Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
The YCL actively promoted "people's culture." People's culture was embraced in reaction
to fascism's attacks against modern and democratic culture. 113 Articles in the
World Youth Review highlighted how within the Hitler Youth "violence is glorified,
contempt is thrown on all cultural and intellectual activity, opposition declared against
every humanist and progressive tendency." 114 In opposition to Nazi attacks on culture,
young communists asserted their movement represented "the forces of culture, the forces
of civilisation." 115 The YCL encouraged their members to advance anti-fascist culture by
utilizing poetry, literature, plays, art and music in their publications, social functions and
campaigns. The YCL contrasted the "bright and colourful" campaigns of the Popular
Front to the "old dry street corner meetings" of the past, insisting such tactics would
"attract youth to our ranks." 116 YCL cultural articles highlighted how poetry was an
extremely effective genre for democratic propaganda. Challenge reflected that "poems
can rouse people, can educate and inspire" and that if they reflected "the idea of liberty
and of happiness and of comradeship" that they would help the YCL to "defend humanity
and the ideals of mankind." 117
YCL poetry and lyrics contained constant references to themes of democracy, freedom
and liberty alongside vehement denunciations of fascism and Chamberlain. One poem
from January, 1939, inspired by William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence," linked fascism
and Chamberlain to images of betrayal and profit and youth to images of liberty and the
future:
He who shall turn the youth to war
True men his company shall bar.
Who brands the child with a swastika
Shall wake one day and sweat with fear:
Those who work for private gain
Shall call the youth and call in vain.
The Czech's betrayer, cold and suave
Shall go unmourned into his grave
All those with tongue inside the cheek
Democracy and freedom speak
Shall feel their treacherous knees grow weak:
These cynics who betray their land
At last shall feel the people's hand:
The furious people's final roar
Are waves that beat on Heaven's shore.
The man whose dream's humanity
Shall wake one day to Liberty. 118
"People's culture" stressed how such expressions could interpret the past and present in
order to inspire actions for the future. Good cultural propaganda did not reflect a "fantasy,
no escape from the real world," but showed the "pattern of the life we wish for" and
gave "the inspiration to attain it." This article further asserted that "such music will live
in us and make us unconquerable." 119
YCL campaigns utilized modern forms of song, film and theatre to attract and inspire
youth. In 1938 the YCL published a song sheet for the youth movement entitled The
112