Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM
Quarterly 43, no.1 (January, 1994): 99-115 or A. G. Hyde-Price, "Lenin, the State and Democracy: From Parliamentarism
to Soviet Power." (Unpublished PHD Dissertation: University of Kent, Canterbury 1983)
12. ECYCI, The Draft Programme, 24, 26.
13. ECYCI, Fundamental Problems, 42.
14. ECYCI, The Programmes of the Young Communist International, 43.
15. "Illegality and Work Among the Masses," The International of Youth: Organ of the Young Communist International 3,
no.1 (March, 1923): 16.
16. YCI rhetoric created perceived contradictions within early communist literature. For the communists, terms like "bourgeois
democracy" and "the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" became mutually interchangeable as well as similar structural
descriptions of "proletarian" forms of government. Statements about "democratic centralism" also conjured up images of
ideological contradiction that the YCI did little to clarify. In their ideological statements the communists attempted to
clarify the class meaning of these statements. Instead of clarifying these perceived contradictions, young communist literature
often simply "slandered" their critics and posited positive statements about the "true character" of their movement.
17. Joseph Stalin, "The Foundations of Leninism: Lectures Delivered at the Sverdlov University," in Problems of Leninism
(Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1976): 44-45
18. Lazar Schatzkin, "Ten Years of Proletarian Dictatorship," The International of Youth: Organ of the Young Communist
International 7, no.5 (November, 1927): 64-65, 68.
19. "Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Communist International," in Minutes of the Second Congress of the Communist
International Internet Archive .
20. In his address to the annual Labour Party conference, Chairman Joseph Compton stated, "Fascism and Communism alike
are a challenge to our democratic institutions and to the system of society based on political, social and economic equality
which we seek to establish." Criticism that linked fascism and communism were also advanced in the United States. The
American Legion identified fascism and communism as similar "alien isms" that sought to "spread propaganda in the
United States designed to forcibly change our form of government." See "Labour Party and Democracy: Growing Menace
of Dictatorship, Fascist and Communist Challenge," The Times (Oct 03, 1933): 9; col A; American Legion National
Americanism Commission, Isms: A Review of Alien Isms, Revolutionary Communism and their Active Sympathizers in the
United States (Indianapolis: American Legion, 1937), 266.
21. Reflecting on the importance of this period and Dimitrov's thesis, James Klugmann stated, "It put the struggle for democracy
back into the centre of the fight for socialism. In the 1927-32 period democracy was considered almost a dirty word
in the Communist movement, something that needed to be exposed as an ideology of the bourgeoisie. It was of enormous
importance for us to develop a concept of socialist democracy, to be achieved through the winning of power, taking over
all that had been won in the struggle for democracy under capitalism and qualitatively extending and expanding it. Every
liberty that concerned the people became of concern to a revolutionary, to a Marxist, and in this way the working class
could take the lead in the whole community in the fight for democracy." James Klugmann, "Crisis in the Thirties," 25.
22. Dimitrov, "Unity of the Working Class Against Fascism," 110.
23. Dimitrov, "The People's Front," 199.
24. Ibid., 109.
25. Dimitrov, "The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International," 10.
26. Ibid., 12.
27. Dimitrov, "Unity of the Working Class Against Fascism," 110.
28. Ercoli, "The Fight Against War and Fascism," 22.
29. Kuusinen, Youth and Fascism, 25.
30. Ibid., 27.
31. Michal continued on the theme of democratic slogans quoting Lenin in stating, "Liberty, needless to say, is a very vital
slogan for any revolution, be it Socialist or democratic." See Michal, Youth Marches., 62, 42.
32. In his address to the Comintern Dimitrov spoke of the reluctance of some comrades in "formulating positive democratic
demands in order not to create democratic illusions among the masses." See Dimitrov, "Unity of the Working Class,"109.
33. The dictatorship of the proletariat was considered an historically necessary transitory stage to protect the gains of the revolution.
Communists posited that within the Soviet Union internal class conflict had ceased and that the Stalin Constitution
represented a transition from the dictatorship of the proletariat into a full socialist democracy.
34. Georgi Dimitrov, "On the Threshold of a New Year," in The United Front: The Struggle Against Fascism And War (San
Francisco: Proletarian Publishers, 1975), 218.
35. Ibid., 218.
36. Maurice Thorez, "The Contribution of Lenin and Stalin to Marxism," World Youth Review 1, no. 7 (July, 1939): 151.
37. British and American young communists had framed their anti-democratic propaganda to maximize youth disillusionment
in order to urge revolutionary change. Young communists sought to expose the "reality" of this propaganda to advance
their own political movement. One scathing YWL article asserted that "instead of a land fit for heroes to live in," that
young workers found themselves "suppressed by the very government for which they fought." While the young communists
sought to reflect the realities of young workers in Britain and the United States, their confrontational and militant denunciations
of working-class perceptions of democracy did not result in the revolutionary mass mobilizations of youth for
which it was intended. With the advance of domestic and international fascism in 1933 the Popular Front generation of
the YCL rejected the Leninist militant denunciations of democracy and sought out a more effective and inclusive democratic
language to facilitate mass mobilizations of anti-fascist youth in support of democracy. See "A Land Fit For Heroes,"
The Young Worker: Official Organ of the Young Workers League 2, no.10 (October, 1923): 8. For an analysis of the wartime
propaganda themes used in Britain see Gary Messinger, British Propaganda and the State in the First World War
(New York: Manchester University Press, 1993). For a detailed bibliographical review of the literature on American wartime
propaganda see Ralph Lutz, "Studies of World War Propaganda, 1914-33 Bibliographical Article," The Journal of
Modern History 5, no.4. (Dec., 1933): 496-516.
38. Dimitrov, "The People's Front," 210-211.
39. Dimitrov, "The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks," 41-42.
40. Mussolini Quoted in Georges Cogniot, "The French Revolution and its Cultural Work," World Youth Review 1, no. 7
(July, 1939): 149.
41. Georgi Dimitrov, "Silence Is Impossible -- Action Is Wanted," in The United Front: The Struggle Against Fascism And
War (San Francisco: Proletarian Publishers, 1975), 165.
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