Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
into a pseudo-religious dogma to enforce the will of the Comintern and the Soviet
leadership instead of acting as broad guide of international political action. The YCI
played an active role in enforcing both the Bolshevization and Stalinization of the
Comintern, but often failed to actively counter the rising tide of fascism.
A Class War of Illusions: Youth and the "Science" of Marxism-Leninism
The YCI directed its national sections to embrace and promote the "science" of Marxism-
Leninism, believing Lenin had found a "correct formula" for political mobilization and
socialist revolution. This trend led the YCI to neglect forming distinct national policies
that would resonate with youth of the 1920's, opting to mimic the tactics, ideology and
language of the Russian Bolsheviks. Young communists believed the Bolshevik Revolution
could be recreated in the West by energetically applying the "correct" lines of the
Comintern, fermenting and capitalizing upon periods of revolutionary advance. Communists
internalized failures through "Bolshevik self-criticism" or blamed them upon
"illusions" bred by social democrats and bourgeois culture, rarely explaining defeats in
terms of incorrect policies. The YCI contended setbacks were rooted in deviations from
Comintern lines or lack of energy and conviction in application of these "correct lines."
The Comintern failed to adequately address the context of Western political culture,
directing communist youth to strictly follow the Russian experience for guidance. The
Leninist Generation was plagued by a constant deference to the Comintern's interpretation
of this Leninist "science" while the Popular Front Generation would later claim a
more creative inspiration from what they termed to be the "spirit," not the "science of
Marxism-Leninism.
The YCI attacked competing conceptions of youth mobilization outright for maintaining
class rule, failing to adequately analyze or utilize their potential appeal or complexity.
The Leninist Generation propagated a militant political identity, attacking all other
movements for facilitating the "rooting of new illusions in the ranks of the working
youth." 110 The Leninist outlook of the YCI facilitated tactics directed towards highly
destructive methods, informed by what Ottanelli has termed a "cataclysmic view of social
change." 111 On such important and contentions issues as nationalism, youth unity, and
democracy the YCI asserted their own distinct and inflexible Leninist analysis that
considered any other viewpoint illusionary and ultimately counter-revolutionary.
The Leninist and Popular Front generations of the YCI held intensely divergent positions
on the national issue in the West. The Leninist Generation vehemently attacked
nationalism as a poisonous illusion that facilitated war. Young communists exposed how
socialists had betrayed "the most elementary things in the Communist Manifesto, where
Marx stated that the workers have no fatherland under capitalism" by encouraging the
"young generation to defend the fatherland." 112 Early statements of the YCI posited that
deference to nationalist sentiment was dangerous and counterproductive. 113 In a pamphlet
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