Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf
Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf
Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf
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YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM<br />
75. Neil Barrett, "The Anti-Fascist Movement in South-East Lancashire," in Opposing <strong>Fascism</strong>: Community, Authority and<br />
Resistance in Europe, ed. Tim Kirk and Anthony McElligott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 50.<br />
76. Sharon Gerwitz, "Anti-Fascist Activity in Manchester's Jewish Community in the 1930's," Manchester Region History<br />
Review 4, no.1 (Spring/Summer, 1990): 19.<br />
77. Barrett, 54.<br />
78. Gerwitz, 26.<br />
79. W. Payne, A London Busman Reports on the Fight <strong>Against</strong> <strong>Fascism</strong> (London: European Workers' Anti-Fascist Congress<br />
British Delegation Committee, 1934), 10.<br />
80. Quoted in Gerald D. Anderson, Fascists, Communists, and the National Government: Civil Liberties in Great Britain,<br />
1931-1937 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1983), 101.<br />
81. James Eaden and David Renton, The Communist Party of Great Britain Since 1920 (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 49.<br />
82. Ivor Montagu, Blackshirt Brutality: The Story of Olympia (London: Workers' Bookshop, 1934), 8.<br />
83. National Council of Labour, What is this <strong>Fascism</strong> (London: Victoria House, 1934), 2.<br />
84. This dynamic of using "public order" legislation was a replication of the trends that occurred in the Weimar Republic that<br />
targeted the militant anti-fascist struggles of German communists.<br />
85. Anderson, 120.<br />
86. Anderson, 148.<br />
87. John Gollan, Raise High the Banner: Speech of Comrade Gollan at the 6 th World Congress of the Young Communist International<br />
(London: YCLGB, 1935), 14.<br />
88. YCLGB National Council, "Organisation and Role of the League," Our <strong>Youth</strong>: Discussion Magazine of the Young Communist<br />
League 2, no.2 (April, 1939): 110.<br />
89. YCLGB, Ten Points, 14.<br />
90. While many expressed critiques and hesitation about the potential "fascistic trends" embodied in the New Deal, the progressive<br />
and radical nature of the program became more apparent as reactionary elements began attacking it. For a contemporary<br />
"left critique" of the potential reactionary nature of the New Deal see Raymond Swing, Forerunners of<br />
American <strong>Fascism</strong> (New York: Julian Messner Inc., 1935), Chp. 1. For discussion of some of the "reactionary" business<br />
critiques of the New Deal see Paul K. Conkin, The New Deal (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1975), 33-34. For two divergent<br />
critiques of the evolving CPUSA analysis and relationship to the New Deal see Bernard Bellush and Jewel Bellush,<br />
"A Radical Response to the Roosevelt Presidency: The Communist Party (1933-1945)," Presidential Studies Quarterly 10,<br />
no.4 (1980): 645-661 and Anders Stephanson, "The CPUSA Conception of the Rooseveltian State," Radical History Review<br />
24, (1980): 160-176.<br />
91. Although he consistently warned against "ultra-left" positions that mechanically equated the policies of Roosevelt and<br />
Hitler, Earl Browder often highlighted the reactionary elements of early New Deal policies in 1933. "The "New Deal" is a<br />
policy of slashing the living standards at home and fighting for markets abroad for the single purpose of maintaining the<br />
profits of finance capital. It is a policy of brutal oppression and preparation for imperialist war. It represents a further<br />
sharpening and deepening of the world crisis… Under the "New Deal," we have entered a period of the greatest contradiction<br />
between the words and deeds of the heads of government." Earl Browder, What is the New Deal (New York: Workers'<br />
Library Publishers, 1933),15,17.<br />
92. At the time John Dewey described the New Deal not just as a political program, but as a progressive force transforming<br />
the popular perceptions of liberalism and the nature of the state. Dewey contended the New Deal shifted liberalism away<br />
from dogmatic "laissez-faire doctrine" to a new philosophical basis where "government had become popular and in theory<br />
the servant of the people." See John Dewey, "The Future of Liberalism," in New Deal Thought, ed. Howard Zinn (New<br />
York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 31.<br />
93. The American left increasingly identified with Roosevelt in 1934 after public revelations of a supposed plot for a fascist<br />
style coup funded by the Morgan and DuPont families. See Clayton Cramer, "An American Coup D'Etat," History Today<br />
45, no.11 (1995): 42-47. While the Butler coup seemed like an extreme and unusual case of reactionary American politics,<br />
US corporate support for international and domestic fascist initiatives was quite widespread throughout the thirties.<br />
Executives from General Motors not only provided the Nazis with military machinery and technologies vital to Hitler's rearmament<br />
program through their Adam Opel AG Germany subsidiary, but gave many public statements in support of Hitler<br />
and the Third Reich. The DuPont family, who were major investors in General Motors, were known to have openly<br />
financed such fascistic organizations as the Black Legion and the American Liberty League. Both organizations were rumoured<br />
to have political associations with the American Nazi party and the German-American Bund during the 1936<br />
presidential election campaign of Republican Alf Landon against Roosevelt. General Motors was not alone in their material<br />
support of the Third Reich; a profitable relationship that was also replicated by Ford Motor Company. Ford's relationship<br />
with the Third Reich was not just one of material but also ideological support. Hitler himself kept a life-sized photo<br />
of Henry Ford in his office, praising him as a "great anti-Semite" and bestowing upon him the "Grand Cross of the German<br />
Eagle" as a personal gift for Ford's 75 th birthday. Though both Ford and General Motors were later exonerated within public<br />
memory for Allied production during WWII when they were coined as the "Arsenal of Democracy," their corporate alliances<br />
with domestic and foreign fascist movements were well known and recorded during the thirties. The importance of<br />
highlighting American corporate complicity with fascism is that for domestic anti-fascists the threat of fascism was not<br />
just some distant phenomenon in Europe, but was perceived as a potential domestic threat to American democracy and the<br />
working-class movement. See <strong>Joel</strong> <strong>Lewis</strong>, "Business, U.S. – Third Reich," in Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics,<br />
and History, A Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia, ed. Thomas Adam (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005), 198; Charles<br />
Higham, Trading With the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot, 1933-1949 (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1983),165;<br />
Reinhold Billstein, "How the Americans Took Over Cologne—and Discovered Ford Werke's Role in the War," in Working<br />
For the Enemy: Ford, General Motors, and Forced Labor in Germany During the Second World War, ed. Nicholas<br />
Levis (New York: Berghan Books, 2000),104-105.<br />
94. In a 1934 New York Times interview Eleanor Roosevelt stated, "I live in real terror when I think we may be losing this<br />
generation. We have got to bring these young people into the active life of the community and make them feel that they<br />
are necessary." Quoted in "National <strong>Youth</strong> Administration," in The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Online Archive<br />
.<br />
95. Michael, "The Sacrifice of <strong>Youth</strong>," The Young Worker: Organ of the Young Communist League of Britain 1, no.2 (September,<br />
1923): Cover. Erik, "International <strong>Youth</strong> Day," The Young Worker: Official Organ of the Young Worker's League<br />
2, no. 9 (September, 1923): Cover.<br />
164