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Joseph Carter

What IS International Youth Day?

(September 1931)

From The Militant, Vol. IV No. 23 (Whole No. 82), 12 September 1931, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).

What is International Youth Day?

The El Obrero del Caribe, official organ of the Caribbean sub-committee of the Latin American Trade Union Federation (affiliated to the R.I.L.U.), replies:

“The 6th of September, 1914, one month after the commencement of the war, the revolutionary socialist youth held a conference in Switzerland with the participation of Liebknecht, Russian Bolshevik representatives, and other revolutionists, who in face of the treason of the social democracy, set themselves the need of mobilizing the youth in the struggle against war and imperialism, for the revolutionary struggle against capitalism Since then, this date has been dedicated by the international proletariat to the youth, having been converted into International Youth Day”. (August 1, 1931).

Can one believe his eyes? Can this appear in a press edited by Communists? How can this be explained?

But wait, – let us pick up the Daily Worker of September 2. In the leading editorial entitled, September 8 – Youth Day, we read:

“The anniversary of the founding of the Young Communist International on September 8, 1919, is a fitting time to sharply point out the shortcomings of the whole revolutionary movement in neglecting the task of winning the working class youth to their own class side of the class struggle and to initiate an energetic correction of this remnant of opportunist blindness toward youth problems.”!

So! In Latin America, the proletariat! youth celebrate International Youth Day as an anniversary of a meeting of socialist youth on the 6th of September, 1914, in Switzerland, while the “Daily” calls upon them to demonstrate for the same holiday but as “an anniversary of the founding of the Young Communist International on September 8, 1919,” in Berlin!

And such ignoramuses head the Communist movement! The most elementary knowledge of Communist youth history would suffice for one to know, that:

• The conference of the socialist youth took place at Berne, Switzerland, April 1915, while Karl Liebknecht was in prison.
   
• At that time, the first Sunday of every September was established as International Youth Day. Why the 8th, a Tuesday, was picked this year, is hardly explainable.
   
• The Young Communist International was founded, not on September 8, 1919, but in November 1919.

After this nothing they say can surprise us!

 
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