I WAS extremely surprised to read your unsigned report on the 'Rebel' youth conference (20 March). If your reporting of Simon Turner, the national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, is correct then all one can say is that the model they have in mind owes more to the dreaded J Stalin than to Lenin.
The Komsomol (youth organisation) which grew in the Soviet Union after 1917 was totally committed to the revolution, but maintained and jealously guarded its independence from the party.
In fact, the highest growth point of the Komsomol was in those early years when the dead weight of Stalinism had not crushed its creative urge. From 22,000 members in November 1918 it grew to 400,000 in 1920. It was not subjected to any central control.
It was often gripped by what Simon Turner, with hindsight, would describe as 'sectarian squabbling'. In 1920-1 there was a strong opposition current in the Ukrainian Komsomol on the national question. They wanted an independent youth organisation for the Ukraine.
The independence of the Komsomol resulted in a large section of the organisation supporting the Left Opposition against Stalin. Stalin wreaked his revenge. Purges and dissolution followed, and in 1928 the Great Leader stated: 'The Komsomol is an instrument of the party and a tool for doing the party's work.'
That is the carbon-copy of how the Workers Revolutionary Party and Militant view a youth organisation. It appears that the SWP has joined their ranks. They have the right to do so, but let them not pretend that they represent the spirit of Leninist orthodoxy!
DAVID WAX, London