Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

DEMOCRACY
tional Brigades, who were not advancing Bolshevik revolution, but fighting "bravely in
behalf of Spanish democracy." 268 The YCL insisted that they needed to "make all of
America conscious of the role our boys have played in the struggle for Spanish and world
democracy." 269 The YCL used support of the Brigades as an assessment of other people's
sincere dedication to democracy insisting, "It was the test of a man's democratic understanding
and sincerity over here, whether his trade union, his lodge, his church, or
political organization contributed to provide medical supplies, ambulances, medicines,
foodstuffs, and gifts to the Lincoln boys and the Spanish people." 270 The YCL invoked
the experience of the American volunteers to reinforce to the youth movement that if
"American democracy is to live, it must be concerned with the preservation of democracy
in other countries." 271 Other articles insisted that the Abraham Lincoln Brigade showed
that "the continuation of American democracy… was bound up with the preservation of
democracy and peace in other parts of the world." 272 By upholding American democratic
traditions through direct intervention in Spain, the YCL insisted their comrades' in Spain
upheld "the honor of our people." 273
As we have seen, Dimitrov's reconceptualization of fascism and democracy had a profound
impact on the development of distinctive new forms of communist youth propaganda
and activities. While the Leninist Generation had confidently denounced
"bourgeois democracy" as a moribund system they would displace through proletarian
dictatorship, the Popular Front Generation proudly boasted of their role in defending all
forms of democracy and modernity from fascism. Popular Front propaganda reflected on
the intimate links between democracy, youth and modernity in the struggle against
fascism. Fascism threatened all facets of youth culture and democracy. To show there
sincerity to defending democracy, many YCLers flocked to the cause of the Spanish
Republic through material assistance, propaganda and at times, giving the ultimate
sacrifice of their lives to defeat fascism. These new democratic initiatives ultimately
enabled British and American communist youth to creatively reconstruct their political
identity around innovative conceptions of fascism and democracy.
129