side the Labour Party started to be reflected inside the League, with the left, under the inspiration of Bevan advances But bureaucratic control by the NEC was kept firmly in place. bulent 1954 conference was prevented from discussing the issues animating the left - the H bomb, German rearmament and so forth.
Eventually the witch hunt against the Bevanites took its toll on the League. At the 1955 Labour Party conference, the League was disbanded as a result the NEC presented by Alice Bacon. Youth sections in the constituencies were to replace the League. There were to be no national structures.
Once again, by witch hunting the left and organisationally strangling the youth, the Labour prevented the flowering of an independent youth organisation.
The youth sections were localised and politically impotent. massive political upheavals in the world after 1956 started a wave if restlesness az, Hungary and above youth members. Suez, all the Bomb were the political issues of the day. Moves started again to try to transform the youth sections into something like a nationally structured youth movement.
The moves coincided something else — a 'turn to youth' among the Labour leaders prior to and in the wake of the 1959 general election. It became widely known that individual membership of the Labour Party had sharply declined since 1953. and the age profile of the Party had deteriorated sharply. general election the Labour Party did particularly badly among young peoAll this combined to convince the party leadership that some radical measures were necessary to recruit young people, and in January 1960 the Young Socialists were established. The constitution gave the Socialists more autonomy previous movements — it was to have a national structure, national conferences which discussed resolutions, and it was envisaged that Even the turreport Party had But the section LPYS demo, Liverpool 1982 youth paper 1959 for conflict over what and could not legitimately do rapidly.
Nuclear Young the organisation would elect its owil national committee and have its own But the YS was still to come under the authority of the National Agent's office. There was still plenty of room the YS could Meanwhile the YS was growing The wave of radicalisation around the upsurge of the Campaign was creating a fertile ground for recruitment to a socialist youth organisation - and at the same time solidifying the strength of the left inside the YS.
The first organisational struggle came over the YS's newspaper, the ches adult New Advance. Its editor, Roger Protz, was appointed from the Labour Party's press and publicity departcontent was flat and noncontroversial and sales The papers of the left were far more popular.
Any attempt the bureaucracy to use the YS as a simple vehicle for recruiting young people to the party was prevented above all by the rise of Keep Left.
1960 Hendon North and Wembley North YS branches started the first issues of Keep Left. It was no secret to anybody that Keep Left politically reflected the views of the Socialist League which at that time was clearly the largest organisation of the far left in Britain. Its organisation was very efficient, but its political style was hectoring and sectarian — which made it very unpopular with other sections of the left. Nonetheless, it won wide support — more than any other section of the left.
The NEC saw Keep Left as threat. In November 1960 they wrote Wembley North and North telling them that it was 'not the function' of the YS branch to sponsor nationally circulated papers. YS branresponded to this attack rapidly coming to the defence of the paper, and the number of sponsoring branches rose rapidly.
The 1961 conference of the YS was extremely successful. Many of the resolutions carried were Marxist character. But the witch hunt against Keep Left had already begun.
Because of the political immaturity of many people in the YS, they allowed a resolution to 'investigate' Keep Left to go through: the sectarian style of the journal's supporters opened them up to this, and contributed to suspiciois. Many people new to politics were unable to see that the attack on Keep Left was the precursor of a wider attack on the whole left.
This attack was being masterminded by the same group of people who were ligating unnateransmn In tne party the Campaign Democratic Socialism. A paper called Counterblast reflecting their views was set up reflecting the views of the right wing. At the same time another left paper called Young Guard was set up which regrouped the non-Keep Left left-wing forces. flagged. By 1962 the branches. On May Day of that year members heckled Labour Glasgow and George Brown in London, over nuclear weapons and other as OCCLS Labour policy. The NEC used these incidents to move against the YS. As a result, the Glasgow Federation was closed down and Roger Protz and three Keep Left NC members expelled The atmosphere organisation was soured by bitter in(SLL), fighting between the rival left groups, and by the constant attempts at witch Hendon by In hunting by the NEC, led by the Youth Officer — Reg Underhill.
But still the witch hunters had not vet won maior went on the Easter 1964. That Easter groups "mods' and 'rockers' had gathered for the first time to fight it out at various sea-side resorts.
for socialist branches intervened the slogan 'mods and rockers unite to The NEC took this as the cue to of the YS NC : YS had about 800 Gaitskell revolutionary leadership's LPYS the tant tendency.
Tony Benn speaks at 1957 youth rally in Hyde Park LPYS from victories. But they offensive again after of Keep Lef:
unde: begin a further round of witch hunting, expelling John Robertson - a supporter of Keep Left and charman In 1965, the supporters of Keep Left had decided that they • could, through the creation of a mass youth movement, lay the basis for a mass party and they therefore split to form their own YS.
After the 1965 general election the YS was re-organised as the Labour Party Young Socialists. The betrayals of the Labour government made the increasingly unattractive. Socialists more and more began to organise among the youth outside the Labour Party — except for the MiliBy 1970 Militant had won control of the organisation. Its political influence was to effectively insulate the political developments of the 1970s.
•This article is based entires Socialist Challenge 12 November 1962 page 7