The Young Communist League USA (YCLUSA) is a
communist youth organization
The following is a list of youth organizations. A youth organization is a type of organization with a focus upon providing activities and socialization for minors. In this list, most organizations are international unless noted otherwise.
...
in the United States. The stated aim of the League is the development of its members into Communists, through studying
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various c ...
and through active participation in the struggles of the
American working class
In the United States, the concept of a working class remains vaguely defined, and classifying people or jobs into this class can be contentious. Economists and pollsters in the United States generally define "working class" adults as those lacking ...
. The YCL recognizes the
Communist Party USA as the party for socialism in the United States and operates as the Party's
youth wing
A youth wing is a subsidiary, autonomous, or independently allied front of a larger organization (usually a political party but occasionally another type of organization) that is formed in order to rally support for that organization from members ...
. Although the name of the group changed a number of times during its existence, its origins trace back to 1920, shortly after the establishment of the first communist parties in the United States.
Although independent, in its final years the organization came under direct control of the CPUSA. After a backlash by members towards the suspension of elections and ideological shifts towards the right, membership plummeted. On November 14, 2015, the CPUSA's National Committee voted to suspend funding to the Young Communist League and the organization was subsequently dissolved.
In 2019, in the 39th party convention, the organization was re-established.
History
Early years
The 1920 split of the
Socialist Party of America affected its youth section as well, the
Young People's Socialist League (YPSL). The YPSL declared itself an independent organization in the fall of 1919, sympathetic to the
left wing which had been expelled or left the party. A portion of this "Independent Young People's Socialist League" organization dropped out from activity during this period, while the group's officials, including in the first place Executive Secretary
Oliver Carlson, attempted to steer the group to a position of neutrality between the two warring factions of American communism, the
Communist Party of America
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
and the
Communist Labor Party of America
The Communist Labor Party of America (CLPA) was one of the organizational predecessors of the Communist Party USA.
The group was established at the end of August 1919 following a three-way split of the Socialist Party of America. Although a legal ...
.
The underground period
As early as 1920, a skeleton of a "Young People's Communist League" was in existence. This minuscule, largely
paper organization sent a fraternal delegate to the 2nd Convention of the United Communist Party, held at
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, United States. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grouped with the New York metropolitan area around Manhattan by the United ...
from December 24, 1920 to January 2, 1921. A report was delivered by this delegate on the youth situation in America and the convention at this time first decided to establish a serious youth section, to be called the Young Communist League. The resolution passed by the convention pledged the UCP would provide its youth section assistance by helping to produce and distribute its literature, by helping to gain control of existing units of the Independent YPSL and organizing them into communist groups, by helping to organize new units, by providing it financial assistance, by lending it speakers and teachers, and by allotting it space in the official party periodicals. The establishment of a parallel "aboveground" to the technically illegal YCL was called for.
Owing to government pressure from the
Palmer Raids of the
first red scare
The First Red Scare was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of far-left movements, including Bolshevism and anarchism, due to real and imagined events; real events included the R ...
, the entire communist movement in America had operated a clandestine model of organization, akin to that of the
Russian Social Democratic Workers Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
prior to the Russian Revolution. The YCL was no different, its leaders and members making use of pseudonyms and holding their meetings in secret.
This did not mean that there was no national convention of the organization. The founding convention of the YCL was held early in May 1922, apparently in
Bethel, Connecticut
Bethel () is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Its population was 11,988 in 2022 according to World Population Review. The town includes the Bethel Census Designated Place.
Interstate 84 passes through Bethel, and it has ...
. It was a small and low key gathering, including just fourteen delegates from four of the Communist Party's twelve national districts. The gathering heard a report from
Max Bedacht of the adult party dealing with the discussions and decisions of the
3rd World Congress of the Communist International
The 3rd World Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) was held in Moscow on 22 June–12 July 1921. The third official meeting of the Communist International included delegations from more than 50 different national structures and too ...
and its February 1922 special conference. The convention adopted a constitution and a program for the YCL, as well as a resolution delineating the relationship of the youth league with the adult party. A governing National Executive Committee of five members was elected. The initiation fee to join the YCL was 50 cents and dues were 25 cents per month, receipted with stamps issued by the National Office. The basic unit of organization was the "group" consisting, ideally, of from five to ten members and meeting at least every other week. Groups elected their own captains to coordinate their activities with the center. Multiple groups were parts of a "section" of up to five groups; multiple sections were part of a "sub-district," which was in turn a subdivision of the regular geographic "districts" of the Communist Party.
The underground form of organization made it very difficult to attract and hold quality recruits – recruiting had to be by word of mouth, literature distribution surreptitious, advertising of meetings non-existent. Accordingly, very little progress was made in building the size and effectiveness of the organization. This underground YCL continued in existence until early 1923, when it was terminated together with the underground adult Communist Party, leaving the "overground" youth and adult groups as the only remaining organizations.
Establishment of the "overground" organization
For the young communist youth, this organization was the Young Workers League of America (YWL), established in 1922. As was the case with the corresponding adult organization, the "legal" YWL had a much easier time establishing itself. By removing from it literature some references to revolution, the YWL was able to meet in the open, to advertise its events, and to distribute its newspapers, leaflets, and pamphlets with only minimal interference from the legal authorities. Consequently, it was able to attract a steady stream of new devotees to the cause – although, as was the case with the adult party, retention of its new recruits always remained problematic.
As a YWL leader,
Nat Ganley
Nat Ganley, or Nat Kaplan (born Nathan Kaplan; 1903–1969), was socialist and then communist journalist who become a union organizer in the 1930s, particularly for the United Auto Workers of America and was tried and convicted in 1954 for violat ...
(then still using his birth name Nat Kaplan) summarized the difference between his communist group and others by stating: "Let us remember that is it mainly on this point that we differ from the old form of child organization – the worker's Sunday schools. We are not only preparing the child for future participation in class struggle–we are leading the child in the class struggle now!"
The YWL was also bolstered, as was its adult counterpart, by the addition of a new mass of members coming into the organization from the
Finnish Socialist Federation The Finnish Socialist Federation () was a language federation of the Socialist Party of America which united Finnish language-speaking immigrants in the United States in a national organization designed to conduct propaganda and education for social ...
– the largest
foreign language federation of the Socialist Party, which had been biding its time as an independent organization since 1921, waiting for an end to the ineffectual underground form of organization. In the middle 1920s, the Workers Party of America was approximately 40% Finnish-American – and its youth section was no exception to this trend.
The founding convention of the YWL was held in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York from May 13 to 15, 1922, held appropriately enough at Finnish Socialist Hall. Oliver Carlson delivered the keynote speech to the thirty regular and five fraternal delegates. Carlson claimed a presence for the nascent YWL in forty-six cities and a membership of "at the very least," 2,200. The convention approved a manifesto, program, constitution, and various resolutions. Membership in the organization was said to be open to "all proletarians" between the ages of fourteen and thirty.
The basic unit of organization of the YWL was the "branch," consisting of at least five but no more than one hundred and fifty members. Two or more branches in a single large city were to form a "City Central Committee" to coordinate their activities, and all units were to be part of the regular array of districts used by the adult party. The initiation fee was 25 cents and dues 25 cents per month, with all initiation fees and 10 cents of every month's dues going to support the National Office.
The organization was governed by a National Executive Committee of seven members, of whom at least five were to live in a single locale. Chicago was set as the headquarters city for the organization, a change from the group's provisional base of operations in New York.
Martin Abern Martin may refer to:
Places
* Martin City (disambiguation)
* Martin County (disambiguation)
* Martin Township (disambiguation)
Antarctica
* Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land
* Port Martin, Adelie Land
* Point Martin, South Orkney Islands
Austr ...
was elected as National Secretary of the organization, Oliver Carlson was named as editor, and the pair were joined on the NEC by business manager
Harry Gannes
Harry Gannes (1900–1941), was a British-born American journalist, foreign editor of the ''Daily Worker'' during much of the 1930s, was a communist of national prominence."Red Editor Here Dies, Facing U.S. Charges," ''The New York Times'', Janua ...
, treasurer Gus Schulenburg, and future fixture of the 1930s American radical movement
Herbert Zam
Herbert may refer to:
People Individuals
* Herbert (musician), a pseudonym of Matthew Herbert
Name
* Herbert (given name)
* Herbert (surname)
Places Antarctica
* Herbert Mountains, Coats Land
* Herbert Sound, Graham Land
Australia
* Herbert ...
.
The name of the youth league ultimately followed the name of the adult party, becoming the Young Workers (Communist) League in 1926 when the Workers Party became the "Workers (Communist) Party" and to the Young Communist League, USA in 1929 when the adult party became the "Communist Party, USA."
The depression decade and after
The turn toward the
Popular Front
A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault".
More generally, it is "a coalition ...
initiated a period of the YCL's greatest growth and it may have had as many as 12,000 members in New York City alone by 1939.
On October 17, 1943, the YCL convened in national convention in New York City, passed a resolution dissolving itself, and immediately reconvened under a new organizational name, the American Youth for Democracy (AYD).
[Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, ''Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States: Appendix — Part IX, Communist Front Organizations...'' Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1944; pg. 564.] This predated a similar move transforming the adult Communist Party, USA into the "Communist Political Association" by seven months.
The change of names proved to be strictly semantic, as all important positions within the "new" AYD were held by former members of the YCL.
National Executive Secretary of the AYD at the time of its October 1943 launch was Carl Ross, the former head of the YCL for a period of more than five years.
It followed the CPUSA into dissolution, reconstituting itself as American
Youth for Democracy (AYD). It retained that name even after the CPUSA reformed in 1946, until contributing toward the youth organization of the
Progressive Party Progressive Party may refer to:
Active parties
* Progressive Party, Brazil
* Progressive Party (Chile)
* Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus
* Dominica Progressive Party
* Progressive Party (Iceland)
* Progressive Party (Sardinia), Ita ...
, the
Young Progressives of America.
The CPUSA reestablished a youth organization in 1949 as the
Labor Youth League, which dissolved in the dissension following the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...
and the
20th Congress of the CPSU
The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech", which denounced the personality cult and dictatorship ...
. In 1965, after a period of mainly local activity, the DuBois Clubs were formed and later renamed the
Young Workers Liberation League before reaffirming the original name Young Communist League in 1984.
The dissolution of the YCL
After the
restoration of capitalism in the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist repub ...
countries, the YCL and the Party experienced a decrease in membership. However, after the
contested election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
of
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
as president of the United States and the
escalation of militarism, membership began to rise again. The YCL experienced a rapid growth in membership after the
2008 elections, largely due to the prominent role played by youth in the election of
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
and the fact that his opponents criticized his pro-labor rhetoric as "socialist." Membership continued to grow during Obama's presidency, as increasing numbers of young, left-wing Americans became dissatisfied with that administration's policy decisions.
YCL members argued that the organization operated in cities and rural areas across the country. It organizes national schools and conferences based in Chicago, Illinois. According to its constitution, "The YCL is devoted to the interests of all young people and is dedicated to the revolutionary cause of the working class of our country, the transformation of the United States through mass democratic struggle into a socialist society."
In the years immediately preceding its dissolution, YCL members argued in the CPUSA and YCL press that the group had experienced a rapid rate of expansion and had thus opened chapters all over the country. This rapid influx of membership increasingly led towards a more radical and militant base which led to conflict with the CPUSA, which had a more liberal, pro-
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
stance. In response, the CPUSA absorbed and dissolved the YCL, prompting many clubs to leave and become independent or realign with other communist groups, such as the Red Guards.
Re-establishment
In 2019, a resolution at the 31st National Convention of the
CPUSA
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
was passed which called to re-establish the Young Communist League.
In 2020, the YCL was officially re-established by the CPUSA.
See also
*
W.E.B. DuBois Clubs of America
*
Young Democratic Socialists
*
Worker Rights Consortium The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) is an independent labor rights monitoring organization focused on protecting the rights of workers who sew apparel and make other products sold in the United States, particularly those bearing college or university ...
*
United Students Against Sweatshops
*
Student/Farmworker Alliance
Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA) is a network of students and youth formally organized in 2000 in the United States. SFA campaigns for the improvement of working conditions in the agricultural fields of the United States. The organization cooperat ...
*
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
Footnotes
External links
''Young Worker,''Marxists Internet Archive.
—PDFs of full issues, 1922–1927.
Early American Marxism website.
—Historical documents of the YCL.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Young Communist League, Usa
Youth wings of communist parties
Youth wings of political parties in the United States
Communist Party USA mass organizations
Political youth organizations in the United States