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p As early as August 1917 the Bolshevik Party raised the question of holding an All-Russia Congress of the Young Workers’ Socialist Leagues with a view to setting up a single revolutionary youth organisation. However, as already mentioned, the course of events brought new gigantic tasks to the fore, and the congress had to be put off for the time being.

p The young people’s active participation in the armed insurrection on October 25 (November 7, New Style), 1917, in the struggle for the establishment of Soviet power at the localities, and in the suppression of the bourgeoisie’s counter- revolutionary actions played an important part in the establishment of an all-Russia organisation. This was a unique school where the young people received political training. The laws of class struggle, which were learned in practice, formed the basis of the young workers’ world outlook.

p On the initiative of the leagues in Moscow and Petrograd an Organising Bureau was set up under the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party to make preparations for the all-Russia congress. Nadezhda Krupskaya took an active part in these preparations.

p The First All-Russia Congress of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Youth Leagues, held in Moscow from October 29 to November 4, 1918, was 90 attended by 176 delegates representing 22,100 young people. About 80 per cent of the delegates were workers and peasants. 88 delegates were members of the Russian Communist Party ( Bolsheviks), 38 were sympathisers, 45 were politically uncommitted, one was a Left-wing socialist revolutionary, one an anarchist, and three were internationalist Social-Democrats.

p The congress had to adopt a Programme and Rules for the league and determine its nature and tasks.

p The congress unanimously approved (with two abstentions) the following definition of the main aim of the league: "The league, which is in solidarity with the RCP(B), sets itself the aim of spreading communist ideas and encouraging the young workers and peasants to take an active part in the construction of Soviet Russia.”

p In his opening speech at this First Congress of the Russian Young Communist League (RYCL), Comrade Y. Tsetlin said: "Comrades, the world socialist revolution is developing and a new life is being built before our very eyes; we must join in its construction as a powerful organisation. We are confident that our congress will be followed by an international youth congress.”

p On its opening day, the congress received a message of greetings from the International Bureau of Youth Organisations, which said: “We have learned with great joy from Russian comrades in Switzerland that a congress of young Russian socialists is being held today in Moscow. We were delighted at the news. The International Bureau and Swiss youth organisations send you their warmest greetings and best wishes.... We are very glad to have become more closely acquainted with your stand, work and 91 organisations."  [91•1  German youth had also cabled a message of greetings to the congress.

p The congress entrusted the CC RYCL with the task of establishing ties with Western organisations.

p Immediately after the congress the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, which attached great importance to the RYCL, sent a circular letter to the Bolshevik Party organisations informing them of the establishment of the Young Communist League. It said: “The Russian Young Communist League is marching hand in hand with the RCP(B) in its struggle for communism and is spreading communist ideas among the young workers and peasants. Russia is drawing them into the active political struggle under the banner of socialist revolution and is defending their legal and economic interests."  [91•2  The Central Committee stressed that the Young Communist League was an independent organisation, and called on local Bolshevik Party organisations to give all-out support to the league’s local organisations while observing the young people’s independence.

p In spite of hunger and devastation the working people courageously fought against a host of enemies. The Russian people had to make an incredible effort to defend the gains of the Revolution, and the Communists were at the most difficult points of the struggle. The tasks of suppressing the bourgeois counter-revolution, establishing new state machinery, carrying out work in the countryside and cultural development called for an ever larger number of specialists loyal to the 92 cause of the working class and capable of performing all the duties entrusted by the Party.

p In this situation the Party regarded the young people as its immediate reserve. The Bolshevik Party held its Eighth Congress in 1919. Its agenda included such important items as the adoption of a new Programme, and work in the countryside. The congress also discussed work among the young people and adopted the following special resolution: “The proletarian revolution demands an ever larger number of responsible workers and conscientious fighters. The rising generation of the working class and poor peasantry is faced with the gigantic task of taking an increasingly active part in revolutionary construction, and must be ready to continue and consolidate the Revolution. The fate of the Revolution largely depends on the successful fulfilment of this task."  [92•1 

p In this connection the congress stressed that the work which the Communist Party was carrying on among the young workers and peasants was of great importance. “The Party,” it said, “must have well-trained reserves, from whom it can draw new honest and conscientious workers full of revolutionary enthusiasm."  [92•2 

p The young people could be educated in the communist spirit only if they took part in the revolutionary transformation of the country and developed their independence and initiative through independent organisations upholding the banner of communism. The Russian Young Communist League, said the congress resolution, was such an organisation. The congress therefore stressed that the league must continue, and charged Party 93 organisations with the task of rendering it the “most active ideological and material support"  [93•1 .

p The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party devoted a great deal of attention to the state of affairs in the RYCL and to the relations between local Party and league organisations. Great patience and tact were exercised to ensure that the Young Communist League organisations’ work was channelled along the required course and their initiative was not shackled.

p After the Eighth Congress of the RCP(B), the question of the relations between the Young Communist League and the Communist Party was discussed at the Plenary Meeting of the CC RYCL, held from April 26 to 28, 1919. The resolutions adopted at the congress and the plenary meeting formed the basis of directives worked out in August 1919 further elaborating relations between the RYCL and the RCP(B).

p Confirming the resolutions adopted by the Plenary Meeting of the CC RYCL, the directives stressed that the Russian Young Communist League “accepted the Programme and tactics of the RCP”, and that it was an “independent organisation possessing its own Rules and functioning under the control of the central and local Party groups"  [93•2 .

p The directives said that to develop political and educational work in the league, Party organisations must help the RYCL by agitation, arranging lectures, sending organisers to the league, assisting it in its political work and club activities, providing financial support, premises, and so on.

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p To consolidate the communist nucleus of the RYCL organisations, an extremely important resolution was adopted by which Party members up to the age of 20 were to be RYCL members. In places where there were still no RYCL organisations, the local Party organisations were to be guided by the Rules and directives of the CC RYCL and take on the task of setting them up; for this, they were to pick out individual Party members, or resourceful groups from among both the young people and Party members. Those selected, who had to be below 20, were to form an active nucleus for the future RYCL organisation.

p Party control over the league was ensured by a provision adopted at the Plenary Meeting of the CCRYCL, which said that “the CC RYCL is directly subordinate to the CC RCP(B)”. Local Party organisations’ control over the league was ensured by mutual representation; moreover, the RYCL representatives in the Party organisations had a deciding vote when matters concerning the RYCL were discussed.

p In the case of youth organisations hampered by petty-bourgeois and kulak elements among their membership, the Party organisations were recommended to set up groups under the RYCL organisations to channel their activities along the communist course.

p For their, part, the RYCL organisations were to give all-out support to the Party organisations “by agitation during mobilisation, by holding demonstrations during elections to the Soviets and other bodies, and so on".

p The directives ended by stressing that if the league was to carry on its work, it was necessary above all for the RYCL organisations to be independent in their actions. Party control over the 95 league was not to take the form of guardianship and petty interference in its activities. It was to be exercised within the framework of the RYCL Rules and the directives of the CC RYCL.

p As the Civil War raged and foreign troops invaded the country, the Bolshevik Party repeatedly appealed to young people to take up arms and defend the gains of the Great October Revolution. The young workers responded enthusiastically to the Party’s appeals. Thousands volunteered to go to the most dangerous areas of the front-lines. Fierce battles were being fought on all sides— in the Far East and near Petrograd, in the Volga area and up in the Far North by Kotlas.

p During these difficult years the RYCL kept the Red Army well provided with replenishments, and special young people’s regiments and battalions were set up. Hundreds of commanders and commissars were former members of the RYCL.

p The first enlistments into the Red Army showed that a considerable amount of military and political training was needed in the rear. Young people were the first to respond to the Communist Party’s appeal for people to join the general military training system. After work they would hurry from their factories and workshops to attend military training courses.

p In the spring of 1919 a highly dangerous situation developed on the Eastern Front when Kolchak’s army seized almost the whole of the Urals and advanced on the Volga. Together with the rest of the people, youth responded to the Party’s appeal to defend the homeland. In May 1919 the first RYCL members were recruited for the front in accordance with the decision adopted by the CC RYCL.

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p The replenishments which the Eastern Front received soon enabled the Red Army to drive back Kolchak’s army. Communist youth organisations were immediately set up in the liberated Ural areas. In Yekaterinburg gubernia alone, 88 youth organisations with about 10,000 members were set up in the two months following its liberation from Kolchak’s forces.

p That same year the Soviet Republic faced another grave threat. Denikin’s armies were advancing on Moscow from the South. The Communist Party issued the appeal "All Out in the Struggle Against Denikin!”, to which RYCL members responded ardently. Without waiting for general mobilisation, all the youth organisations in the country joined the Red Army en masse.

p The RYCL opened its Second All-Russia Congress in Moscow on October 5, 1919, at a time when the Soviet Republic was having to fight hard for survival. The congress was attended by 429 delegates representing 96,000 RYCL members; 268 of them were Communists, 103 were sympathisers and 58 politically uncommitted.

p Addressing the young people, Pravda wrote on the opening day of the congress: “During the Great Russian Proletarian Revolution the Young Communist League often showed a keen revolutionary sense; thousands of its members took up arms and joined the Red Army, and hundreds of them are now working as agitators, scouts and messengers at the front. This movement has to be intensified now: the league members’ courage, valour and young vigour are now needed on our Southern Front, and the congress must issue this appeal to young Communists throughout Russia: To the Southern Front! To the Struggle Against Denikin!’.”

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p Noting the grave situation at the front, the congress adopted a special resolution on the enlistment of league members into the Red Army. It called for the mobilisation of all league members who had reached 16 years of age, and 30 per cent of the individual organisations’ membership in several front-line areas. The one exception was the Petrograd league organisation, as the Petrograd front was of particular importance.

p However, if carried out this resolution would have led to the termination of the league’s work. To prevent this, the CC RCP(B) issued a circular on October 16, 1919, to rationalise the enlistment of the league members. It proposed that mobilisation should be carried out gradually, with 25 per cent of the league members in the Moscow fortified area, and only 10 per cent of the league members in other areas.

p Several other important questions were discussed at the Second All-Russia Congress of the RYCL. In its report, the Central Committee summed up the work carried out by the league since its first congress. Under difficult circumstances, when attention was concentrated largely on the fight against internal and external enemies, the CC RYCL managed to decide such questions as its organisational structure, relations between the RYCL and the RCP(B), the financing of the league and the training of workers for responsible posts. It also drew up rules for the admission of new members into the league.

p The league performed some important economic and legal work. When Soviet power was established, it devoted much attention to improving the young workers’ position. By a special resolution of October 29, 1919 the working day was reduced to six hours for those under 16 with the 98 retention of a full day’s pay. Night shifts and overtime were banned lor adolescents. The league’s task was “to help the workers’ bodies to implement the Soviet power’s decrees on the improvement of the young workers’ position"  [98•1 .

p This task was carried out through RYCL representation on the boards of the Department for Labour Protection and Social Security. A Report of the CC RYCL said: “The league must devote much attention to economic and legal work. This work will enable us to attract a larger number of young people into our ranks than mere agitation would.”

p The tasks of educating youth in the socialist spirit and of reorganising the school, tasks which could be coped with only in several years’ time, were also closely bound up with the problem of providing young people with work. The league organisations took part in carrying out these tasks. They enabled classes to be held by providing equipment for school buildings, finding teachers, supplying firewood, and so on.

p The CC RYCL attached great importance in its work to questions concerning co-operation with young people in the Western countries.

p Ever since it came into being, the Russian youth movement was distinguished by its internationalist spirit. Immediately after their establishment, the RYCL organisations set themselves the task of studying the experience gained by youth organisations in Western Europe in their struggle over the years.

p The Russian Young Communist League actively joined in the struggle to spread the communist 99 movement among young people all over the world. In its appeal of January 9, 1919, the CC RYCL called on the young workers of the world “to set up their own youth organisations, their young communist leagues. They must become the militant bodies of the revolution. They must unite all the young workers’ active and revolutionary forces; they will give the working class new courageous and conscientious fighters for the communist revolution".

p As most members of the Bureau of the Youth International were in prison, the CC RYCL took on the task of re-establishing it. It also endeavoured to hold a world congress of young workers. A commission was set up consisting of representatives of the CC RYCL and the Executive Committee of the Third International. The commission drafted the Programme and Rules of the Young Communist International, and theses on the main tasks facing the communist youth organisations throughout the world. It also passed a resolution to hold a world congress of young workers’ organisations.

p This congress was held in Berlin from November 20 to 26, 1919, and it proclaimed the foundation of the Young Communist International.

p Russian youth sent Lazar Shatskin to the congress as their delegate with a mandate emphasising the need to set up the Young Communist International which would be “linked with the Third International" and which would “unite all the communist youth organisations".

The Second Congress of the RYCL issued an appeal to the young workers of the world, saying that the young workers at large share the same interests and the same enemies, i.e., the exploiters, and that the young Russian workers and peasants

100 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1971/YCI237/20070208/199.tx" “protest against the suppression of the communist youth movement and the arrest of its leaders".

p The congress also issued an appeal to the young workers of France, Britain, the United States and other countries, saying: “Protest against your governments for interfering in the affairs of Russia, demand that they end their assistance to the Russian bourgeoisie’s counter-revolutionary armies. Stage rallies, demonstrations and strikes; let the outcry of the young workers of the world be a stern and final warning to the bourgeoisie.” It ended as follows: “We are confident that our appeal will evoke a response. We are confident that we will get a unanimous response, which will herald the downfall of bourgeois society.”

p The young workers in all the countries which were taking part in the military intervention in the Soviet Republic responded ardently to the appeal, and the working youth in Britain, France, Germany and Italy took an active part in the “Hands off Soviet Russia!" movement.

p In an address to the CC RYCL, the Federation of the Young Socialists of Italy wrote: “Today, when you are exerting all your strength and are preparing to repulse new offensives by Poland, the hireling of the Entente, we warmly express to you our full solidarity and pledge that we will do everything in our power to help you. The 40,000 young Communists of Italy will do everything they can to prevent the dispatch of arms, equipment and provisions to counter-revolutionary Poland."  [100•1 

p In turn the young people in the Soviet Republic rendered assistance to their counterparts in the Western countries. In 1920 the Day of Assistance 101 to the Young People in the West was celebrated in Petrograd. Pravda wrote at the time: “At almost all enterprises young people donated one-, two- and three-day’s earnings to the fund for the fighting Red youth in the West.”

p The news that the Young Communist International had been established did not reach Soviet Russia until much later. The Constituent Congress of the YCI in Berlin adopted a resolution saying that the establishment of the young workers’ international communist organisation would not be announced until the delegates had returned to their countries. Lazar Shatskin, the delegate of the Russian Young Communist League, had difficulty in returning to his country, and therefore the establishment of the Young Communist International was not announced in the press until February 10, 1920.

p This is an extract from what Pravda said about the great event: “The Young Communist International, for whose establishment politically- conscious young workers all over the world have been striving, is now a dream come true. Long Live the Young Communist International! Long Live the Guards of the Communist Revolution!”

The CC RYCL held a plenary meeting from April 15 to 20, 1920 to discuss the establishment of the Young Communist International. Its resolution said that it “enthusiastically welcomes the establishment of the Communist International and subscribes to all the resolutions adopted by the Berlin Congress.... The RYCL, which regards itself as a contingent of the international army of young workers, pledges itself to be a loyal member of the YCI”.