Young Communist League

The Young Communist League (YCL) is the youth section of the Communist Party of Britain. Although its headquarters is based in London, the YCL has active branches across England, Scotland, and Wales. Aside from sports and social programs, the YCL heavily focuses on publishing political literature, with its own political journal called Challenge. Originally founded in 1921 as a merger between two existing youth movements, the YCL was the youth section of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) until 1991 when the CPGB dissolved. It then reorganised as the youth section of the newly founded Communist Party of Britain, which still exists today. During the 1920s and 1930s much of the YCL's activities focused on sports as a recruitment and organising tool for socialist causes. In 1932 its members led the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout to protest against land enclosures. Many of its members fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), with notable examples including John Cornford and Charlie Hutchison. During the Vietnam War the YCL led a successful campaign to raise large amounts of supplies to be donated to the Viet Cong, and during the 1970s undertook missions to resist Apartheid in South Africa by supplying personnel for the London Recruits. During the 1980s, the YCL's chairman Mark Ashton, led a successful drive to win working class support for LGBT causes in Britain after founding the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners alliance. Today much of the YCL's activities revolve around issues such as trade unionism, anti-austerity causes, and climate change. Youth section of the Communist Party of Great Britain (1921–1988)