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.

"Wellness Checks" and Racism in Ontario Policing

By Bronwyn Cragg, YCL-LJC member in Toronto

The past few weeks have seen a rise in mass movements against the racist and ableist history of police killings in both the United States and Canada. The widespread notion that the kind of virulent systemic racism present in the United States does not exist to the same degree in Canada, a notion supported by figures like Doug Ford, is demonstrably false. The perversity of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau kneeling with protestors, while refusing to acknowledge that he himself holds power over the same police force that has caused centuries of displacement and the genocide of Indigenous people is a perversity that progressive Canadians, unfortunately, are not at all surprised by. Protests for Black and Indigenous lives are quietly being rebranded as protests against the killings of George Floyd and others in the U.S., rather than the constant killings in our own streets, and brands and corporations are calling for “peace and solidarity” in order to minimize the real impact of these movements. Ultimately, these actions by the ruling class serve to distract from the issues at hand -- Canadian white supremacy and the oppression of mentally ill people in Canada.

85 Years Since the On-to-Ottawa Trek

By Bronwyn Cragg, YCL-LJC member from Toronto

June 3rd, 2020 marks 85 years since the beginning of the On-to-Ottawa Trek, a watershed moment in Canadian labour history. Rebel Youth commemorates the militancy and unified struggle undertaken by workers and their allies in the summer of 1935 against poor working conditions and low pay, and recognizes that the On-to-Ottawa Trek marks just one moment in the ongoing fight for fair work and a living wage.

My Trip to the DPRK: A Personal Diary

Photos and text by Bronwyn Cragg, February 2019


Surely among the young left, most are tired of hearing the mocking refrain of, “if you love socialism so much, why don’t you go to North Korea?” -- So, I did.

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.

Celebrating Victory Day: Youth in the Fight Against Fascism in Europe

By Bronwyn Cragg

As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi-Fascism, we recognize the struggles and efforts of youth in this victory. The contributions of youth and students in the fight against fascism in Europe and abroad was vast, and each individual story within the broad unified fight could not possibly be done justice in the short space of an article. We provide here only a short glimpse into the multitude of stories of efforts made and of lives given by progressive youth in the first half of the 20th century against the horrors of Nazi-Fascism, and we recognize the need to continue this struggle into the current day:

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.