The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-01-19
By GIL GREEN

IN 1905, when Larin cat that time
1 Menshevik) attacked the Boil
sheviks for bringing into the revo-
lutionary movement wide masses of
youth and receiving support from
these youth, he received the fol-
lowing reply from Lenin:
"Larin complains, for example,
that there is a prevalence of
working youth in the Party, that
there are few married workers in
our ranks, that they leave the
Party. This complaint of a Rus
sian opportunist reminded me of
one place in EngeIs Il think it was
in the Housing Question:. In re-
futing some disgusting bourgeois
professor Engels wrote:
Is 1t not natural that youth
form the majority of our ranks,
in the Party of the revolution?
We are the Party of the future,
and the future belongs to the
youth, We are Party of limo
vators most willingly. We are a
Party of self-sacrificing struggle
against the old rotten system, and
it is the youth above all who
enter into self-sacrificing strug-
gles.'"
Lenin never tired to emphasize
the Importance Of the youth, realiz-
ing that from the ranks Of the
youth, especially the working youth,
the Party could get It's greatest sup
port and most active fighting forces.
In the days before 1905 Lenin, wit
Messing the rapid growth of the
revolutionary upsurge, especially
emphasized the need for improving
the work among the youth. He
appealed to the active leading
people Of the Party in the follow
ing words:
"I assure you that among us
there is some kind of idiotic,
philistine, boorish fear Of the
youth. I beg of you to fight
against this fear with all your
strength"
And further.
Wider and more boldly, more
boldly and wider, still wider and
still more boldly recruit the youth,
not fearing them. These are
war times. The youth decide the
outcome of the struggle, both the
student youth and still more the
working youth"
Some thirty years have passed
since Lenin gave these words of
advice to his Party. They were well
taken. For seventeen years now
the Party of Lenin has been the
Party Of the victorious Russian
Revolution. From stage to stage
Of the struggle for power and for
socialism the Bolshevik Party re-
membered and followed the teach
ings of Lenin. And today more than
ever before the Bolshevik Party of
Lenin, under the leadership of
Stain, receives the support of the
entire Soviet young generations
generation which participates en-
Enthusiastically in the fulhllment Of
the words of Engels, I'VE are the
Party of the future, and the future
belongs to the youth"
Applies in U. S.
In the United States, we must
also learn and apply the teach
ings of Lenin on the youth, If we
are to follow the footsteps of the
Bolshevik Party. The words of
Lenin in 1905-06 have special bear
ing for our Party today as by no
means have we as yet "a prevalence
Of working youth in the Party"
While we have made considerable
Roadway in the past year in build
ing the Young Communist League
and improving our mass work
among the youth, tbs field of work
still remains extremely weak.
We, too, have in our ranks some
who have an "idiotic, philistine,
booriSh fear of the youth" Al
though we do not have any Larins
who openly speak against work
among the youth, we have these
same views and fears expressed in
more cloaked fashion. This
closked underestimation of the
youth question is reflected through
out our Party in the tendency to
believe that work among the youth
is no different than work among
adult workers, 1t does not require
special activities, special demands
and special organizational forms.
This tendency, of course, finds
its sharpest expression in an under
estimation of the Importance and
role of the Young Communist
League. What is the root of this