Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

COMMUNIST HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE YOUTH
ing a synthesized methodology and exploring different source materials. The relationship
between national and international forces must be addressed in any history of communism.
Instead of sifting through internal documentation to prove an authoritative conclusion
on Comintern control, this study focuses upon the propaganda produced by the
Comintern, the YCI and the YCLs in Britain and the United States during the inter-war
period.
My methodology is to use "propaganda analysis" to explore the construction of political
identity by studying the evolution of Leninist theory through the medium of youth
propaganda in a comparative context. 58 Building on the methodology of Maurice Isserman
and Kevin Morgan, this research utilizes generational analysis to reperiodize the
inter-war period, recognizing the existence of two distinct generations of communist
youth. By focussing on propaganda as a form of political education, this methodology
explores the values that the international and national leadership utilized in their conscious
construction of communist youth identity.
The works of the American Institute for Propaganda Analysis in the thirties drew strict
distinctions between the nature and methodologies of education and propaganda. Education
was defined as "an orderly presentation of evidence" that avoided "linguistic devices
which stress emotion and obscure thought" while propaganda relied heavily upon the
utilization of such linguistics to manipulate the receiver of the information towards a
"predetermined end." 59 This research rejects the strict dichotomy between education and
propaganda, instead conceptualizing propaganda as a specific form of ideological education
intended to construct a predetermined political identity.
Lenin formulated an explicit methodology on ideological education and the utilization
of political propaganda. The communist movement was dominated by an obsession with
ideology and its impact upon political theory and practice. Lenin vehemently contended
that there were both "correct" and "incorrect" ideologies, positing that Marxism was a
"proletarian science" that superseded all other ideologies. 60 Lenin instructed communist
youth to study and assimilate this "correct ideology" into all facets of their life, defining
themselves as "true" Bolsheviks by overcoming the "old separation of theory and practice."
61 To provide ideological education, Lenin placed primary emphasis upon the
utilization of newspapers and pamphlets to interpret events and instil political values. 62
The production of revolutionary propaganda was the foremost task of communists. 63
This study draws extensively on propaganda source material to trace the evolution of
communist theory and its impact upon political identity.
Social theory and social history have added significant contributions to addressing
concepts of identity. In her study of British national identity, Linda Colley utilized an
innovative approach, focussing extensively on the concept of the "antithesis" that provided
the basis for identity construction. Communist political identity is understood here
primarily in terms of identity negation where competing visions of "Us" are often submerged
to a dominant shared discourse defined as the antithesis of "Them;" where "men
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