London
The current upsurge of radicalism among British youth was reflected in the twenty-sixth annual conference of the Young Communist League at Skegness held May 27-29.
More than 750 youth were present, of whom 350 were delegates.
From the opening of the conference the opposition to the platform was fairly wide, if unorganized. Most of the pro-Chinese tendencies have been expelled or have left. In the last year a number of branches have been dissolved. The motion to accept the National Committee's standing orders for the running of the conference passed by only 110 votes to 90.
The most important debate centered around Vietnam, on the draft resolution of the outgoing National Committee, entitled: "The Political Situation and Unity." Officials were obviously sensitive to criticisms raised during the past year of the YCL's policy of immersing itself in peace formations whose central demands are for "negotiations" in Vietnam, as opposed to the demand for the unconditional withdrawal of American troops.
Barney Davis, national secretary, in opening the debate argued that the YCL did not wish to go further than the National Liberation Front. We should not, he said, force the NLF to fight for military victory, when in fact the NLF itself wants negotiations.
He called for a broad "unity of the left" on Vietnam, in essence a "popular front." According to him this would have been possible, but the Conservatives had been unwilling to come into it.
He chose not to mention the YCL's support for the positions of the Pope and U Thant, positions that have been rejected by the North Vietnamese.
Other delegates, not so sophisticated as the YCL leaders in giving a radical cover to right-wing positions, spelled out what this would mean in concrete terms.
"Yes," a delegate from Leeds stated, "we must support the YCL attitude to the Youth for Peace in Vietnam. We are for the victory of the Vietnamese, but this means forcing the United States to the negotiating table -- and our main slogan must be: Stop the bombing!" We want a position that will give us the widest possible support, he said.
The opposition has argued for solidarity with the Vietnamese. You cannot, they have told the YCL leaders, accept positions that cut across and negate the right of the Vietnamese to self-determination.
The sharpest criticisms of the leadership came from a Northold delegate. Standing at the mike, holding up Che Guevara's recent statement on Vietnam, he asked how it was possible for the YCL leaders to reconcile their policy to those of "one of the greatest revolutionary leaders, who says we must open up two or three Vietnams and that this will be the best way to help the Vietnamese."
The Northolt delegate criticized the USSR and China. "The Soviet Union," he said, "is not giving enough aid to Vietnam -- we must call for the unity of the socialist countries to aid the Vietnamese. We must follow the lead of Cuba, North Korea and North Vietnam."
Amidst booing and heckling, he accused the YCL leadership of having a crawling, sniveling attitude to the question of Vietnam.
Obviously stung by these remarks, Barney Davis in his summary stated that the Soviet Union is giving the Vietnamese the aid they are asking for. In this he reechoed the comments of a fraternal delegate from the Soviet Union.
The Soviet delegate had taken up the question of Soviet aid to Vietnam in his speech. He had also made an issue of Trotskyism, saying that "the Trotskyites have to be purged from our midst." There were also fraternal delegates from most of the Eastern European countries, but none from China or Cuba.
Barney Davis, referring to Che Guevara, said, "We are humanitarians and we do not want another two or three Vietnams; we don't want to see more children napalmed -- we don't want any more Vietnams. We must prevent a Third World War." It should be pointed out that this is a malicious distortion of the Cuban attitude.
It was a well organized conference -- and well controlled by the leadership. An extremely adroit chairman ignored speakers who were critical, and at times he would not be so adroit in shouting recalcitrant delegates down. The microphone from which the delegates spoke was situated on the platform and could only be reached by sending the appropriate committee, well in advance, a note asking for permission to speak.
Points of order and comments from the floor were virtually inaudible to the large majority of delegates. In addition, delegates were deluged by vast quantities of paper. There were 143 amendments from the branches to the main NC resolution and it was difficult to know which of them were before the delegates at a given moment.
Many "difficult" amendments were gotten rid of in the resolutions committee which seemed to have an inordinate amount of power in determining whether amendments reached the floor for discussion.
This committee continually asked the various branches to withdraw their resolutions.
Trotskyism still presents them with a problem. One resolution from Huddersfield stated: "We move the British Communist movement should call on the world Communist movement to make a Marxist reassessment of the significance of Leon Trotsky in the interests of historical accuracy in order to establish his true position in the development of modern Marxist-Leninist thinking; weighing up his positive action against his negative action."
When the Huddersfield delegate refused to withdraw this resolution after the repeated demands of the platform, they simply refused to allow it onto the floor.
The conference reveals that the YCL is today the most dynamic section of the Communist movement and the potential for the growth of an effective opposition would seem to be high.