Mobilizing Youth

Whitney Susan Whitney

Description

In Mobilizing Youth, Susan B. Whitney examines how youth moved to the forefront of French politics in the two decades following the First World War. In those years Communists and Catholics forged the most important youth movements in France. Focusing on the competing efforts of the two groups to mobilize the young and harness generational aspirations, Whitney traces the formative years of the Young Communists and the Young Christian Workers, including their female branches. She analyzes the ideologies of the movements, their major campaigns, their styles of political and religious engagement, and their approaches to male and female activism. As Whitney demonstrates, the recasting of gender roles lay at the heart of Catholic efforts and became crucial to Communist strategies in the mid-1930s.Moving back and forth between the constantly shifting tactics devised to mobilize young people and the circumstances of their lives, Whitney gives special consideration to the context in which the youth movements operated and in which young people made choices. She traces the impact of the First World War on the young and on the formulation of generation-based political and religious identities, the role of work and leisure in young people's lives and political mobilization, the impact of the Depression, the importance of Soviet ideas and intervention in French Communist youth politics, and the state's attention to youth after the victory of France's Popular Front government in 1936. Mobilizing Youth concludes by inserting the era's youth activists and movements into the complicated events of the Second World War.

Sujets

• Histoire
• History of Europe
• Activism
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 11 septembre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822391562
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Mobilizing Youth

Communists and Catholics in Interwar France M O B I L I Z I N G

YOUTH

S U S A N B . W H I T N E Y

Duke University Press

Durham and London

2009

© 2009 Duke University Press All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America on acidfree paperb Designed by Katy Clove Typeset in Cycles by Achorn International, Inc. Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Centre for European Studies and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Carleton University, which provided funds toward the production of this book.

For Nancy and Bill Whitney

1

2 3

4

5

6

7

Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

The Politics of Age and Generation in French Communism, 1920–1931 16

Building a Communist Youth Organization 51

Age, Generation, and Catholic Anticommunism: The Emergence of the J . O . C . 80

Rereading the J . O . C . through the Lens of Gender: Young Women and the J . O . C . F . 107

Youth and the Emergence of Communist Antifascist Politics 137

Embracing the Status Quo: Communists, Young People, and Popular Front Politics 171

Refusingla main tendue: Catholics, the J . O . C ., and the Challenge of Communist Popular Front Politics 209

Conclusion 243

Notes 251

Bibliography of Primary Sources 303

Index 307

Acknowledgments

This book had its beginnings as a dissertation many years ago, when I was the age of some of the activists described in its pages and com munism was a potent force in Europe. The project changed shape as I taught, aged, and thought anew about its problems and protagonists. Throughout the long journey to publication, numerous granting agencies, institutions, and individuals provided crucial assistance, for which I am very pleased to thank them now. North Americans cannot write French history without financial support, and I am especially grateful to those who made possible the research, writ ing, and publication of this book. A PreDissertation Fellowship from the Council for European Studies allowed me to investigate French archival and library holdings and reformulate the topic when my original idea proved unworkable. A Bourse Chateaubriand from the French government and a Marion Johnson Fellowship from Rutgers University underwrote eighteen months of research in Paris, while a research assistantship at the Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Social Science provided the perfect setting in which to complete the dissertation. After I landed at Carleton University in Ottawa, ansshrcgr6Research Award funded additional research trips to France and two sabbatical leaves totaling eighteen months gave me time to write an entirely new manuscript. This version was in turn refined as it made its way through the publication process at Duke University Press. Valerie Millholland supported the project from the outset, displaying the sympa thetic professionalism for which she is rightly celebrated. Fred Kameny was the ideal editor. Miriam Angress provided deft guidance on a range of matters. Thanks go as well to the two anonymous readers whose stimulat ing comments vastly improved the manuscript. The book is published with financial assistance from the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Centre for European Studies at Carleton University.