The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-03-30
BY GIL GREEN.

THE League cannot be satisfied with the small
gains made during the period of the 2 Month
Plan. These small gains must only be the basis
for going far more deeply into the problems con-
'-cxting The League They must bring out all
the more sharply our shortcomings. We must
analyze our work much more fundamentally.
We must not be content with some small i'm
provements or increase in membership. We
must ask: How did we get our new members?
How have We changed our work? To what ex-
tent are we bascally changing the situation in
our League?
What is our basic shortcoming? The League
does not as yet play the role of revolutionary
youth organization. What is our task as a Young
Communist League? 1t is our task to learn the
special needs and grievances of the youth To
crystallize these grievances into slogans and de-
ulands of action around which we organize
struggle. Have we done this? No! We have
not as yet become a real youth organization of
struggle.
Because Of this basic shortcoming in our
Leagues work the question of partial demands
is of utmost Importance at TIE present time.
What are partial demands? What is their rea-
ton to our general demands? Example: In
given factory young workers on a drill press
piece work, and receive 48 cents per thousand
pieces. In the same factory adult workers doing
the same work. get so cents per thousand pieces.
Although our general demand for the youth is
abolition Of pece-work we will OF the same time
organize a struggle of these young workers for
the cents difference between their wage and
that Of The adult workers On the issue of this
? cents discrimination, we will organize the
youth for a struggle against piece-work and for
our general youth program. In other words, the
partial demands are based on the every day
grievances Of the young workers, and are levers
through which we create struggle for our general
youth program
The failure of the League to develop struggle
around the specific youth issues, creates a
danger that the League will not develop its face
as a youth organization, that it will not play
its role in the class struggle The failure to put
forth the face of the League, to see youth issues
means in the last analysis to remain sectarian
organization isolated from the young workers
1t means to fail to see the necessity for special
youth activity and special youth forms
This was already seen at the time of our Ma
tional Plenum. The comrades in the trade union
work failed to understand the role of the youth
demands and fought against the formation of
youth sections. This can also be seen in the
Dther work of the League.
Take our factory work. Even those districts
that did good work, relatively speaking, such as
Cleveland or Detroit. what was the real charac-
ter of their work? Did the comrades in Cleve-
land, in their work at the Fisher Body Plant
reach the young workers on specific youth issues?
No. they reached them on only the general issues.
They carried on only general work. They did
not play the role of youth organization. They
did nothing to develop the partial youth demands
in this factory. The result of this, is that the
contacts they got in the main are adult workers.
When they formed unemployed council, it
was composed of mainly adult workers In their
work in this unemployed council at Fisher Body,
they did not even organize youth committee,
let alone the organization of sports activity, and
a struggle on specific youth issues.
Let us look at our unemployed activity. What
has been the main failure of our unemployed