This internationalist manifesto was one of the earliest appeals of what would be the Young Communist International. An appeal to young workers, many of whom were veterans of the First World War, all of whom lived through it, to say “to hell with frontiers!”, and join with others in the interest of their class.

‘Remove the Frontiers!’ An Appeal for the International Organisation of all Young Workers. Propaganda Pamphlets of the Young International, 1920.

Remove the frontiers!

An Appeal for the International organisation of all Workers.

The desire for an international union of all workers corresponds with the commencement of the Labour Movement. Even before the bourgeois revolution of 1848, the cry of: “Proletarians of all countries unite!” was raised in the Communist Manifesto. The realisation by the working class of the necessity of common organisation and action was immediately followed by the conviction of international community of interests of the exploited class of all countries. The beginning of the International Workers’ Association dates from the sixties of the last century.

The International organisation of the workers was opposed and counteracted by the formation of powerful national States which took place in the seventies in Germany and Italy. The political alliance of great economic complexes to form national unities, not only brought forth a national ideology of greater or less influence from the point of view of all compatriots, but also it roused in the masses who lacked political education and spiritual culture, the hope of the fulfilment of their political and economical needs within narrow national limits.

This superstition was fed by an alleviation, however inadequate, of their economic condition, which accompanied the expansion of capitalism and imperialism in the last decades before the war. The good economic alliance facilitated the beginning and, later on, the victory of revisionism in the Labour movement and of its international organisation. The Socialist International only existed nominally before the war and manifested itself solely in loquacious resolutions and brilliant congresses. The outbreak of war in the summer of 1914 demonstrated to the whole world its international decay and led outwardly also to its complete collapse.

The workers had to pay for the fraud for years of an International which, in truth, never existed, and paid at the cost of 90 millions of cripples, 10 millions of dead and of nameless misery tor the lack of a strong and determined international organisation.

The young workers ought to remember this.

So to perceive the consequences of the criminal activity of the small Social-Patriotic young groups and of the hesitating, irresolute Independent unions, which results in the setting up of a similar effigy of an International for our generation. The Communist International must be an international of Action, or it will be nothing at all.

The International of Revolution!

The international interests oi the workers are continually increasing. The period of limited national social economies is passed, notwithstanding the establishment of new national States, such as Poland, Jugo-Slavia and Czecho-Slovakia. These States are not the products of an organic development and do not correspond with the economic needs of communities founded up on common interests, but were arbitrarily created by the military victors, for definite ends. The smaller countries, which observed neutrality during the war, are today economically dependent upon the military victorious Anglo-American Imperialism. But it is impossible, even for these, to consolidate themselves and to utilise their victory for a lasting economic world-domination. The crisis has already begun to appear in these countries too. The economic collapse of the vanquished countries draws them also irresistibly towards the abyss. The League of Nations is nothing but the endeavour of imperialism to escape its fate, to found and to sustain, in spite of all national differences, a united capitalist front against the steadily growing proletarian revolution. Young Workers! These things must be frustrated! The international united front of imperialism must be faced by the closed ranks of the International Unity of all workers, the golden International of Capital by the Red International of Revolution, of Communism.

There is no room for frontiers and boundaries.

Remove the frontiers!

This is all the more imperative, because the proletarian revolution, which begun with the Russian revolution of 1917.

can only be victorious by international action. Finland, Lithuania, White Russia, Munich and Hungary did not fail temporarily through internal weakness and inadequacy but through lack of international solidarity.

It is no idle speculation, the history of the past years teaches us:

The Proletarian Revolution can only be victorious internationally, Communism can only be realised and sustained by Internationalism. It is within the Communist International that the most progressive sections of the working-class have forged the weapons to vanquish internationally Imperialism in all countries in the most desperate struggle by forming revolutionary workers’ and farmers’ Councils, by erecting the proletarian dictatorship and by founding the World League of Communist Soviet Republics.

As to the Special Interests of Working Youth in an International Union:

The interests of the young workers are closely bound up with the interests of the whole working class. The one condition necessary for the fulfilment of the economic, political and cultural demands of the working-class youth is the realisation of the proletarian dictatorship.

The working-class youth has, besides, a special interest the closest international unity, for the prompt accomplishment of the social revolution:

The working-class youths are the greatest victims of the misery of today. Our generation, our contemporaries, our brothers in all countries, even we ourselves are crippled by insufficient nourishment, and are the countless and defenceless victims of various epidemics. In all countries with the exception of socialist Russia, in the pronouncedly bourgeois United States, in England, France, Italy as well as in seemingly social-democratic Germany and Austria, the boundless exploitation of millions of young workers by masters and contractors continues in workshops, factories and yards. Our position has even become worse. Exploitation has been intensified owing to insufficient nourishment, furthermore we have to bear the dreadful consequences of the most criminal war.

The products of our diligence and manual labour are pledged for decades to capitalism.

The issue of the gigantic struggle between Capital and Labour, between Imperialism and Communism not only determines our present situation, but above all our future fate. Your own experiences, renewed every day, teach you more clearly and convincingly than any statistics, speeches and writings that a decided amelioration of your economic condition by a reformistic tactics within national limits is impossible.

The realisation of economic freedom is as impossible through a nationally bounded struggle, as is that of our

political aims.

In spite of the fulfilment of our numerous duties and the amount of work done by us, we are still in all countries, again with the exception of socialist Russia without political rights and influence. Hundreds of thousands of us were found fit to sacrifice blood and life at 17 and 18 years of age, on imperialistic battle-fields, but we are not to be authorised to discuss and to vote for the laws immediately concerning us.

Our aims: that all that help to sustain society by their work, shall have an equal voice in the administration of industry and the community–this can, like our economic aim, only be realised by the sharpest international revolutionary struggle, and only after the utter destruction of all capitalist countries.

However it is not only the economic oppression and exploitation, equally cruel in all countries, nor the same disenfranchement that imperatively thrust the working youth into close international organisation; it is a question in a far larger degree of

the same spiritual misery.

In spite of the decay of national States and the rapidly increasing liquidation of capitalist economy in all countries the reactionary sections, of narrow-minded nationalist ideologists and patriotic idealists strive to continue, as of old, the jingo instruction in schools, national Young Men’s Associations, boy-scouts corps and sporting clubs etc. In the newly founded States the waves of patriotic make up beat especially high. The children and young folks of the Entente have their respective countries painted to them in the most glowing colours as the greatest, most victorious and the most world dominating. The national Young Men’s Associations of Germany tend to awaken in the young folks an undying “holy hatred” against the “enemy” and to propagate the mad ideas of a war of revenge.

The capitalist and bourgeois militarists count on the dashing spirit of youth, on their love of adventure and the glowing idealism of their young hearts. The imperialists, greedy for profit and power, intend to make money out of these great and heavenly gifts of the young.

In our ranks, young workers, they recruit most brisky for the mercenary troops of the white volunteer army destined to overthrow bloodily your class for the mass murder of your brothers and parents.

Young workers! These things must never again occur. Never again as in the late war, are hundreds of thousands of the youngest, best and noblest of us to die for the naked interests of the money-bags of imperialism instead of, as they thought, for the sake of ever lasting ideals.

Never again must we blindly shoot our own brothers and parents. No! If ever again we are to risk our lives, and to throw our young bodies against the wild fire of the machine guns, then it will not be for the benefit in the interests of our mortal enemies and under the national flags of the bourgeoisie, but under the red banner of the International, for the complete and lasting liberation of our class, for the proletarian Revolution, for Communism! United political, economic and spiritual needs cry for an international union of all young workers.

One United Young International

Is imperatively necessary for a united general struggle. But the Young International must be an international of living reality, of practical solidarity, of common action. Nothing would be more pernicious and dangerous than a repetition of the Second International, which succumbed so hopelessly.

Nobody is more dangerous for the working youth, nobody plays so criminally with them as those who are endeavouring today to collect the youths in the International of Bluff with its confused and inarticulate pacifist tendencies. Young Workers! Tear off their masks! Unveil their real faces and show them to the broad masses of your friends. Frustrate their tricks with pitiless straightforwardness.

What the working youth need is an international with clear political slogans, with a direct drawn political programme, filled with a dashing and resolute will to struggle, held fast and rendered inseparable by common action.

The Young International exists!

Founded already in 1916. Since that time most of its unions have displayed an enduring anti-militarist revolutionary propaganda. During the war and during the downfall of all international organisations, the Young International was the safe-guard of international socialism. It towered like a rock amid the havoc and the bloody mists of the battle-fields. Their organisations were the rallying points and cradles of revolutionary propaganda and of actions against war. For their members international solidarity did not mean the cheap catch words of revolutionary speeches, but was the expression of their most holy belief and conviction, for which many a man gave witness with his blood.

Thousands of young folks have gone to prison and gaol for the principles and aims of the Young International. In Germany Max Borsdorf died with a hundred of the same creed and the unforgettable champion Karl Liebknecht. In Spain Thomas Meabe. In a Roman gaol Marinozzi. In Russia, Finland, Lithuania and Hungary innumerable heroes fell by the court martials and were cowardly murdered in their defence of the revolution or perished of hunger in the gaols.

The wildest persecution, the most terrible subjugation, however, did not succeed in annihilating the Young International, in weakening the dashing courage of the youth, in stopping the steady development of things.

The Young International exists! Greater, stronger, more closely united, more prepared for battle than ever!

In November 1919, after having survived great difficulties, the representatives of 14 Young People’s Organisations came together in a congress at Berlin to strengthen the international relations, to knit more tightly the international bonds by united work and to set up the new programme,

the Programme of Action of the Young International

for the revolutionary epoch of the proletarian class struggle. Here are to be found clearly and sharply drawn the present situation of working youth, their role and importance in the proletarian revolution and the tasks resulting from for the Young Communist Union and its international organisations.

The Situation of the Young International.

The proof for the correct wording of the aims of all young workers by the Berlin congress was the hearty reception and enthusiastic acquiescence of the organisations of youth in all countries. The manifesto published by the Congress enflamed as with torches the hearts of many hundreds of thousands of young workers. Few months after the Congress the following organisations had already given their acquiescence to the programme formulated in Berlin and had accepted the tactics recommended: the Young Communist Organisation in Lithuania-White Russia and the border countries, the great organisation in Russia, comprising over 100 000 members, parts in Finland, groups in Poland, the organisations in Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Jugo-Slavia, Hungary, Greece, the Young Communist Union in Austria, the Netherlands, the Free Socialist Youth in Germany, the Young Unions in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and strong groups in France and Czecho-Slovakia. New Young Organisations originated at the same time in Ireland, Scotland and England, Communist organisations in the United States as well as in the Far East, in Turkestan and in Sibiria. The Young International encircles the world like a ring. There is no country where groups and organisations of it are not active, no country wherein thousands of young hearts do not beat faster on hearing its name.

The first condition and proposition for a victorious realisation of proletarian revolution; an united, trained, ready and able revolutionary International is there.

Young Workers!

In vain the bourgeois and jingoist circles, in close connection with the mentally related social-patriots and independent leaders of youth, try to ignore these facts in absolute silence or even to distort and falsify the reports concerning them. They fear, and not without just cause, that the least news of the Young International, its programme, its activity and work will be as a spark lighting your hearts and heads, and bring to us the last young workers in the most distant countries and the most backward places.

In vain! Our publications and manifestoes reach all countries, cities, villages, schools, factories and huts and bring news of the keen and hard struggle of 800 000 young friends of all comrades of similar age and class.

Louder and louder do we raise our cry, and ever loftier sound our songs:

Arise, ye prisoners of starvation!
Arise, ye wretched of the earth,
For justice thunders condemnation.
A better world’s in birth.
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us,
Arise, ye slaves! no more in thrall!
The earth shall rise on new foundations,
We have been naught, we shall be all.

And our cry and the song resound in all countries all over the world. They reach you, young friends suffering in the sulphur-mines of Sicily, you hungering comrades in the factories and coal-mines of France, England and Germany, in the gigantic undertakings of America, you millions of tortured apprentices, you millions of young workers of both sexes in work-shops, you millions of enslaved farm-hands and small farmers in Europe, America, Asia and Africa.

And you too, forlorn but upright revolutionaries in schools, universities and colleges.

Listen all of you! Your veins pulse as if filled with streams of fiery lava, you shake of your damnable indifference and nerveless resignation in a seemingly inchangeable fate. You look up and see the closed phalanx of hundreds of thousands of brothers and sisters on the march.

You feel your muscles and nerves stiffening to the task. you leap up and out of want, misery and sheer desperation, from dreary offices, sooty workplaces, smoky factories and dark mines and pits. Out of the cinema theaters, the ale-houses and other places of self-delusion! Out of the bourgeois military clubs! Out of the boy-scout corps, bourgeois sport clubs and the like! Out of the hypocritical neutral clubs! Out of the Labour Party and independent clubs for sport and touring!

Your way, young friends, leads to us. Into our organisations. You belong to us. Enter into the clubs of the revolutionary proletarian youth, into the Young Communist Associations!

A hundred thousand hands are thrust forth to you. Grasp them firmly. Friends! Comrades! Young soldiers of the proletarian world-revolution, of the Red Army!

Close up your ranks. Rally to the red banner of the Young Communist International!

To hell with all frontiers!

Remove the frontiers!

The Executive Committee of the Young Communist International.

PDF of original pamphlet: https://archive.org/download/1928YCIFullInternationalReport/1920%20YCI%20Remove%20the%20Frontiers.pdf