Young Left (Canada)

Young Left (YL) was a revolutionary left-wing youth organization based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The driving force behind the formation of YL was disgruntled youth members of the Communist Party of Canada, who resigned from the party over ideological differences. The precursor organization to Young Left was the Red Star Youth Collective, an organization of Party and non-Party youth allied to the Young Communist League - Preparatory Committee, a body formed by the CPC to reestablish the YCL. The YCL-PC disbanded due to organizational malfunction, leaving the RSYC as the only remaining functional body. With the political struggle within the CPC becoming increasingly bitter, the Toronto youths quit the party to form a new youth-based socialist collective.

This was the basis for the formation of Young Left, which was founded on September 5, 2001 in Toronto at a meeting that brought together several youth activists from around the city with the aim of beginning an independent left-wing youth movement across Canada.

In their original vision statement, it said:

:Inspired by the new movement against corporate power, Imperialism and capitalism that has exploded onto the world scene in Seattle and Quebec City as well as by the ideas and examples of great revolutionary women & men, past and present from all nations such as Che Guevara, Angela Davis, Ho Chi Minh and Norman Bethune. Young Left fights for a better future for the youth and the people. Young Left is an organization of progressive, internationalist and democratic youth with revolutionary idealism and the determination to unite and mobilize the youth of Canada and their diverse talents, abilities and creativity in the radical transformation of our society outlined in our 12 point program.

YL membership was open to all youth between the ages of 14-30 who agreed with the political program.

YL originally planned to re-publish the magazine "Rebel Youth", which was originally published by the YCL-Canada in the 1980s but the magazine was never published until 2005 when the YCL-Canada published its first new issue. YL published "YLiterature", a series of speeches and articles by revolutionary figures such as Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, Rosa Luxemburg, and Amilcar Cabral. YL also printed T-shirts of Che and Angela Davis and sold them to help fund the organization. Young Left maintained the web domain rebelyouth.ca for several years. It was used to publish YL statements, YLiterature, the 12 Point Program, a message board, and links to friendly organizations. It was closed in 2005 to avoid confusion with the YCL's Rebel Youth magazine.

YL was always a small youth collective. Its membership fluctuated and had difficulty sustaining itself - a large part of this was attributed to the lack of political party affiliation and lack of resources as well as the negative influence of "liberalism" and poor methods of work.

Young Left was part of the unsuccessful Rebel Youth Network, which was to be an anti-imperialist coalition of youth groups from the First Nations, Quebec and Canada; but due to internal contradictions and the instability of some of the participating organizations, it never got passed the "organizing committee" stage and collapsed in early 2004.

It is not clear if YL was ever part of the World Federation of Democratic Youth; partially due to disfunction in WFDY. However, YL played a role in the formation of the World Festival of Youth and Students Preparatory Committee, organizing to send a delegation from Canada to the August 2005 Festival in Venezuela.

YL is best known for a series of monthly cultural events called Cafe Che. YL described Cafe Che on their website as:

:an ongoing series of monthly public events, hosted by Young Left, that combines radical politics with working-class youth culture. Discussion topics range from the international to the local, from the historical to the current, with a focus on the various peoples' struggles for social justice. Cultural performances have included hip-hop, spoken word, poetry, live bands playing both traditional and contemporary music, DJs, and independent films and documentaries.

When YL grew to a significant membership base in 2004, the organization was restructured. They declared that they were no longer in the "organizing committee" phase, and had become a functioning organization. YL reorganized on the basis of democratic centralism, with a system of accountability and collectivity.

Membership declined with the structural change in late 2004 and YL underwent a process of rectification to correct past errors, which seems to have failed as the organization no longer exists.

Relationship with Young Communist League of Canada

It is important to note, that while the founding youth of YL quit organizing the youth section of the CPC, many of them remained CPC members and participated in regular party activities. Young Left also maintained good relations with the CPC and its youth. Friendly communications took place with British Columbia based YCL youth, inviting them to an online Internet Relay Chat conference which they did participate in, and when the YCL began to reform in Ontario under new organizers in 2004, they participated with Young Left side-by-side in an Anti-Racist Action organized campaign against pro-Zündel organizers.

Past members

*Marcell Rodden
*Shane Martinez