SOCIALIST APPEAL OCTOBER 22, 1938 IN THEIR FOOTSTEPS Internationalism Our Banner Pages from the History of the Youth Movement AS BKNEC TEMBRE The Early Days of First Youth Conference Was Held In Chicago In November, 1929 By MAURICE SPECTOR fascism became more rapid and Co Editor, New International more powerful. Fascism is today By NATHAN GOULD no longer a revolutionary the first to denounce the machinon the offensive. The Munich pact If there was one pillar of the signals the complete bankruptcy National Organizer, youth organization) and on the ations of the centrist dominated When the League It became the official Stockholm Youth Bureau and early Comintern that seemed of the whole edifice of collective of America (Opposition) was youth section of the Workers finally broke with it after its immore unshakable than Gibraltar, security. The Popular Front is a formed, its membership was com Party, newly formed from a fu potence as a force for th it was its intransigent internation shambles.
posed of a large number of youth sion of the CLA. and the Ameri youth international was exposed. alism, its basic policy of worla The Stalinists sold out the inrevolution. The Communist Interests of the French working expelled from the Young Commuçan Workers Party. It endorsed The branches of the were nist League. Yet there were not a call for the formation of the active in unemployed struggles ternational conceived during class for the sake of the defense sufficient forces in this small or Fourth International and the and in strikes. For the first time the world war in the course of of the Soviet Union. Their realganization to permit the launch Fourth Youth International and members of the led strikes the revolutionary struggle against Ism has left the Soviet Union in ing of a separate youth section. it affiliated to the youth section of young workers in Chicago, in sociat patriotism. position of the greatest isoisThe collapse of the Second In tion. After absorbing CzechoslovAll forces were necessarily con. of the Committee of Four calling Philadelphia and in Southern centrated in the effort to build for the Fourth International. It Illinois. New branches were ternational was due to its oppor akia, as he had absorbed Ger strong communist League or endorsed the decisions of the informed in Boston, State College, tunistic adaptation to the capit. many before that, thanks to the ganization.
ternational Youth conference PR. Philadelphia, Columbus, New alist legality of the national state. cowardly passivity of the Com.
Early in 1981 the National Com. Stockholm Youth Bureau) at Haven, San Francisco, San Diego, To pillory the social patriotism of intern, Hitler is now proceeding mittee of the CLA took steps Holland held in Feb. 1933, and the Akron, Allentown, Minneapolis the Social Democracy, to attack with plans for the political and to prepare for the organization of work of the representative of the and Detroit. The Spartacus Youth its policy of coalition government, economic hegemony of Europe a youth section. sub committee National Youth Committee at League became a national organto denounce its fetishistic support and the future partition of the of the National Committee of the that conference comrade Glot nation.
of bourgeois democracy, its vot Soviet Union, was elected. It was the Na zer.
ing military credits, all this There Is No Substitute tional Youth Committee of the The First National Convention Merge with Revolutionary was part of everyday communist agitation and propaganda. When olutionary aid of the Western It has been proved that the revC. and was instructed to or of the also adopted vigganize and conduct work in the orous plan of action aimed at in The Second National Convenever the international situation workers cannot be replaced by sharpened, the air résounded with imperialist alliances without catSouth fleld. The original commit creasing the membership of the tion of the held in March tee was composed of the follow. organization and making the 1936 decided to disband the Comintern pledges to work for astrophie results for the October ing comrades: Herbert Capellis, a factop in the struggles of and to enter the which the transformation of any imper revolution. The Permanent RevoJoe Carter George Clarke, the American youth, The Conven. Was moving very rapidly to the ialist war into a civil war.
lution, the special object of StalCharles Curtiss, Glotzer, tion elected comrade Gould the left. Approximately 500 members Lenin Teachings inist hatred, has been replaced George Ray, Max Sterling. Hank National Secretary and comrade of the throughout the as editor of the Young country entered the in Every communist knew that by permanent executions. Na Stone, and Martin Abern repre Garrett senting the National Committee Spartacus. In addition it elect April of 1986. The Spartacus tenLenin had drawn two decisive tional socialism in Russia has de conclusions from the law of the replacing it with a totalitarian stroyed the soviet super structure, of the ed a national bureau composed dency in the merged with Publish Young Spartacus irregularity of capitalist political ism as complete as Hitlers. The of Reva Crane, Bill Streeter, Jane the revolutionary left wing in that and economic development. 1) socialist accumulation of the On the initiative of this com Ogden, Garrett and Gould. organization. Eighteen months after the entry of the Into that, contrary to the opinion of five year plans under stalln riv mittee Young Spartacus the or gan of the National Youth ComOrganization Grows the the revolutionary Kautsky, it was possible to begin alled the infamies of early capthe revolution in a single countryItalist acumulation.
mittee, was published as a monthThe year following the conven elements by an overwhelming ly. The first issue of Youngtion was one of vigorous work majority took over the convenwithout waiting for the rest of Twenty years after the October the world, wut (2) that it was revolution and the complete vie Spartacus appeared in Decem and growth. There was a great tion and the organization of the ber of 1931 under the direction of deal of work in united fronts, in The new revolutionary impossible for a single country to tory of socialism. Denny of the achieve the victory of socialism New York Times reports that an editorial committee of Abern, anti fascist and anti war work: endorsing the policy of Carter and Ray. The paper (chief work in the camps among the Socialist Appeal group in the without advance of the fronthe coming winter in the tiers of the revolution in the In is expected to be one of the hardwork of the National Youth Com the youth in the armed forces be began its career after the dustrial West. There was no ammittee in the first perlod) was gan very modestly. Mass meet September 1937 convention with biguity about this.
eat. The old familiar queuer published only through great sacings, tours, student and Industrial approximately 1, 000 members. In rifices. Appearing frat a work, defense work especially the were embodied the Again and again he repeated stretch for blocks, Twenty years page tabloid it was enlarged to around the Scottsboro case, act spirit and the great revolutionary that the existence of the Soviet after the masses still wait for a an pager in September, 1932, ive participation in the Interna tradition of the old Spartacus republic alongside the Imperialist pair of boots, an overcoat, dress, and remained so until the begintional movement (The Was Youth Lengue.
states was in the long run im. a bottle of milk, a pound of but possible. One or the other would ter, ning of 1936 when the enUndermine the Only Force tered the Young Peoples Socialist triumph. The big historical prob.
Lengue.
lem of the October revolution. The one force that could solve as he saw it, and as the entire problem was the working class the Soviet Union international Also, under the supervision of Comintern appeared to agree, lay and this is the force that the Sovthe National Youth Committee, in resolving the International fiet Union has consistently underyouth committees ATKINS Various problem by means of stimulating mined. The polley of Soviet na branches of the LA. were established with the object of car(Continued from page 4)
and organizing the world revolutional socialism has been to use Eastman who, as Trotsky transrying on youth work on a local and out or is not the mere fact tion.
lator, had given us a letter of scale.
80 long as the post Leninist the workers abroad merely as that they were expelled unanintroduction to the publishers of It was not until November struggle inside the Russian Com diplomatie cannon fodder. Arma Imously by the Polcom suffi The Real Situation in Russla 1931 that the efforts of these munist party proceeded on such ments are greater than ever, the asking that we be allowed to see cient for you as a guarantee to apparently separate questions, as ed. and the workers have been committees bore fruit in the actreat him as an enemy of the the press clippings. This purtual launching of a youth organtoined evidence of our cynical ization in the Marxian party today!
of the German communist failure Alled with the virus of social pacounter revolutionary activity SULKKANEN: You put the triotism.
Youth Club. The Marxian Youth of 1923, the experiences of the question in very incorrect was duly reproduced in the Daily Anglo Russian The masses deep down areaWorker.
committee, and By ALBERT GATES gainst Imperialist war. They are economie planning, many com: ready to struggle for peace. The tion in the world movement. The, The youth conference, attended Club was however not officially a way. One has to find out things before one can fight anybody.
Another reproduced letters reOur movement has traveled a degeneration of the Young Com. by about Afteen regular delegate part of the Trotskyist movement munists of the West, increasingly cates although its sympathies were restive over the turn of task is to show them that penoelgreat distance in the ten years munist International was traced and alternates, held a long and with it. On Feb. 1982, the MBTX months later, Lovestone, himself who seems to have been interest Instructive dialogue! few vealed the existence of a Mr. Sard events is and the character of the Russian attainable only by strugglelthat have passed since comrades to the invasion of the Stalin bu serious discussion of its tasksian Youth Club changed its name expelled, WAS compelled to pleaded in the movement. Interested for power. But the Stalinist par Cannon, Abern and Shachtman reaucracy which transformed the We decided that our main task to Spartacus discussions, were still uncertain.
Youth Club, In many cases it still seemed pos, reactionaries and nationalists in Central Committee of the Com Instrument in the spurious strug: munist League.
tles join with the most extreme presented their declaration to the youth movement into a factional was the building of the Com adopted Young Spartacus as its in vain with the party members also in music, and director in this sible to reconcile the conflicting their agitation and ineítement formunist Party of the It youth organization was out of came the first arrotskydze youth before they decided to treat him Coolidge In order, with the ald separate official organ and thereby be to find out what he stoon for country of Schubert Week. The United views within the framework of war.
showed how the American youth question. However, wherever organization in States announcing adherence to organtzation was deteriorating as forces permitted and the situa Club set as America.
This hayalty to the communist Interheronited States, no longer even to that the great problems of the partie de closca wien ringing comrades were to conduct special teachings of Marx, Engels, Len wide. Cotobelcondemning me. whead ser, These Dollar wektor, barely its tasks the educa. our case, the mere fact of our ex for the Vienna government, to fa.
pulsion enough, cilitate putting over the comnational permeated such miltaik or the defense of the Sovies worth movement and the sharp part your support of the meet uppoactivity among the Communistine and frotsky and to build a wote impidencenderanto Hind but very best the car aurea di Sohbereix ants to the core, and decisions Union: They proclaim their would involve capitalist father Uputés what they had been accustomed Iness to go to the defence of greatly concerned the to regard as the General Stat They urge their own capitalist questions were formally taken in of the and thirty leading deal of progress has been reInside the Stalinternation. This first document was youth as well as detached and unfraction in the official Young what we stood for. In the sub. started, we had already joined in decisions relating to these signed by three members of the organized revolutionary youth.
Communist League and win its sequent trials, Lovestone Foster perialism and the Austrian gov.
sinister plot with American imExecutive Committee of the World Revolution were classes to protect and further response to requests of the ruling youth functionaries, representing corded. Within a year, the ques Since that conference a good ranks for the opposition.
New Clubs Organize and Co. did us many a good servernment but why the Austrian, not taken lightly The Final Straw their investments in colonies and bureaucracy in the Soviet Union The Second Spartacus Youth ice by expelling out of hand any or only the Austrian. to overparty member who wanted to post Leninist Moscow leadership Mocracies can checkmate that was regarded a8 Rus porters arose and the expulsions came it practical one. We began was organized in Chicago in Au case, once the expelled comrade What shook their faith in the markets abroad, so that the derhe struggle of the Ruonno six istricts. New layers of sup ton of a youth organization be Club to be formed in Amerles find out things, for in every throw the Soviet Union, In a couple of days, the sento the point where loyal ac China!
fascists in South America orsan atair which was a bother continued from coast to coast, At the first conference of the tton of Marxian Youth Club. months of effort on the part of in New York with the organiza gust. 1982. It was the product of aid And out, he entered enthusational exposure petered out.
ceptance of the majority thesis But we never got back our docuwas no longer possible, was the The sole repository of the rev and permanent factional disputes 18, and 19, 1929, The Communist In other cities. In November, Gould. It began with a memHome Interference with the inane Left Opposition, held on May 17. similar organizations were set up comrades Satir, Curtiss and siastically into our ranks.
ments and letters; we never got final emergence of the Stalinist olutionary internationalism of the in the American back the petty cash and money BURGLARY League of America was formed. 1931. YOUNG SPARTACUS, the bership of 8, grew to 15 within theory of socialism in one coun early Comintern is now thel The Stalinist movement was the conference was held on the Arst Left Opposition youth paper months and continued to flourish orders that had been stolen; and try. The stand that the Russian Fourth International. The small BOLSHEVISM mall struck with consternation to find far west side of Chicago, a city made its appearance with the in activities and influence during Opposition made against this regroups of the new International that Trotskyism had found its which has given birth to so many paper as a base our youth move the existence of the The Marty Abern never got back his Ave beautifully bound volumes of Our present headquarters may the Inprecorr, which probably restand against the Stalinist struggled Sainst the current How could it be? It was already the first time that many of the 1982 the Spartacus Youth League almost entirely of expelled Yc. are certainly less modest than of Mr. Jack Stachel. noted conworkers organizations. It was ment continued to grow and in Chicago organization composed not be very sumptuous, but they pose to this day on the shelves counter revolution. There were of social patriotism and more on declared to have been trrevocably comrades had met ench other. was formed.
friends of the Opposition who promisingly exposed the source defeated and destroyed in a dozen of the thirty. one delegates and ers, endorsed Young Sparta those we started with. For many temporary advocate of democracy of thought that Trotsky was unduly Stalinist corruption. The different revolutions and in cus as its official organ and af months after our expulsion, our and Inw and order.
thirteen Fourth International alternates present, magnifying the issue and allowhave no dozen conferences, not least of large proportion were youth. years, it is extremely heartening the thus becoming its of Looking back over the past Aliated to the Chicago local of office was one of the rooms ing himself to be outsmarted. The illusions that it has the present which was the 6th World Con. They came by automobile, rode and gratifying to note that with Metal youth section.
in Jim Cannon home on East The Sequel Brandler Thalheimer group strength to deter the imperialists gress. Yet, when the suppressed the rods, and hitch hiked to Chi but few exceptions, all the young In the next two years (1983 and progress one desk in a room of quel to this burglary, which in 19th Street, New York; then There is a very interesting setempted to minimize the issue as in their war provocations, or save documents of the Russian Op cago. They were tired, hungry comrades who participated in the 1931) SY.
clubs were formed in my home on the next street. On augurated a large scale campaign sendemic. Even close sympathi the from Inner degener. poaltion and the writings of Leon and broke. But these difficul first conference and who aldea Minneapolis, Youngstown zers of Trotsky, reading his Critation or outside attack. This Trotsky were made known to the ties in no way effected the spirit in the founding of Los December 23, two months after of meeting disruption gangster ique of the Draft Program of the strength must come from the revolutionary workers in the of enthusiasm of the comrades SPARTACUS and the Spartacus and San Francisco. These clube office was raided in its coeuYOUNG Angeles, Newark, Kansas City, our expulsion from the party, ourism and violence against our Comintern during the sixth Con masses and the successful penet. United States, the Left Opposl who understood that they were Youth League are still with us, however did not exist or func. pants absence, raided not by the the Stalinists, and then by the movement Arst by Loveatone and gress (1928) wondered its ration of the masses by the revocion was born and began to at engaged in the great task of re. They are no longer engaged in tion as a national organization police but by Messrs. Lovestone, Stalinists.
author was not anticipating toolutionary Marxists.
tract around it a wide circle of vitalizing and rebuilding the re youth work. But they are active They were actually autonomous Stachel. and the Job some eight months later, shortly The sequel occurred much and too readily.
Jaympathizera volutionary movement.
and leading Party workers. An bodies or, more acurately, under just as thorough, we dare say, as after the expulsion of Lovestone Experience itself has estabIt became possible then to unNahed that the official adoption The spirit of the young com entirely new layer of young re the direction and guidance of the the one recently accomplished on from the party. He was charged Amaze Your Friends!
derstand the reasons for rades was contagious to all the volutionists have taken their respective local branches of the the private residence of the same with having burglarized the Naof the theory of socialism in a great defeats suffered by single country, product of the Confuse Your Enemies! Communist International, the comrades who came from die place our early youth organiza: CLA. The activities of these day Lovestone by the same tonal Office of the Party and ebb of the revolution in Europe, stagnation of that once great ferent parts of the country with tion carried out its basic task. clubs were primarily educational, In connection with the fight in uifting a lot of documents for his and the defeats administered to body, the paralysis that invadede variety of experiences and with It trained politically and organi and fraction work in the CL the auto workers union. Times ousted faction. The moral indig.
the working class, has become the whole International as a reyears of service in the movement. zationally experienced revolution. This naturally obtained from the change.
nation of the remaining party the fully rounded out formula of Come in costume to the These young comrades took an aries for Party work. This fact perspective to reform the Everything in sight was taken, lenders may well be imagined.
sult of the stranglehold of the active part in the conference de alone testifies to the tremendous The early period was devoted to once the door was jimmied open one of them, William Abrams, Stalinist social patriotism and the HARVEST degeneration of the Comintern.
stalin bureaucracy, and sino, the liberations and were destined to Vitality of the revolutionary ideas laying the basis for a national by the experts. Four days later, in wrote a comment on the affair in nature of the factional impasse play a key role in the future our movement.
organization by building Clubs Lovestone Dally Worker, there the Frelhelt of September 1, 1929, Renunciation of Revolution in the of the MASQUERADE development of our organization.
The tactics of the Leninist in now territories and strengthen began really hair raising expo which merita perpetuation as Nation wide Expulsions Our youth movement of the ing those that already existed. It sure of the American Trotsky document: The presence of a large number present is fortunate in many was not until the summer of 1934 ista. in good Hearst style, based And it is to you, former comComintern in period of capIn all the leading centers of the of youth delegates and alternates ways. It enjoys the heritage of that the sy. were joined to on what had been stolen from rades again, not to those who italist stabilization were necessarily different than in a period Irving Plaza active rank and fle communista was composed entirely of youth a revitalized revolutionary theory, and not until after their first na our paper, The Miutant, had been other pestilences that come of stormy assault on the capitaland above all, the youth, rallied made necessary the holding the theory of Marxism. The past tional convention in December of sent in for Amos Pinchot, show. with the question: Don you Ist fortress during revolution15th Street and Irving Place around the banner of the Inter a sub conference to discuss the ary crisis. But the policy of Stalnational Left Opposition. Expui tasks of the youth.
two decades form a tremendous 1934, that they really began to ing, according to the Dally Work. think that the same tactie that is sions followed declarations of inist national socialism involved The Youth Meet school of revolutionary ex function as such.
November 5th er, our connections with out and applied against Cannon is crimperience which is theirs. And it a renunciation of the proletarian solidarity with the afore men. Thus, our first youth confer, is permeated with the glorious By the time the First National Freihelt embellished the story by nist Party? Don you think that First Convention out bourgeois individuals. The inal when applied to the Commurevolution itself. Since the adoptioned three comrades. Physical ence was really in the nature of 8:30 tion that policy the consequenviolence, Intellectual terrorism, an adjunct gathering of the forspirit of revolutionary internal Convention convened in in writing of a series of documents breaking into the offices of the tionalism.
ces for both the Soviet Union and Swing Band Entertainment political and moral bribery failed mation conference of the ComDecember of 1934, the had about the American Trotskyists Central Committee and of SecBut above all, our youth or grown under the leadership of which demonstrate that they are tlon One, the taking away of been increasingly tragic. What Competitions. Elegant Prizes ment. The most heartening. cerned primarily with the man ganization is fortunate in that it comrades Glotzer and Carter allled with big capitalists who documents and lists from there, happened, objectively speaking, is pect in the whole situation was ner in which youth work could is associated with a Party which from the Marxian Youth Club of give them money to carry on is an act that must be con that Stalin joined Hitler in crush.
the manner in which the young, be carried on under conditions understands its problems and is 30 members in 1931) to an their propaganda against the demned?
ins out the revolutionary spirit Admission: 50 with Costume sure to bureaucrade machine armly root the League and populehelt solution. The bers with branches in New York Rally Worker subscribers at may everything that necessary the main task was to prepared to lend genuine aid in organization of about 150 mem Communist Party. Among the These two plaintive sentences of 65 without Even their methods became indisThe first public declaration of larize the program and platform can count upon the intimate (5. tinguishable.
Auspices: lour appeared in the of the Left Opposition. At that comradeship of the Party and its Youngstown and Los Angeles. sociation of Manufacturers, War bout wmiam Abrams, about the With every retreat from the MILITANT of April 11, 1929. It time we still conducted ourselves leading cadre, so large number The Convention marked a great ner Brothers and the Commandman he called his former leadpolicy of world revolution, with Socialist Workers Party was a document addressed to the us an expelled faction of the of whom have themselves step forward. It acted upon aller in Chief of the Fleet. er, Jay Lovestone, about the every new improvisation of popYoung Communist League and it communist Party, as a propagan emerged from the revolutionary important problems before the No less damning was proof of whole poisonous mire of Stalinular frontism, the advance of recited the nature of the situada organization.
youth movement. L, adopted resolutions on the our Illicit relations with Maxi Ism.
at.
th youth