First Published: Marxist-Leninist Vanguard, Vol. II, No. 8, August 1959.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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In April 1958, Political Affairs published an article by 12 American youth entitled “A Call to Youth,” which discussed the revisionist crisis in the party and its effect on youth organization, and laid down the principles of a nation-wide Marxist-Leninist youth organization. This article, despite certain weaknesses, was unquestionably the best published by the Communist Party leadership until then.
In September 1958, I met with several of these young people and we discussed the article and our positions on the youth question and the party in general. We found that we agreed “in principle,” but disagreed as to the best method of establishing the type of organization we wanted. These young people had just come in from a summer of meeting with party leaders all over the country and were full of confidential promises of support for their organizational labors. They agreed with me that the leadership as a whole was revisionist, but felt that certain figures, notably Foster, Thompson, and Davis, “could be moved.” They told me that Bob Thompson had promised them that the party would help bring about a national conference of youth in September for the purpose of building a youth organization. I asked how could the party leadership be wrong on every other question and still be correct on youth? I predicted that no such conference would take place. “Wait and see,” I was told.
Needless to say, no such conference ever took place.
Now in June 1959 Political Affairs there is an article by Hyman Lumer “On Party Youth Work,” which criticizes these 12 young people as “negative,” and “factional.”
My friends the 12 youth, you are out in the cold. You’ve been had. You have learned the hard way the value of back-room deals and whispered promises.
Lumer’s article begins with a discussion of the problems of youth, then takes up the status of the youth movement, and finally puts forward several principles for a new youth organization. The article contains too much distortion and demagogy to answer fully here, but its basic revisionism is fully exposed in these three points:
(1) It advocates a policy of tailing after the existing bourgeois youth organizations and ignores completely any independent role of the party youth. Lumer spends paragraphs praising the new “activity” of organizations like the National Student Association and the NAACP youth clubs, but says not one word about the NSA’s condoning of the American imperialist policy of drafting Puerto Rican youth, for example, or the NAACP support for using Negro soldiers against the Bandung nations. Lumer calls for a youth organization which is “broad. . .” and can “establish united front relations and activities with other organizations. . .” What if the other youth organizations refuse to struggle, Mr. Lumer? What do we do then, ask them nicely? Or do we organize struggles of the young people on our own?
(2) Lumer says his new organization should be “socialist-oriented” and “Marxist” but not “narrowly-conceived” for the defense of Marxist-Leninist principles. Mr. Lumer, what other kind of socialism is there besides the “narrow” Marxist-Leninist kind? I have yet to learn of a single country where the Trotskyites or the so-called “democratic socialists” have established socialism. In these times there are only two ideologies, bourgeois and proletarian; there is no third alternative. Proletarian ideology means the class struggle, recognition of the class nature of the state, anti-imperialism, and the consistent defense of Marxist-Leninist principles. To talk about “socialism” without mentioning these points is to become an agent of the bourgeoisie.
(3) It fails to stress the necessity of basing any youth organization on the most oppressed sections of the young people, the working-class, Negro, and Puerto Rican youth. But then this follows logically from mistake number two: if the organization is going to be broadly “socialist” in general without any reference to the class struggle, why should it be based on working-class youth? At the present time, the petty-bourgeois youth are more “socialist-oriented” than any other section of the youth; therefore Mr. Lumer will base his organization on them.
Lumer throws in some phrases about “positive attitude” toward the socialist countries, but the fact is that without the class content, such a “positive attitude” cannot exist. Communists don’t support the Soviet Union because it has fine ballet dancers; they love and defend it because it was the world’s first workers’ state.
What then, are the principles of a Communist policy toward youth? The first point is that “the youth must have their own organization, designed especially to fill their needs and complete the tasks assigned to it.” (Quoted from “On the Question of Youth” delivered at the August Conference). The tasks of a Marxist-Leninist youth organization are to win the youth for socialism and the working class, provide a constructive educational and social program, and lead the young people in their partial struggles. In order to fulfill these demands a youth organization must be built along Leninist lines, with full Leninist organization and a program limited to youth issues. It must practice democratic centralism, it must accept Marxism-Leninism as the only ideology within its ranks, it must play a vanguard role in the struggles of the young people, and it must be based on the most exploited and oppressed sections of the youth.
Just as the POC is the embryo of the future Communist movement in the United States, so its members must set about laying the basis for a future Marxist-Leninist youth movement. This should be done by forming, in each POC area, groups of young people to study Marxism-Leninism in a organized fashion. The most advanced of these young people should be recruited into the POC. Aside from conducting classes, these groups should also play a leading role in organizing mass struggles of the youth in their area. The POC line of forming independent committees to fight on specific issues should be applied to youth issues such as job training, discrimination in education, etc. At some time in the future, after the establishment of a real Communist Party in the United States, these vanguard study groups will be brought together to form a nation-wide Marxist-Leninist youth organization, independent of, but fraternally allied with, the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party.