T is not surprising that the Young Socialists are in such disarray and confusion. Since 1923 the Labour Party has had to abort, at increasingly regular intervals, the infant organisation from its mother. This record can not be remotely challenged by any continental Social-Democratic party. It is an open secret that the Transport House officials intensely disliked the idea of the Young Socialists. They threw their whole weight in the Gaitskell Youth Commission against any idea of a truly national or self-governing youth movement. Their young men prophesied that the Young Socialists would be doomed and Len Williams saw visions of the previous struggles that had been lost to the reds in the Labour League of Youth. Their battle to stop the Youth Sections being woken up was heroic. An unfortunate leak to the press forced them to accede to the demands that the Young Socialists be formed but they went down gamely. Two months before the launching of the Young Socialists “The Labour Organiser” carried a eulogy on the Youth Sections and how important it was not to tamper with them.
The opening of the Young Social-
ists was scarcely spectacular. One
way of not unleashing a tide of young
radicalism for Labour was to produce
the copy of Labour’s Monthly Youth
Letter that launched the Young
Socialists so ambiguously schizoid;
one half was full of news about the
Young Socialsits, the other half
refused to have anything to do with
the upstart and steadfastly referred
to the future of the Youth Sections.
The major battle seems to have
been won. The initial waves of young
idealists have been repulsed; either
disillusioned or expelled. One last
skirmish and the old guard can come
out of their slit trenches, bury the
corpse of yet another youth move-
ment, cut one more notch on their
guns and shed tears for the mysteri-
ous demise of the departed.
After a preliminary softening up
process, during which the opinion
formers will worry why the Young
Socialsts, who were given more free-
dom than any previous youth organ-
isation, spat in their benefactor’s eye,
it will finally be decided that the
Young Socialists cannot be trusted
with the little autonomy that they
have and that a fully integrated
Advertisement LABOUR
STUDENT
Journal of NALSO
Winter 1964-1965 edition
Vital articles for the Left:
George Box
(Hull) Richard Norman (Cambridge CND)
Hannan Rose (Oxford Chairman SCORE)
Roger Lyons (University i College, London)