Festival of Youth

To Prague journeyed 30,000 young people of all nations for a "World Festival of Democratic Youth." They had come to "play and work and learn together." They put on dramas, danced folk dances before bonfires. But they were a singularly youth-less lot, for they had a serious task in Prague--the revival (in disguise) of the Young Communist International.

Communism & the Bobby-Soxers. The youth of the world, for which the 30,000 claimed to speak, had suffered deeply. The war had twisted many lives into bizarre shapes of precocious tragedy. For children's toys war had brought Tommy guns, for adolescent fancies bitter demagoguery. Now, when the world had little humor or strength to spare for youth, Communism, set out to capture its allegiance.

Some of Prague's 30,000 were sincere youngsters who had been trapped by Communism's pseudo-progressive propaganda. Others knew precisely what they were about. They belonged to the typical front organizations which carry Communism to the bobby-soxers (most prominent U.S. example: American Youth for Democracy, nee the Young Communist League). The Festival's sponsor is the World Federation of Democratic Youth; its U.S. branch was sponsored by, among others, the Girls' Friendly Society (which later pulled out) and the National Maritime Union.

Dollars & the Trojan Horse. The Prague program was prepared by Otto Katz (alias Andre Simone), a well-known MVD agent. It was a hit. The Russians got thunderous applause when they marched into Masaryk Stadium, dressed in white-&-blue flannel, carrying huge red flags. As the Bulgarian delegation passed, the audience burst into cries of "Dimitrov! Dimitrov!" Much attention was attracted by a Greek Communist exhibit which featured a huge painting of Laocooen and his two sons being crushed to death by snakes as punishment for warning the Trojans against the Trojan horse. In this version, a dollar-sign manacled Laocooen's wrists.

The U.S. exhibit (right next to Russia's 15-ft. statue of Stalin) was remarkable, too. It prominently displayed a picture of a lynched Southern Negro. When the U.S. Embassy in Prague protested against the anti-U.S. propaganda made by U.S. delegates, their leaders replied that, after all, they came from a free country.

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