Young Communist League (Great Britain)
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Young Communist League
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| Chairperson | Owain Holland |
| General Secretary | Zoe Hennessy |
| Founded | 1921, 1988 (re-foundation) |
| Headquarters | Ruskin House, Croydon |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | |
| International affiliation | World Federation of Democratic Youth, WFDY |
| Mother Party | Communist Party of Great Britain |
| Colours | Red and Gold |
| Website | |
| www |
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The Young Communist League (YCL), first established in 1921, was the youth section of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and was disbanded in 1988 along with the CPGB itself. The YCL was re-established in 1991 as part of the reformed Communist Party of Britain. It functions as the youth wing of the Communist Party of Britain, which split from the now dissolved CPGB in 1988.
In August 1921 two of Great Britain's leading radical youth organisations, the Young Workers' League and the International Communist Schools Movement, gathered at a special conference held at Birmingham. The assembled delegates to this Unity Conference passed a proposal calling for the two standing groups to merge under a new name, that of the Young Communist League. This proposal was taken to the rank-and-file of each group and the proposed unified constitution and organisational rules ratified in a referendum of branches held in October.
The YCL was the youth wing of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), which exercised oversight over the group. The YCL modeled itself upon the adult party and, in the estimation of historian Thomas Linehan, "functioned as a younger version of it." In 1954, the YCL supported 'The Red Scout' Paul Garland who had been dismissed from his local Scout Group in Bristol following his dual membership - a controversy with wide media coverage and a debate in the House of Lords. While formally independent, the group was always closely linked to the CPGB and its activities and fortunes broadly followed those of its parent organisation. As with the adult party, the YCL saw itself as part of a unified world movement and took its ultimate direction from the Young Communist International (CYI), with headquarters in Moscow.
The YCL was seen as a recruiting school for activists in the adult party, and the organisation's structure, internal relationships, and tactical activities closely paralleled and followed those of the CPGB. This was in turn a reflection of the structure and practise of the Russian Communist Party (later known as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union). Similarly the Young Communist International which formally stood at the head of the YCL's decision-making process was closely modeled upon the adult Communist International, which was shaped by Russian Communist Party practise.
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