Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

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