Communism Appeals to a New Generation

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After all, what’s so outrageous about fighting for a world where there’s full employment, where everyone has access to quality health care and education, where there are equal rights for all? And young people probably don't equate their own brand of communism with that of, say, Stalin or Mao. “Kids who are 17 and 18 today were 10 when the Soviet Union collapsed,” YCL member Libero Della Piana, 26, told Swing. “They're like, ‘Communism, what's that?’”

Yet there’s quite a legacy to contend with. The CPUSA stubbornly refuses to denounce atrocities that resulted from Soviet communism. On its Web site, the YCL responds to the question “Did Stalin kill millions?” with “Maybe. We have only been told what the capitalist class wants us to believe.”

It’s this sort of historical amnesia and the party’s stubborn reluctance to distance itself from ideologues like Russian party leader Gennady Zyuganov (who blames “the spread of Zionism” for current conditions in Russia) that most stifles wider acceptance of communism in the United States.

Still, hate mongering does seem worlds away from current young communist activities. “YCL clubs all over the country are working with other activists on a diverse range of issues,” reports Featherstone. “In Baltimore, they're protesting wasteful use of school money; in Chicago, the focus is on child labor in overseas sweatshops; in California, the group worked on the successful campaign to defeat Proposition 226, a state initiative that would have severely limited union organizing.”

At a YCL convention in Philadelphia last June, members attended workshops including “It's Good to Be Red: Socialism and Standing Up for the C-Word.” They got advice from comrades on how to discuss communism (“avoid talking about stuff like the bourgeoisie and the proletariat”). And they listened to YCL national coordinator Noel Rabinowitz, 28, play “Get Up, Stand Up” on his guitar.

The CIA no doubt has already been alerted.

CPUSA: 235 W. 23rd St., New York, NY 10011; 212/741-2016; e-mail: CPUSA@rednet.org; www.hartford-hwp/cp-usa/index.html

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