The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-20
Fail to Recruit Negro
Youth and Work in
Factories
By DAVE GREENE

THE last year has witnessed quite
l a growth of working class youth
organizations. We have upwards Of
10000 youth today organized around
our adult mass organizations, the
Lithuanians, the Finnish, the Tx
ranian, the Russian, the TWO, the
Hungarian, etc. These youth have
been organized around class
struggle working class program.
The building of these organiza-
tions has brought with it many
problems of growth, as well as
problems of policy. I want to dis
cuss here some of the major weak
nesses common to these mass Or
CARNATIONS which must be over
come if we are to go forward in
building these organizations into
mass organizations, following the
leadership of the Young Communist
League in the struggles for the
needs of the youth.
Face to the Shop
The growth of these organizations
has not been due to a consistent
organizational plan with view to-
wards penetrating the factories and
winning the youth there for our or
CARNATIONS. Concentration is an
unknown factor insofar as these or
CARNATIONS are concerned. With
the possible exception of the Youth
Section Of the TWO, where some
feeble efforts were made in this
direction, the leadership Of the
youth organizations has failed to
tackle this problem.
In one particular instance, a
membership campaign plan was is
sued by one of the National Youth
Committees calling upon the mem
bership to take part in drive to
increase the membership. This plan,
two or three page document, never
once mentioned the recruitment of
young workers from the factories.
Only once in the whole document
was the mention made of young
workers.
The excuse was later given that
the majority Of the membership are
students and therefore it was i'm
possible to recruit young workers,
This argument does not hold water.
The branches of this organization
are located in industrial centers,
such as Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago,
ETC., in many cases not far from
important plants and factories,
where results could be obtained pro-
vided the membership in these
branches correctly orientated in
this direction.
Many of these youth groups have
young workers in important indus
tries, steel, mine, stockyards, auto,
munition plants, etc. These young
workers can become an important
instrument for concentration work
for the building of the mass organ
ization through work in the factory,
They also can become the basis in
many places for the building of the
unions.
The Youth Section of the TWO.
in it's last campaign with only some
feeble efforts in this direction-suc-
ceeded in changing the character
of the recruitment from some so
per cent of students as against 40
per cent young workers to close to
So per cent of young workers re-
cruited.
In the coming campaigns to be
conducted by the mass youth or
CARNATIONS, one of the central tasks
must become that of educating the
membership to the Importance Of
concentrating their energies to-
ward penetrating the factories and
winning the young workers from
the factories for our organizations.
In this respect, the Young Com
munists in these organizations viii
have to be the driving force, guild
ing and directing this all important
work, linking it up with the build
ing of our revolutionary unions,
with the building of opposition
groups in the right-wing unions.
THE Negro membership in the
mass organizations is very
small one. This is not an accident
We find in the leading committees
a serious underestimation of the
fight for Negro liberation, on this
basis winning the Negro youth fol