Establishment Following the rise of
Adolf Hitler in Germany, the party line of the world communist movement was changed from the ultra-radicalism of the so-called "
Third Period", which shrilly condemned
Social Democrats as "
Social Fascists", to a new phase of broad left wing cooperation known as the
Popular Front. Efforts immediately followed on the part of the Communist Party-sponsored
National Student League (NSL) to unite with its
Socialist Party counterpart, which in the middle 1930s was effectively the
Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID). Initial peace feelers extended by the Communists to the Socialists were rejected in December 1932, but with the European situation worsening two joint conferences of the rival left wing groups were held in 1933—one in Chicago under Communist auspices and another in New York City headed by the
League for Industrial Democracy. Following negotiations between the two participating groups, a Unity Convention of the NSL and SLID was held over the Christmas holidays at the YMCA building in
Columbus, Ohio.
Change of line on pacifism In January 1938 the third annual convention of the ASU, held at
Vassar College in
Poughkeepsie, New York, changed the position of the organization on war. Previously a
pacifist organization which endorsed the so-called "
Oxford Pledge" against
conscription and
militarism, the position of the ASU was brought into line with the foreign policy of the administration of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, based upon the notion of
collective security. Some opponents of this change were livid and charged that the change was made by bloc voting by members of the Communist Party, as exemplified by the following passage from the press of
Jay Lovestone's rival
Independent Communist Labor League: "At the outset, it was apparent to all that the Young Communist League controlled the convention in the form of a well-disciplined group, docile, responding to the guidance of the Stalinist wire-pullers. Every attempt on the part of the various advocates of the Oxford Pledge to introduce substitute motions or amendments, as is done in all
parliamentary procedure, was efficiently squelched by the Stalinist chairman, with the help of his gloating compatriots on the floor." The vote in favor of changing the political line of the organization on the war question was passed by a vote of 382 to 108.
Atrophy and dissolution There was discord in the ASU over the organization's changing position to European armament after 1938, with the Socialist-oriented members generally favoring continuation of the organization's historic opposition to militarism and Communist-oriented members arguing in favor of rearmament and
collective security in Europe. The break came the following year, however, with the November 1939
Soviet invasion of Finland. The ASU leadership, consisting by that time of a Communist majority, dutifully supported the military action of the Soviet Union, prompting the Socialist minority to split the organization. The ASU continued forward as a more clearly defined Communist youth organization from that date and entered a period of organizational decline. The group held its final convention in 1941. ==Footnotes==