the content and the ultimate goal of Irish Socialist Nationalism would be inherently different. Connolly consistently
warned Irish socialists that their nationalism could not be "imbued with national or racial hatred," but needed to be directed
towards preserving an "alliance and the friendship of those hearts who, loving liberty for its own sake, are not afraid
to follow its banner when it is uplifted by the hands of the working class." (James Connolly, "Socialism and Irish Nationalism,"
in the James Connolly Internet Archive .) For
Connolly, Irish revolutionary socialism was naturally "reconciled with nationalism" and served to facilitate an internationalist
perspective. To cement together the Irish nationalist and socialist movements, Connolly was prepared to "seal the
bond of union with his own blood if necessary," which was his eventual martyred fate during the Easter Uprising of 1916.
John MacLean posited a similar analysis to Connolly on the issue of Scottish nationalism and socialism that was divergent
to the opinions of Lenin and the Comintern. The consistent anti-war activity of MacLean and his unyielding commitment
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