4 - Fragmentation and Demise: Communist Youth Organisations 1969-1991

Summary

Abstract

This chapter examines and compares the social and political history of the communist youth movement in Britain and the Netherlands between 1969 and 1991. It looks primarily at the histories of the British Young Communist League (YCL) and its Dutch equivalent, the Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’). It explores these organisations’ roles in the feminist, anti-racist, and gay rights movements in the final two decades of their existence, and details their changing relationship with their respective communist parties as the Cold War came to an end.

Keywords: Young Communist League (YCL), Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV), feminism, gay rights, anti-racism

Young people who come into contact with us, and they are many, choose not to join us partly because we don't have our house in order yet and partly because of the minority of ‘revolutionary Marxists’ who rant on endlessly about the glories of the Soviet Union or the Bulgarian wheat harvest at the YCL meetings, rather than grapple with the dilemma that feminism, lesbian and gay liberation and the black community pose to the established structures, theories and practices of the YCL. The YCL must change if it is to continue in existence (Mark Ashton, b. 1960 Oldham – d. 1987 London).

The 1970s are often characterised as sober and gloomy, a prolonged anti-climax to the swinging 1960s. The oil crisis of 1973 led to widespread unemployment in most industrialised countries, which was only exacerbated in the early 1980s by the worldwide economic crisis. Young people, especially, struggled to find employment, and class antagonisms – largely absent in the 1960s – resurfaced within this segment of the population in Britain and the Netherlands. Consequently, notes Matthew Worley with regards the British context, youth culture began to fragment, and the class struggle intensified. Similar trends are visible in the Netherlands. Simultaneously, or as response to, widespread unemployment and intensifying class antagonisms, the extreme right gained support in both countries.

The Young Communist League (YCL) and the Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’) took advantage of these developments and produced statements aimed at this disaffected generation, while their magazines, Challenge and Jeugd (‘Youth’) respectively, ran articles that reported on the emergent punk and squatting movements, and associated music. In addition, both organisations rallied behind the feminist and gay rights movements, and accelerated their fight against fascism and racism.