Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
could be utilized by both reactionary and progressive movements. 6 The Bolshevik
perspective on nationalism, formed primarily out of the Russian experience, was overtly
reductionist in its analysis on mass perceptions of the nation. Like many other "bourgeois
values," nationalism was simply dismissed as an inherently poisonous ideology that
could not be reconciled with revolutionary Marxism. Nationalist sentiment was to be
exposed and condemned by communist youth in the West, not mobilized for the socialist
cause. 7
On the other hand, Lenin's perspectives on nationalism in the colonial nations diverged
significantly from his denunciations of Western nationalism. Nationalist mobilization
proved effective in colonial and oppressed nations as a method to weaken
imperialism. Lenin asserted that colonial nationalist movements could potentially be
progressive due to its anti-feudal class basis:
Nationalism that is more feudal than bourgeois is the principal obstacle to democracy
and to the proletarian struggle. The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a
general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that
we unconditionally support. At the same time we strictly distinguish it from the tendency
towards national exclusiveness; we fight against the tendency of the Polish bourgeois to
oppress the Jews, etc., etc. This is "unpractical" from the standpoint of the bourgeois and
the philistine, but it is the only policy in the national question that is practical, based on
principles, and really promotes democracy, liberty and proletarian unity. 8
Lenin's analysis of the "class forces" behind democratic nationalism in the colonies
enabled Popular Front communists to legitimize their revision of Lenin's anti-nationalist
positions. Dimitrov asserted fascism represented a reactionary feudal nationalism that
impeded the advancement of democracy and the class struggle in the bourgeois democracies.
Lenin's anti-nationalist positions attracted many socialist youth. The SYI mobilized
youth sentiment during WWI by positing a militant internationalist perspective against
the war. After the war, youth propaganda continued this strategy, appealing to young
workers explicitly in international class terms:
We stand, as it were, at the cross-roads of the ages. The old order of things is passing
away, and a new world, a new regime, is looming in the horizons. Kings and crowns
have been thrown on to the old rubbish heap. The lowly rise into power, and the downtrodden,
the long disinherited part of humanity is coming into its own... As one of the
poor and disinherited you cannot afford to stand aloof. The destiny of your class is being
weighed in the balance. Forward, young rebels! Join hands! At this great hour of
world-reconstruction do your duty. 9
Communist propaganda insinuated that if young people united in international revolution,
the "old order" would soon be swept away. Internationalism was posited as the prime
duty of working-class youth. Another youth article articulated a vehement attack against
nationalist sentiment and patriotism stating:
How can one love a thing that is wrong Indeed, there is something wrong with a country
that starves its workers and feeds its idlers... I cannot love England as it is to-day and
I cannot love Englishmen as such; neither can I love Germans as such. I cannot love any
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