BY PAT NIXON AND HEATHER MARTIN
LOS ANGELES - Under banners reading "U.S. Hands off Iraq and Yugoslavia -Self-Determination for the Albanians in Kosovo," "Rebuilding an Anti-Imperialist Youth Movement Worldwide - Join the Young Socialists," and "The Year of the 100th Anniversary of the Anti-Imperialist Struggle in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines," 137 people from the West Coast and elsewhere participated in a socialist conference here April 4.

Many of those attending the conference were young. Members and supporters of the Young Socialists from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Seattle attended. Three students from Occidental College in Los Angeles participated in their first socialist conference.

Teresa Harris, a young worker at United Airlines, attended because she wanted to learn about the Middle East and the world. "I love Che Guevara," Harris said after reading Socialism and Man in Cuba by the Argentine-born revolutionary who was a leader of the Cuban revolution. "I liked his concept on the working man, his idea of feeling good about your work," she said.

Displays at the conference reflected the range of activities socialist workers and youth are involved in. A Pathfinder Bookstore exhibit featured the recent publication in English and Spanish of Celebrating the Homecoming of Ernesto Che Guevara's Reinforcement Brigade to Cuba, a collection of articles reprinted from the Militant about Guevara and the Cuban revolution's place in world politics. A photo exhibit showed socialist workers and youth campaigning against imperialism and its war at factory gates, political protests, picket lines, and on campuses. Another photo display detailed the working-class resistance in Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia.

Conference participants heard eyewitness reports from Jack Willey and Argiris Malapanis, Militant reporters just back from a three-week reporting trip to Egypt and the Balkans.

The reporters attended the conference of the World Federation of Democratic Youth held in Cairo, Egypt, and then traveled to Yugoslavia, especially the Kosovo province, Macedonia, and Albania. The discussion and questions reflected great interest in the roots of the national oppression of the Albanian population in Kosovo and the ongoing working-class resistance to that oppression.

Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press, participated in the recent Havana Book Fair and reported to the conference. Waters discussed the role of Pathfinder Press in today's world and the need to get the books into the hands of thinking and fighting vanguard workers and youth. The conference discussed the new opportunities for communists because of the disintegration of Stalinism as a worldwide obstacle to working with young fighters. Discussions on the origins of Stalinism and its decline continued late into the evening after the conference adjourned.

An appeal for the Militant Fund raised more than $19,000 in contributions and pledges (see article below). The next day, members of the Socialist Workers Party in California held a statewide convention to launch the Socialist Workers 1998 election campaign here. Members of the Young Socialists participated in the discussion, and many other conference participants attended as observers.

A report on that meeting will appear in an upcoming issue of the Militant.

Pat Nixon is a member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers.  
 
 
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