The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-10-10
Party Life
On Relations Between
The Communist Party
and Young Communist lie

IN MY experience as section or
1 ganizer of the Young Communist
League I have noticed that where
the Party is giving guidance, or at
least understands the Y. c. L. in
its role as the leader of the toiling
youth, our League functions. But
| it is precisely in those places where
the Y, G. L. is weak that clarity
is still to be attained by the entire
Party membership in order to resur-
rect the Y. G. L. which will then
itself be a live factor in helping
the Party to realize how it can give
help.
Earl Browder, in his convention
report, says that the Y. c. L. is
looked upon as a sort of proba ton
airy kindergarten" This "belittling"
and misunderstanding in general Of
the Y. c. L. manifests itself in many
ways in the Duluth section.
Although the situation in Duluth
was such that something drastic
had to be done to rectify it, where
we had about 40 functioning Party
members and no Y. G. L., never
theless this recruitment of Y. C..
L.'ers into the Party by the man
ner in which it was done, repre-
sents problems which have to be
met squarely.
IT WOULD have been better in a
L couple of the cases in Duluth if
the Party would have convinced its
new applicants to join the Y. c. L.
This would have eliminated the
problem now where these new COM
rades are bewildered when we want
them to join another Communist
organization, the Y. c. L., and they
don't see the necessity.
There is the tendency to place
recruitment into the Y. c. L. and
the Party on an entirely "volun-
tary" basis or on the basis of all
best elements of the working class
should be Party members" If
certain young worker wants to join
the Party. the Party does not con-
slider carefully whether or not it is
for the best interests of that re-
cruit, the Party, and also the Y. c.
L., to take the fellow into the Party
when he is of Y G. L. age. Nat
urally if the Y. c. L. we're strong,
this would not be a problem, the
young serious minded people would
join the Y. G. L. But just because
this situation exists, it is necessary
for the Party to explain to the new
applicant that the Y. c. L. is also
"a Communist organization, though
still weak and he as a young work.
er should belong to it and help
build it, because the organization
deals with his problems. If we
placed everybody who was good
enough for the Party as Party
members, there would not at the
present time, be any Y. c. L. in
Duluth, but every Y. G. Ler would
De a Party member.
Recruitment of young workers of
Y. G. L. age and of Y. c. L.'ers into
the Party for the purpose of build
ing a Party core of Y. G. L. 'ers
must be controlled to ensure the
fact that this core will held build
the Y. c. L. know of situations
such as in Chassell, Michigan.
where entire units of the Y. G. L..
have disappeared because the Party
drew some of She leading Y. C. L. ers
into the Party without making it
clear what are these comrades
tasks. My understanding of the
local situation would have led me
to having the Party assign one or
two of the younger Party members
to the Y. G. L. and 1 am sure they
would have been much farther
ahead today.
ORDINARILY, a new recruit be-
" low the age of "a or Is should
not be taken into both Party and
Y. c. L, simultaneously as we have
done in Duluth. Only in certain
special cases is it necessary to take
him into the Party in order to con-
vince him about building the Y. c..
L. But it complexities the situation
and retards the development of the
comrade to understand how Com
munist should work, unless he is
very advanced, to be right off the
bat a member of both the Party
and the Y. c. L. This idea that
the Y. G. L. cannot train and hold
young recruits holds true only tenn
porarily until abnormal situations
are corrected.
Comrades still fail to understand
that Y. c. L.'er who is a Party
member is not fully graduated into
| the Party but has joined the Party
in order to become better &C
qualnted with its functioning, to
raise his level of understanding, to
better transform Party politics into
the work of the youth movement
and prepare the Y. c. L. activist
for future Party work" From the
Daily Worker article in answer to
Yorkville comrades.)
Lots of Party comrades can tell
you that they understand what the
Y. c. L. is, do not think of its as
mass organization in the sense of
some non-Communist organization,
and do not consider the Y. C. l..
Party members as fraction within
the Y. c, L., but still in their day
to day work fail to carry out their
convictions. 1t should become rec
ognized as crime for any Com
munist to miss his unit meeting.
If Y, G. L. Party members are to
become model Y. c. L.ers, as they
should, they must attend Y. c. L.
meetings without fail. But they
have two unit meetings to attend
each week and cannot attend both
if they regularly arc going to dc
mass work. When considering the
unit attendance of these comrades
it is found that they cannot attend
two unit meetings every week, Their
the Party should SO arrange it that
he attends Y. C. L. meetings with