A Political History of the International

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Patrizia Dogliani
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MARX, ENGELS, AND MARXISMS

A Political History of the

International Union of
Socialist Youth 1907–1917

Patrizia Dogliani
 Marx, Engels, and Marxisms

Series Editors
Marcello Musto, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
Terrell Carver, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
The Marx renaissance is underway on a global scale. Wherever the critique
of capitalism re-emerges, there is an intellectual and political demand for
new, critical engagements with Marxism. The peer-reviewed series Marx,
Engels and Marxisms (edited by Marcello Musto & Terrell Carver, with
Babak Amini, Francesca Antonini, Paula Rauhala & Kohei Saito as Assis-
tant Editors) publishes monographs, edited volumes, critical editions,
reprints of old texts, as well as translations of books already published
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perspectives, subject matters, academic disciplines and geographical areas,
producing an eclectic and informative collection that appeals to a diverse
and international audience. Our main areas of focus include: the oeuvre
of Marx and Engels, Marxist authors and traditions of the 19th and 20th
centuries, labour and social movements, Marxist analyses of contemporary
issues, and reception of Marxism in the world.
 Patrizia Dogliani

A Political History
of the International
Union of Socialist
Youth 1907–1917
Patrizia Dogliani
Department of History, Cultures,
and Civilization
University of Bologna
Bologna, Italy

ISSN 2524-7123 ISSN 2524-7131 (electronic)

Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
ISBN 978-3-031-20693-1 ISBN 978-3-031-20694-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20694-8

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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 Introduction

The creation and early life of the International Union of Socialist Youth
attracted little resonance among historians and had few rare testimonies:
some reconstructions took place early, particularly in the late 1920s,
when the international communist and socialist youth unions vied for the
primogeniture of labor youth movements and the legitimacy of its polit-
ical continuity. Till the 1970s, histories of the Second International forgot
all the existence of a youth international; works marked by congresses,
such as those of James Joll, Roland Bauer, Julius Braunthal, Gerhart
Niemeyer or Patricia Van der Esch, or those devoted to the ideas that
guided the events of international socialism, such as the works of Georges
D. H. Cole and Carl Landauer, had yet to delve into topics like the
women’s and youth movements and their social and political requests.
Only Van der Esch mentioned the existence of the “parallel” interna-
tional unions associated with the Second International, like the Socialist
Inter-parliamentary Commission, or the womens’ international organi-
zation, but she too neglected to mention the Youth one. The French
historian Annie Kriegel was more forthcoming, recalling its existence
in a few lines, not least because her work expressed the need to treat
the history of the International “as an element of contemporary social
history.”1 She understood the history of Union was a chapter in a more

1 A. Kriegel. Les internationales ouvrières (1864–1943). Paris, 1964, 7; and P. Van der
Esch. La Deuxième Internationale 1889–1923. Paris, 1957.

xiii
xiv INTRODUCTION

complex political and social story of the working-class masses in the indus-
trial era. The historical reconstruction of the Youth International was also
limited by the narrowness of the sources used to write an “official” history
of the Second International, which essentially consisted of congressional
reports. It took the expansion of socialist événementielle history through
Georges Haupt’s enormous survey and retrieval work in the 1960s to
formulate projects for a study of “parallel and minor” international orga-
nizations. It was in fact Georges Haupt, in a distant 1977, who nudged
me toward this history as the subject of my Italian university dissertation.
In that year, Italy was troubled by a complex issue of youth, resulting in
protests, alternative cultures and violence. The question of young gener-
ations emerged also in the social and political history of the workers’
movement.
The hesitation was attributed to the scarcity of sources and autobio-
graphical narratives. Few accounts from that time were preserved for us,
such as those of first secretaries Henri de Man and Willy Münzenberg;
they were largely distorted by the ideological and political clash among
national organizations that occurred with the Great War, in the aftermath
of the Russian Revolution and at the birth of the Third International. The
exception was what remained of the correspondence of the second secre-
tary of the Union: the Austrian Robert Danneberg. Part of letters and
congress preparatory documents went to the archives of the International
Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, while much of the documenta-
tion from the secretariats operating in Vienna and Zurich was dispersed or
handed over to the international communist youth movement in Moscow,
which made instrumental use of it between the two-world-wars period.
The first reconstruction of the Union, and in part the only one,
dates from 1929 to 1931 and was carried out by three leaders of
the Communist Youth International: the Austrian Richard Schüller, the
German Alfred Kurella and Russian Rafael Chitarov. Schüller was particu-
larly concerned with reconstructing the first period, the one before the
intervening partition between socialist and communist youth.2 In the
late 1920s, the authors were still involved in the clash between the two
international youth organizations, the socialist and the communist ones,
and communist interest was to discredit the earlier work of some young

2 Geschichte der Komunistischen Jugendinternationale, 3 vols, Berlin, 1929–1931: R.

Schüller. Von den Anfangen der proletarischen Jugendbewegung bis zur Gründung der
KJI .
 INTRODUCTION xv

socialist leaders—especially those who after the war remained loyal to or

returned to the socialist “old house.” Even before a history was finished, a
historiography had begun to undermine interpretation and the historical
reconstruction of events. Any young leader in the 1920s was barred from
these interpretative manipulations.3 The three youth internationals (the
socialist, the communist and the third one based in Vienna) that sprang
up in the immediate postwar period sought to legitimize themselves as
the continuation of the one that was born in Stuttgart in 1907. In the
second postwar, this first imprint remained. Most of the studies on the
socialist youth came from East German historiography; and for several
reasons: narrative continuity, easy access to German language sources
and lack of interest from broader international historiography. To the
already flawed pre-1945 understanding, other unsubstantiated interpre-
tations were added, for example the GDR historians’ overestimation of
the influence on the youth international movement by the Bolsheviks and
Lenin before 1917.4
However, it must also be remembered that Stalinism and Nazism
would soon eliminate, in purges, extermination camps, and through polit-
ical assassinations, the protagonists of the history we are reconstructing
here: Robert Danneberg, Willi Münzenberg, Gyula Alpari, to mention
only the most important ones. Or many lesser-known Italians, who
nonetheless played a key role together with the Swiss in saving the Inter-
national Union from disappearing during the Great War. Several of them
contributed to the birth of the Communist Youth International, and in
the 1920s sought protection from fascism in Soviet Union and disap-
peared in the Stalinist purges. Robert Danneberg, a socialist and a Jew,
died in Auschwitz in 1942. After the repression of the Hungarian revolu-
tion, the life of Guyla Alpari was a constant flight across Europe to escape
the Stalinists, and then the Nazis, until he was killed in the Sachsenhausen
concentration camp in 1944. All that does not include the still unsolved
cause of Münzenberg’s death in a French forest in June 1940.

3 See the historical reconstruction made by three socialist leaders: L. Thaller. Die inter-
nationale sozialistische Jugendbewegung. Wien 1921; K. Korn. Die Arbeiterjugendbewegung.
2 vols., Berlin, 1923, and K. Heinz. Kampf und Aufstieg, Wien, 1932.
4 K.H. Jahnke (ed), Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterjugendbewegung 1904–1945, Berlin
(GDR) 1973; and A. Reinhardt. Rolle und Funktion des Sekretariats der «Internationalen
Verbindung sozialistischer Jugendorganisationen» (Entstehung und Tätigkeit 1907–1917 ).
Ph. Diss., Leipzig, 1965.
xvi INTRODUCTION

This book had its first Italian version in 1983.5 It was the result
of long research thanks to a fellowship at the Einaudi Foundation in
Torin. It retains its original structure, although it is, for reasons of space,
reduced in the very rich set of notes that almost constituted a second
text in itself. The decision to rewrite and publish it in English stems
from two main reasons. First: the lack of an international knowledge on
this history. Secondly, the different approach and reading we can do of
that history today.6 If the factual reconstructions of the history of the
Second International have not progressed very far, the history of inter-
nationalism has made great strides. We can relocate this work in a new
debate on the characteristics and limits of internationalism and transna-
tionalism. The national movements, the struggles and goals they set:
anti-militarism, protection of young workers from exploitation, access
to culture and professional qualification for poor youth, economic and
political networks among youths from different countries are now the
dominant themes of a history of internationalism that not only exam-
ines organizations. Paraphrasing what was written by Glenda Sluga and
Patricia Clavin “when historians addressed internationalism, they presume
its nineteenth-century origins in Marxist-inspired political movements.”7
They showed that we can study other kinds of internationalism, from
liberal-inclined internationalisms to a trans-nationalism led by interna-
tional ideas and institutions. I would like to show here that the Marxism
internationalism of the Second International, 1889–1917, can also be
seen from the perspective of trans-national networks and struggles. And
at the same time, the history of the International Union of Socialist Youth

5 P. Dogliani. La “scuola delle reclute”. L’Internazionale giovanile socialista dalla fine

dell’Ottocento alla Prima guerra mondiale. Torin, 1983.
6 I refer to some of my previous considerations: Dogliani (ed). Internazionalismo e
transnazionalismo all’indomani della Grande Guerra. Bologna, 2020, 7–26, Socialisme et
internationalisme. Histoires du socialisme: Cahiers Jaurès, janvier-mars 2009, n. 191, 11–
30. A different approach can be seen in few new books crossing internationalism and trans-
nationalism: T.C. Imlay. The Practice of Socialist Internationalism. European Socialists and
International Politics 1914–1960. Oxford, 1918; N. Delalande. La lutte et l’entraide. L’âge
des solidarités ouvrières. Paris, 2019; E. Marcobelli. Internationalism towars Diplomatic
Crisis. The Second International and French, German and Italian Socialists. Published in
this collection, 2021.
7 G. Sluga and P. Clavin (eds). Internationalism. A Twentieth-Century History.
Cambridge, 2017, 3. In this book, see also the chapters: Dogliani. The fate of Socialist
Internationalism, 38–60, and T. Imlay. Socialist Internationalism after 1914, 191–212.
 INTRODUCTION xvii

can be framed in the history of generation and relations between youth

and adults as it has been developed in recent decades. The book is also
a reflection on how and why large masses of European young workers
were attracted to socialism and Marxism from the end of the nineteenth
century up to the early twentieth century.
As I hand the book over to the press, I want to remember some
maestri who at various times guided and influenced my early studies on
the history of international socialism: Gian Mario Bravo, Enzo Collotti,
Georges Haupt, Madeleine Rebérioux, Herbert Steiner, Claude Willard.
My remembrance and thanks go to them. I would also like to thank those
who allowed this book to be published: Francesca Antonini, Jean Numa
Ducange, Marcello Musto, and the reviser of my English text, Alex Clark.
A brief notice about the notes: as it has been mentioned they have been
reduced. An essential choice has been made of bibliographical references,
quotations and data appearing in the footnotes, while archival references,
pamphlets and newspaper articles have been largely indicated and are
quoted here in their original language, as they appeared at the time, to
better enable their identification and retrieval.
Bologna, September 2022
 Praise for A Political History of the
International Union of Socialist
Youth 1907–1917

“Patrizia Dogliani’s new history of the International Union of Socialist

Youth draws fresh air into the often claustrophobic spaces of the history
of socialism. She reminds us of the interests and agency of a young gener-
ation—in Europe and the wider world—in a volatile period of political
experimentation and ambition, war and peace.”
—Glenda Sluga, Professor of International History and Capitalism, HEC
European University Institute, Florence, Italy

“With this new book, Patrizia Dogliani once again demonstrates why she
is one of the preeminent scholars of modern international and transna-
tional history. Rooted in an impressive array of published and unpublished
sources in multiple languages, Dogliani’s study of the International Union
of Socialist Youth provides a novel window on the international socialist
movement before and during World War I, highlighting the efforts of
young European militants to define and instantiate socialism against
a tumultuous background of depression, war and revolution. It is an
impressive achievement.”
—Talbot Charles Imlay, Professor, University of Laval, Quebec, Canada

“Long recognized as a pioneering historian of youth, Patrizia Dogliani

offers a rich transnational panorama of socialist youth across Europe. She
persuasively links the birth of political rebellion and organizing among
young people to the invention of ‘adolescence’ as a particular economic,

xix
xx PRAISE FOR A POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE …

social, and cultural stage of modern life. With an impressive command

of sources in multiple languages, Dogliani provides an essential guide to
political activism among youth across class, gender, and nationality.”
—Mary Gibson, Professor of History, City University of New York, USA
 Contents

1 Proletarian Youth Organizations Before the Stuttgart

Conference 1
1.1 The Condition of Working-Class Youth in Europe
at the End of the Nineteenth Century 1
1.2 Early Bourgeois and Denominational Youth Movements 6
1.3 Early Socialist Worker Youth Organizations 15
1.4 The Typology of Working-Class Youth Associations 23
2 The Birth of the Socialist Youth International 31
2.1 Early Proposals for an International Coordination
of Socialist Youth 31
3 The Anti-Militarist Struggle 53
3.1 Liebknecht: Militarism “External” and Internal
to Countries 53
3.2 Jaurès and the “Armed Nation”: Anti-Militarism
and the National Problem 59
3.3 Typologies of Anti-Militarist Action 73
4 The Organization of Educational Work 85
4.1 Socialist Pedagogy 85
4.2 Sports Activity and Anti-Alcoholic Struggle 92
4.3 The Cultural and Educational Activity of Youth Groups 98
4.4 The “Rekrutenschulen” of Social Democracy 111

xxi
xxii CONTENTS

5 Unionization and the Economic Struggles of Socialist

Youth 121
5.1 The Issue of Apprenticeship in the Stuttgart Debate 121
5.2 Professional Youth Organizations 126
5.3 Economic Struggles and the Relationship with Labor
Organizations 133
6 The Function and Activities of the Vienna International
Secretariat from 1907 to 1914 141
6.1 The Administrative and Organizational Activities
of the Secretariat 141
6.2 The Copenhagen Conference and the Birth
of the French Socialist Federation 151
6.3 Contact with Overseas Youth Organizations: America,
Australia and Argentina 156
6.4 The SIUSY in the Face of Conflicts Between Youth
Organizations and Socialist Parties 161
7 The Danger of War: International Youth Initiatives
from 1912 to 1914 171
7.1 Worker Youth Organizations Emerging
from the Breakup of the Habsburg, Tsarist
and Ottoman Empires 171
7.2 New Forms of Anti-Militarism and the Emergence
of a Youth Left 183
7.3 Another “Congrès Manqué”: the Fourth Vienna Youth
Conference 192
8 The Youth International During World War I 197
8.1 The Role of Neutral Countries in the Preparation
of the Berne Conference 197
8.2 Living and Working Conditions and the Struggles
of Youth During the War 204
8.3 The Activities of Zurich Secretariat and the Personality
of Willi Münzenberg 211
8.4 Youth Participation in the Zimmerwald Movement,
the Russian Revolution and the Dissolution
of the Youth International 218
 CONTENTS xxiii

Conclusions: The End of a History and the Beginning

of a Historiography 223
Index 235
 Abbreviations

AJI Arbeiter-Jugend-Internationale (Berlin)

Am IISG (aJI) Amsterdam: Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis.
Archives Socialistische-Jugend-Internationale.
Av L’Avanguardia (Rome)
BSI Bureau socialiste international
CGL Confederazione Generale del Lavoro
CGT Confédération générale du Travail
CYI Communist Youth International Union
FIGS Federazione italiana giovanile socialista, Rome: Italian socialist
youth Federation
GRS Karl Liebnecht, Gesammelte Reden und Schriften
IASJ Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft sozialistischer Jugendorgan-
isation (Vienna)
JA Der Jugendliche Arbeiter (Vienna)
JI Jugend-Internationale (Zurich -Berlin)
Mi BIF Milan: GG. Feltrinelli Foundation’s Library
MS Le Mouvement Socialiste, Paris
NZ Die Neue Zeit, Berlin
POB Parti Ouvrier Belge
POF Parti Ouvrier français
POSR Parti ouvrier socialiste révolutionnaire
PSF Parti socialiste de France
PSI Partito socialista italiano
PSR Parti socialiste révolutionnaire
PSS Parti socialiste suisse
SFIO Section française de l’Internationale ouvrière

xxv
xxvi ABBREVIATIONS

SIUSY Secretariat of the International Union of Socialist Youth/ Inter-

nationales Sekretariat der sozialistischen Jugendorganisationen
/Bureau internationale des jeunesses socialistes, Vienna
SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands
SYI Socialist Youth International Union
 CHAPTER 1

Proletarian Youth Organizations Before

the Stuttgart Conference

1.1 The Condition of Working-Class Youth

in Europe at the End of the Nineteenth Century
The first proletarian youth associations were formed in Europe in the late
nineteenth century, in a phase of general economic recovery following the
Great Depression, which had hit industrialized countries in the 1870s,
and which had coincided with rapid changes in vocational training and
the labor market. The emergence and rapid expansion, in less than two
decades, of proletarian organization was thus the result of a long period
of transition, after “the failed revolutions of 1848 had marked a turning
point in the political history of youth, effectively ending in Europe the
first period of student agitation and also the independent role of young
people in the ranks of the labor movements.1 ”
The Paris Commune of 1871, even with all its political novelties and
anticipations, constituted an epilogue to an earlier phase which had seen
a deterioration in the security and stability of recruitment and training
methods aimed at worker-craftsmen under early industrialization. The

1 J.R. Gillis. Youth and History: Tradition and Change in European Age Relations,
1770–Present. New York, 1974. See also J. Savage. Teenage. The Creation of Youth Culture
1875–1945. London, 2007. On generations: A. Esler (ed). The Youth Generation. The
Conflict of Generations in Modern History. Lexington, MA; Toronto; London, 1974; and
M. Mittauer. Sozialgeschichte der Jugend. Frankfurt aM, 1986.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
P. Dogliani, A Political History of the International Union of Socialist
Youth 1907–1917, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20694-8_1
2 P. DOGLIANI

young people who participated in the European struggles of 1848 and

1871 expressed, perhaps more so than adults, the need to reestablish a
stable social identity: one that had been erased by the crisis of guilds and
trade fraternities. Their rebellion stemmed from conditions of uncertainty
and marginalization rather than from class brotherhood. Stephan Born, a
German socialist printer, went so far in his memoirs as to argue that, in
the 1848 revolution in Germany, there were “two generations, not two
classes” in conflict: the elite class of master craftsmen and store masters;
and the young, increasingly unskilled labor force that nascent modern
industry was creating. The image of sons against fathers was not only
dear to the nineteenth-century bourgeois literature; it also emerged from
descriptions of the “classes labourieuses” of the time. The demographic
growth of the European population between 1750 and the early 1900s
had led to a profound change in customs, mentality and family compo-
sition, and seemed to affect the relationships between generations in the
working-class and petit-bourgeoisie, rather than the relationships between
those whose descendants determined their inheritance of property and
titles.2
Until the industrial era, for the male population, youth was perceived
as a long, indistinct span of time from the end of childhood until personal
and economic independence, marked by marriage and self-employment.
It was a period, from the age of seven or eight to the age of twenty-five to
thirty, during which young men were sent to work away from the family
home as apprentices on farms and in workshops, where they learned a
trade and experienced the system of interrelationships in a productive
and hierarchical micro-community. There occurred, therefore, an early
and definite detachment from the family, brought about by the constant
surplus of children. Education, discipline and the regulation of celibacy
were roles assumed by the trade fraternity or patriarchal peasant commu-
nity. At the end of this long period of training, the young man generally
traveled or “wandered” (the English Tramping, the German Wanderjahr
or the French Tour) and offered his services to the trade guild. This rite
of passage completed his transition from the status of servant to that of
independent worker, and concluded the process of selecting a place to
settle, practice his trade and start a family.

2 S. Born. Erinnerungen eines Achtundvierzigers. Leipzig, 1898.

 1 PROLETARIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS BEFORE … 3

As the population grew and the average life span increased; as nutri-
tion improved; relationships in the countryside and newly industrialized
areas changed; and as the nuclear family emerged, this time span between
childhood and adulthood also took on an articulation, periodization and
collective function that was extremely different from previous centuries.
The figure of the young person became a socially recognized subject with
a specific role in the political and interpersonal relations of the industrial
age. A “youth condition” was thus being highlighted and not only being
recognized in a legal-professional sphere, but also in a social one.
The key point of contrast with the past was a new articulation of this
stage of life in physiological and genetic terms which had emerged with
improved living conditions among the European population since the
eighteenth century, but was also imposed extrinsically, by social and state-
specific forces. Youth began to be articulated in terms of obligations and
recognition. From the second half of the nineteenth century, the intro-
duction of compulsory education across almost all European countries
identified an intermediate age in the years from childhood to early adult-
hood: the age of adolescence. Adolescence had not been identified in
the past because education was conceived predominantly as preparation
for work. The transition from youth to the newly articulated category
of adolescence required new commitments in the contemporary world,
such as military service. Through the call to arms between the ages of
eighteen and twenty, the young person was made citizen to the nation-
state. The regulation, by hours and age, of child labor also introduced a
different valuation of the employment of the youth labor force. In the face
of the crisis of vocational apprenticeship that owed to the simplification
of factory production techniques, wages, as a form of measurement for
the calculation of labor, assumed value for young workers. Apprenticeship
increasingly lost its function as an initiation into social and professional
relationships and became only a waiting period, involving underpaid or
as yet unpaid work, and entitling the apprentice to later wage recog-
nition. By the end of the nineteenth century, trade guilds offered a
limited number of apprentice positions. Young people therefore increas-
ingly remained living with their families of origin, which required them
to contribute wages toward the livelihood of several generations.
Thus ended the nomadism that had characterized the life of youth
in medieval and modern times. There were, of course, new migratory
flows, but they were no longer individual; instead they were collective,
and directed themselves overwhelmingly toward the new industrial cities.
4 P. DOGLIANI

Young men born in the country were drawn by the offer of work to
the industrial and mining basins, where they would move and then stay.
By the mid-nineteenth century, this migration pattern had produced new
villages for the English working class that were largely inhabited by people
under thirty. Those born in a town rarely left, and rarely looked else-
where for work. Settlement became the dominant habitation behavior
of young workers at the turn of the century. With it came a state of
increasing family dependence, and specifically a mutual economic depen-
dence, among the working classes, between parents and children. Parents
who could not support their children from afar kept them at home to
contribute to the family budget. The English social reformer Seebohm
Rowntree studied unskilled English workers on the eve of the Great War,
and observed that their level of poverty increased in the ages between
twenty-eight and thirty-five—that is, when spouses had children not yet
of working age—and then improved to prosperity in the ten years that
followed, when older children began to earn a decent wage (so long as
they left the family). The extended family unit among artisans and peas-
ants—formed, not by close kinship, but by work requirements (children,
hired hands, laborers or apprentices; servants of different ages for house-
hold management), was replaced by the working-class and petit-bourgeois
family, composed vertically of no more than three generations, each with
distinct tasks.3
This forced and prolonged form of cohabitation between the parents
and children of the working classes consequently altered the systems of
social relation among young people. They began to perceive the family
more as a bond of necessity than as a place of learning and educa-
tion, which could be delegated to extra-familial institutions. Nor was real
paternal control any longer exercised—as had been the case in peasant
civilization with the cession of land by inheritance, or in crafts with the
transmission of the trade. Some of the fundamental generational balances
in the social system were broken, and young workers found themselves
with different points of social reference in their individual and collec-
tive lives. Fewer and fewer recognized themselves as producers and even
fewer saw their fathers as the master to be imitated. This was partly
because certain trades had become obsolete and could therefore no longer
be transmitted from fathers to sons. Rebellions broke out against the

3 B.S. Rowntree. Poverty: A Study of Town Life. London, 1914.

 1 PROLETARIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS BEFORE … 5

old fraternities and guilds (which were increasingly selective, and inad-
equate in relation to the new labor market) and young workers began
instead to recognize themselves as situated specifically in the place and
city of work. This new self-identification, accentuated as we have seen
by a shift toward settledness, was accompanied for the first time by a
collective identification, among the young, with a particular social condi-
tion: that of youth. In the new industrial phase that intervened after
the Great Depression, young people underwent a state of “prolonged
and dependent youth,” experienced and articulated more and more in
psychological and economic terms, as a rung in the hierarchical ladder
of the productive world. They reacted accordingly: grouping by age and
by neighborhood or village; and perfecting group codes and behaviors
that more emphatically set apart the youth from the adult world. At
the same time, those rituals, that in the pre-industrial age were occa-
sions for initiation into adult life, and which very often exhausted all
forms of violence in play and farce, came to an end. In England in the
mid-nineteenth century, traditional dances and pantomimes experienced
a decline. E.P. Thompson recalled that the early Luddite movement had
resorted to traditional masquerade as a form of revolt. Louis Cheva-
lier and Mona Ozouf in turn pointed out that, in France, the crisis of
compagnonnage expressed itself in street clashes and infighting between
apprentices and young artisans of different guilds, and turned labor festi-
vals—instituted during the French Revolution—into scenes of violence.4
For this reason, some socialist youth organizations explicitly condemned
the carnival custom. For example, in Belgium in 1903 the Jeunes Gardes
promoted “a decisive struggle against carnivals that are nothing but a last
remnant of centuries of ignorance” and wanted to prevent, above all, that
“it be allowed to our groups to favor their extension.”5

4 L. Chevalier. Classes laborieuses et classes dangereuses à Paris pendant la première moitié

du XXe siècle. Paris, 1958; E.P. Thompson. Making of the English Working Class. New
York, 1964; and M. Ozouf. Symboles et fonction des âges dans les fêtes de l’Europe
révolutionnaire. Annales Historiques de la Révolution française. Paris, 1970, n. 209, 569–
593.
5 See R. Briquet. Le Congrès des Jeunes Gardes Socialiste. Le Mouvement Socialiste,
thereafter MS, V/X, 15 août 1903, n. 126, 591–599; and POB. Compte-rendu du XVIIIe
Congrès Annuel tenu à la Maison du Peuple de Bruxelles les 12 et 13 avril 1903. Bruxelles
1903, 53.
6 P. DOGLIANI

In large industrial cities, the new category of juvenile “deviance” was

added to, or often came to be substituted for, the concept of the “dan-
gerous class,” or the dangerous individual not integrated into social rules.
Forms of antagonism with the adult world began to characterize urban
life, for instance juvenile crime and the refusal of young people to inte-
grate into school and the military-disciplinary apparatus of the state; but
so did new antagonisms between the youth groups themselves, which
differed in social class regional identity. All European governments began
to intervene, directly and indirectly. In Germany from 1890, the Prussian
government promoted initiatives for recreational activity, while simulta-
neously restricting all forms of political socialization. At the same time as
the enactment of legislation regulating child labor and public education,
a series of repressive criminal measures against minors were introduced.
As a result, a unique punishment status for “delinquent” juvenile acts
was brought in through the Criminal Code, which established courts,
prisons and rehabilitation centers for juveniles, and through the extension
into civilian society of the Military Criminal Code, which repositioned
anti-militarist protest and insubordination (on the part of conscription-
obligated youth) under military jurisdiction. Of the organizations that
fell subject to the judgment of laws and courts, more generally it was the
youth groups of the late nineteenth century that aroused the most social
concern and disapproval. Bourgeois as well as proletarian youth soon
became the subjects of sociological, psychological and medical studies that
attempted to identify the nature of adolescent behavior.6

1.2 Early Bourgeois

and Denominational Youth Movements
At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the first associa-
tions aimed at young people emerged, such as the German Wandervögel ,
formed in Berlin in 1897, or the English Boy-Scouts movement, created
by General Baden-Powell in 1908. There is much debate in the liter-
ature over whether these associations were to some extent alternatives
to the prevailing social and educational system, or whether they actively
lead young people away from a more careful adherence to social rules

6 Read more in P. Dogliani. L’apprendistato nella modificazione della professionalità

operaia dalla grande depressione alla I guerra mondiale. Annali della Fondazione Luigi
Einaudi, XIV, 1980, 469–536.
 1 PROLETARIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS BEFORE … 7

and conventions in adulthood. These studies, however, have been more

concerned with examining the structure and behavior of these associa-
tions than with identifying the social components that constituted them.
We cannot infer from the bourgeois ideologies that inspired new forms
of social arrangement among the youth, how many and in what way
working-class youth were drawn to them. In the writings and policy docu-
ments of the socialist youth organizations of the early twentieth century,
there is a keenness for proletarian youth enlistment to be prioritized over
the enlistment of the bourgeois. The success of the groups was probably
facilitated by the apparently apolitical nature of the sports and recre-
ational activities that they involved. At first, the seeming nonchalance and
fellowship of youth groups made even the Wilhelmine authorities fear
that the Wandervögel were to some extent a distraction from the military
discipline on which public educational life was based. Indeed, the osten-
sible camaraderie and equality, and the distribution of tasks and offices
by valor and ability rather than by class, helped to produce a democratic
appearance that invited the access of the popular classes much more gener-
ously than conservative and militarist student organizations such as the
Jungdeutschlandbund, the British Cadet corps or the French and Italian
nationalist circles. On the other hand, we also know that after World
War I these forms of spiritual, class-traversing solidarity took up openly
anti-worker positions and formed the basis of mass youth consent to
authoritarian regimes. One need to only recall the 1933 Nazi propaganda
film: Hitlerjunge Quex to summarize this evolution; or young Theodor,
the protagonist of Joseph Roth’s novel The Spider’s Web, and how his
revolt against squalid petty-bourgeois civic life resolved itself in his symbol
and ritual-laden affiliation with the Pro-Nazi Freikorps.7
At the first international socialist youth conference held in Stuttgart
in 1907, a proposal was made to deal “also with the opposing youth
organizations” (nationalist, liberal, clerical, neutral, anarchist, etc.). As a
result of under-research, the project had to be postponed, but a cross-
sectarian urge is clear to see: “the national federations will have, to their

7 See W.Z. Laqueur. Young Germany. A History of the German Youth Movement.
London, 1962; H. Pross. Jugend, Eros, Politik. Die Geschichte der deutschen Jugend-
verbände. Bern-Munchen-Wien, 1964; J.O. Springhall. The Boy Scouts, Class and
Militarismus in Relation to British Youth Movements. International Review of Social
History, XVII, 1972, n. 4, 3–23; and P. Wilkinson, English Youth Movement 1908–
30. Journal of Contemporary History, IV, 1969, n. 2, 3–23. Consult also for an overview:
Dogliani. Storia dei giovani. Milan, 2003.
8 P. DOGLIANI

profit, to study more closely the forces and methods of their oppo-
nents, who in many countries are numerically superior to us and from
whom we can learn more than we currently believe.”8 The Dutch Chris-
tian Youth League (which had nearly 9000 members in 1906) and a
similar Danish league (which comprised 28,000 teenagers) were cited as
proof. Only a few workers’ youth federations in the following years went
beyond simple political confrontation with “opposing” factions, to make
sense of their popularity among young people. Organizations in Italy and
France, for instance, interpreted anti-militaristic and secular attitudes as
basically anarchist or republican, and opposed on principle any nationalist
or confessional explanation.9
German workers’ youth organizations were more careful. Unlike
the French, Italian or Scandinavian avant-garde, they had set them-
selves the goal of becoming true mass organizations and establishing
widespread workers’ education. In Germany and Austria, government
control over the lives of youth was characterized as class conflict. In
1908 in Germany, the Wilhelminian government banned all forms of
political sociability under the age of eighteen, also smuggling in height-
ened control over non-political groups through subsidy. Beginning in
1911, the governments of the states of Prussia and Hesse funded recre-
ational youth organizations and sports that were reliably loyal to the
state, and supported its pedagogy. Also in 1911, at the initiative of a
number of ministries (including those of the Interior; the Army and
Navy; Agriculture; Industry and Crafts; and influential private groups,
such as the industrial group Krupp and the financial groups Mendelssohn
and Fürstenberg), the Jungdeutschlandbund, with its headquarters in
Berlin, was founded throughout the imperial territory. Confrontation
with this new association became inevitable for the young German Social
Democrats, who were forced practically into political hiding, and forced
to configure themselves as “counter-society.” On the eve of the Great
War, the German working-class youth had no viable choices. Bankers and

8 L’Internationale ouvrière et socialiste. Rapports soumis au Congrès socialiste interna-

tional de Stuttgart (18–24 août 1907) par les organisations socialistes d’Europe, d’Australie
et d’Amérique sur leur activité pendant les années 1904–1907 , vol II: Augmenté d’une note
complémentaire sur le mouvement ouvrier et d’une étude sur l’organisation internationale
de la Jeunesse socialiste. Bruxelles, 1907, 493–584. From now on: Organisation.
9 Amsterdam, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis: Archives Socialistische-
Jugend-Internationale. From now on: Am IISG (aJI), III/16: J.F. Keesing, in Laren, to
Danneberg, March 28, 1913.
 1 PROLETARIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS BEFORE … 9

shipowners provided them with opportunities for recreation and to live

among their peers, often accompanied by the sports and martial exercises.
The state, through the Jungdeutschlandbund, would provide a young
man with half-price railroad tickets (the Wanderkarten) and barracks,
military camps or other public spaces available to him for weekends as
hostels. The Jungdeutschlandbund also offered field kitchens and army
victualling, and rewards and career advancement were offered to those
state teachers and educators who participated in propaganda distribu-
tion, and to those who engaged in after-school and after-work activities
for minors. In the early integration into a functioning, protective and
disciplined national structure, the young German found a solution to the
imbalances of the industrial working environment and the difficulties of
urban family life.10
It was no accident that secular bourgeois forms of social ordering
such as workers’ organizations were a purely urban phenomenon in
Germany and other industrialized countries, and that they were linked
especially to those cities that had experienced industrial expansion around
an original historic core, and in which the new generations of the late
nineteenth century inherited the confrontation of material and profes-
sional conditions between old and new bourgeoisie (as between artisans
and unskilled laborers). In large cities such as Berlin, the character
of the organization varied even according to the social composition
of the neighborhood. From the bourgeois Berlin suburb of Steglitz
had sprung the Wandervögel movement, which rejected “metropolitan
culture.” Then there was the working-class neighborhood of Neukölln,
the original nucleus of the apprentice defense movement, which, as a
result, gave rise in 1906 to the Social Democratic Youth Federation of
Northern Germany. However, these organizations remained phenomena
that revealed a complex youth condition that was difficult to control. In
1912, for example, the burgomaster of Neukölln, at a meeting of the
Deutsche Zentrale für Jugendfürsorge (a kind of parastatal youth body
composed of state and local officials and church representatives), reported
that there were 10,000 young people between the ages of fourteen and

10 R. Danneberg. Die Rekrutenschulen der internationalen Sozialdemokratie. Die sozial-

istische und die bürgerliche Jugendbewegung in den Jahren 1910 bis 1913. Wien, 1914,
20–22.
10 P. DOGLIANI

twenty in his district, and that of these, only 600 belonged to denomi-
national and secular associations; a further 100 to the local Social Demo-
cratic circle. According to these figures, eighty-four percent of the youth
population in this area—the most politicized area in “Groß-Berlin”—
remained completely alien to any institutional form of community.11 It
is difficult to detect the existence of other informal places of urban aggre-
gation. People most probably accumulated in traditional public places,
where the Prussian government had tried insistently to prohibit, the atten-
dance of all minors since the 1880s. To control public order during the
war from October 1915 in Germany, the sale of tobacco and liquor to
young people under the age of seventeen was prohibited by martial law.
Public places such as cinemas and dance halls were forbidden to them,
curfews were imposed and loitering was banned. Ordinances set rent
levels for people under the age of eighteen, but were soon abandoned
amid strong opposition from working-class parents.
Socialist organizations also had to guard against competition from the
clergy, who catered almost exclusively to young workers and appren-
tices. Tolerated and often supported by the state, the clergy made itself
dangerous, pitting religious associations within the working class (with
clear purposes of education and economic assistance), against socialist
and trade union youth associations. Karl Korn, a young Social Demo-
cratic leader, attempted in 1910 on behalf of the SPD to compile an
informative list of the size and activity of denominational youth move-
ments in Germany. Along with a hundred or so local Social Democratic
youth groups, comprising fewer than 18,000 members, there was the
congregation of German Catholic youth centers, the Zentralverband der
katholischen Jugendvereinigung Deutschlands, founded in 1896, which
numbered, in 1910, 1615 groups with about 200,000 adherents, 70
percent of whom were between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, the
rest older. After the age of seventeen, the majority of adherents moved
on to two other Catholic associations, either the Verein junger Arbeiter
or the Jugendabteilung des Arbeitervereins, which, together with the
Bavarian Catholic Young Apprentices’ Association (Bayerische Burschen-
vereine, founded in 1898), made the German Catholic youth movement,
with its 10,500 adherents, number almost 300,000 in total. The type

11 Der Kampf der Parteien um die Jugend. Ein Erörterungsabend herausgegeben von
der Deutschen Zentrale für Jugendfürsorge in Berlin. Berlin, 1912. Cf. A. Lange, Das
Wilhelminische Berlin. Zwischen Jahrhundertwende und Novemberrevolution. Berlin, 1967.
 1 PROLETARIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS BEFORE … 11

of activity carried out by these circles was not dissimilar to that of

the socialist workers’ circles. They performed predominantly pedagog-
ical functions and offered vocational assistance: offering evening classes,
games, walks, visits to museums and historical sites, and musical or
theatrical evenings.
The network of German evangelical youth centers pursued the same
aims, but with a less centralized structure. The Jünglingsverein in Frank-
furt, with 500 young people from ages fourteen to twenty-five, was
formed around 1908. There was also the Christlicher Verein junger
Männer: the Protestant Youth Association in Western Germany had
around 15,000 people under seventeen and nearly 9000 between seven-
teen and twenty-one; Eastern German contingent numbered 26,000; and
its Southern section gathered about 10,000 young people. Then the
300 apprentices of the Lehrlingsfeierabend in Stuttgart or the strong
evangelical youth welfare center in Hamburg; also the Jugendbund für
entschiedenes Christentum with another 8000 adherents, almost all over
seventeen. On top of this, the Jewish Youth Association was established,
which had 7000 members, mainly in Cologne and Frankfurt. Well orga-
nized, with libraries and reading rooms, it was essentially preoccupied
with the vocational training of young people in the Jewish community,
with a focus on commerce.12 At least half a million German youths
belonged to church associations. If we consider that in 1907 there were
just under 5 million German youths between the ages of fourteen and
twenty employed in industry, services or the primary sector, we can esti-
mate that something like one-tenth of working-class German adolescents
were approached by the churches.13
Although not with such conspicuous results as in Germany, every
national denomination or religious community in Europe made appeals
to young Europeans at the end of the nineteenth century, drawing on
the same channels of communication and proselytizing from previous
centuries that were used to reach villages and peasant communities, and
renewing them in language and pedagogy in a new metropolitan context.
An example of the now obvious connection between church activity and
secular and political engagement among young workers (in conjunction

12 K. Korn. Die bürgerliche Jugendbewegung, Herausgegeben von der Zentralstelle für

die arbeitende Jugend, Berlin, 1910.
13 See the classical work of J. Kuczinsky. Die Geschichte der Lage der Arbeiter in
Deutschland von 1800 bis in die Gegenwart. Berlin (GDR), 1949.
12 P. DOGLIANI

with the ongoing battle for the enlargement of suffrage) can be found
after 1905 in Austria, when the involvement of Catholic educators in the
organization of students and working youth (Anton Orel founded the
Bund der Arbeiterjugend Österreichs in that year) and the direct interven-
tion of the Christian Social Party in the social welfare of young workers
was heightened. The secretary of the Socialist Youth International, the
Austrian Robert Danneberg, had to point out in a study he made on
the Austrian Catholic youth movement that, in a few years, the church
had delegated care of the youth to the Christian Social Party; a move
that made them the template for the modern moderate party. Using
words taken from a clerical newspaper, he went so far as to assert that
“the Catholic movement did not originate on the soil of the Catholic
Church; it derives rather from a revolutionary impulse, for it is in imita-
tion of the Social Democratic youth organization and nurtures its own
aspirations.”14 Indeed, the Austrian Christian Social Party began, from
September 1905, to subsidize the Catholic youth movement, to welcome
it into the ranks of the party, to root it in schools and apprenticeship
courses, and to intervene in legislature with a moderately reformist welfare
policy.15
The political parties consolidated at the end of the nineteenth century
recognized that the sphere of the political had taken on new values, and
was expanding to the working-class and petit-bourgeoisie. Within it, the
relationship of the younger generation with an everydayness of choices,
rights and civic obligations became precocious. In 1907, universal male
suffrage came into effect in Austria. Young people over the age of twenty-
five went to the polls. A similar law, but extended to women, was
discussed in Denmark in early 1913. In fact, campaigns for the exten-
sion of suffrage were led in various nations by socialists and liberals in
the early twentieth century (Holland, Belgium, Italy, Sweden).16 Polit-
ical forces began to apprehend, in the social figure of the young person,

14 Danneberg. Maulchristen. Christlichsoziale Geständnisse für Jung und Alt. Wien,

1913.
15 Programm und Organisation der christlichen Jugendbewegung. Wien, 1910; Die Pfin-
gsttagung 1911 der christlichen Jugend Österreichs. Wien, 1911; and O. Glöckel. Schule
und Klerikalismus. Wien, 1911. See E.J. Görlich. Anton Orel und die “Freie Christliche
Jugend Österreichs”. Zur Geschichte einer österreichischen Jugendbewegung. Vienna, 1971.
16 AM IISG (aJI), II/14 and III/16. Letters from Copenhagen to Danneberg, May 1,
1912, January 13 and February 4, 1913.
 1 PROLETARIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS BEFORE … 13

a potential voter. Youth associations aimed at the working classes were

no longer only bodies of social control or, in the case of socialists, class
education, but also instruments of persuasion and collective propaganda.
The types of political intervention expected of the youth shifted in accor-
dance: young workers were now recognized as a stable social subject that
formed the connective tissue between generations, and no longer just the
protagonist of rhapsodic protest movements, such as the days of struggle
of 1830, 1848 or 1871. The close connection between popular forces and
students that had marked the political phase of the first half of the nine-
teenth century was vanishing by the 1870s/1880s (although channels
of collaboration did persist in particular cases, e.g., in France between
socialists and young radicals—in defense of common republican victo-
ries against Boulangism or monarchical revanchism; and in Italy, through
student centers of positivist-socialist inspiration, in opposition to nation-
alism). Socialism maintained constant contact with that “intermediate
social stratum” (Michels) composed of middle-class intellectuals, who also
formed part of the leadership of the workers’ parties.17
To a large extent, conflict prevailed over alliance. It prevailed especially
in those countries (such as Germany and Italy) where the autonomous
participation of middle-class youth in the struggles of the Risorgimento
and national unification had been expressed longer and more forcefully,
and where the process of merging economic capitalism with the state
had more rapidly drawn them back into nationalist, irredentist or mili-
tarist ranks.18 This turn was examined by socialist theorists. In an 1894
paper in the Neue Zeit, Franz Mehring denied that after the heroic period
of Burschenschaft (youthfulness) “which began at Waterloo” and ended
in the days of ’48, “the students, as a class, could once again return
to the scene of historical development,” that is, that they could once

17 R. Michels. Proletariato e borghesia nel movimento italiano. Torin, 1908. This text
opened a big debate inside the Italian Socialist Party, see the article: Un profilo storico
del movimento socialista italiano. Avanti!, a. 12, 11 gennaio 1908. See also Michels.
Storia critica del movimento operaio italiano. Dagli inizi sino al 1911, Florence, 1926.
On Italian case, see the recent work of E. Papadia. La forza dei sentimenti. Anarchici e
socialisti (1870–1900). Bologna, 2019.
18 About the appeal to a socialist tradition of Risorgimento cf. L’Avanguardia (from
now on: Av), I, n. 4, 29 settembre 1907. See also C. Papa. L’Italia giovane dall’Unità
al fascismo. Rome-Bari, 2013.
14 P. DOGLIANI

again become actors, even protagonists, in a social and political evolu-

tion understood in Marxist terms.19 It would not be the educated classes,
but of course young proletarians who would participate most centrally
in the Marxian procession of history. Addressing the first German Social
Democratic youth groups in 1903, Karl Kautsky stated it assuredly: “The
bourgeoisie no longer has, today, ideals, and the youth can only surpass
the elderly in their skepticism, fatigue, despair, misanthropy or in their
brutalization and débauche. The proletariat, on the other hand, is today
the class of revolutionary idealism, and the role that the students have
been playing for half a century now passes to the proletarian youth… it
is the source from which enthusiasm for our cause radiates unceasingly,
and it is by it that the best intellectual and moral progress of the working
class can be measured.”20
Austrian socialists in the 1910s, particularly Otto Bauer and Max
Adler, responded with more nuance. Bauer and Adler were faced with the
expansion of a student movement (most significantly in the non-German-
speaking Habsburg territories) that was too politically ambiguous to
vindicate the ideological characterizations of Mehring and Kautsky in
Germany. Somewhere between reactionary patriotism and democratic
nationalism, the movement included, not only university students—whose
social background and needs as a privileged class were in no doubt—but
also middle school students. The latter were evidence of the precocious-
ness and idealism of the youth’s political commitment, and of how the
social expansion of education was making social differentiations possible
in the student body. Since public vocational schools had been entrusted
with the preparation of the apprentice, a poorly defined student-worker
social category had emerged: a young man who, depending on the season,
divided their time between school and work. Animated by the demonstra-
tion against the caravan staged by the Viennese proletariat in 1908, Max
Adler, in his Students and Workers, reflected thus:

A whole people poured into the streets, workers and students: ... it was
not, however, a repetition of that grandiose spectacle of 1848, the memory
of which still illuminates with glory the juxtaposition of these two names,
arousing in the workers a feeling of respect that is, on the other hand,

19 F. Mehring. Die Sozialdemokratie und die Studentenschaft, Die Neue Zeit (from
now on: NZ), XII, 1893–1894, I, pp. 705–709.
20 Cf. Kautsky’s introduction to Organisation, 493–498.
 1 PROLETARIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS BEFORE … 15

entirely alien to the great mass of students. Students and workers, but the
students were now no longer together with the people (...) but divided
from it and against it, separated by an abyss of mutual hatred and anger,
separated above all spiritually, dragged by a complex of ideals of which they
had not understood 1a real nature.... The strong aversion to the people, so
often misunderstood, arose, at least as far as the students were concerned,
from their ideals of freedom, nationality, and homeland, which the more
intimately they lived, the more they sharpened their sense of enmity and
hatred, as if they were in opposition to other ideals.21

1.3 Early Socialist Worker Youth Organizations

Czech historian Radomir Luza believed that the main reason for the
emergence of socialist-inspired worker youth organizations was the disap-
pearance of occupational tasks particular to younger age groups: “in
less than two decades the number of young workers had, for example,
doubled in Germany: while workers of both sexes between the ages
of fourteen and sixteen amounted in 1892 to 208,835, by 1908 their
number had reached 440,225.”22 Because they could very productively
do “unskilled” work, young laborers felt in no way different from the
equally unqualified adult worker, professionalized by big industry. Young
men became aware of their role as producers no different than adults,
and sought to associate with other young workers to cope with the crisis
of recruitment and lack of assistance from the trade guilds. In October
1894, a document drafted by a provisional committee of young workers
was circulated across vocational courses in Vienna. It read: “We want to
put an end to the inhuman exploitation of apprentices; we want to do for
them what the animal protection societies do for dogs or horses…. We
will not concern ourselves with political issues, although we cannot help
but admit that we see in the Social Democratic workers the real elements
capable of defending and representing us.” This document, later remem-
bered as one of the earliest declarations of associational autonomy, was
invoked by historians (Luza and Nittel) as evidence for that harsh “mate-
rial conditions” were the driving impetus for the emergence of workers’

21 M. Adler, text from an Italian translation: Il socialismo e gli intellettuali. Bari, 1974,
168.
22 R. Luza. History of the International Socialist Movement. Leyden, 1970, 15.
16 P. DOGLIANI

youth groups. Another condition was the protest against compulsory mili-
tary service, introduced in the major European states after 1870, which
led working-class youths to engage in efforts to mitigate the hardships
and injustices faced by conscripts.
Later attempts were also made to circumscribe these two forms of
struggle and assistance geographically. Again Luza argued that youth anti-
militarism was born in Western Europe, and that it only gained sufficient
enough momentum to initiate unrest in Central European organizations
(such as those in Austria or Germany) by the turn of the century. At
the birth of the Youth International, in the summer of 1907, the Provi-
sional International Secretary drew up a table of the activities of young
socialists across the nation up to that time. The data suggested that,
while all the organizations had engaged in education, few had developed
services specifically for young workers and apprentices (Austria, Hungary,
Bohemia, Germany and Switzerland). Austria and Germany had not even
sustained a particularly anti-militarist struggle. But the table was conve-
niently compiled—drawn from national reports in the news—to better
emphasize the points of distinction in politics and militancy between one
youth federation and another. In reality, the differences between work-
ers’ youth organizations lay elsewhere: in the size of their membership, in
their political programs and not least in their relationship with other adult
organizations: the party and the trade unions. Another Czech historian,
Milan Hübl, has argued in this vein that a further reason for the emer-
gence of independent youth associations lay in the lack of generational
turnover in the political formations of the Second International.23
All these interpretations have the value of capturing some of the polit-
ical and economic factors that motivated youth socialist organization, but
they make the mistake of taking the founding dates of national organiza-
tions as their historical point of departure. We know that between the late
1880s and the first decade of the twentieth century almost all workers’
youth groups nationally unified: in 1888 in Holland, in 1889 in Belgium,
around 1895 in Sweden, in 1900 in Bohemia, in 1903 in Austria, Italy
and Norway, in 1904–1906 in Germany, in 1906 in Spain, Denmark and

23 M. Hübl, cit. in Luza, 71. See also H. Nittel. Kampf und Aufstieg. Die Geschichte
der sozialistischen Jugendbewegung. Wiener Neustadt, 1964; W. Neugebauer. Bauvolk
der kommenden Welt. Geschichte der sozialistischen Jugendbewegung in Österreich, Vienna,
1975; and H. Steiner. Die arbeitende Jugend Österreichs und ihre Organisation. Vienna,
1954.
 1 PROLETARIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS BEFORE … 17

Hungary, in 1907 in Bulgaria and finally in 1912 in France. These dates

are rough indicators, marking in each case the first time a “nationwide
congress” was held in each country. At these meetings, attempts were
made to write a program of action and determine a central location for
national coordinating and press operations, which was almost always the
capital of the country. After these dates, there were profound changes
in the organizational structure of the national federations. In Sweden and
Italy there were schisms—in Sweden in 1905, and in Italy in 1907—which
led to the exclusion of anarcho-syndicalist currents. These splits were
significant enough that, in the imaginary of young Italian and Swedish
socialists, they were the birth-dates of their nationhood.24
A chronology of Dutch youth activity is more difficult. While they
were the first, along with the Young Belgian Guards, to appear on the
European political scene in the mid-1880s with the specific goals of
fighting against conscription practices and fighting the use of conscripts in
strike repression, they did not follow the upward parabola of the Belgian
confederation, which presented itself in Stuttgart as one of the strongest
and most compact national youth organizations. Instead, they moved
with the oscillations of the Dutch labor movement.
The first Dutch youth groups were formed in Amsterdam and the
Frisian region beginning in 1885, merging into a national federation in
1888. Soon, because of the anti-militarist nature of their action and the
lack of a socialist presence in the country (a Social Democratic Party in
Holland did not come into existence until 1894, and it was small and
socially selective), they sided with the anarchists, and became influenced
by the thought of Domela Nieuwenhuis and Wink, who started to publish
a youth journal in 1903—De Jonge Werker (“The Young Worker”)—
which released only a few issues. By 1892, the Dutch youth movement,
in the midst of internal disagreements over military service and general
strikes, gradually dwindled to a hundred or so people. Only in 1901 did
“Henriette Roland Holst and other comrades” within the Dutch Social
Democratic Party “present a motion for the formation of a committee to
deal with youth organization and propaganda in an anti-militarist direc-
tion.” Having been reborn, the youth federation dissolved again in 1903,
overwhelmed by the failure of that year’s general strike. After two years

24 Die Internationale Organisation der Sozialistischen Jugend. Bericht des Sekretariats

der internationalen Verbindung der sozialistischen Jugendorganisationen—August 1907 .
Leipzig, 1907.
18 P. DOGLIANI

of assiduous work toward re-union (led once again by Roland Holst), the
federation was reestablished on April 23, 1905, under a new statute that
limited the association’s activities “only to the education of its members,”
so as to hedge the risk of another dissolution.
The Belgian affair was different. Young Guards pursued the anti-
militarist goal steadily, and without internal trauma, facilitated by a
Belgian Workers’ Party that had homogenized the political components
of the working class (unions, cooperatives, leagues, youth groups) into a
confederal body, excluding any purely anarchist tendencies. The Young
Belgian Guards movement thus became, from the beginning, an inte-
gral part of class political organizing, with the prerogative to conduct
specific anti-militarist action. The first demonstration against the discrim-
inatory practice of drawing lots in the draft was held in November 1886
in Ghent with the first Lotelingskring (conscripts’ circle). In the following
years, other youth socialist circles were formed in Antwerp, Brussels,
La Hestre and Liège, all of which were nationally confederated at the
Brussels Congress of 1889, with a common program that nevertheless
safeguarded, through newspapers and local branches, the linguistic and
economic-social differences between Flemish and Walloons. The anti-
militarist struggle, which in the second half of the nineteenth century
particularly affected Holland, Belgium and northern French, made the
properly political commitment of the young people who participated in
it, whether anarchist, anarcho-syndicalist or socialist-inspired, immediately
assume connotations not unlike those paired with adult workers, whose
political concerns were characterized as general: general strike, resistance
to the use of public force in labor conflicts, struggle for universal suffrage.
Youth organizations faced a second phase of evolution when labor
parties and unions posed a “youth question.” The “youth question”
referred to a felt need to broaden the pool of recruitment to emerging
social subjects, such as women and minors. The first autonomous workers’
youth associations dated back at least a decade before the establishment of
workers’ youth organizations with political aims and regional or national
reach. In essence, the socialist youth movement (along with the socialist
and social democratic parties of the Second International) was the result
of the political changes that occurred in the second industrialization and
in the early process of the formation of European mass society. Youth
organizations spread around Europe when new and diverse functions were
entrusted to the generations that were eligible for party-political involve-
ment, and when the problem of the turnover of grassroots cadres and
 1 PROLETARIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS BEFORE … 19

the enlargement of intermediate cadres arose for the first time at the
beginning of the century.
We lack sufficient information to draw an accurate picture of early
working-class youth organizations. Any picture must be formed out of
the local histories of the proletarian movement. These were essentially
after-work youth groups, engaged in sports and recreational activities.
Only later did they wear a more assured badge of political operability.
In Austria, for example, the first sports associations (generally gathering
membership from the ages between fifteen and thirty), came into being
in the sixties. In the seventies, they drew up an initial program intended
to combine sports with health support for workers, which eventually
developed into a service for the assessment of the economic and social
condition of young workers. Also in Austria, the first cycling groups were
formed in the 1890s. Cycling groups were common to other countries
too—such as Belgium, France and Italy—resulting in many young people
performing cycling-specific socialist propaganda roles in the countryside
(the “red cyclist” teams). A similar chronology is observable in Germany
and Switzerland. According to a local research on the youth movement in
Frankfurt, the first working-class youth sports group was founded in the
city in 1893, probably at the instruction of the newly formed Arbeiter-
Turnerbund Deutschlands (Gymnastic Federation of Germany), which,
grouping together other new and similar sports associations across the
country, had held its first congress in Gera, Thuringia, during the Whitsun
of 1893.25
In Switzerland, sports-educational associations, aimed particularly at
apprentices, remained for a long time the only points of reference for
young workers among the local array of class organizations. In 1874,
the Grütli-Turnverband sprung up from five local sections. On the
initiative of socialists and Protestant pastors particularly committed to
assisting working-class youth, this type of association would develop into
a more political shape until, in February 1914, a clear separation emerged
between the bourgeois and proletarian contingents, which each numbered
around 4000 on the eve of the war. But unlike in Belgium with the Young
Guards, youth associations in Switzerland overcame existing linguistic,
local and economic differences only very late, around 1910. By 1907,
a youth federation encompassing the French-speaking cantons had not

25 Arbeiterjugendbewegung in Frankfurt 1904–1945. Material zu einer verschütteten

Kulturgeschichte. Vorwort von W. Abendroth. Frankfurt aM, 1978.
20 P. DOGLIANI

yet been formed. The Jeunesse socialiste had been formed in Lausanne
in 1901, and was reabsorbed into the activities of the Socialist Party,
which had also transformed its eponymous press organ, now in its seventh
issue, into the periodical Le Socialiste. The activity of young Swiss workers
continued to be concentrated in the industrial center of Zurich. In March
1900, Protestant Socialist pastor Paul Pflüger opened a youth house in
the city, attended essentially by apprentices from the canton. At first it
had offered a place for debates, readings and physical education, but
then gradually “took on the character of a socialist struggle organization,
carrying on educational action, anti-militarism and syndicalism.” A “sec-
retariat for the protection of apprentices” was also set up, which spread
out into youth branches in Zurich’s industrial hinterland: Wiedikon,
Altstetten and Höngg. On Christmas Day 1906 the national federa-
tion of Jungburschenvereine was established in Zurich, which continued
in the following years to develop almost exclusively in the German-
speaking territories (in Bern, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, Basel, St. Gallen,
Constance), and always considered the physical and recreational education
of its members to be paramount.26
National youth movements were determined by varying legislation and
political experiences, so it is difficult to arrive at a clear typology. In
France, the working-class youth movement was affected by localism and
the organizational dispersal of the working class. In the 1890s, the Alle-
manist Party had created a youth federation that, like the adult party,
based its strongholds in the artisanal and early metalwork districts of
Paris, as well as in some localities in the Ardennes and Yonne. Little is
known about this federation. At the Stuttgart conference, it was reported
on a single 1902 issue: Feuille du Soldat, printed on the occasion of
the drawing of lots for the military draft. A few years after the birth
of the first organization, the Dreyfus Affair motivated a tactical recon-
sideration among participants in the anti-militarist struggle, particularly
in the Guesdist party (POF)—which emerged in 1890–1894, and in the
party founded in 1898 by Vaillant, the Parti socialiste révolutionnaire:
Psf. Both parties created youth organizations, distributed only across
the controlled regions and inspired by the specific anti-militarist and
revolutionary traditions from which each drew. In 1899, the Vaillantist
party recorded “about 200 groups scattered throughout France, among

26 Die schweizerischen Jungburschenvereine. Eine kurze Wegleitung für Freunde der

sozialistischen “Jugend-Organisation”. Zürich, 1909.
 1 PROLETARIAN YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS BEFORE … 21

which some counted up to 600–800 members with quotas, especially

in the Saône-et-Loire.” There were groups also in Paris, in the neigh-
borhoods where the Communard and Blanquist traditions had survived;
in the Cher region, and in some of the territories bordering the Massif
Central, conquered by Vaillant in the first electoral campaigns of 1893
and 1898. In the early twentieth century, the Vaillantist youth federation
in the Southeast also began publishing a weekly newspaper: Drapeau-
rouge. At the same time, the Guesdist youth (strong in the North, South
and Center-East of France) went about educational initiatives, promoting
some eighty youth clubs and publishing a periodical, which appeared
from May 1901 to May 1902: La Jeunesse Socialiste. The Guesdist and
Vaillantist youth federations collaborated in January 1900 when they
began jointly publishing and circulating a new journal aimed at recruits:
Conscrit. Upon the national unification of the POF with the PSR in
1901, however, “the new party [the PSF] refused to give a national youth
federation the right to exist within it.”27 A similar decision was made
when the SFIO was formed in 1904. The new party, born into a context
of opposing political currents, opted not to maintain an anti-militarist
organization within it that it could not control, moving instead locally,
toward anarchism and greater contact with syndicalist formations. Some
Parisian Vaillantist groups survived 1904 and formed the 42nd section
of the Seine Socialist Federation, tacitly supported by Vaillant, and later
by Jaurès. Two regional youth associations remained autonomous; that
of the Ardennes, in direct contact with the action of the Young Belgian
Guards, and that of the agricultural region of Yonne, which was influ-
enced by Gustave Hervé’s anti-militarism, and became popular at the turn
of century, through the reach its periodical: Pioupiou de l’Yonne, managed
to achieve outside the region.
In Germany, by contrast, only the impediment of Prussian legislature
prevented the unification of young socialists. Since 1853, a law had been
in force in Prussia prohibiting freedom of expression and political asso-
ciation for those under the age of eighteen. As a result, workers’ youth

27 News from Organisation, 579–582, and Le Socialiste, a. 28, n. 361 and 382, 2–9
juin, 27 octobre–3 novembre 1912; and also from general historical reconstructions: M.
Rebérioux. Jaurés et la nation. Actes du Colloque Jaurès et la nation. Toulouse 1965,
1–27; and C. Willard. Le mouvement socialiste en France. Les guedistes. Paris 1965, 87–92.
Only two works have addressed the specific subject: Y. Cohen. Les jeunes, le socialisme et
la guerre: Histoire des mouvements de jeunesses en France. Paris, 2000; and C. Bouneau.
Socialisme et jeunesse en France 1879–1969. Pessac, 2009.
Another random document with
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 The children, set off together in high spirits. Even Rosa, although she
know she was going to the house of mourning, caught something of their
spirit, and chatted cheerfully by the way.

Dr. Vale was just driving up to Owen's door when they arrived.

"That's right! all punctual," said he, as he alighted; and when he looked
upon their bright faces, he felt thankful that his little group had been so far
spared from sickness and death. The happy young voices were hushed in an
instant, as they entered the dark, quiet room, into which the street-door
opened. There was but a little furniture, and that of the plainest sort, yet all
was neat and tidy. The pale, lifeless form of the mother was stretched upon
the bed, and close at its side there nestled a sleeping infant, rosy with
health.

The little girl, who was sitting beside them, her head on her hands,
jumped up as the strangers came in. She instantly recognised the doctor, and
said, in a low voice, "Won't the docther plase to be sated, and the young
gintleman and ladies?"

Noiselessly she put forward the chairs, and whispered as she did so,
"Whisht! the poor babby has been grievin' so I could not hush him at all,
and sorra a bit would he sleep till I laid him there by poor mammy, and then
he cuddled up to her cold side and seemed quite contint."

"Poor baby!" said Rosa, the tears in her eyes.

They all drew near to the bed, and looked into the face of the dead. Harty
gave one glance and then stepped to the door; he could not bear it; he felt a
choking in his throat to which he was quite unaccustomed.

As Rosa and Lucy looked upon the calm, sweet expression of the face,
they felt no chill of horror. Death seemed less terrible to Lucy than it had
ever done before. "She is happy now?" half questioned she of Rosa.

Rosa looked puzzled, but the doctor replied, "Yes, she is happy. 'I'm
going home,' were her last words. She has only gone to be with the Friend
whom she has served faithfully through life."
 "Did you say mammy was happy?" asked Judy, the little girl who had
been acting as nurse.

"Happy with the angels in heaven," was the doctor's reply.

"Then I'd not want her back again, to be sorrying here. Little peace she's
had, with that misery in her side, for many a day. Why, the lifting of Larry
there, was enough to make her all put to it for an hour. Poor fayther, he can't
get along with it all: sorra a bit has he tasted to-day, and he cried fit to break
his heart when he went away to work this morning; but he said he must go,
for he'd niver a sixpence to pay for the burying."

The poor little girl had been so long alone that it seemed to be quite a
relief to her to talk to some one who felt for her.

"You'll be a comfort to him, I know," said Rosa, gently.

"I'll lave nothing untiched that I can turn my hand to," answered Judy,
earnestly.

The talking, although it was in a low voice, waked Larry, and he began
to moan piteously. He put out his hand, touched the cold face near him, and
then drew it quickly away. He half-raised his head, but seeing that it was his
mother's cheek that had so startled him, he again put forth his hand and
patted her gently until he was again asleep.

"And what will poor Larry do when they lay her in the cold ground?"
said little Judy, half crying.

"He will soon be comforted," whispered Rosa: "God will take care of
you both. It must have been a long time since your mother has been able to
sew," she continued, to divert Judy's mind from her trouble.

"Ach! yes. She has not set a stitch for two months gone; and there's
Larry, with sorra a bit of clothes but them he has on, savin' this thrifle of a
frock that I've been trying to wash for the burying."
 As she said this she put her hand on a little faded calico frock that was
hanging near the window.

"I think we can get some clothes for Larry," said Rosa: "may I take this
home with me for a pattern?"

Judy looked a little confused, but she answered, "Sartainly, miss."

"Can you sew, Judy?" asked Rosa.

"I never was learnt," was Judy's reply.

"Would you like to have me teach you? If you would, you may come to
me every Saturday morning, and I will show you how."

Judy's eyes brightened, and she was going to accept the offer very gladly,
when she thought of Larry, and changed her mind.

"I can't lave Larry; there's nobody but me to mind him now."

"You may bring him with you; I know Lucy here will take care of him,"
said Rosa.

"Oh yes, I will, if he won't be afraid to stay with me," said Lucy.

Before they left the house it was agreed that Judy should come the next
Saturday morning for her first lesson in sewing, if her father did not object.

Dr. Vale, who had been standing without the door with Harty, met the
girls as they came out. He stepped back when Judy was alone, and placed
some money in her hand, telling her to give it to her father, and say to him,
that his children should not want for a friend while Dr. Vale was in the
neighbourhood.

Judy curtseyed, and spoke her thanks as well as she was able, but they
were not heard, for the doctor hurried away, and in a few moments had
driven from the door.
 Very little was said on the way home. As they passed an old house, with
a rough, high fence about it, Harty told his sisters that this was where the
people had been sick with small-pox.

Lucy clasped Rosa's hand a little closer, and they both stopped more
rapidly.

"Father says nobody need be afraid, for they have all got well, and
nobody took it from them," said Harty.

Notwithstanding this assurance, all the party felt more easy when the
house with the high fence was out of sight.

"Let us stop here and buy the cloth for Larry's frocks," said Rosa, as they
reached the village shop.

While Rosa was looking at some cheap woollen cloth, Harty was
fumbling in his pockets. He drew out some marbles, an old knife, a peg-top,
and some bits of string, and at last he found what he was seeking—a half-
crown, with which he had intended to buy some new fishing-tackle. He
gave one longing look at the money, and then handed it to Rosa, saying,
"Take that for the cloth."

"Yes," said she, very quietly; but a bright, loving smile was on her face,
and Harty felt, happy, although he was blushing as if he had been in
mischief. Like many boys, Harty seemed to feel more ashamed when he did
right than when he did wrong.

When the children were gathered round the table in the evening, Rosa
brought out the old dress, and was just putting the scissors to it when Mrs.
Maxwell exclaimed, "What are you doing, child? are you going to cut that
dress to pieces?"

"I was going to rip it for a pattern," answered Rosa, mildly.

"I suppose you think I could not cut out a frock nice enough for a little
Paddy boy," said Mrs. Maxwell.
 "Oh no, I did not think that!" Rosa replied, smiling; "I should be very
glad to have you help us."

Mrs. Maxwell took the scissors, and the frocks were soon cut out, much
to Rosa's relief, for although she had resolved to do it, it was her first
attempt at dressmaking, and she was afraid that she should only spoil the
cloth.

Then the sewing commenced, and the needles flew so fast that there was
little time for talking. Lucy was allowed to make the skirt, and she sewed it
as carefully as if it had been an apron for her doll, and that was very nicely.
Mrs. Maxwell put on her spectacles and began to sew too, much to Rosa's
surprise; and once she offered to turn the hem for Lucy, when she saw that
she was troubled. It seemed as if the work they were doing put them all in a
good humour, for every face was bright and happy. Even Harty felt as if he
had something to do in the business, and instead of fidgeting about as usual,
annoying everybody, he sat very still for some time, doing no harm, but
breaking off thread from the ball and tying it into knots. At last he said,
"Shall I read to you?"

"Yes, do," said Rosa and Lucy, both at once.

"Well, I will, if Lucy will get my Natural History off my table."

Lucy jumped up in a moment, and ran for the book: the hall-lamp
showed her the way until she got to the room door, and then, by the faint
starlight, she easily found the volume. There were other books which Rosa
would have preferred, and Harty was a very dull reader; but she listened
patiently, and got quite interested at last in an account of an elephant that
went mad in London, a favourite story with Harty.

Lucy was very sorry when bed-time arrived; but there was not a word to
be said, for Mrs. Maxwell put the lamp in her hand, and bade her "Good
night" most decidedly.

As Lucy entered her own pretty room, she thought of little Judy
watching beside her dead mother in that poor cottage, and she wondered
that it had never struck her before that God had surrounded her with so
many blessings.

Judy's washing had not been very well done, and as Rosa thought best to
send back the little frock as soon as possible, she was in haste to have it
made clean.

After Lucy had gone to bed, she went to the kitchen with it in her hand.
Old Betsy was sitting by the fire, looking very stupid and cross. Rosa was
almost afraid to ask her to do what she had intended. She took courage,
however, and said, "Betsy, I want you to wash this little frock for a poor boy
who has no other to wear but the one he has on. I know you would be glad
to do it, if you had seen the poor little fellow lying by his dead mother: he
has nobody at home to wash his clothes now."

Betsy had looked very sour when Rosa commenced, but softened as she
continued to speak, and when Rosa finished, she took the little frock in her
hand, saying, "I suppose I shall ketch something, handling this thing, but I
can't say no to you, for you are the image of your mother."

"Thank you, Betsy," said Rosa; "I hope I may be like my mother. You
need not do the frock to-night; it will be time enough in the morning. The
funeral is not till three o'clock to-morrow afternoon, and I can get Harty to
take it down after school."

"I guess Master Harty will not be running for anybody," said Betsy to
herself, as Rosa went up stairs; but she was wrong: Harty did go, and took
with him, besides, a penny cake, that he had bought for Larry.

CHAPTER XII.

THE VISITOR.
 Rapidly, happily, the weeks flew by at Dr. Vale's cottage: there seemed to
be a new spirit at work there. Lucy no longer looked sad and drooping:
there was always a bright face to welcome her return from school, and some
one to listen to her account of the occurrences of the day. If her lessons
were difficult, Rosa was always ready to explain them, and to encourage her
to more persevering study. By degrees, Lucy was learning to share all her
feelings with her sister. Sometimes Rosa found these confidences rather
tiresome, but she never checked them, as she Was anxious that Lucy should
speak to her without restraint, that they might be able to talk freely on the
most important of subjects.

Many of Lucy's fears seemed to have passed away without effort as she
became more cheerful; others she had been enabled to conquer by Rosa's
kind advice; but the great secret of the new courage that she seemed
acquiring, was found in the few words, "God is with me, God loves me,"
which were seldom far from Lucy's mind.

At first she could not help feeling that when she had done wrong, God
had ceased to love her. Then Rosa would read to her passages from the
Bible where the Saviour speaks of having come to save sinners, and would
remind her, again and again, that she was God's own child.

"God made you, my dear Lucy," she would frequently say; "and He
loves everything that He has made, and 'would not that any of His little ones
should perish.' Christ has died that you may be forgiven; He has promised
to receive all that truly come unto Him; His child you were made in
Baptism, and His child you are glad to be; then why should you fear?"

"It seems so strange that God is willing to forgive me so often," Lucy

would reply, "I can hardly believe it."

"It is, indeed, most wonderful; but for Christ's sake His poor erring
followers are received, if they truly repent," would Rosa answer.

"I wish I could be perfect in a minute," said Lucy, one day; "I get tired of
trying."
 "When Christ has done so much for us that wo may share His happy
home in heaven, we ought to be willing to stay here as long as He pleases,
and strive to follow His example. If we prayed more earnestly for God to
assist us, we should find it easier to do right; for God gives His Holy Spirit
freely to them that ask Him. If you can constantly remember that God is
with you, you will soon learn to turn to Him when you are tempted,"
answered Rosa.

Lucy thought that Rosa had no trouble to do right always; but it was a
mistake. Many times hasty words came to Rosa's lips, and unkind thoughts
were offered to her mind; but they wore followed so quickly by the effort to
subdue them, and the prayer for aid, that they never were made known to
those around her.

Cold winter weather had come: it seemed to make Harty only the more
full of life and spirits. When he came in from the keen air, there was always
a bustle in the circle round the fire. Sometimes he would lay his cold hands
suddenly on Lucy's neck, and shout with laughter as she shivered and drew
away; sometimes Rosa's cheeks got rubbed with a snow-ball until they were
redder than usual; and almost always the noisy fellow was reproved by Mrs.
Maxwell for bringing in so much snow or mud on his boots.

Yet Rosa was learning to love her rough brother very dearly, and she
even fancied she could see some improvement in him. After a long talk
with his sister, he would be more gentle and quiet for a few days; but soon
some trifle would throw him into a passion, and all his goodness departed.
He was so accustomed to speaking rudely to Lucy, that he never thought of
it afterwards; yet he was mortified when in his fits of passion he had been
unkind to Rosa.

She never seemed to retain any remembrance of his fault, but was ready
to meet him pleasantly again as soon as his bad humour had passed away.

He could not help admiring her noble spirit; and every day he felt more
and more sure that there was some strength in the principles that could keep
a high-spirited girl like Rosa uniformly gentle.
 By degrees Harty took less pleasure in teasing Lucy, and more happiness
in her society. She had followed Rosa's hints, and tried not to be vexed and
hurt by trifles, and really was becoming more interesting as she grew more
cheerful and talkative.

Dr. Vale was still obliged to be very much away from home, but the time
that he could spend with his family he greatly enjoyed; and he often
rejoiced that Rosa had been brought home to throw around her such an
atmosphere of sunshine.

Even Mrs. Maxwell had relaxed a little from her stiffness: she
occasionally allowed Rosa to put Harty's room in order at first, and finally
she gave up that charge entirely to her. This arrangement prevented much
disturbance, for Rosa handled carefully the veriest trash, which she knew
had value in Harty's eyes; and there were no more broken cobwebs to put
him out of temper.

Often, when Mrs. Maxwell was weary, she found a comfortable chair
placed for her by the fire; when her eyes were painful at night, unasked,
Rosa would read the daily paper aloud. Such trifling attentions were very
grateful to the faithful housekeeper, and it soon became a favourite joke
with Harty to call Rosa "Mrs. Maxwell's pet."

As regularly as Saturday came, little Judy appeared, leading Larry by the

hand, for he was now nearly two years old, and a fine healthy boy.

Lucy often wished that she could stay in the room with Rosa and Judy,
but the latter could never attend to her sewing while her little brother was in
her presence. She was constantly stopping to bid him say, "Thank ye" to the
lady, or shame him for running about as if he were as much at home as the
ladies.

Lucy found it very easy to amuse Larry, and before long she grew fond
of him, and looked forward with pleasure to his Saturday visit.

With Harty's consent, and Mrs. Maxwell's valuable assistance, some of

his old clothes were "cut down" for Larry, and he was warmly dressed in a
good great-coat and cap, that delighted him exceedingly, though Judy could
not help laughing when she first saw him in them.

Judy learned much more than the use of the needle from Rosa. As she sat
sewing, Rosa taught her many sweet hymns and passages from Scripture,
and led her to look to her kind Heavenly Father as a friend who would
"never leave nor forsake her."

The short winter days and the long winter evenings soon passed away.
One bright spring morning Lucy was looking at the hyacinths that were
blooming beside the cottage wall, when she heard a footstep, and, turning
round, she saw a stranger standing beside her. Once she would have started
away like a frightened bird; but now she did not think of herself, but waited
politely until the stranger should announce his errand.

"The flowers are peeping forth again; I see you love them," he said,
cheerfully; "and what a place this is for birds; I never heard such a
twittering. Are there any robins in the old nest at the bottom of the garden?"

"Oh yes, they have come," answered Lucy, wondering who could know
so well about the robin's nest.

"We ought to be friends, Lucy," continued the stranger's pleasant voice,

"for I could hush you when you were a baby, when nobody else could make
you stop crying. You were a fat little thing then, and you are not so very
much heavier now." And he jumped the little girl high in the air.

Lucy by this time had made up her mind, that whoever the stranger
might be, she liked him.

"Can it be uncle Gillette?" she had once thought to herself; but she
immediately decided that it was not he, as she had always imagined him
very stern, with large black eyes, and the stranger's face was mild and
cheerful, and his eyes were of a soft hazel.

"I have more little friends in the house," said the gentleman, and with
Lucy's hand in his, he entered the door. Rosa was half-way down stairs; she
caught one glimpse of the stranger, and then gave a flying leap, which
nearly brought her to his side.

"Oh! uncle Gillette, I am so glad to see you," she said, as he bent to kiss
her, apparently as delighted as herself.

Harty came out to see what was the cause of all this commotion, and was
greeted with a cordial shake of the hand, and the address, "I hope Harty has
not forgotten his old playfellow, uncle Gillette."

The children thought their father welcomed their uncle somewhat coldly;
but they changed their minds when they found that he had been expecting
him for several days, and had accompanied him from the station to the gate.

Lucy had supposed that she should be very much afraid of Mr. Gillette,
as she knew that he was very learned and good; but she found him as mild
and simple as a little child, and she was most happy to take the low stool he
placed for her at his side, and look into his pleasant face, while she listened
to his conversation.

She was heartily sorry when she heard him say that he was to leave on
Monday morning, for as it was Saturday, they would have but a short visit
from him.

There was no settled clergyman at Chatford at this time, the rector being
absent for the benefit of his health. On this account a long time had passed
since the children of the parish had been catechised in the church. There
was therefore no small bustle among the little people when it was
announced on the Sunday morning after Mr. Gillette's arrival, that the
children would be called upon to recite the Catechism that afternoon,
immediately after the service.

There was much buzzing and studying at noon; and many a boy was
astonished that he had forgotten what was once so familiar to him, in the
long interval which had passed since the last catechising.

Even Lucy was glad to study over what she called the "long answers,"
although she never failed to repeat them with her brother and sister every
Sunday evening. She did not dare to lay her Prayer Book aside until Rosa
had patiently heard her say the whole Catechism, and pronounced it
perfectly learned.

Many young hearts that had palpitated with fear at the idea of reciting to
a stranger, were reassured when the Rev. Mr. Gillette arose after the
Evening Service, and said, "The children may now come up to the chancel."

Without a thought that any one was observing her, Lucy stepped out and
joined the throng of boys and girls that were moving up the aisle. Julia
Staples was tittering in the pew behind, and Judy M'Grath was walking at
her side; but she did not see either of them; she felt that she was in God's
holy temple, and about to perform a solemn duty, and she inwardly prayed
that she might be able to understand and improve by Mr. Gillette's
explanations.

The children were allowed to recite together, and their voices joined in a
full chorus, as they answered correctly all the questions of the Catechism.
Glances of triumph and congratulation passed from eye to eye as they
finished, or not once had they faltered, even in the most difficult parts.

"What is the Catechism?" asked Mr. Gillette.

"It is a preparation for Confirmation," answered one of the boys.

"You have all recited the Catechism perfectly; are you then prepared to
be confirmed?" said Mr. Gillette.

There was no answer for a moment, and all looked confused; at length
there was a faint "No."

"I fear not," continued Mr. Gillette: "how, then, must you say this
Catechism before you are ready to be confirmed?"

"We must speak it from the heart," said Judy M'Grath.

Some of the boys smiled at her Irish accent, but one glance from Mr.
Gillette sobered them.
 "Right! When do you take upon yourselves the promises made for you
by your sponsors in Baptism?" he asked.

"At Confirmation," several replied.

"True," said Mr. Gillette, "at Confirmation you take these promises
publicly upon yourselves. I see many before me," said he, looking tenderly
about him, "who are too young for Confirmation, but hardly a child who is
not old enough to make those solemn promises to God in private, and strive
earnestly to keep them. Do not wait, my dear children, until you are old
enough to be confirmed, before you promise to love and obey the Saviour
who has redeemed you. Your sponsors laid you as infants on His bosom;
turn not from Him with your first feeble footsteps. You were made members
of Christ at Baptism; ask God this day to help you to live as the lambs of
His flock. If you commence now to strive to keep your baptismal promises,
Confirmation will indeed be, as it ought, a strengthening of you in all that is
good, an assistance in leading that holy life which becomes the children of
God, the members of Christ, and the inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.

"Let me ask you once more, Do you not believe that you are bound to
believe and do as your sponsors promised for you? Let me hear that answer
again, and may God give you strength to speak it from the heart."

"Yes, verily, and by God's help so I will; and I heartily thank our
Heavenly Father that He has called me to this state of salvation, through
Jesus Christ our Lord," was heard from the throng around the chancel.

Even those who stood nearest to Lucy could hardly hear her voice; no
human friend saw her uplifted eye; but God, who seeth all hearts, accepted
the vow she made in His holy temple, and she felt more fully than she had
ever done before, that she was indeed the child of God.

Lucy was not the only child who had listened earnestly to Mr. Gillette. It
was the last time that he ever addressed those children; but there will be
those at the resurrection who will thank him for the words he spoke that
day: good resolutions were then roused in young hearts, which strengthened
until they became strong principles, which supported through life, sustained
in death, and were perfected in heaven.
 CHAPTER XIII.

SICKNESS.

All was changed at Dr. Vale's cottage on Monday noon: Mrs. Maxwell,
Harty, and Lucy once more sat down to dinner by themselves. The doctor
was with a distant patient, and Rosa had gone with Mr. Gillette, to pass a
few days in the city.

Although Mr. Gillette had been with them so short a time, both Harty
and Lucy were sorry to part with him; and they did not wonder at Rosa's
strong attachment to their uncle.

Lucy felt very sad when it was first proposed that Rosa should leave
home, although it was only for a few days; but she knew this was a selfish
feeling, and struggled to overcome it. Early on Monday morning the
packing of Rosa's trunk commenced. Lucy ran about to wait on her sister,
and helped her in her preparations as cheerfully as if she herself were of the
party; she even insisted upon lending her certain belts and ribbons which
were the treasures of her wardrobe.

Harty was not up when the carriage came to the door; he had been called
once, but had fallen asleep again. He thrust his tumbled head from the
window, and bade his sister a hearty farewell as she drove from the door.

This little circumstance seemed to have put him in a bad humour for the
day. He pushed away his plate at breakfast, declaring he would not eat a
mouthful of such trash; although everything was very nice, and there were
hot cakes, of which he was usually very fond. Notwithstanding Harty's ill-
humours, he was a favourite with old Betsy, and she was always careful to
send him up a good breakfast, even when he had been lazy.
 At dinner, his temper did not seem to have improved. "How you do eat,"
he said to Lucy: "it takes away my appetite to see you stuff so. I will speak
to father about it."

Poor Lucy looked up in surprise, for she was only quietly taking a
moderate meal. Once she would have answered pettishly or begun to cry,
but Rosa had taught her that a cheerful as well as a soft answer often turneth
away wrath, and she smilingly replied, "Why, Harty, I shall not be a stout,
rosy girl soon, unless I make good dinners. Do try some of this horse-
radish, it will make you relish your dinner as well as I do."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Harty, impatiently, "you need not try so hard to be

like Rosa: you can never hit it; you are as unlike as an acorn to an apple."

Lucy blushed, and was glad that Mrs. Maxwell spoke to her just then, for
she was hurt by her brother's rudeness, and tempted to make a hasty reply.

Mrs. Maxwell wanted a certain apron for a pattern, and Lucy ran for it as
soon as dinner was over, little thinking that even Mrs. Maxwell had learned
something from Rosa, and had spoken to her at that moment to change the
conversation.

Lucy really felt sorry to see Harty come into the dining-room after tea,
as if he intended to spend the evening there, for the frown was on his brow.
She was about to ask him why he did not go to see John Staples, when she
remembered that Rosa had said that John was a bad companion, and that
sisters ought to do everything to make their home pleasant, even when their
brothers were cross and disagreeable; for boys were often led into
temptation when out of the house, from which they were safe when at
home.

With these thoughts in her mind Lucy laid aside a mark which she was
working for Rosa, and which she was anxious to finish before her return,
and went for the chequer-board.

"Don't you want to beat me?" she asked gently of Harty.

"It is so easy to do that, I don't care for it," was his reply.
 The little girl was not discouraged; she took out her scrap-book and
pictures, and the bottle of gum-arabic, and placed them on the table. She
knew Harty would be sure to take an interest in some new engravings which
one of the school-girls had that day given her.

A spirited engraving of a wild horse caught his eye, and he soon was
engaged in looking over the addition to the old stock, and in advising Lucy
where to paste them. One of the engravings he claimed as his own. Lucy
knew perfectly that he was mistaken, but she gave it to him without a word;
and when he laughed at her awkward way of using the brush, she joined in
the laugh, holding up her sticky fingers in a comical way.

Presently Harty put his head on the table, and fell fast asleep.

"Harty must be unwell," said Mrs. Maxwell, as she roused him from his
heavy sleep, and told him he had better go up to bed.

Grumbling at being waked, he disappeared, without saying Good night

to anybody.

Rosa's room looked lonely and deserted to Lucy as she passed it that
night; and she wondered, as she put the lamp down on her own little table,
where her sister was, and what she was doing.

That pretty room was a different place to Lucy from what it once was.
She did not think of looking for robbers now; she had given that up long
ago; and when she looked out of the pleasant window, the stars seemed like
spirits, that told her of the power of the great God, who was her friend. She
had ceased to hear mysterious noises in the orchard; the stillness of the
night was only disturbed by the twittering of some restless bird, or the
waving of the tender leaves in the soft wind; but Lucy felt no fear as she
looked out upon the quiet scene. Once she had been afraid of ghosts, and
often feared at night to see some white figure rise before her; but since she
had learned to love the ever-present, invisible God, she felt safe from all
harm, whether from spirits or evil men. Lucy liked to be alone now, that she
might think about the gentle Saviour who was ever with her. To that Saviour
she spoke in sincere prayer that night. Her brother was not forgotten: she
prayed that God might watch over him and make him truly good, and as she
did so there was not a harsh feeling in her heart towards him,
notwithstanding his unkindness during the day.

In the middle of the night Lucy woke suddenly: she did not long doubt
as to what had roused her, for the rain was falling in torrents, and soon there
was a heavy clap of thunder, at almost the same moment that the room was
lit by the glare of lightning. Lucy lay very still: she could not help feeling
that there was some danger, but she was calm and peaceful. "The lightning
is in God's hand, my Father's hand," she thought. "He will take care of me;"
and she was soon almost asleep again. A loud groan made her start up in
bed and listen. It was repeated, and seemed to come from Harty's room.
Without a thought but of alarm for her brother, she slipped on her shoes,
and throwing her little wrapper about her, she ran to him.

"What is the matter, Harty?" film asked, as she stood by his side.

"Go away! they'll not get me; I know where to hide," he muttered.

"Wake up, Harty," said Lucy, "there's nobody trying to catch you."

The lightning lit the room, and she saw that her brother's eyes were wide
open, and that his cheeks were flushed. She took his hand; it was burning
hot: he snatched it from her, saying, "Let me go, John, you don't play fair."

"Don't you know me, brother?" said Lucy, leaning over him.

"Oh yes, Thomas; tell Betsy to bake me some cakes," was his reply.

Poor Lucy! what should she do? She did not like to leave her brother to
call Mrs. Maxwell; yet something, she knew, ought to be done for him
immediately. At length she thought to knock on the wall, and wake Mrs.
Maxwell, as her room was next to Harty's.

"What, afraid again?" said Mrs. Maxwell, as she saw Lucy standing by
her brother's bed.

A groan from Harty, and a few muttered words, immediately drew her
attention to him.
 "I told you he was ill last night; why, how hot he is! Harty, what ails
you?" said Mrs. Maxwell in a breath.

Harty could not tell what ailed him, for he was delirious with fever.

"What shall we do?" said Mrs. Maxwell, desperately: "your father won't
be home till near morning, I know, and I am afraid to give any medicine, for
he always scolds about my 'dosing the children.'"

"But Harty ought to have something done for him, I am sure," said Lucy.

"Well, we'll do what we can to put him in a perspiration," said Mrs.

Maxwell. "I'll go to the kitchen and make him some hot drink, and get hot
water for his feet, and may be that'll be the best thing till the doctor comes
home." So saying, she disappeared with the light she had brought in her
hand.

Lucy put on her brother's great coat, that lay on a chair; for the storm had
cooled the air, and she was quite chilly. Thus equipped, she began to act the
nurse as well as she could. Her first step was to light a lamp. Harty had a
nice lucifer-box on his shelf: she felt carefully for it, and managed to find it
without knocking down any of his treasures.

Not a thought of fear crossed her mind, although Mrs. Maxwell had gone
to the kitchen in the basement, and there was no one near to aid her, if her
brother should attempt in his delirium to injure her. Love to God made her
trust in His protection; love to her brother made her forgetful of danger to
herself while striving to be useful to him. She bathed his burning forehead,
and moistened his parched lips, and often spoke to him tenderly, hoping he
might answer her naturally. Sometimes, for a moment, she fancied he knew
her, but as she bent to catch his words, some unmeaning sentence would
convince her she was mistaken. How welcome was the sound of her father's
footstep! Unconscious of any evil, Dr. Vale entered the house, and was
hurried to Harty's bedside. Lucy watched his face as he felt her brother's
pulse and noticed his other symptoms, and her heart grew sadder yet as she
read his deep anxiety.
 Mrs. Maxwell told him how fretful and indifferent to food Harty had
appeared during the day, and of his unusual nap in the evening; and as she
did so, Lucy felt grateful that she had borne pleasantly with her brother's ill-
humour, which had, no doubt, been caused in part by disease. How painful
her feelings would have been if she had treated him with unkindness,
though with ever so great provocation! Children can never know how soon
the illness or death of their friends may make them bitterly lament the
slightest harshness towards them.

When Dr. Vale had given Harty such medicines as he thought most sure
to give him relief, he for the first time noticed Lucy, who had kept by the
bedside. Even in his sadness, he almost smiled at the funny little figure
wrapped in the thick coat, with only the face visible, looking out from the
nightcap.

"Go to bed, child; you can do no good here, and it will make you ill to
lose your sleep," he said to her, gently.

"But, father," she pleaded, "I shall not sleep if I do go to bed; I can't bear
to leave poor Harty."

"Mrs. Maxwell and I can do all that is needed for him to-night, my dear,"
said he, kissing her sorrowful face. "To-morrow we shall want you to run
about and wait on us. Go, take some rest, like a good child, that you may be
able to be useful in the morning."

With this motive to console her, Lucy went to her room. When there, all
the fearful reality of Harty's illness came fully upon her. He might be taken
from her, she thought, and at the very idea her tears flowed fast, and her
heart throbbed with distress. Lucy did not long forget the heavenly Friend
to whom she had learned to go in all her trials. Now she prayed earnestly to
Him to spare her brother's life, or grant him his reason, that he might be
able to realize his awful situation if he indeed must die. After this prayer
she felt more composed, although very, very sad. At last she fell asleep, and
did not wake until the sun was several hours high.

Her first thought in waking was of her brother. She stole gently to his
door. Mrs. Maxwell was sitting beside him: she motioned to Lucy to go
away, and made a sign that Harty was sleeping.

The sorrow and anxiety of that day would have been harder for Lucy to
bear, if she had not been so busy. Mrs. Maxwell did not leave the sick-
room, and Dr. Vale was there nearly all the time; but unwilling as he was to
leave his son, he was obliged to visit other patients several times during the
day.

Lucy was kept almost constantly in motion. She brought for Mrs.
Maxwell what was needed from the surgery or the kitchen, and carried
messages in all directions. She carefully placed a little chair by the door,
and there she sat silently, to be ready whenever she might be wanted.

Lucy did not ask her father any questions, but she hoped from hour to
hour to hear him say that her brother was better; but no such cheering words
fell from his lips.

Towards evening he hastily wrote a letter, and said to Lucy, as he handed

it to her to send to the post, "I have written to Rosa to come home
immediately. Tell Patty to have a room ready for Mr. Gillette; he will return
with her."

These words were full of dreadful meaning to Lucy. Harty must be very
ill, she knew, or Rosa would not have been sent for. Throwing aside her
usual quiet manner, she clasped her father round the neck and sobbed upon
his bosom. "Dear, dear father," she whispered, "do you think Harty will
die?"

"God may spare him," said Dr. Vale, his strong frame shaking with
emotion, and the tears in his eyes.

Lucy had never seen her father so much moved before, and she felt sure
that he had very little hope that her brother would be well again.

She ceased sobbing, and a strange calmness came over her. Every
impatient or unkind word that she had ever spoken to Harty came back to
her; and oh how solemnly she resolved, if he should recover, to be a better
sister to him than she had ever been before! She tried to remember