Issuing body: International Conference of the Youth of the Fourth International
THE BOLSHEVIK-LENINISTS AND THE ORGANIZATION OF REVOLUTIONARY YOUTH
1. The youth organizations of the Fourth International set themselves the task of building broad, autonomous communist organizations of young people. The task of these organizations is the defence of the demands of young workers, the anti-militarist struggle, and the training of Bolshevik cadres for the parties of the Fourth International, so as to bring the labouring youth into the struggle alongside the proletariat for the power of the workers and peasants.
2. The Bolshevik-Leninists affirm that only a class organization can express the true aspirations of the labouring youth; in the face of the bourgeoisie and its reformist and Stalinist lackeys, they proclaim not merely the right but the duty of the labouring youth — exploited even more than their elders — to take part in the latter's struggle. They denounce the reactionary character of the reformist campaigns, taken up by the Stalinists, which aim to confine the activity of youth to leisure alone. The Bolshevik-Leninists do not despise leisure; on the contrary they regard the physical and intellectual development of the individual as one of the essential tasks of socialism; but they stress that to organize youth solely with a view to leisure, outside the struggle against capitalism and consequently under capitalism's tutelage, can only end in supplying the bourgeoisie with more docile cannon-fodder and labour-fodder.
Against this reactionary conception, the Bolshevik-Leninists set that of physical and intellectual culture conceived as specialized activities placed at the service of the class objectives of the proletariat and used as means of the class struggle; just as they say to every young worker under the colours: "Take up the arms the bourgeoisie entrusts to you and learn to use them well, the better to sweep away capitalism and bourgeois militarism," so they say to every exploited young person eager for physical exercise and knowledge: "Train your body; nourish your mind, so as to be better armed in the struggle to overthrow the exploiters who bruise your body and deny you culture."
3. The Bolshevik-Leninists affirm that the proletarian organization of youth must be deeply conscious of the historic aims and needs of its class, that is to say, it must be a communist organization. They reject any notion of substituting for the class organization of the labouring youth a principle-less, programme-less organization that would group youth in general, or "anti-fascist" youth in general, on the formula of Dimitrov and Guyot, which resulted in the de facto liquidation of the legal sections of the Communist Youth International (CYI). The Bolshevik-Leninists explain to the labouring youth that neither horror of the executioner nor joy of living are sufficient weapons in the struggle against fascism; that fascism is only an exasperated form of capitalist domination, to which the bourgeoisie cannot but resort in the present situation of general crisis; that fascism can be brought down only by resolutely opposing proletarian violence to anti-worker violence, by opposing to the programme of the fascist counter-revolution the programme of the seizure of power by the proletariat — in a word, that it is only under the banner of the communism of the Fourth International that fascism can be effectively fought. That is why the youth organizations of the Fourth International cannot have a programme different from that of the adult organizations; they may neither amputate it nor water it down in any part whatsoever. It is on the basis of this programme that the central committees and congresses take their positions; it is this programme that guides every act of the national and international organizations.
4. This in no way implies that the youth organization is a party of young people. The party is composed of the most educated and most conscious elements of the working class, who give their complete and total adherence to the platform of the Fourth International. The youth organization, on the contrary, while determining its actions in accordance with this programme, while setting itself the task of educating the labouring youth on the basis of this programme, requires for membership only general agreement — even entirely sentimental agreement — with the aims pursued by the Fourth International and its methods of struggle. It is the expression of the instinctive revolt of working-class youth against over-exploitation, of peasant youth chained to the land, of intellectual youth, of the millions of declassed young unemployed — the expression of their enthusiastic adherence to the revolution. In this sense it is an organization broader than the party.
However, in the present situation, where the traditional leaderships of working-class youth, reformist and Stalinist, are bent on chaining the labouring youth to the bourgeoisie, where the Marxist-Leninist vanguard remains numerically weak, the youth organizations of the Fourth International cannot instantly win over the labouring youth. On the other hand, they must polarize the instinctive revolt of youth against class collaboration. The anguished situation of the labouring youth, the growing proportion of the unemployed and the declassed among youth, accentuate the spontaneity, confusion and violence of the political currents emerging among youth. They reinforce the need for unshakeable fidelity to the Bolshevik programme, for thorough Marxist education. But at the same time this situation dictates to each of our organizations an extremely bold organizational attitude, so as to gather into its ranks all these combative but confused elements. It is possible, under these conditions, that our youth organizations may adopt positions divergent from those of the Fourth International. But the remedy cannot be sought in bureaucratic measures; on the contrary, the more impetuous and enthusiastic, full of initiative — even ill-starred initiative — the youth is, the more opportunities it will have to educate itself, provided that our leaderships and the leaderships of our parties show themselves extremely firm on the political terrain, use every initiative to educate youth in the school of the Marxist-Leninist programme, to forge its class consciousness, and to weld the struggle of the labouring youth to the overall struggle of the proletariat.
5. The communist organization of youth is an autonomous organization. It determines its own political orientation itself, both on general political questions and on questions touching the particular demands of young people. Rosa Luxemburg wrote that the working class can learn only by climbing the calvary of its own defeats, by drawing the lessons of experience. True on the historical scale for the proletariat, this holds even more particularly for youth: it cannot be made to assimilate the historical lessons of a hundred years of proletarian struggle by reading manuals of labour history. It can understand the history of the class struggle only through its own struggle against the exploiters. Struggle is the great educator of youth. This is precisely why youth must be able to enter the struggle having prepared itself, with its own ideas, its own illusions, but also its own enthusiasm and its own faith. It must determine for itself how it will fight in any given circumstance, even at the risk of discovering afterwards that its assessment of the situation was inadequate, that the methods it had chosen were not suited to the situation. It is only in this way that it will be able to understand the historical experience of the proletariat through its own experience, and use the lessons of the past to understand its own mistakes. On this point the Fourth International fully endorses this saying of Lenin's: "Without complete independence, youth will be unable to produce good socialists from its ranks, nor prepare itself to carry socialism forward."
6. The organizational autonomy of Youth in no way means that it does not call upon the party organizations to guide and advise it, to draw on the greater theoretical knowledge and experience of party militants. This does not mean, however, that the task of theoretical education (schools, journals, newspaper articles on the one hand; political discussion of the problems facing the organization on the other) must be carried out exclusively by party officials. "It is not uncommon for people of a certain age, or old people, to be unable to approach this youth as it ought to be approached — youth which, by force of circumstance, is obliged to come to socialism otherwise, by other paths, in other forms and under other conditions than its fathers did. That is why we must be unreserved supporters of an independent organization of the Youth League, and this not only because the opportunists fear this independence, but on principle." (Lenin, 1916). The theoretical education of Youth, like all the political activity of the Youth organization, must be autonomous; at the same time it must be the object of careful attention and constant vigilance on the part of the most experienced militants of the party. The autonomy of Youth implies not only the party's right of criticism, but also its duty to exercise that right, in full comradeship but without evasion, for every fault committed by the young organization.
7. Likewise Youth must learn the practice of organizational tasks by itself taking in hand the management of finances, administration, its newspaper, etc. However, in the whole range of illegal activities that must necessarily be carried out by a revolutionary organization, and for which it is necessary to train young revolutionaries, the principle of organizational autonomy cannot be introduced without danger to the organization itself. It is therefore appropriate to set up commissions functioning under the full control of the party, in which Youth comrades participate with the same rights and the same duties as the party's representatives.
8. The theoretical oversight and the political and organizational support that the party must provide to Youth are carried out through the appointment of delegates from party bodies to the corresponding Youth bodies at every level, who carefully follow the life of the Youth, who take it upon themselves to advise it without dictating orders to it, but also without allowing it to commit the slightest error without having forewarned it; the activity of the party's delegates must always consist of explaining patiently, teaching fraternally, without pedantry; in no case must they seek to rule the young people by ukase, and thereby break the élan and enthusiasm that are the best capital of youth.
9. The Youth congress is the sovereign body of the Youth. In the event of political disagreements between the youth organization and the party, the latter cannot bureaucratically impose its policy on the youth organization. In such a case the task of the party leadership is to appeal to the Youth militants, to show them in what respect their position is mistaken, and to bring them back from their positions through free, responsible decisions.
10. The Youth International is a section of the Fourth International. As such, its mission is to apply the sovereign decisions of the congresses of the Fourth International. However, just as the Fourth International cannot impose automatic discipline on its sections, neither does it impose its orientation on the Youth International; the latter's orientation is determined by the congresses and international conferences of the Youth, in accordance with the programme and principles of the Fourth International. Should a dispute arise between the Fourth International and the Youth International, the sovereign decision, after thorough discussion, would rest with the Executive Committee of the Fourth International.