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p The setting up of the Communist International marked a turning point in the history of the youth movement.

p Immediately after the First Congress of the Communist International, it was decided to set up an international communist youth league.

p Lenin welcomed the meeting which was to be held between representatives of the youth organisations of Germany, Hungary and Russia, and stressed that the young revolutionaries must be rallied round the platform of the Third International.

p The Executive Committee of the Communist International, which attached great importance to youth participation in the workers’ revolutionary movement, issued an appeal “To the Organisations of the Proletarian Youth of the World" in May 1919, in which it mentioned the great services rendered by the youth movement during the world war and called on young people to unite on a new, revolutionary basis. It said: “Now is the hour to organise the International of youth. The young workers of the world must definitely choose their path. The Communist International, founded in Moscow in March 1919, summons all young organisations to join its ranks. The Communists look upon the work amongst the youth, as one of the most important and pressing tasks."  [121•1 

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p The appeal gave a very strong impetus to the unification of youth leagues in various countries that took a revolutionary stand. The Bureau of the Youth International passed a decision to hold an international congress in May, but later postponed it to August 1919. It was originally planned to hold the congress in the Hungarian Soviet Republic, but the collapse of the revolution there meant that it had to be held elsewhere.

p After lengthy preparations a conference was held in Vienna in August 1919, attended by delegates representing the communist youth organisations in Russia, Germany, Hungary, Austria and Poland, and the young socialist workers in Austria. The conference elected a Preparatory Committee of the Congress which consisted of five members and acted as a temporary Executive Committee for the Youth International.

p Before the congress could be held, the question of who should attend it had to be decided. Before the war the Youth International had embraced all youth organisations, but when preparations were being made for the congress, it was decided to invite only those organisations which supported the platform of the Third International.

p The Young Communist International opened its Constituent Congress in Berlin on November 20, 1919. The sessions were held illegally, and often the delegates were compelled to move to new premises. The premises where the sessions were held had to be closely guarded, because the Scheidemann Administration, widely known for its brutal persecution of revolutionary organisations, was then in office in Germany.

p The congress, which was represented by 14 young workers’ organisations, adopted the following agenda at its first session: 1) local reports on 123 the state of the youth movement; 2) world situation; 3) Communist International’s basic political programme: the young workers’ manifesto; 4) organisational rules: 5) report on the work of the International Secretariat and Organising Bureau; 6) tasks facing youth organisations during the dictatorship of the proletariat; 7) elections; 8) miscellaneous.

p After brief welcoming speeches the congress adopted an address “To the Russian Proletariat”, which stressed that the young people of the world were full of delight and admiration for the courageous workers of Russia who had taken over power. It read: “It is with particular love and respect that the congress addresses the Russian Communist Party and the Young Communist League, which, under Lenin’s guidance, has led the way and marched in the vanguard of the great struggle, and welcomes among the present delegates of the Russian communist youth organisation those representing Russian socialism, which has been the symbol of revolution for the workers of the world.”

p Lazar Shatskin, the RYCL representative, delivered the first report at the congress, in which he outlined the history of youth organisations in Russia and the present tasks facing the young Russian workers. He stressed that the young workers’ position had greatly improved in the two years following the establishment of Soviet power. Laws regulating the employment of young people had been introduced in Russia, and youth organisations, as well as the state and trade unions, were responsible for seeing that they were observed. A commission had been set up for this purpose.

p Youth organisations were making great progress with cultural and educational activities, particularly in the towns and cities, where the young 124 workers, while studying themselves, carried out an enormous amount of work among the broad sections of the population.

p In his report Lazar Shatskin stressed that the RYCL was working in close touch with the Communist Party. Its relations with the Party were based on the following principles: “1) Adoption of the RCP Programme; 2) political subordination of the young people’s Central Committee to the Party’s Central Committee; 3) subordination of the youth league’s local groups to the local Party organisations; 4) entry of all Party members under 20 into the youth league; 5) mutual material and ideological support.”

p During the Civil War the young Russian workers, who warmly welcomed and took a very active part in the Great October Socialist Revolution, were rendering enormous assistance to the Red Army in military operations at all the various fronts. The young people were defending the world’s first workers’ state with arms. The membership of Russian youth organisations was constantly growing. By August 1919 they had 80,000 members.

p Johann Lekai made a report on the Hungarian Young Communist League. A representative of the HYCL, he described the league’s activities during Soviet power in Hungary. He dealt at great length with the relations between the Social-Democratic and Communist parties, the young workers’ heroism during the revolutionary battles and the league’s achievements during the four months of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and assured delegates that the young Hungarian workers would continue to be the workers’ militant contingent despite brutal persecution in the country.

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p Other speakers made reports on the youth movement in France, Switzerland, Poland, Rumania, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Italy and Germany.

p On the third day of the congress, the representative of the Communist International made a report on the international situation. In the discussion that ensued, various views were expressed on the nature and methods of the class struggle in various West European countries and on the attitude to anarchism and Social-Democracy.

p This was followed by Willi Miinzenberg’s report on the basic draft political programme of the YCI, which aroused heated debate because, instead of taking account of the specific situation of the working class in individual countries and the presence or absence of strong revolutionary organisations, it gave a general recipe for all the questions concerning the youth movement. The delegates justly criticised the programme provisions on the youth organisations’ cultural, educational and athletic work; they also touched upon some very important political problems, such as the significance of the parliamentary struggle and participation in strikes.

p A particularly heated debate broke out over the question of the YCI’s entry into the Third International. Several delegates maintained that the inclusion of the Young Communist International in the Communist International would pose a danger to the greatest asset, the independence of national organisations, and advocated the equality of the YCI and the Communist International in the solution of the revolutionary movement’s tactical problems.

p Owing to the fear of losing independence and the failure to see the importance of democratic 126 centralism in the working-class movement, the congress adopted a compromise resolution. It was, however, resolved by 17 votes to 8 that the Young Communist International should adhere to the Communist International’s platform.

p The congress also adopted without any substantial amendment the Young Communist International’s organisational rules proposed by the presidium. Lazar Shatskin also made a report on the tasks facing youth organisations after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The congress manifesto, a striking reflection of the vanguardist views expressed by most of the delegates, made no mention of the Communist parties’ leading role in the revolutionary movement, but gave prominence to the youth leagues. It said in part: “As always in all phases of the revolutionary class struggle we must be the vanguard of the masses. We must lead the way.”

p Despite its grave errors, especially those of the vanguardist type, the congress was of great importance to the youth movement’s development and its unity under the banner of internationalism. By freeing the young communist leagues from the reformists’ guardianship and formulating, though still somewhat vaguely, the tasks facing the youth movement, the congress marked a new stage in the young people’s revolutionary movement.

p As William Foster noted, the establishment of the Young Communist International became “an important step in the gathering of the new revolutionary forces"  [126•1 .

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p After the congress the communist and socialist student organisations in the West European countries held an international congress in Geneva in December 1919, which supported the platform of the Communist International and declared its solidarity with the working class. The congress also supported the decisions adopted by the First Congress of the Young Communist International and declared its adherence to them.

p In its message of greetings to the congress, the Executive Committee of the Young Communist International said: “Comrades! The international proletarian youth, who believe in the class struggle and have lately united into the Young Communist International, hail with much joy the meeting of the International Congress of Communist Students of both sexes, who boldly speak out in favour of an International of the Working Class and of world revolution."  [127•1 

p The Executive Committee of the Young Communist International, which was elected at the First Congress of the YCI and took an active part in carrying out the congress decisions, made rapid headway in the organisational consolidation of the youth leagues. The Executive Committee of the YCI held several international youth conferences to acquaint youth organisations with, and disseminate, the decisions of the Berlin Congress. In mid-December 1919 the representatives of the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland) held a conference in Stockholm. It was followed by a conference of Southeast European youth 128 organisations in Vienna in May 1920, which was attended by delegates from Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania and Italy. The same month French and Italian youth organisations held a conference in Milan.

p Although these conferences, held to discuss the youth organisations’ practical tasks, adhered to the decisions adopted at the Berlin Congress, the presence of “ultra-Left” trends began to be clearly felt in the Young Communist International. These trends, which supported revolutionary actions “at all costs" and advocated an immediate revolutionary insurrection, took no account of the objective situation in 1920, when signs of the revolutionary movement’s defeat first began to appear in Western Europe.

p The Bureau of the Young Communist International held its first session in Berlin from June 19 to 23, 1920. It was attended by 20 representatives from 14 organisations, and was in essence a continuation of the First Congress of the YCI. At the sessions of the Bureau differences arose over relations with Communist parties. Although the First Congress of the YCI had defined relations between the Young Communist International and the Communist International, youth leagues took an incorrect stand towards individual Communist parties in the West European countries. They refused to adhere to the decisions adopted by the Communist parties, demanding that youth organisations should be fully independent of these parties, while working in “close militant solidarity" with them. Although the first session of the Bureau reaffirmed that youth organisations would not advance their own political programme, this did not change the situation 129 concerning the relations between the youth leagues and the Communist parties.

p These differences between the members of the YCI Bureau arose at a time when the opposition in several Western youth organisations had been supporting the youth leagues’ political independence.

p The Young Communist International’s central organ, the Youth International magazine, began to carry articles justifying the stand taken by the opposition. In its issue of February 1920, it published an article entitled “Independence of Youth Organisations”, in which the anonymous author tried to justify the demands for ideological independence. He said in part: “The desire for political independence is justified in that the young people need independence to engage freely on a neutral basis in socialist education, which is the movement’s sole and main aim."  [129•1 

p This fear of losing independence made youth organisations adopt an increasingly vanguardist position. Unable to understand the situation properly, the leaders of the Young Communist International could not decide what attitude to take towards the declarations made by the Left wing of the Communist International and the schemes of the opportunists in the working-class movement.

p Some YCI leaders supported a break with the Communist International and opposed the party programme and party guidance. An example of this is the article “The Young and the Old" in the Youth International magazine, which maintained that “all efforts to tie down the young people to the existing programme of the Communist or some 130 other party must be strongly rebuffed in the interests of youth and the working-class struggle. Organisational independence is absolutely nothing without ideological independence".  [130•1 

p The Young Communist International’s central organ did not reject these views strongly enough. What is more the YCI Executive Committee actually supported statements favouring YCFs independence and sympathising with Left-wing trends in the Communist International. The members of the Executive Committee were in favour of increasing ties with the Provisional Bureau in Amsterdam of the Communist International, which operated as a section of the Secretariat of the Third International and which was in the hands of the Dutch opportunists, who soon broke with the Communist International.

p It was at this time that Lenin’s book “ Left-Wing" Communism—an Infantile Disorder appeared. He wrote it in 1920 because “Left-wing communism" was strongly threatening the newly established Communist parties in the West. It was a programme document which showed them the way and the means to win prestige among the working people and throw off the yoke of capitalism.

p The first Communist parties to be set up in Western Europe, where for several decades the working-class movement had been led by the socialist parties, were faced with organisational difficulties owing to their lack of experience and poor theoretical training. They drew the wrong conclusions because of their justified hatred of Right-wing socialist parties’ treacherous policies. 131 Lacking adequate theoretical knowledge and practical experience in the political struggle, they completely rejected all forms and methods of struggle used by the parties of the Second International, and refused to work in mass organisations headed by opportunists. Lenin made a thorough analysis of the class basis of the opportunism of the Second International’s socialists. The privileged position of certain European states with extensive colonial possessions had led to the formation of the so-called labour aristocracy among the working people. This “aristocracy” had seized power in the socialist parties and trade unions. To retain its position, it had betrayed the workers’ interests. Lenin wrote: “The leaders of this labour aristocracy were constantly going over to the bourgeoisie, and were directly or indirectly on its pay roll."  [131•1 

p Not seeing the class roots of the betrayal by the socialist leaders, the Communists in the West opposed all leaders and countered the “party of the leaders" with the “party of the masses".

p The Communist Party cannot fulfil its key organisational role and act as a coherent organisational force if it were not headed by the most conscientious and best representatives of the working class, that is, by persons who were devoted to the working-class cause, fully conversant with the Marxist theory and experienced in the political struggle. At the same time the most talented and loyal leaders could not lead the party to a victorious proletarian revolution if the working class, of which it was a part, did not firmly support it and if its programme were not dear and clear to the working people.

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p Moreover, the working class could not achieve a successful revolution without the support of the broad sections of the working people. To ensure an alliance with them and set up a political army of the proletarian revolution, the workers’ party must support all the revolutionary actions by the working people and defend their interests. The revolution would be victorious only if all the links in this chain were strongly connected with one another. The denial of the role of leaders undermined the Party.

p The Communists in the West were committing a serious error by compromising. In their efforts to keep “peace” within the party, the socialists were compromising with the bourgeoisie and thus openly betraying the interests of the working class. The “Left-wing Communists" therefore chose to reject all compromises.

p Lenin snowed that the Party must take the concrete situation into account and, without failing in its loyalty to the cause of the proletarian revolution, could and should make temporary and partial concessions to attain its main goal: victory of the revolution.

p The desire to keep parties legal led the socialists of the Second International to repudiate the main aims and tasks of the working-class movement, that is, to repudiate the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the victory of the revolution. The working-class movement was reduced to a struggle for individual concessions and reforms within the framework of the existing capitalist society; moreover, the socialists regarded parliamentary struggle as the main means of struggle.

p Forgetting that the Bolsheviks as well as the socialists had experience in the revolutionary 133 employment of the parliamentary forms of struggle, many Communists in Western Europe declared that parliamentarism was “historically outdated”, and that the Communists should take no part in parliament, since this would lead to a betrayal of working-class interests.

p Citing the Bolshevik group’s struggle in the Fourth State Duma as an example, Lenin showed clearly that communist participation in the parliamentary struggle could be of really great importance to the cause of the proletarian revolution. In the West, where the traditions of parliamentarism were very deeply imbedded and where parliament was an important means of communication with the people at large, the Communists must use the parliamentary platform to expose the bourgeoisie and their socialist underlings, and to win the broad sections of the working people over to their side. Lenin wrote: “It is because, in Western Europe, the backward masses of the workers and—to an even greater degree—of the small peasants are much more imbued with bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices than they were in Russia; because of that, it is only from within such institutions as bourgeois parliaments that Communists can (and must) wage a long and persistent struggle, undaunted by any difficulties, to expose, dispel and overcome these prejudices."  [133•1 

p Lenin also said that the Communist Party must be flexible, and that the Communists must choose those forms and methods of struggle which are best suited to the tasks facing the revolutionary movement at the given stage. He wrote: “Tactics must be based on a sober and strictly objective 134 appraisal of all the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements."  [134•1 

p He said that the aim was to set up a truly revolutionary parliamentary group in the European reactionary parliaments, and to use parliamentary elections and parliamentary platforms in a revolutionary and communist way. Only then, he maintained, would the work “constitute useful and fruitful revolutionary work that will simultaneously train the ’leaders’ to be worthy of the working class and of all working people, and train the masses to be able properly to understand the political situation and the often very complicated and intricate tasks that spring from that situation."  [134•2 

p Lenin also attacked the attitude of “Left-wing Communists" to the reactionary trade unions. In order to carry out a socialist revolution, the Communists not only had to win the conscientious vanguard of the workers to their side, but convince the people that a revolution was necessary and organise them into a militant revolutionary army. This involved work among the masses by all the existing workers’ organisations.

p Trade unions, set up in the epoch of capitalist domination and led by opportunists, inevitably showed “certain reactionary features, a certain craft narrow-mindedness, a certain tendency to be non-political, a certain inertness, etc."  [134•3 

p It would, however, be utterly wrong to hope for the establishment of new “pure” trade unions. The 135 Communists must join the existing reactionary trade unions and do their utmost to educate the masses, win them over to their side and isolate them from the opportunist leaders. The fact that in the West the trade unions had a more powerful “craft-union, narrow-minded, selfish, case- hardened, covetous, and petty-bourgeois ’labour aristocracy’, imperialist-minded, and imperialistcorrupted..."  [135•1  than in Russia merely meant that the Communists in Western Europe would have a longer and harder struggle.

p But this struggle had to be waged relentlessly until all the opportunist leaders were completely disgraced and expelled from the trade unions. Lenin wrote: “To refuse to work in the reactionary trade unions means leaving the insufficiently developed or backward masses of workers under the influence of the reactionary leaders, the agents of the bourgeoisie, the labour aristocrats, or workers who have become completely bourgeois."  [135•2 

p After giving a detailed analysis of the mistakes made by the “Left-wing Communists" and indicating the causes of “Left-wing communism”, Lenin stressed that this “infantile disorder" was growing pains, and said he was convinced that the Communist parties in the West would get over it quickly. He wrote: “Communists, adherents of the Third International in all countries, exist for the purpose of changing—all along the line, in all spheres of life—the old socialist, trade unionist, syndicalist, and parliamentary type of work into a new type of work, the communist."  [135•3 

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p Lenin’s book was of decisive importance to the Communists in the West European countries in overcoming the errors made by the Left-wing deviationists.

p The mistakes of the newly established Communist parties were also made by youth organisations who were experiencing the same growing pains. For them Lenin’s book was therefore not only a theoretical programme, but also a direct guide to action; it showed them the methods which had to be used in the struggle for the young working people. Much work had to be done, however, before youth organisations took their place in the ranks of the progressive fighters in the Communist International’s section.

p Lenin wrote that Bolshevism had worked out the ideological and practical foundations for the establishment of the Communist International. This in turn solved the question of the Party guidance of young people and helped to overcome the incorrect notion that they should play the leading part in the communist and workers’ movement.

p The need for the YCI to convene its second congress to settle the disputes concerning relations between youth organisations and Communist parties was so obvious that it aroused no objections. When the Bureau of the Young Communist International held its session in Berlin in July 1920, most delegates supported the proposal to hold the congress in Italy in March 1921.

p Some delegates, including RYCL representatives, had suggested that the congress be held in Scandinavia, and when most of the YCI Bureau members were disinclined to accept this, the RYCL delegates proposed that it should be held in Moscow at the same time as the congress of the Communist International if the “young 137 communist leagues were sufficiently represented" at the latter.

p The Executive Committee of the YCI rejected the proposal to hold the YCI congress in Moscow, but accepted the invitation to take part in the Second Congress of the Communist International. Youth leagues in the West European countries also received invitations to take part in the Second Congress of the Communist International; most of them accepted and sent representatives to Moscow accordingly.

p The Second Congress of the Communist International, held from July 19 to August 7, 1920, concentrated its attention on the question of consolidating the young Communist parties and on the tasks set down by Lenin in his “Left-Wing” Communism—an Infantile Disorder.

p On the basis of Lenin’s “Report on the International Situation and the Main Tasks of the Communist International" the congress adopted theses stressing that before socialism could triumph the exploiters had to be overthrown, all the working people had to be won over to the side of the Communist parties, and the inevitable vacillations of small-scale owners in agriculture and industry, intellectuals and salaried workers, had to be neutralised.  [137•1 

p To carry out these tasks, the workers must have their own party consisting of the most conscientious and loyal Communists trusted by the people.

p Since Communist parties had been set up in many countries, the Second Congress of the Communist International dealt largely with the Party problem. The task now was to turn Communist 138 parties into mass revolutionary organisations of the working class.

p As individual Western parties denied the leading part played by the Communist Party in the working people’s revolutionary movement and the proletarian revolution, the congress discussed this question carefully. The theses which it adopted said in part: “Only the Communist Party, if it is really the vanguard of the revolutionary class, if it really comprises all the finest representatives of that class, if it consists of fully conscious and staunch Communists who have been educated and steeled by the experience of a persistent revolutionary struggle, and if it has succeeded in linking itself inseparably with the whole life of its class and, through it, with the whole mass of the exploited, and in completely winning the confidence of this class and this mass—only such a party is capable of leading the proletariat in a final, most ruthless and decisive struggle against all the forces of capitalism."  [138•1 

p The congress recognised that the struggle against both the opportunists and manifestations of the “infantile disorder" was among the main tasks facing the workers.

p Bearing in mind the fact that opportunists and Centrists might manage to penetrate into the Communist International, the congress approved Lenin’s conditions for admission to the organisation. These conditions provided that only parties taking a firm Marxist stand and recognising the dictatorship of the proletariat and its governmental form, the Soviets, could be accepted into the Communist International.

p The parties joining the Communist 139 International must be based on the principle of democratic centralism and have rigid party discipline. Moreover, they had to combine legal and illegal work, break completely with the opportunists, expose the colonial policy and support the national-liberation movement. A special stipulation said that the “programmes of all parties belonging to the Communist International must be approved by a regular congress of the Communist International or by its Executive Committee."  [139•1 

p The decisions of the Second Congress of the Communist International became a programme document for young communist parties in their practical activities.

p As the agenda was very long, the congress did not have time to deal at length with the youth movement or discuss the theses on mutual relations. These theses, prepared by the executive committees of the Communist International and the YCI, were an important step towards bringing the two organisations closer together. They were published for discussion at the congress, and stressed that the YCI supported the resolutions adopted by the Communist International and would not advance its own political programme. They also said that “reserving the right to be independent in its organisational work, the young Communist International is a part of the Communist International".

p The theses defined the tasks of the young revolutionaries’ international movement more clearly than the decisions of the First Congress of the YCI. They said that the YCI regarded as its main task active participation in the entire struggle for the proletarian revolution, above all in the spheres 140 best suited to young people, such as “anti- militarist propaganda, anti-clerical education, the economic safeguarding of the young, and the teaching of proletarian youth".

p At its second congress, the Communist International adopted its Rules in which there was a special clause on the organisational inclusion of the YCI in the Communist International. The clause said: “The International Union of Communist Youth is a fully empowered member of the Communist International and subordinated to its Executive Committee. One representative of the International Union of Communist Youth shall be delegated to the Executive Committee of the Communist International with the right of a decisive vote. The Executive Committee of the Communist International shall be entitled to delegate one representative with the right of a decisive vote to the executive organ of the International Union of Communist Youth.”

p The theses stressed that, together with great theoretical training, youth participation in the workers’ political struggle was the main factor in educating the rising generation in a communist spirit. They also dealt at length with the relations between the Communist parties and the young communist leagues, a matter of some concern to young people at that time. The Executive Committee of the Communist International stressed that there was a great difference in the relations between youth organisations and the newly established Communist parties in some West European countries, and pointed out in the theses that this was mainly because of the different ways in which young workers’ organisations arose in countries where there were still no Communist parties and where, after many years, they had 141 ceased to be under the petty guardianship and control of the socialist parties contaminated by reformist and conciliatory ideas. In this event the young people were quite right in demanding absolute political and organisational independence for youth organisations. However it was also the case that in certain countries where Communist parties already existed, youth organisations were still insisting on absolute independence, and were therefore confusing “their relation to the socialpatriotic parties with the relation to the Communist parties”. In this event youth organisations were wrong in demanding independence; they were doing harm to the common cause of the working class and were enabling the enemies of the working class to use them for their ends. In countries where Communist parties had already proved themselves to be revolutionary parties by strongly defending the interests of the working class, they and the young revolutionaries’ organisations were gradually drawing closer together; moreover, this process was not one of coercion of youth organisations but of their “conviction in the need of drawing closer together and of the result of a free decision by youth leagues".

p As Communist parties and young communist leagues drew closer together, the latter gradually recognised and carried out the Communist party programme while maintaining its own centralised organisation, forms and methods of agitation and propaganda, representation on central and local bodies and the right of a decisive vote. By jointly taking part in legal and illegal political activities, the Communist parties and the young communist leagues must overcome the relations between the Social-Democratic parties and the old socialist youth organisations in which 142 the Social-Democratic Party exercised petty guardianship and control over all the youth organisations’ activities, depriving them of all initiative and preventing them from developing their independence.

p The Executive Committee of the Communist International once again brought up the relations between the Communist International and the YCI. This time it stated clearly and unequivocally that “being a part of the Communist International, the Young Communist International must obey the resolutions adopted at the congress of the Communist International and the political directives of its Executive Committee, and must independently carry on its work in leading, organising, developing and consolidating the international youth movement".

p The resolutions which the Executive Committee of the Communist International adopted on the vital questions of the international youth movement had a strong impact on the movement’s development and helped to activate the Executive Committee of the Young Communist International in its work.

p The representatives of both the Executive Committee of the YCI and foreign youth organisations who took part in the Second Congress of the Communist International and later in the sessions of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, availed themselves of the opportunity of holding a conference in Moscow jointly with the representatives of the CC RYCL. The conference dealt with the question of developing the vouth movement in the light of the decisions taken by the Second Congress of the Communist International and its Executive Committee.

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p The conference took account of the grave situation that had arisen owing to the strained relations between young workers’ organisations and Communist parties, which in several countries threatened to lead to the youth organisations’ open denial of the leading role of the Communist parties and the advancement of their own political programme. It addressed an appeal to the youth leagues saying that this situation did a great deal of harm to the young communist leagues and to the common cause of the working class. It said that an immediate end had to be put to the vacillation and endless disputes on tactics, and called for the prompt implementation of the decisions adopted by the Second Congress of the Communist International.

p The appeal ended with the words: “All possible means must be used to put an immediate end to the debates on tactics and to step up urgent organisational work, so as to enable the Communist parties and organisations to present a united front in the near future in support of Soviet Russia and world revolution."  [143•1 

p Among other questions, the conference discussed the venue for the Second Congress of the Young Communist International. This question became a matter of principle, since the members of the YCI still held conflicting views on the relations between the youth leagues and Communist parties.

p Owing to the grave situation, the CC RYCL once again wrote to the YCI Executive Committee on November 10, 1920, emphasising the need to 144 hold the congress in Moscow. It based its argument on the fact that the representatives of the Executive Committee of the Communist International and Communist parties must take part in the work of the Second Congress of the YCI because the main item of discussion would be relations between Communist parties and young people. It also maintained that Moscow was the only place where the congress could be held legally.

p However this proposal was once again rejected, and the YCI Executive Committee resolved to hold the Second Congress of the Young Communist International in the provincial German town of Jena on March 30, 1921.

p The congress opened on April 3, 1921, and was represented by all communist youth leagues except the RYCL and the youth leagues in the Asian countries.

p After Soviet Russia’s message of greetings was read at the congress, a report was made on the international situation. The report was full of the “ultra-Left” views condemned by the Second Congress of the Communist International. The ensuing discussion on the report had to be cut short, because the police learned about the congress and its participants were threatened with immediate arrest.

p It was then decided to continue the congress in Berlin. But the discussion was never wound up because on April 11, the congress presidium received a telegram from the Executive Committee of the Communist International saying that it would be most expedient to continue the congress in Moscow, where the Third Congress of the Communist International was to be held at the same time.

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p After a lengthy meeting between the congress presidium and the representatives of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, the former proposed that the congress should be transferred to Moscow. This proposal was accepted and the congress opened in Moscow on June 15, 1921.

p The Executive Committee of the Communist International had good grounds for insisting that the congress should be held in Moscow. Dangerous tendencies had been observed in the YCFs activities almost immediately after it held its first congress; these showed that, despite the decisions of the Second Congress of the Communist International and several directives issued by the Central Committee of the Communist International, the Executive Committee of the YCI and its individual leagues could not tackle the task entrusted to them of ridding the youth movement of vanguardist trends and “ultra-Left” deviations. All this reduced the individual achievements of the YCI Executive Committee and its sections. The practical tasks which the Second Congress of the Communist International had worked out for the international working-class movement helped the international youth movement to rectify its mistakes. The YCI Executive Committee was given much help in improving its work by its largest and most progressive section, the Russian Young Communist League.

p As a YCI section, the RYCL initiated several important activities in the international arena. It attached great importance to the development of the youth movement in the Middle and Far East. With its help, the young people of Asia held a congress in Baku on September 9 and 10, 1920, which was attended by over 100 youth 146 representatives from Turkestan, Azerbaijan, Khiva, Bukhara, Persia, Turkey, Armenia and Georgia. As a result, the young workers’ organisations in the Caucasus began to carry on vigorous activities, and mass rallies and demonstrations were held everywhere. The congress discussed the tasks facing the youth movement in the Asian countries, and brought the movement’s organisations closer together. It also helped to unite the organisations in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

p In late September 1920 a youth congress was held in Baku, which announced the establishment of a united Caucasian youth organisation. The congress adopted a resolution to join the RYCL.

All this went to show that no other country had such favourable conditions for organising the working-class movement, especially the youth movement, and for guiding them along the correct lines. The Russian Communist Party, which was highly experienced in guiding the workers in their revolutionary struggle and which was the leading section of the Communist International, rendered great assistance in organising the international youth movement. The course of events showed that the Young Communist International could not become an independent organisation if it were not guided politically by the Communist International and the Communist parties.