The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-11-25
Br LEO THOMPSON

1.-THE struggle for the youth is increasing
throughout the world. The old world, shaken
by severe economic crisis, already accompanied
by flames of political struggles in various parts
of the world, its main salvation in winning
to its side the younger generation who already
play a very important role in the class struggles
and who will be called upon in the near future
to decide the fate of and revolutions"
NIy emphasis From the open letter to all
YCL's from the ECYCI.
Basng its work on the above political premise
laid down by the ECY.CI., our coming Vel,
PIenum must become historic turning point in
the whole development Of the Revolutionary youth
movement in the U.SA. 1t is an extraordinary
Plenum sharply faced with the burning ques-
ton of how to most quickly change the basically
unsatisfactory situation in the League. Bold
self-critcism and immediate elf-correction'
should be one of the slogans of our Plenum.
In the Detroit District while progress can be
registered, the basic condition remains unsat-
isfactory The most important part of the Plan
of Action-trade union youth work-remains the
sorest spot of our work. We have failed to fol-
low up the meetings of youth connections in vari-
Gus shops We have not done any day-to-day
systematic activity in our T.U. youth work. For
this I am mainly responsible as TU. Youth
Secretary
League is the considerable success with which
we raised funds for the Young Worker" We
also succeeded in drawing new young forces into
leading work But we can see that instead of
really ORIGINATING our League towards the shops
and trade union work-we tackled the easiest
and simple part of the Plan Of Action This is
because we are always more anxious to get i'm
mediate tangible results, and when we get some
money or subs for the Young Worker we feel
that we are doing good work. But when we go
to the shop day after day for a few weeks and
still do not get one Y.C.L. member-we are apt
to get discouraged and demoralzed. In other
words, in all of our League activity the general
tendency is to take the line of least resistance
Instead of building shop nuclei, we raise few
dollars and subs for the Young Worker not that
this work is not also important-quite the con-
trary) Instead of doing consistent work in the
basic military forces Of the Army and Navy
we satisfy our conscience with a senli-annual
leaf1et distribution at the National Guard Ar
mory or at the Citizens Military Training Camp
The national league leadership contributed to-
wards encouraging this line of least resistance
by its emphasis on financial questions. Many
times I have heard threats OF being brought to
the Control Commission for failure to settle
debts or raise enough money for the Young
Worker-but never was any disciplinary action
taken on comrades failures to build shop nuclei
etc.
Another important criticism not only of our
work in Detroit but of the entire league is the
failure to develop youth independent activity
that will attract young workers to U.S. Even the
money we raised for the Young Worker was
based on Party activity, and in no way on our
own independent youth work and league initia-
tive. Another reason for the failure to carry
through the Plan of Action-failure to develop
a broad theological enlightenment campaign on
the meaning of the Plan of Action drawing in
all the league members into concrete practical
daily work
This Plenum must effectively criticize our
work, mistakes and shortcomings in an iron de-
termination to correct ourselves in rapidly bring
ers. On the question of the achievements mis-
takes and capabilities of our present national
league 1eadershlp-which is mainly responsible
for our failure to carry out the Fifth YCL.
Congress decisions-this Plenum must give its
frank Bolshevist estimation. We must not be
afraid to make definite political conclusions and
organzational implications from the discussion
learn from the experiences of other Y.CL.s in
solving our problem of leadership In a word
upon this Plenum falls the great task and re-
sponSibility of clearly and decisively laying down
concretely the political line for the immediate
and paid transformation of our Y.CL. in max
ing the turn from our present small isolated
league into mass Communist youth organiza-