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The Functions of the Chinese Communist Youth Leagues* (1920–1949)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Klaus H. Pringsheim
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Extract

The activities and functions of youth organisations are important factors in the life of most, if not all, political movements of the twentieth century. This is true of totalitarian, as well as of more liberally conceived political movements; however, special attention and emphasis has been given to youth organisations in Fascist and Communist societies, where the young people have been forced, pressured, or cajoled into such organisations from an early age and subjected to powerful influences designed to make them faithful and reliable tools or willing helpers of the ruling group or party. Nazi Germany's Hitler Jugend, Fascist Italy's Ballilla, and Soviet Russia's Komsomol are the best known examples of the totalitarian variety of youth organisation. In non-totalitarian societies the young are also given the opportunity to join such groups as the Young Conservatives in the U.K., Young Republicans and Democrats in the U.S., Junior Chambers of Commerce, YMCA, YWCA, Boy Scouts and the like. The difference between youth organisations in the two types of societies, from the Western viewpoint, is that our youth organisations are primarily created for the sake of the young people, who join them voluntarily for the sense of participation and outlet for their energies and talents which such organisations can provide, whereas the totalitarian youth organisations are created for purposes pursued by the ruling political group in those societies, to mould the thinking of youngsters along the desired lines, and to establish an apparatus for control both of the young members and of their relatives and friends. From the Communist viewpoint however, Western youth organisations are politically unsophisticated picnic and camping clubs, which insufficiently prepare young people for the responsibilities facing them in later years and fail to provide them with the ideals for a “correct” political outlook.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 12 , December 1962 , pp. 75 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1962

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References

1 Tse-tsung, Chow, The May Fourth Movement (Cambridge: Harvard Un. Press, 1960), pp. 248–249.Google Scholar

2 These data and substantial portions of what follows are based on: “Materials for the Study of the History of the Youth League” in Hsin-hua Pan-yueh-K'an, No. 11, 1957, 06 10, 1957Google Scholar, Peking, , pp. 78–84Google Scholar, and “Successive Changes of the Youth League,” in Chung-kuo Ch'ing-nien, 1957, issues 4 through 6.Google Scholar

3 Brandt, Conrad, Stalin's Failure in China (Cambridge: Harvard Un. Press, 1958), pp. 21–22.Google Scholar

4 It succeeded an earlier publication called “Vanguard” (Hsien-ch'ü) which existed from January 1922 to August 1923, publishing altogether 25 issues. It should not be confused with the present organ of the CYL which commenced publication in 1949.

5 Brandt, , op. cit., p. 47.Google Scholar

6 The Chinese editor of the first article cited in footnote 2 above, here remarks that in 1925 the word “Communist” no longer scared people so much and that everybody knew anyhow that the members of the SYC were Communists.

7 Brandt, , op. cit., p. 48.Google Scholar

8 See footnote 2, first article, p. 80.

9 Chugoku Kyosanshugi Seinendan Sanko Shiryo (Tokyo: Research Bureau of the Prime Minister's Office, 05 1957), p. 34. (Unpublished.)Google Scholar

10 Jen Pi-shih was also among the founders of the CYC in 1920. He devoted his entire life to youth work, and was elected Honorary Chairman of the NDYL in April 1949 at its first National Congress. He was, however, in poor health and died of cerebral haemorrhage on October 27, 1950, when only 46 years old. Even at that he was probably the only prominent survivor of the early days of the CYC. (See Boorman, Howard L., The Communist Impact: Youth, p. 9.) (Unpublished.)Google Scholar

11 Conrad Brandt graphically describes this meeting (op. cit. p. 150 et seq.) and points out that it clearly lacked a quorum of CC members and should hence be called a “rump committee meeting” whose votes and resolutions were actually invalid.

12 See footnote 2, first article, p. 82.

13 In KMT-held areas the CYC for obvious reasons had to remain underground like the CCP.

14 Israel, John, The Chinese Student Movement, 1927–1937 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Bibliographical Series VI, 1959), pp. 18–22Google Scholar, quotes Ts-ai Yuan-P'ei's advice to the students: “In being patriotic don't forget to study; in studying, don't forget to be patriotic.”

15 The bulk of the above material is taken from the first article cited in footnote 2, which is the only detailed account of pre-1949 Youth Corps history which has come to my attention. It is unfortunately not possible to check the claims made against a hostile or more objective account. It must therefore be kept in mind that the tendency of Communist organisational histories is towards overemphasis of the historical significance of the organisation described.

16 New China News Agency (NCNA—English), North Shensi, 05 4, 1948, p. 1.Google Scholar

17 NCNA, North Shensi, 10 30, 1948, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

18 NCNA, Mukden, 02 15, 1949, p. 3.Google Scholar

19 it should be remembered that the membership figures for the Federation numerically express the total number of persons belonging to youth organisations throughout China affiliated with the Federation, including both the All-China Federation of Students, the NDYL, and the Chinese Young Christians Association. See China's Youth March Forward (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1950), pp. 61–62.Google Scholar

20 Paraphrase of the CC resolution, translated sections in quotes. The original text used was: Chung-kuo Hsin-min-chu Chu-yi Ch'ing-nien-t'uan ti Jen-wu yü Kung-tso (The Duties and Work of the NDYL) (Shanghai: Hsin-hua Shu-tien, 07 1949), pp. 1–6.Google Scholar

21 Ibid. pp. 2–6.

22 1950 Jen-min Nien-chien (Hong Kong: Ta Kung Shu-chu, 1950), Section B, p. 33.Google Scholar