Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

THE LENINIST GENERATION
critiquing the post-war nationalist resurgence, the YCI denounced the "narrow-minded
nationalist ideologists and patriotic idealists" who were targeting the youth. The YCI
insisted, "Proletarian Revolution can only be victorious internationally, Communism can
only be realised and sustained by Internationalism." 114 Other YCI statements reiterated
this position stating, "The fight of the proletariat for Communism can only be successful
if it is conducted on an international scale." 115 Until the rise of Hitler, the Leninist
Generation treated nationalist sentiment as a dangerous bourgeois illusion for workingclass
youth to combat.
The YCI contended its "scientific" programme was correct, in turn condemning all
other conceptions of mobilization and youth unity. The YCI argued "the growth of the
Young Communist Leagues to mass organizations is altogether impossible without the
annihilation of the opponent youth organizations" which necessitated a "merciless
struggle against opportunism and its exponents in the ranks of the youth and against the
Young Socialist Leagues." 116 The YCI maintained it was necessary to "destroy illusions"
that socialists bred in working-class youth to maximize the revolutionary potential of any
future crises of capitalism. The post-war youth were a "revolutionary generation." The
YCI insisted socialist cultural initiatives, though effective in their unifying appeal, simply
bred further illusions in the youth.
Although the YCI directed YCLs to reject social-democratic tactics, it often commented
on the lack of "youthful methods" communists utilized in carrying out work. A
1928 YCI Congress report lamented:
The Congress had to record once more that YCL work was still too much like Party
work and that YCL methods of work were in most cases slavish imitations of the methods
of work of the Parties and were not adapted to the special requirements and peculiarities
of the working youth.... In many cases the youth is approached only with involved
agitations phraseology. The young people who join us are not introduced into the work
in a methodical way but are frequently given tasks which they cannot carry out even
with the best intentions. The work is not interesting enough, the life of the organisation
is dull and there is little to attract to our organisation young people. 117
In countering socialist cultural programs, the YCI adopted methods that often held little
attraction to the youth. For a movement that relied heavily upon the energetic dedication
of its activists, the perpetual existence of a dull organizational life did little to secure
long-term commitments from the youth. Young communists often made little critique of
the "correctness" of their own strategies to win over youth, instead directing attacks
against their socialist youth counterparts. Any relations with socialist leaders were
intended to "unmask these so-called leaders, and subsequently, [to] attack them in the
most energetic fashion." 118 The YCI contended that "making or tolerating any concessions"
to socialists within any United Front alliances was not permissible. 119
The YCI rejected any notions of youth "class collaboration," arguing such practices
would taint revolutionaries with "bourgeois sentiments." 120 In communist organizing,
"working-class youth were the object of the greatest affection and adulation, while
27