Revolutionary Vanguard: The Early Years of the Communist Youth International, 1914-1924

370 Pages·5.47 MB·English

by  Richard Cornell

Richard Cornell is a member of the Department of Political
Science at York University.
The monolithic nature of the communist movement during the
Stalinist period overlay pluralist tendencies. These were
suppressed in the 1920s, though they were to re-emerge after
Stalin's death.
The history of the Communist Youth International is
revealed in this volume as an important example of the
'autonomist' tendencies in the communist movement after
the First World War. The experience of the CYI also
demonstrates that differences between the Leninist and
Stalinist eras were of degree, rather than of kind. Under
Lenin, organizational principles and practices were intro-
duced that gave to the new communist movement a distinct,
authoritarian cast.
Cornell considers the relevance, in the development of
radical movements among the young, of such qualities as
untempered idealism, a predisposition to embrace the most
radical alternatives for social change, and a self-
assertiveness or rebelliousness directed against traditional
adult teachings. He shows how these qualities were to lead,
after the First World War (and more recently), to conflicts
between radical, ideologically orthodox youth and more
pragmatic adult party leaders.
In introducing their new kind of radicalism, the young
communists of Europe in 1919 considered themselves to be
the most revolutionary element among revolutionaries -
the highest form of 'revolutionary vanguard.' Moscow did
not agree.
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RICHARD CORNELL
Revolutionary
Vanguard: The
Early Years of
the Communist
Youth International
1914-1924
University of Toronto Press
Toronto Buffalo London
©University of Toronto Press 1982
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-5559-1
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Cornell, Richard, 1927-
Revolutionary vanguard.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8020-5559-1
1. Communist Youth International - History.
2. Socialism and youth - History - 20th century.
I. Title.
HX547.C67 324' M C82-904036-4
This book has been published with the help of a grant from
the Social Science Federation of Canada, using funds provided
by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada, and a grant from the Publications Fund of the
University of Toronto Press.
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xv
1
A tradition of independence 3
2
Factional struggles and the socialist youth 22
3
Radicalism and revolution 44
4
The Berlin congress 65
5
'Clarity' in the socialist youth movement: the struggle
for supremacy 107
6
Conflict over the role of the youth movement 156
7
Decisions in Moscow 214
8
The united front and 'bolshevization' 251
9
The revolutionary vanguard in perspective 292
Bibliography 315
Index 334
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Preface
During the Stalinist period, centralization and ideological
uniformity were the most striking features of the communist
movement. Communism appeared to be a more or less monolithic
phenomenon. Thus, it is not surprising that the diversity
that emerged after World War II, and particularly from the
late 1950s, was interpreted as something quite new. In fact,
communism acquired its characteristic Marxist-Leninist defi-
nition only by the suppression or uprooting at an early stage
of other, less authoritarian conceptions of communism.
The communist movement, as represented in the Communist
International (Comintern) and its auxiliary organizations,
was another phase in a continuing effort by 'left-wing so-
cial democrats' to implement an orthodox interpretation of
Marx's ideas on revolutionary social change. The Russian
Bolsheviks were indeed the predominant factor within the
new, revolutionary International. Because they had been suc-
cessful, their ideas carried great weight. But just as before
1917, even before 1914 and the outbreak of war, socialists
had been divided over many crucial matters of theory, strat-
egy, and tactics, the early communists were not really in
agreement on several basic issues. New differences had arisen
over how to interpret the prospects for revolution, what a
revolution meant, and which strategies and tactics were to
be followed. It was over mundane, but critical, questions of
organizational structure and process, however, that the
'revolutionary solidarity' of these first communists broke
down. Enthusiasm for 'action' was not to prove strong enough
to keep them together. Coming from different countries, with
different traditions and different historical and cultural
experiences, the various communists brought with them
viii Preface
different conceptions of what was an appropriate basis for
a revolutionary organization. These differences over organi-
zation reflected a deeper disunity over the purposes of the
new communist movement.
What it meant to be a communist was under debate and in
the process of definition in the years immediately after
World War I. It was at this time that the Russian party
not only acquired its authoritarian, Marxist-Leninist fea-
tures, but also went on to shape the entire communist move-
ment in its image. It did so by imposing an organizational
structure through which it could determine the purposes the
communist movement was to serve. The first signs of this
development were apparent in the Communist Youth Interna-
tional (CYI), which was founded several months after the
Comintern in 1919. Both internationals were dissolved by
the Russian party in 1943. That which was soon to come
within the communist parties and the Comintern was seen
first within the youth movement and its organizations, and
in a clearer and less ambiguous form.
The history of the youth international can tell us a great
deal about the nature of communism, seen as a political move-
ment. It provides an important example of how the communist
movement developed in practice in the early post-war years.
Young communists exercised a significant influence on this
development. Among the most devoted supporters of the Russian
Bolsheviks, they played an active part in the creation of
many communist parties. Mostly situated on the extreme left
of the socialist political spectrum, they served also as a
moral and idealistic spur to all revolutionary forces. Above
all, they raised, as few other communists did, the funda-
mental issue of the nature of the new communist movement.
What was the revolution to be for? What were the values to
be in the new socialist society?
This study of the youth international emphasizes the close
relationship that existed between the early communist move-
ment and the 'socialist mainstream.' The Communist Youth
International, like most other communist organizations, was
not a completely new phenomenon; it was neither grafted onto
the old socialist movement, nor did it take root in differ-
ent soil. Rather it grew out of a previously united (if
only formally) socialist movement and flourished in its way
as a new branch. One cannot understand the history of com-
munism, or more recent developments within the movement,
without recognizing that its separation from the 'socialist
ix Preface
mainstream' has in many ways been an artificial one. The
youth international's history demonstrates that the diver-
sity now flourishing openly within what traditionally is
called the international communist movement is not new,
but has deeper historical origins. This diversity should
be seen as the reappearance of an earlier pluralism whose
roots go back into the 'socialist mainstream,' a pluralism
that had been suppressed under Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin
without destroying its sources. The insistence of the young
communists on autonomy, on a less restrictive definition
of democratic centralism, and the Russian Bolshevik re-
sponse to these pressures were an important indication of
the course the new communist movement was to take and a
precursor to the imposition of Marxism-Leninism as the
only permissible conception of communism.
This exploration of the Communist Youth International
helps to clarify another misunderstanding concerning the
development of communism. As Helmut Gruber notes in his
International Communism in the Era of Lenin, it is 'equally
distorting to subordinate the continuity between the era
of Lenin and that of Stalin to differences between these
two periods of communism.' Differences between the Leninist
and Stalinist eras were of degree rather than of kind. It
was under Lenin that new organizational principles and
practices were introduced, giving to the new communist
movement even in Lenin's time a distinct, authoritarian
cast. The suppression of other, less centralized, concep-
tions of communism already was well on its way to comple-
tion. The Leninist criteria have provided a continuing
raison d'être ever since for all communist organizations.
This was not accomplished, however, without the transfor-
mation of these principles and practices into dogmas - that
is, democratic centralism was not seen simply as a rational
means for the effective functioning of communist organiza-
tions (to be revised or perhaps abandoned if its applica-
tion proved to be ineffective or harmful), but became in-
stead a matter of faith, of the 'true' interpretation of
Marxism, to which one must subscribe unquestioningly if
one is to remain a member of the movement. Although cau-
tious in his introduction of the new norms to the Comin-
tern, Lenin did so knowingly and without reservations.
Stalin only carried Lenin's work to its conclusion. Thus,
it is a misconception to assume that the Stalinist period
was in some way an impure or perverted version of the 'true'