Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

THE YOUTH STRUGGLE AGAINST WAR
Browder contested that the "fight against the war-makers" was the central theme that
united communist generations. The experiences of confusion and defeat of the Leninist
Generation enabled youth to learn from the past. Browder openly admitted that the
Leninist Generation "understood very little about the world" while the Popular Front
Generation knew "much better." Communism was not posited as a static revolutionary
dogma, but as a flexible movement inspired by the desire to transform the world into a
place without war.
In 1938 Maurice Thorez directed a speech to communist youth entitled "A New Youth
Shall Rise." Like Browder, Thorez also spoke of the continuity of peace activism that
connected the Leninist and Popular Front Generations:
We had heard the call of Lenin and together with our elders, we answered it. We answered
the call of the Third International along with those who were still covered with
the blood and mud of their trenches, carrying the marks of multiple wounds on their bodies,
and in their breasts the scars of illnesses which were to take them from us prematurely.
We made an oath that we would fight with all our hearts and all our strength so
that our children should never know war.... I can tell you, we have never failed in keeping
this oath. We fought against war and for peace in 1920 by joining the Third International....
We fought for peace and against war by launching and achieving our great idea,
the People's Front.... Yes, comrades, we shall do everything to avoid the horrors of a
new war, for the youth, for our children, ourselves, our great people.... Yes! Fascism is
war, we said it, and there were some who laughed at us. Fascism is war. Though we are
slandered, never have we asked for military intervention in Spain.... We are in the tradition
of proletarian internationalism, fighting for liberty and for peace, and love of our
country. 13
Thorez reiterated Dimitrov's contention that "Fascism is war." His generation had
embraced communism to fight "against war and for peace." The Popular Front Generation
rallied to the Comintern to fight "for peace and against war." The implied goal of
communism was no longer to fight a class "war against war," but to embrace effective
methods to maintain peace. War and peace were the central issues that connected the
experiences of these radically distinct generations.
The controversial and potentially contradictory element of the Popular Front that
Thorez addressed was the issue of "military intervention" against fascism. Though
communists fought for the Spanish Republic, Thorez identified that the Popular Front
would do "everything to avoid the horrors of a new war." This distinction between
"collective security" for peace and "military intervention" for an anti-fascist war facilitated
one of the greatest crises in young communist political identity. How were communist
youth to react if a fascist world war did break out
The notorious "Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact" of 1939 caused major rifts
in the anti-fascist and communist movements. Popular Front propaganda openly stated
that communists would do everything to avoid a new world war. After years of diplomatic
courting failed to materialize into larger collective security alliances with the West,
Stalin showed the world that he would do anything to prevent Soviet engagement in a
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