This book represents a valuable contribution to the history of the Socialist Second International and, more generally, of European socialism between the Great Depression of the 1880s and WWI. It comes to fill a gap in the scholarship, insofar as it investigates the history of the Socialist Youth International. During the first phase of the making of socialist parties, this organization was in charge of the political and cultural education of the proletarian youth. Capitalizing on an approach based on social, quantitative and political history, and on an analysis of mentalities and languages, the book reconstructs the many-sidedness of the school of recruits of the social-democratic and revolutionary movements. The working conditions of youth in Europe, its unionization and economic struggles, the fight against militarism, the pedagogical work, the internationalism and the commitment to maintain peace, and the attitude of young militants towards Bolshevik revolution are some of thethemes investigated in the book. It also clarifies the role and the engagement with the issue of the new generation shown by prominent figures of Marxism such as Karl Liebknecht, Jean Jaurès, Henri De Man, Willi Münzenberg, Henriette Roland Holst, and Robert Danneberg. Finally, the book constitutes also a page of European social and political history, reconstructed through the history of the various youth socialisms and their relationship with the Marxist tradition.

Presents first and unsurpassed reconstruction of the socialist youth movement Includes a new introduction on the most recent historiography on youth and generations in contemporary Europe Adds previously neglected aspects and episodes in the political life of some prominent leaders of European Marxism

Autorentext
Patrizia Dogliani is Full Professor of Contemporary History at Bologna University, Italy, and Visiting Professor at NYU, USA, and Academic institutions in Paris. She has authored and edited many articles and books on the European Left, History of Youth and Generations, and Fascism, including L'Europa a scuola (2002), Storia dei giovani (2003), Il fascismo degli Italiani. Una storia sociale (2014), Le socialisme municipal en France et en Europe de la Commune à la Grande guerre (2018), Internazionalismo e transnazionalismo all'indomani della Grande Guerra (2020), Un partito di giovani. La gioventù internazionalista e la nascita del Partito comunista d'Italia (2021), Continental Transfers. Cultural and Political Exchange among Spain, Italy and Argentina, 1914-1945 (2022).

Inhalt

Introduction.- Chapter 1. Proletarian Youth Organizations Before the Stuttgart Conference.- Chapter 2. The Birth of a Socialist Youth International.- Chapter 3. The Anti-Militarist Struggle.- Chapter 4. The Organization of Educational Work.- Chapter 5. Unionization and the Economic Struggles of Socialist Youth.- Chapter 6. The Function and Activities of the Vienna International Secretariat from 1907 TO 1914.- Chapter 7. The Danger of WAR: International Youth Initiatives from 1912 TO 1914.- Chapter 8.The Youth International During World War I.- Conclusions: The End of a History and the Beginning of a Historiography.