BY MEGAN ARNEY AND MEG NOVAK
ATLANTA - Carrying dozens of boxes and bags stuffed with
revolutionary books - for themselves and others -some 170
people left the Second National Young Socialists convention
and conference here March 30. The gathering highlighted the
progress the YS has made over the last year in the
consolidation of a communist youth organization in the
United States. The axis of the convention was building the
YS through reading, studying, and selling communist
literature, while engaging in political work with other
forces. The convention delegates decided to go on a
propaganda offensive for the next several months, taking
advantage of a special offer by Pathfinder to move books
printed by the publisher out of the warehouse and into the
hands of fighters.
"There are at least 10 conferences and actions going on in April that we'll want to be a part of. We should be ready to get a backpack full of books and get in a car or jump on a bus and start participating in the political life of the region we live in," Young Socialists leader Verónica Poses said. Poses opened the international youth gathering with the report, "Turning out into politics with communist propaganda."
Events in the first half of April include the Young Feminists Summit in Washington, D.C., where the YS will present a workshop on "Feminism and Socialism"; a conference of the Chicano student group MEChA in East Lansing, Michigan; a solidarity rally with strawberry workers in the United Farm Workers union in Watsonville, California; and an anti-Klan rally in Pittsburgh.
At these events, Young Socialists and socialist workers will be getting hundreds of books into the hands of young fighters, and also meeting with leaders and activists about participating in the World Festival of Youth and Students in Cuba this August.
These plans were discussed by 19 delegates elected by YS chapters across the United States. In addition, outgoing members of the YS National Committee; representatives of Young Socialists groups in Canada, France, Iceland, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom; and a delegation from the Socialist Workers Party attended the convention as fraternal delegates with voice and consultative vote.
In the six weeks leading up to the convention, YS chapters organized discussions based on documents and articles in a Discussion Bulletin, which was open for contributions by all members. Discussion and vote on the written documents served as the basis for the election of delegates.
In addition to the convention sessions, the three-day event included classes on questions ranging from the history of the Russian Revolution to the struggles by women, Blacks, and Chicanos.
Struggles in Palestine, Russia, Zaire
In her convention report, Poses pointed to the example
of the Palestinians' continued resistance to the Zionist
regime in Israel as a symbol of the fight against national
oppression. She also explained Washington's attempt to
overturn the workers states in Russia, Eastern Europe, and
Asia, and said that "the imperialists will attempt to use
their military force to do what they couldn't do any other
way - to impose capitalism in these countries."
The YS leader also talked about the continued tensions between the U.S. rulers and their imperialist rivals like Paris. Poses pointed to the developing revolutionary situation in Zaire, and the placement of imperialist troops in the Congo.
In this world of growing class conflicts and tensions, "Young people radicalize around what they're against," Poses said. "What they're concretely for, and how to achieve it, is determined later. Just being a radical, or against bourgeois values, doesn't necessarily lead someone to communism. It is only by finding the working-class movement and finding the human beings who carry its traditions, in person or in print, that can lead youth in the direction of communism.
"We use propaganda to recruit. Propaganda work is pretty much what the communist movement does at this stage of the class struggle," the YS leader added.
"We get around our books, pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers as widely as possible, and we try to attract young fighters toward us through our bookstores, weekly forums, public speeches, and election campaigns. To be able to do effective propaganda work, we have to be comfortable explaining what is happening in the world today. We need to take education seriously," Poses said.
Many delegates pointed to the effective classes that chapters, usually in collaboration with branches of the Socialist Workers Party or other communist leagues, have had over the past few months. Young Socialists from New Jersey, Minnesota, and Sweden all spoke to how classes have helped in recruitment. Kevin Johnson, a delegate from Newark, reported that the YS there plans to hold a communist summer school, with a several-week class series.
Joshua Carroll, a delegate from Atlanta, said, "Propaganda is about learning what is possible - winning workers to the idea that we can change the world."
Printing an arsenal of communist books
Dennis Richter gave a report to the convention on behalf
of the SWP Political Committee on the next steps needed to
ensure the steady flow of Pathfinder books into the hands
of the workers and young rebels who need them. At the end
of last year, many YS members took part in an effort to
move Pathfinder's book fulfillment operation out of a
commercial warehouse and into the building in New York
where socialist workers publish and produce the books.
Through a special sale aimed at rapidly moving thousands of
additional titles, communists can take another step in
"transforming the movement's printing and publishing into a
real pipeline - printing the books and getting them into
the hands of fighters," Richter said.
"It's good to use military terms under capitalism," he said. "Especially when you see things like the brutal execution that was just carried out by the state of Florida, you see why we need our arsenal, that can produce more ammo - books - as we need them."
A few of the delegates work in the printshop where the books are printed, including Kevin Johnson from Newark, who said the report "gives the foundation for what we need." He noted that the shop must be in shape to rapidly reprint books as needed, because "when we take the books out, we sell them."
As part of adopting the perspective of using this revolutionary literature, the Young Socialists also discussed the need to take responsibility for helping to produce it. Right after the convention, one of the YS leaders who had served on the National Executive Committee, José Aravena, will be moving to New York to take a stint working in the printshop.
Young Socialists discussed how they could get out to more street corners, campuses, and areas with these weapons - in order to recruit and establish new YS chapters.
Ritcher explained that supporters of Pathfinder will be campaigning this spring to sell the thousands of books that are ordered now, including by the Young Socialists.
Will Elder, a delegate from Spokane, Washington, enthusiastically told the convention, "It's a great opportunity to expand the books we have. We have been trying to put together a library and it's hard without too much money." The Spokane chapter of six members has had a consignment from the Seattle Pathfinder bookstore, and regularly sells the books on the streets and campuses of that city.
Bookstores can begin right now, out of current stock, to organize and publicize special sales of certain titles. For example, selling The Changing Face of U.S. Politics -Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions by SWP leader Jack Barnes and books by Cuban revolution leader Ernesto Che Guevera to those interested in attending the world youth festival will better arm these fighters in the political discussion there. The youth festival has been dedicated to the example set by the revolutionary leader. By putting bargain prices on a wide range of these books and pamphlets, Pathfinder supporters will attract co- workers, political contacts, and other new customers to the bookstores. Socialist workers who are in industrial trade unions will also be discussing how to jump into this effort - getting more books into the hands of their co- workers.
"This campaign comes hand in hand with education and us being able to go back to some of the basics of Marxism. It will deepen our understanding of politics and the continuity of our movement - like we did with the Marx and Engels sale," explained Poses in her report, referring to a special sale earlier this year of the Collected Works of those revolutionary leaders.
She added, "This is not a separate campaign. Taking this on is just an expansion of the tools that are available to us. All of our other campaigns will be strengthened."
Jump starting this campaign, those attending the convention bought $6,400 worth of books. Participants from 24 cities also took back nearly 3,000 books as initial sale orders for Pathfinder bookstores. Boxes and boxes were loaded up in cars, while others carried them on flights back to the cities where they live. (See further coverage on page 5.)
Organizing the communist movement
YS leader Jack Willey gave a report to the convention on
"Building a Communist Youth Organization Today." Willey's
report took up what kind of youth organization must be
built today that, as a component of the communist vanguard,
will be capable of helping to lead millions of toilers in
struggle tomorrow. He spoke to several aspects of the "YS
Organizer," a document discussed in the chapters leading up
to the convention as a guide for building the YS. It
explains, "The Young Socialists is organizationally
independent and politically subordinate to the Socialist
Workers Party. We look to the Socialist Workers Party and
its experience and continuity in the class struggle, which
can be traced back to Marx and Engels, for political
leadership. The Socialist Workers Party, along with the
Young Socialists, make up the nucleus of the proletarian
vanguard in this country."
Willey pointed to how U.S. foreign policy is simply an extension of domestic policy. The capitalist class probes ways to cut Social Security and welfare, while attacking democratic rights - particularly through laws like the newly passed "anti-terrorist" law and immigrant rights law. At the same time, the ruling class must also attempt to crush the unions, he said. They try to gouge more out of union contracts, abrogate agreements, and in some cases provoke a strike in an attempt to break the union.
"What's the biggest obstacle to all of this?" Willey asked. "The same force the rulers always underestimate - the working class. The bosses must go through the working class to carry out these attacks and save their system."
The YS leader also explained the importance of the rising resistance among Chicano and Latino youth today. "We see more protests by Chicano and Latino youth in response to attacks on immigrant rights and affirmative action. This includes protests in Texas against attacks on affirmative action at the universities and the recent demonstration of thousands in Los Angeles against the Welfare Reform Law and anti-immigrant legislation.
"Every time a cop murders a young Black in cold blood, there's a response," Willey added. "In some places, there has been sustained protest." He pointed to the March 23 demonstration of 700 in Wilmington, Delaware, against police brutality and protests in Chicago against the racist beating of a Black teenager as examples. He also mentioned the victory for affirmative action at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, after a week-long student occupation, as another indication of the kind of fights that will break out more in the future.
Willey explained that the rulers' moves to chip away at democratic rights feed into what ultrarightist Patrick Buchanan calls the "culture war," aimed at dividing the working class and convincing workers that sections of the population do not deserve the same rights as others. He pointed to several examples, including the sex abuse scandal unfolding in the U.S. military and attacks on the right to choose abortion.
"The military brass has no interest in addressing abuse and discrimination faced by women in the armed forces. In fact, they are responsible for some of the largest-scale prostitution in the world, near U.S. bases," he explained. "Now that this scandal has broken out, the 10 men at Aberdeen Proving Ground who face charges of abusing female soldiers are all Black. There is a very racist side to the prosecution of charges. The rulers are using this scandal, which comes out of legitimate disgust by women cadets for the sexist abuse they face, to pit fighters for Black liberation against fighters for women's liberation.
"There is also a massive propaganda campaign in the bourgeois media attacking a medical procedure for abortion," he added. "Many supposedly pro-choice legislators are now calling late-term abortions `infanticide' and voting for a measure recently approved by the House of Representatives that would, for the first time since 1973, ban a method of abortion."
Report-back from Albania
On Saturday night, nearly 200 people attended a public
forum featuring Militant reporter Argiris Malapanis, who
had just hours before gotten off the plane from a week-long
reporting trip to Albania and a brief visit to Yugoslavia.
He described how working people in Albania have taken up
arms against the pro-capitalist regime of president Sali
Berisha. He also explained that imperialist powers are
preparing for military intervention against what they see
as a blow to reintroducing market relations in the workers
state.
Albania is one of many countries where, in the years since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia, capitalism has been overturned, private property nationalized, and new social relations introduced. While all of these countries, with the important exception of Cuba, are today run by bureaucrats who sit on top of the working class, they remain a major obstacle to imperialist domination.
The Young Socialists decided at their convention to adopt as a principle defending all workers states, and protesting any move by imperialist powers toward overturning those states - including the NATO occupation of part of Yugoslavia and Washington's drive to expand NATO up to the borders of Russia. This motion will be added to the Young Socialists political principles, adopted last year at the organization's first convention.
Question of security debated
In his report Willey said, "As the rulers go after the
social wage, as they go after democratic rights, as they
increase the culture war, security for the working class
becomes more important. As we become stronger, as we become
more of a force, the rulers, their state, and their police
agencies will see us more and more as the political threat
that we are.
"It is by beginning with our historic tasks and enemy we face, that we view security. Above all, it must flow from our political program and tasks in front of the revolutionary vanguard and how we can best defend ourselves against unnecessary victimization and disruption by the bosses and their state." This includes the YS's policy that its members have nothing to do with illegal drugs.
During the preconvention discussion, a few members questioned the need for such a security policy, saying it was an intrusion in the personal lives of Young Socialist members. This question was debated at the convention. After a thorough discussion, the delegates unanimously voted to maintain the security policy to protect the organization from unnecessary government attack.
In the course of discussing the kind of organization that must be built, a YS member from Miami commented on a "victory in defending the Cuban revolution. Last week, both the Second and Third Secretaries at the Cuba Interests Section [in Washington, D.C.] came to Miami. It was the first time high-ranking officials of this stature have come to Miami since the revolution [in 1959]. The YS participated in organizing the event. We learned how to organize the meeting in regards to security," she said.
There was also some discussion on the recent decision by the national committees of the YS and SWP to establish joint fractions in the industrial trade unions. This means members of both organizations who belong to the same industry organize their political work on the job and in the union together in a centralized way. Young Socialists discussed the questions of these joint fractions raised from concrete experiences. Andrew Blake, a delegate from Atlanta, explained that his workplace had recently been unionized by the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). He was convinced after being on the job for about a month that it was most effective politically to do propaganda work collectively with other communists in that union.
World Festival of Youth and Students
There was a lot of discussion around the 14th World
Festival of Youth and Students, to be held this July and
August in Cuba.
The international gathering will provide an opportunity for discussion and debate on a broad range of political questions: from anti-imperialist struggles, to the environment; from the fight for women's rights and Black liberation, to employment, education and culture, and fighting fascism among others.
Delegates and conference participants discussed reaching out to leaders of struggles here who are involved in Chicano and Black rights, immigrant rights, and women's rights, as well as trade unionists, student body leaders, and others, in order to bring a broad delegation to attend the youth festival.
"The propaganda work and education we do leading up to the festival will put us in a better position to explain working-class politics," said Poses in her report.
"What will strengthen the YS the most is not the festival itself, but what we do leading up to it." Part of this strengthening will be "working in the mass movement with other tendencies and us fighting to become a force in politics and to get known by other people and organizations. This is part of becoming what Lenin called being a professional revolutionary."
In Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, the YS chapter has been setting up meetings with student groups at several colleges and universities. Aaron Armstrong, a delegate from St. Paul, told the convention that YS members had "gone out and set up meetings, not with individuals, but with leaders of organizations. The idea is to present the world youth festival to an entire organization, encouraging them to send a representative or two. They will be able to meet other young fighters from around the world and share their experiences."
Sarah Katz, also a delegate from St. Paul, said, "Strengthening working relationships with other organizations will enable the YS, when new developments take place in politics, to have more people we can collaborate with." She explained how Young Socialists met with a leader of the Africana Student Cultural Center at the University of Minnesota and a local leader of the National Organization for Women, who is organizing to get young women to the upcoming Young Feminist Summit.
A strengthening of the YS
Willey concluded, "Over the course of the past 4-5
months, the Young Socialists as an organization has begun
transforming from loosely affiliated groupings of fighters
around the country to a more homogeneous, cohesive and
confident national organization. Although the YS is roughly
the same size as at last year's convention, we're a much
different organization. We're more tested and more
effective in politics" and therefore in a better position
to recruit and hold new members.
Maryanne Russo, a delegate from Des Moines, Iowa, pointed out that the YS is "closing the gap between organizing and politics, and with that our politics have deepened."
Poses and Willey, in their summaries to the convention, drew out the conclusions of the discussion. What has been conquered in organizing the Young Socialists over the past several months, they explained, puts it in the strongest position to turn out into politics. The campaign to sell thousands of books to young fighters over the course of the next few months and to build a broad delegation to the World Festival of Youth and Students, made up of political activists, are the two main vehicles that will propel the organization forward, the convention concluded.
In line with this, the YS delegates elected a new National Committee, which include a broader layer of leadership from the south, including from Atlanta, Houston, and Miami (see list on this page).
YOUNG SOCIALISTS NATIONAL COMMITTEE
Elected March 30, 1997
Regular members
---------------
Tom Alter
José Aravena
Joshua Carroll
Lieff Gutthuidaschmitt
Ryan Kelly
Diana Newberry
Meg Novak
Cecilia Ortega
Verónica Poses
Brian Taylor
Jack Willey
Alternate members
-----------------
1. Caroline Bengu
2. Doug Nelson
3. Sarah Katz
4. Paul Pederson