BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
The Political Committee of the Socialist Workers Party is
urging members, supporters, and friends of the communist
movement to come to Los Angeles December 4-6 to participate in
the open sessions of the Young Socialists convention taking
place there that weekend (see adjacent ad).
All sessions of the youth gathering will be open to members of the Young Socialists and invited YS-age youth. Several sessions throughout the three days of the convention, however, will be open to supporters and friends of the Young Socialists.
These will include reports by leaders of the Young Socialists on the organization's efforts to deepen its mass work in solidarity with embattled workers - from coal miners striking Freeman United Coal Mining Co. in Illinois to Steelworkers on the picket lines against Titan Tire - and its involvement in struggles to defend affirmative action, a woman's right to choose abortion, and bilingual education; demand the release of Puerto Rican political prisoners; and support farmers protesting foreclosures.
The open sessions will also include presentations, followed by discussion among those present, by Mary-Alice Waters, editor of New International, and SWP national secretary Jack Barnes.
Waters just returned from a two-week Militant reporting trip to Cuba to cover the congress of Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and related political developments in that country. She will discuss the international campaign being waged by Cuba's communist leadership to explain the inevitable character of the advancing catastrophe of the world capitalist system and why socialist globalization is the only alternative to the globalization inherent in capitalism - with social and economic devastation for millions, and the steady march towards fascism and war. She will also bring greetings to the YS convention on behalf of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution.
Barnes will address the political shifts registered in the recent U.S. elections, the most important elections since 1992. At that time William Clinton was first elected president, Texas billionaire and populist Ross Perot took 19 percent of the vote running against Clinton and George Bush, and ultrarightist politician Patrick Buchanan launched his campaign to win cadres for a "culture war." The 1998 elections registered an acceleration of the shift to the left in bourgeois politics that's been evident since early 1997 in most imperialist countries. They simultaneously showed a rise in social polarization with rightist currents getting a wider hearing for their radical demagogy. This was reflected most graphically, and surprisingly for the entire working-class movement in Minnesota, in the election of Reform Party candidate Jesse Ventura for governor of that state.
Why? And why such surprises must not be repeated for vanguard workers.
Barnes will also discuss the new openings for mass work by class-conscious workers in the labor movement and the need for a working-class response to the unfolding world capitalist depression.
A final public session of the movement conference will introduce the newly elected YS National Committee, summarize the accomplishments of the Young Socialists convention, and introduce the themes for building the 40th constitutional convention of the SWP scheduled to take place the first week of April in San Francisco.
Participants in the gathering will have a chance to work together to gain a better understanding of the depth of the political, economic, and social changes reshaping our world. They will discuss how to forge the kind of proletarian youth organizations and working-class parties capable of acting in a politically centralized manner, with speed and effectiveness, to confront the unpredictable challenges and opportunities created daily by the acceleration of the deflationary crisis of world capitalism.
Branches of the Socialist Workers Party have already been collaborating with YS chapters to raise funds for scholarships to help YS members and other interested youth attend the convention. They have also been working with Young Socialists to publicize the convention through participation in mass work and speaking tours of YS leaders (see article at right).
The task now is to strengthen these efforts in the two weeks leading up to the Los Angeles gathering to maximize the numbers of young people participating as well as ensure that a wide range of SWP members and supporters of the communist movement attend.