Joel A Lewis Youth Against Fascism.pdf

THE LENINIST GENERATION
By upholding their pre-war traditions of anti-militarism and internationalism, the SYI
facilitated the re-emergence of the socialist anti-war movement, laying much of the vital
basis for the later formation of the Comintern.
Socialist youth proclaimed a poignant critique of the role and structure of the Second
International. At the outset of WWI, most sections of the SYI initially followed the
"national defence" positions of Socialist Party leaders. The federated structure of the
Second International had prevented the anti-war factions of the international leadership
from initiating any actions that were binding upon all national sections. Young communists
later criticized the Second International as a "loose federation of independent
national parties;" the International lacked the leadership and structure to enforce any
"Congress resolutions or decisions." 23 When put to the test, the Second International
failed to initiate any meaningful actions to prevent or to end the war. As a result, young
socialists increasingly began to embrace Lenin's critique that for the prevention of future
imperialist wars, the very structure and functions of the International needed revision;
any new attempts to coordinate internationalism needed an organization "capable of
shaping, rather than merely reacting to historical events." 24
In the spring of 1915 the SYI reconvened itself in Switzerland to coordinate youth
actions against the war. Willi Münzenberg of the Swiss Youth League coordinated this
call to action, bringing together young socialists from ten nations for an International
Youth Conference in Berne during April, 1915. 25 The conference opened on a note of
self-criticism that also articulated a forward vision concerning the war:
The Conference notes with profound regret the fact that, like the socialist organizations
of the elders, the socialist youth organizations in most of the countries at the outbreak of
the war were not guided by the [anti-war] decisions.... In the face of the horrible results
of the present war, which callously uses for cannon fodder young people who have
scarcely passed school age, the Conference stresses the necessity of making clearer than
ever… the nature of the war and of militarism… of rallying them more firmly and in
greater numbers to the banner of revolutionary socialism. 26
A YCLGB pamphlet of 1927 reflected on the importance of this conference:
This Conference was the first meeting of representatives of Socialist organisations after
the outbreak of the war.... It declared itself emphatically against social-patriotism, and
placed its sections under the obligations of international solidarity for revolutionary action
against the war… The International Youth Days, according to the slogans of the International
Bureau, were held not only in the neutral but also in the belligerent countries.
They are among the few actions of an international character during the war, of which
the revolutionary labour movement can boast. 27
The Berne conference revitalized international youth activism and helped to radicalize
and reconfigure the international socialist movement. The SYI openly criticized the
positions of the Second International, urging youth to coordinate international revolutionary
activities despite any hostility from adult socialists. Münzenberg later boasted that
Berne represented the first time that socialist youth articulated a completely "independent
position with regard to political events." 28 Young communists later boasted that the
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