A Political History of the International Union of Socialist Youth 1907–1917

Description

This book represents a valuable contribution to the history of the Socialist Second International and, more generally, of European socialism between the Great Depression of the 1880s and WWI. It comes to fill a gap in the scholarship, insofar as it investigates the history of the Socialist Youth International. During the first phase of the making of socialist parties, this organization was in charge of the political and cultural education of the proletarian youth. Capitalizing on an approach based on social, quantitative and political history, and on an analysis of mentalities and languages, the book reconstructs the many-sidedness of the “school of recruits” of the social-democratic and revolutionary movements. The working conditions of youth in Europe, its unionization and economic struggles, the fight against militarism, the pedagogical work, the internationalism and the commitment to maintain peace, and the attitude of young militants towards Bolshevik revolution are some of the themes investigated in the book. It also clarifies the role and the engagement with the issue of the new generation shown by prominent figures of Marxism such as Karl Liebknecht, Jean Jaurès, Henri De Man, Willi Münzenberg, Henriette Roland Holst, and Robert Danneberg. Finally, the book constitutes also a page of European social and political history, reconstructed through the history of the various youth socialisms and their relationship with the Marxist tradition. Titles Published Titles Forthcoming Introduction Praise for A Political History of the International Union of Socialist Youth 1907–1917 Contents Abbreviations 1 Proletarian Youth Organizations Before the Stuttgart Conference 1.1 The Condition of Working-Class Youth in Europe at the End of the Nineteenth Century 1.2 Early Bourgeois and Denominational Youth Movements 1.3 Early Socialist Worker Youth Organizations 1.4 The Typology of Working-Class Youth Associations 2 The Birth of the Socialist Youth International 2.1 Early Proposals for an International Coordination of Socialist Youth 2.1.1 The Establishment of the Interim International Secretariat 2.1.1.1 The Stuttgart Congress 3 The Anti-Militarist Struggle 3.1 Liebknecht: Militarism “External” and Internal to Countries 3.2 Jaurès and the “Armed Nation”: Anti-Militarism and the National Problem 3.3 Typologies of Anti-Militarist Action 4 The Organization of Educational Work 4.1 Socialist Pedagogy 4.2 Sports Activity and Anti-Alcoholic Struggle 4.3 The Cultural and Educational Activity of Youth Groups 4.4 The “Rekrutenschulen” of Social Democracy 5 Unionization and the Economic Struggles of Socialist Youth 5.1 The Issue of Apprenticeship in the Stuttgart Debate 5.2 Professional Youth Organizations 5.3 Economic Struggles and the Relationship with Labor Organizations 6 The Function and Activities of the Vienna International Secretariat from 1907 to 1914 6.1 The Administrative and Organizational Activities of the Secretariat 6.2 The Copenhagen Conference and the Birth of the French Socialist Federation 6.3 Contact with Overseas Youth Organizations: America, Australia and Argentina 6.4 The SIUSY in the Face of Conflicts Between Youth Organizations and Socialist Parties 7 The Danger of War: International Youth Initiatives from 1912 to 1914 7.1 Worker Youth Organizations Emerging from the Breakup of the Habsburg, Tsarist and Ottoman Empires 7.2 New Forms of Anti-Militarism and the Emergence of a Youth Left 7.3 Another “Congrès Manqué”: the Fourth Vienna Youth Conference 8 The Youth International During World War I 8.1 The Role of Neutral Countries in the Preparation of the Berne Conference 8.2 Living and Working Conditions and the Struggles of Youth During the War 8.3 The Activities of Zurich Secretariat and the Personality of Willi Münzenberg 8.4 Youth Participation in the Zimmerwald Movement, the Russian Revolution and the Dissolution of the Youth International Conclusions: The End of a History and the Beginning of a Historiography Index