First Published: Marxist-Leninists Unite!, October 1973.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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We see the need for building a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party and the importance of clarifying the questions that have to be answered during the construction of such a Party, one of which is the question of youth. It is a special question in that youth suffer social oppression as youth and also class oppression as workers. The resolution to the youth question is part of the class question much the same as the general question of the oppression of women can be resolved only through the class question, that is, through social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. We have to look at how the bourgeoisie use the youth in their armies and as a reserve labor force.
It will be the task of the Party to establish a youth movement that will not only organise the energy and enthusiasm of youth into the revolutionary struggle for Socialism but also expose the counterrevolutionary line of the CPUSA and their agents, We have to establish a Marxist-Leninist youth movement, a YCL (Young Communist League), that will expose and destroy the revisionists. The question of building the YCL and a youth movement is one aspect of the strategy of party building.
In the youth movement our main enemy is the traitors of the CPUSA and the Trotskyites who push their line of reformism and so-called revolutionary change through the ballot box. They push syndicalism which divides the working class according to the type of special oppression, i.e., women fighting men, workers fighting bosses, blacks fighting whites and the enemy of the youth being adults, or the ”establishment”. In opposition to this we have the task of clarifying the youth question and providing an alternative to the revisionist and counter-revolutionary teachings of the CPUSA and Trotskyites.
The ”Trots” in many cases have been known to push drugs on honest revolutionaries and generally sabotage whatever revolutionary aspects exist in the spontaneous youth movement.
The CPUSA through its youth organization, the Young Workers Liberation League (Y.W.L.L.) and the ”Trots” the Young Socialist Alliance (Y.S.A.), are moving more and more into working class youth organizations spreading their anti-communist counterrevolutionary ideology.
Only through the fight against the revisionist line on the youth question can we build a Communist youth movement.
The material for this report was taken from:
1, Lenin On Youth, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1970
2, Stalin, J.V. The Tasks of the Youth, International Publishers, 1940, We would also like to suggest that the comrades read the program of the Y.W.L.L. to get an understanding of the revisionist program in the youth movement.
Stalin and Lenin stated that the main task of the Y.C.L. is to Learn Communism and unite this theory with the practical activity of the working class. On this question Lenin stated:
That is the reply to the question of how the young and rising generation should learn communism. It can learn communism only by linking up every step in its studies, training and education with the continuous struggles the proletarians and the working people are waging against the old society of exploiters... The Young Communist League will justify its name as the League of the young communist generation only when every step in its teaching, training and education is linked up with participation in the common struggle of all working people against the exploiters.
Stalin stated on this question:
There can be no doubt that unless the active members of the Young Communist League combine practical work with theoretical training (study of Leninism), there can be no intelligent Communist work of any kind within the Young Communist League. Leninism is the generalization of the experience of the revolutionary movement of the workers of all countries. This experience is the guiding star which lights up the path of all practical workers in their daily activities and which gives them their direction. That is why a study of Leninism, a Leninist education is a most essential condition for the transformation of the present active body (of the Y.C.L. into an active body) of genuine Leninists able to train the millions of Young Communist Leaguers in the spirit of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of communism.
The Y.C.L. must be a SHOCK FORCE that can, through its practical activity, draw the mass of working class youth towards the cause of socialism. To succeed in this task we must do as Lenin and Stalin have both said: LEARN TO WALK ON BOTH FEET. That is, while with one foot, we must base the Y.C.L. in the objective class struggle of the working class and answer the day to day questions and meet the real needs of working class youth, with the other foot, we must study and apply the science of Marxism-Leninism to the objective class struggle.
One of the main questions that the Y.C.L. must deal with is the question of culture. The fascist cultural machine of the U.S. imperialist class has created a so-called youth culture and a new morality, the purpose of which is to further enslave and cause more degeneration of young people. Music, movies, t.v. all try to make heroes out of some of the most degenerate of society. Dope pushers, gangsters, pimps and cops are put forth as anti-establishment revolutionaries. Brutal male supremacy, free love and sexual perversion are all advocated under the slogan of “do your own thing”; The Y.C.L. must wage a determined struggle on the questions of proletarian morality and proletarian culture. In talking on morality, Lenin stated:
When people tell us about morality we say: to a Communist all morality lies in this united discipline and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters. We do not believe in an eternal morality and we expose the falseness of all the fables about morality. Morality serves the purpose of helping human society rise to a higher level and rid itself of the exploitation of labour.
Communist morality is that which serves this struggle and unites the working people against all exploitation, against all petty private property, for petty property puts into the hands of one person that which has been created by the labour of the whole society.
Young people are at a stage in their lives when they are moved by the questions of morality when they are searching for the answers. WE MUST PROVIDE THESE ANSWERS.
In conclusion, we have seen how the youth of the U.S.N.A. have proved in recent history that they will fight. Working class youth were among the most resolute and heroic in the struggle against U.S.N.A. imperialist aggression in South East Asia. Many refused to participate in the war and thousands deserted or refused induction into the armed forces. In the Negro uprisings and rebellions in the 60’s, Negro national minority youth stood up against the armed force of the State, 15-16 year old high school youth fought against the fascist attacks on the Negro communities. In E.L.A. in Los Angeles, tens of thousands of Mexican national minority youth marched and demonstrated demanding an end to the war in Vietnam. They linked in a living way the struggles for national liberation of the Mexican national minority and Vietnamese peoples.
Comrades: The working class youth of this country have great energy. It is our task to organize this energy in such a way that it strengthens the cause of Socialism. The Y.C.L. will provide the Party with a never ending stream of energetic young comrades that will help to build a for real Marxist-Leninist Communist Party.
We suggest all comrades read ”Task of the Youth by Joseph Stalin (in particular the work on tasks of the Y.C.L.) so that we can begin discussion on the Y.C.L. and how we are going to go about building it. We would like to propose from the discussions and from the report in the youth workshop that in whatever area it is possible, that youth fractions be established to deal with the youth movement. Also, the construction of a Y.C.L. will have to be based on starting from where we are at now and that this process will be a long and difficult one to make qualitative work that will lead to quantitative work. Our first task in building a Y.C.L. would be to send young Communist cadre into the existing class organizations made up of working class youth.
Our second task would be to recruit from these organizations and build a core of the most advanced, those who will unite with Marxism-Leninism.
With a strong and politically trained core of young communists, we can build a Y.C.L. into a truly mass youth organization through uniting with the most advanced and most active. We will create a strong foundation upon which we can build a real Y.C.L.
Comrades: We are now engaged in a struggle to build a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, a party that can unite the working class and all revolutionary people in a struggle to ever throw capital and end the exploitation of man forever. Creating a world, a Communist society, where young people live from birth to death never having to suffer under the chains of wage slavery is what all honest Communists should be fighting for.