Rebel Youth has moved!

Welcome to the old Rebel Youth website. This website houses the archives of Rebel Youth magazine from 2005 to early 2020.

To keep up to date with Rebel Youth magazine, please visit our new website at ry-jm.ycl-ljc.ca!

We are also active on Twitter and on Facebook.

From Canada to Bolivia: Indigenous Resistance to Militarism + Imperialism

The Young Communist League of Canada - Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Canada is pleased to announce From Canada to Bolivia: Indigenous Resistance to Militarism + Imperialism, an upcoming webinar featuring special guest Evo Morales, President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia.

Canada has no Place on the U.N.S.C

Central Executive Committee, June 2020

The YCL-LJC condemns the Canadian States bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. As a Pan-Canadian and working class internationalist organisation we will always remain committed to building the movement for peace and solidarity. Since our 27th Central Convention unmasking the Canadian States growing role in NATO Imperialism and helping build Solidarity movements have been prioritized.

Indian youth movement blazes a trail with COVID-19 mitigation initiatives rooted in solidarity

By Muhammed Shabeer

This article was originally published at peoplesdispatch.org on May 25, 2020. We thank Muhammed Shabeer for allowing us to reprint it.

Millions of people across the globe are in distress due to the COVD-19 pandemic and lockdowns imposed to contain its spread. Progressive sections, including youth and farmers and workers’ organization have been in the forefront of providing relief and assistance to the people. In places where strong socialist governments are pursuing pro-people policies to tackle the COVID-19 emergency, progressive youth and volunteers are powerfully facilitating social solidarity. Youth from the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, Young Communist League-Cuba and Communist Youth League of China have played such a role in countries like Vietnam, Cuba, China.

Say his name: George Floyd

Central Executive Committee, June 2020
This post was originally published as a statement at ycl-ljc.ca

The YCL-LJC expresses full and unwavering support for those fighting for justice for George Floyd, Regis Korchinsky-Paquet, and all others murdered by police in white-supremacist violence. Alongside their communities, we mourn the lives of George Floyd, a black man murdered by police in Minneapolis and Regis Korchinsky-Paquet, an Afro-Indigenous woman murdered by police in Toronto. Solidarity actions continue to take place across North America, with thousands taking to the streets to demand justice. The corporate media continues to call it looting, violence and disorder, however those who fight on the side of justice call it an uprising, a rebellion, and class-struggle.

Grocery Workers Talk Poverty Wages and Pandemic Profits

By Michelle Paquette and Doug Yearwood, YCL-LJC members in Ottawa

This article was originally published in Rank and File

After large private sector grocery retailers introduced pay increases for frontline workers, Herb & Spice—a locally owned and operated grocery store in Ottawa— announced that its employees would receive a $1.50/hour hazard pay increase. Unlike other grocery stores who have committed to maintaining the pay increase until the pandemic subsides, this employer is only delivering hazard pay for a single pay period.

YCL-LJC Salutes the Palestinian people on Nakba Day

Central Executive Committee, May 14th 2020

This statement was originally published on YCL-LJC.ca

On Nakba Day, The YCL-LJC reiterates its wholehearted support for the Palestinian people, and strongly condemns Israel’s occupation and annexation of Palestinian lands. Nakba Day is a day of commemoration for Palestinians who faced mass displacement following the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their towns and villages, many of which were entirely depopulated and destroyed. For 72 years, the Palestinian people have been fighting for recognition of their own state in the image of their national aspirations. Throughout this time, the Israeli apartheid state has organized the deadliest raids, in total violation of human rights and in total violation of international law.

Check out our new website!

Rebel Youth is migrating to a new space!

Rebel Youth and Jeunesse militante will now be available to read at ry-jm.ycl-ljc.ca

But don't worry! The archives of all articles from 2005 to early 2020 will remain at this space. The French-language archives will remain here.

To transition to our new blog, we will be posting the next five articles on both this website as well as our new blog, but new material will thenceforth be available only at ry-jm.ycl-ljc.ca

We encourage our readers to check out our new page and to bookmark it for their convenience! Keep your eyes peeled for our 25th print issue of Rebel Youth/Jeunesse militante, which will be released in the coming months.

Access the new Rebel Youth/Jeunesse militante blog by clicking here.

75 Years Since the Victory over Fascism - The Decisive Blow to Colonialism

By Tyson Riel Strandlund

When asked to reflect on the defeat of fascism, the images that come to mind for most are set in Europe, either on the bloody battlefields of World War II, or behind the barbed wire of the concentration camps. For liberal and otherwise revisionist historians, the Holocaust and other atrocities by the Nazis are depicted either as the result of Hitler’s personality or “insanity”, or worse, as an inevitable response to Soviet “totalitarianism”. As historical materialists, we understand that “great man” history or psycho-history of this kind which ignores the material and social forces at play in any historical setting is idealism, and reflects a disdain for the working class on whose shoulders history is truly carried. Indeed, there is some truth in the assertion that German fascism grew from a response to the Soviet Union, but not, as is falsely claimed, a response to Soviet aggression or attacks on personal liberties. For the 75th anniversary of the heroic victory over fascism, for which the Soviet people sacrificed as many as 30 million lives, it’s my hope to help make the case – which at one time was well known – that this victory, for the vast majority of people in the world, was a victory over the forces of colonialism and imperialism.

Death Does Not Dazzle the Eyes of the Partisans

By Adrien Welsh (translated from the French by Bronwyn Cragg)

February 21, 1944, Mont Valérien, 3pm. Nazi rifles detonate and shoot down 23 resistance fighters, half of whom are under the age of 25. All are part of the Manouchian group -- Manouchian, leader of the Partisan Snipers of the Main-d’œuvre immigrée. All but two are foreigners, many are Eastern Europeans, many are Jewish, and others are Spanish Republicans in exile. All are communists.

"Our victory stems from our daily activism": A discussion with elected French communist Diana Kdouh

By Adrien Welsh (translated by Dave McKee)

This article originally appeared in French in Jeunesse militante

France has a long tradition of electing communists locally. As Georges Marchais noted in his 1980 book L’espoir au present (Hope in the Present), “The French Communist Party has 28,000 elected officials, 1500 mayors, nearly 500 councillors. One in five French people live in a communist-controlled municipality.”

Forty years later the French Communist Party (PCF) has certainly faded, especially after the counter-revolution in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Still, even today several “red cities” remain, particularly in the working-class suburbs around urban centres. These centres of power, which elude the bourgeois parties, are commonly called the “red belts.” The tradition of communist municipalities is so strong that it is sometimes crudely identified as "municipal communism." Some town halls have been run by the PCF since the 1920s (the Parisian suburb of Malakoff is a notable example) but the history of most of these red cities began with the Liberation in 1945.

May Day 2020: The Youth will not pay for Capitalism’s Crisis

YCL-LJC Central Executive Committee, May 1, 2020

This statement was originally published on the Young Communist League of Canada - La Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Canada homepage

On the occasion of May 1st 2020, International Workers Day, the Young Communist League of Canada salutes healthcare workers who are on the frontline in the struggle against the COVID-19 Pandemic. We also wish to express our solidarity with those who must continue to work despite the risks of the Pandemic. To all these workers, we reiterate our demand that they be provided at no cost all personal protective equipment and that their health is guaranteed on their workplace. Would that not be the case, their right to refuse to work has to be enforced. We also the more than 10 million people who have lost their job or seen their work hours slashed.

Rent In the Era of COVID-19: An Interview with Victoria Tenant Action Group

By Florian Castle

On the 25th of March, John Horgan’s NDP government outlined their plan for dealing with the COVID-19 Pandemic. The government’s plan was swiftly condemned by Lekwungen territory-based tenant advocacy organization Victoria Tenant Action Group, or VTAG. VTAG’s statement described some of the issues with Horgan’s proposal, most notably the complete insufficiency of their rent subsidy of $500 per month which would cover only a third of the average monthly rent in Greater Victoria.

COVID-19: More than ever, it's time to fight for free education

Manuel Rato

For many students, COVID-19 is synonymous with anxiety: anxiety about the accommodation they will probably no longer be able to afford at the end of the month, anxiety about their food and summer jobs so essential for making ends meet and paying higher and higher tuition fees.

NATO: A Virus as Deadly as COVID-19

By Adrien Welsh

The death toll from COVID-19 exceeds 40,000 and the number of people infected by this pandemic is approaching one million. Given the scale of this health crisis, there is no doubt that emergency measures, in particular to help the most vulnerable, are necessary.

However, the billions of dollars mobilized to respond to COVID-19 mean very little in the face of the colossal sums that the Western imperialist states are constantly pouring out not to fight, but to incubate another virus just as deadly, if not more, than COVID-19: NATO.