Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf
Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf
Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf
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YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM<br />
172. The YCL believed these youth struggles under "present-day bourgeois democracy" would help youth "to realize the need<br />
for establishing Socialism." See "Editorials," Young Communist Review 3, no.8 (October, 1938): 5; Dave Grant, "Socialist<br />
Slander on the Sherman Investigation," Young Communist Review 3, no.1 (March, 1938): 25.<br />
173. "National Board Meeting Discussion," Young Communist Review 3, no.1 (March, 1938): 18.<br />
174. "Editorials," Young Communist Review 3, no.11 (January, 1939): 10.<br />
175. Ed Brant, "How They Did It," Young Communist Review 3, no.9 (November, 1938): 26.<br />
176. Carl Ross, "Events of the Month," Young Communist Review 3, no.5 (July, 1938): 20. This rhetorical strategy was similar<br />
to the Leninist Generation's rhetoric that spoke of the factory as a "fortress of class struggle," In an article entitled "Every<br />
Factory a Revolutionary Fortress" the YCL spoke of the Bolshevik tactic of "concentrating on the key points of our enemy<br />
– the factories." The YCL tactic of concentrating their forces and organizing efforts on the University Campus came from<br />
a similar outlook as the Leninist generation; namely trying to organize youth to be able to "cripple the capitalist war machine."<br />
See "Study Section: Every Factory a Revolutionary Fortress," YCL Builder 1, no.3 (November 15, 1932): 24-25.<br />
177. Joseph Lash, The Campus: A Fortress of Democracy (New York: American Student Union, 1938), 8-9.<br />
178. Celeste Strack, "War or Peace – The Students Answer," Young Communist Review 1, no.2 (December, 1936): 14, 6.<br />
179. The CCC was one of the most popular public programs of the New Deal. The CCC was established in March, 1933 to<br />
provide work for young unemployed men. Early CCC recruits typically did not receive any skills training due to pressures<br />
from organized labor, fearing that CCC workers would be used to replace skilled union labor. The YCL's critiques of the<br />
CCC centred around the issue of regimentation, comparing the CCC camps to forced labor camps in Nazi Germany. An<br />
article in August, 1933 stated, "The forced labor, war camps of the "New Deal," have received their baptism in blood. Today's<br />
Young Workers carries the stories of yet two more young workers brutally killed in the camps. What is behind these<br />
murders Behind them is the brutal determination of Wall Street and its Roosevelt government to prepare the youth for<br />
war, to establish forced labor as a system in the US, to stop the growing tide of struggles for real unemployment relief by<br />
the youth… The youth must make as one of the main points of their struggle the driving out of the whole military machine<br />
from the camps." See "Murder in the Labor Camps," The Young Worker: Official Organ, Young Communist League USA<br />
(Section of the Young Communist International) 11, no.12 (August 16, 1933): 8.<br />
180. "Editorials," Young Communist Review 4, no.1 (March, 1939): 14.<br />
181. "Editorials," Young Communist Review 3, no.12 (February, 1939): 7.<br />
182. YCL propaganda highlighted cases like that of the retired military officer General Moseley to show the potentially fascist<br />
and treasonous tendencies that existed in the military. The YCL contended that Moseley was plotting to "assassinate<br />
President Roosevelt and even to overthrow the American government by force" to reverse the President's progressive domestic<br />
and foreign policy positions. Moseley's anti-Semitic and anti-Roosevelt views were well known publicly and in a<br />
speech of 1939 he did assert that the military would offer the American public "salvation" if Roosevelt went too far in his<br />
New Deal programs. See John Gates, "Our Stand <strong>Against</strong> Dictatorship," 10; Max Wallace, The American Axis: Henry<br />
Ford, Charles Lindbergh, And The Rise Of The Third Reich (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2003).<br />
183. Gil Green, "Armaments For What," Young Communist Review 3, no.11 (January, 1939): 4,5,26.<br />
184. Two Former Army Members, "The Men Who Defend Our Country," Young Communist Review 4, no.6 (August, 1939): 3.<br />
185. Strack, "War or Peace," 14.<br />
186. Celeste Strack, "Answering Questions," 11.<br />
187. "Recruiting Drive," Young Communist Review 4, no.7 (September, 1939): 29.<br />
188. Ibid., 12.<br />
189. "Editorials," Young Communist Review 3, no.1 (March, 1938): 7.<br />
190. Ross, "Events of the Month," 23.<br />
191. Carl Ross, "The Position of American <strong>Youth</strong>," World <strong>Youth</strong> Review 1, no. 6 (June, 1939): 115.<br />
192. "Six Point Programme For American <strong>Youth</strong>," World <strong>Youth</strong> Review 1, no. 6 (June, 1939): 122.<br />
193. One election article stated, "A most appropriate place to drive home this incompatibility is in citizenship training for<br />
young people, at young citizens day ceremonies. Here we must move at once, for the reactionaries, Hearst and the Republicans,<br />
are organizing Young Citizens' Day ceremonies using the slogan 'I am an American' deliberately to build up a<br />
chauvinist, intolerant, and super-patriotic feeling among the youth." The YCL contended its citizenship days should focus<br />
on five points: "1) Creating a sense of duty and responsibility that accompanies the rights of citizenship; 2) Giving to the<br />
entire citizenry a clearer appreciation of its duties, responsibilities and obligations; 3) Developing a clearer understanding<br />
of the relation of local government to our state and nation; 4) Assisting in creating a high degree of community spirit; 5)<br />
Counteracting unwholesome propaganda by generating intelligent and creative participating citizenry." See Carl Geiser, "I<br />
Was in a Fascist," 27; Leon Kaplan, "Experiment," 28.<br />
194. Green, "Creative Marxism," 6.<br />
195. Ibid., 29.<br />
196. Nancy Cardozo, "Joe Delegate Comes to the Convention," Young Communist Review 4, no.2 (April, 1939): 8.<br />
197. "In Memory of Dave Doran," Young Communist Review 4, no.2 (April, 1939): 10.<br />
198. Ross, "The Elections Results," 26.<br />
199. "Greetings to the World <strong>Youth</strong> Congress," 4.<br />
200. May Himoff, "Questions and Answers," Young Communist Review 3, no.5 (July, 1938): 33.<br />
201. Francis Franklin, "Our Twelve Weeks Course of Study," Young Communist Review 3, no.2 (April, 1938): 21.<br />
202. Other articles warned young communists not to "apply everything that is related" in Russian history to the US because<br />
"not every event in Russian history occurred in America;" that while the Soviet experience offered lessons, that young<br />
communists should not "try to apply mechanically everything that was done by the C.P.S.U. to the United States." See<br />
Dave Grant, "Socialist Slander on the Sherman Investigation," 23; "How to Study," Young Communist Review 4, no.7<br />
(September, 1939): 15.<br />
203. Clark, "Our Fourth of July," 8.<br />
204. Forest S. Adams, "Right to Revolution Stressed by George Washington in 1776," The Young Worker: Weekly Organ of the<br />
Young Communist League, USA 14, no.7 (February 18, 1936): 5.<br />
205. Though much of this style of American rhetoric was abandoned with the denunciation of Earl Browder in 1945, such<br />
themes later became the basis for the CPUSA "Bill of Rights Socialism" program. See Sam Webb, "Keynote to the 28th<br />
National Convention of the Communist Party, USA," in CPUSA Keynote and Special Reports Internet Archive<br />
.<br />
206. Although he is usually associated in dominant popular memory with the CPUSA, Pete Seeger actually joined the Young<br />
Communist League in 1937 as a classical music student at Harvard. After joining the YCL, Seeger became a prominent<br />
180