"As we come out of this weekend, the campaign to defend the right to freedom of speech being waged against Mike Italie's firing will be at the center of the Young Socialists' work," Perasso said. "We will work with student groups and other defenders of free speech to organize speaking events on campuses around the country to spread the word about his fight and about others victimized for speaking out against Washington's imperialist war in Afghanistan," he said. "Many young people who want to fight around this issue will also be interested in the Young Socialists."

Sixty people, including some 40 students and young workers from around the country, participated in the public forum, panel discussion, social, and other events over the weekend. Two Young Socialists from Canada also attended.

Coming out of the weekend the leadership of the Young Socialists, together with the Socialist Workers Party, proposed to the Militant extending the circulation drive until December 9 in order to build on the momentum of the YS meeting and the response by workers and students to the socialist periodicals, New International, and Pathfinder books. The Militant editor and business manager welcomed the proposal (see article page 5).

The conference registered the accomplishments of the communist movement since the YS launched a campaign to double its membership in March of this year. Young Socialists celebrated the victory of doubling both the size of their organization in the United States and internationally.

The Saturday session included presentations in the afternoon on the working-class campaign against imperialism and war and on the Mike Italie campaign, and a panel of YS leaders and other youth in the evening. Both were open to the public. Olympia Newton welcomed everyone to the weekend on behalf of the YS National Executive Committee. Through participating and helping lead the Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange and the U.S. delegation at the 15th World Festival of Youth and Students in Algeria last summer, as well as through joining the working-class campaign against imperialism and war this fall, the YS is politically stronger, has a wider geographic spread, and is numerically larger, she said. Newton reported on similar developments with the YS in Iceland, Sweden, Britain, and New Zealand.

Newton said the Young Socialists' internationalist perspective sends it to other countries to expand the reach of communist literature. "YS members are joining socialist workers next week for the Guadalajara Book Fair," she said. "They will staff a Pathfinder booth to help get the books into the hands of revolutionary-minded workers and youth in Mexico."  
 
Mike Italie speaks out for free speech
Mike Italie spoke about the campaign to defend freedom of speech and to win his job back. Italie was fired from his garment job at Goodwill Industries after he spoke in a public debate with other mayoral candidates in Miami where he opposed the imperialist assault on Afghanistan and defended the Cuban Revolution. He read a statement sent to the meeting by Mohammad Rahat, a 22-year-old student who was fired from his job at the University of Miami for a few words a co-worker overheard him say around the events on September 11 (see article page 9).

"My supporters are waging a nationwide campaign because this is an attack on rights that affects all workers around the country. More people are standing up to defend our rights that are under attack," Italie said. "Mohammad Rahat won't be intimidated. I won't be intimidated and I want to encourage everyone here to go back to your cities and win support for this campaign," he concluded.

Norton Sandler, a National Committee member of the Socialist Workers Party, spoke on the accelerating political trends in world and U.S. politics since Washington launched its most recent war drive September 11. He pointed to the decade-long attacks on workers' democratic rights that have accompanied the driving down of wages, working conditions, and the social wage by the capitalist rulers.

The U.S. imperialists have a triumphalist stance right now because of their victory against an unpopular regime in an impoverished country, he said. But in reality, the system of imperialist exploitation and oppression that Washington dominates is weaker today. For a period coming out of World War II Washington could use its growing economic power to maintain its domination over much of the semicolonial world. Now they are forced to wage war and set up garrisons in country after country in order to keep some semblance of stability, he said.

The most brutal empire won't go down gently, Sandler said. That's why the working-class needs a political party that is part of an international movement capable of leading working people in the future battles to bring the last empire to an end. Sandler urged participants to purchase and study Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, a book by SWP leader Jack Barnes that presents the line of march of the working class to take political power out of the hands of the capitalist rulers and establish workers and farmers governments that will lead tens of millions in the struggle to overturn capitalism. Barnes explains the possibilities and necessity of constructing a proletarian leadership to ensure the victory of these coming revolutionary battles that will decide the fate of humanity.  
 
Panel of young socialists
A panel discussion Saturday evening was a highlight of the weekend. Heather Page--an activist in the Committee to Defend Freedom of Speech and the Bill of Rights, which is campaigning for the reversal of Italie's firing--said everyone has a constitutional and human right to speak about their political ideas. "They tell us we cannot do anything, we should accept the way things are, but I challenge that and I encourage you to join the fight too," she said.

Joe Allegro, a union miner in Western Colorado, spoke about discussions he has had on the job about the imperialist Afghan war. Workers at the mine were he works waged a strike in 1999 and are gearing up for another contract fight. Several have read the Militant, which they bought from socialist workers who sell it at the mine portal. He pointed to the interest in the western Pennsylvania coalfields around the recent Socialist Workers campaign of coal miner Frank Forrestal for mayor of Pittsburgh.

Rebecca Williamson pointed to the growth of a chapter in Seattle since the last YS leadership meeting in March. After going on the Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange, two people joined the YS. "The trip to Cuba was an opportunity to show the example of what workers and peasants can accomplish through a socialist revolution. This powerful example affected many who went on the trip," Williamson said. Another student has since joined. The chapter and SWP branch have held a series of weekly classes based on articles in New International no. 7, which features "Opening Guns of World War III."

Williamson spoke about the federal raid on the Al-Barakaat Wiring Service, a gift shop, and a minimart in Seattle and four other cities November 7 under the pretext of fighting against fund-raisers for "terrorist" organizations. The Pathfinder bookstore in Seattle is located above the offices raided by FBI and other federal cops.

"That same day, some 15 people, mainly Somalis, set up a picket line to protest, chanting 'stop the war, open the store, we don't want your racist war,'" said Williamson. Communists joined the picket line and subsequent actions against the rulers' assault on democratic rights. The protests have been confronted by groupings of several rightists praising the cops' assault with their own picket across the street.

Rosa Green, a garment worker and New York chapter organizer, described the recruitment of four youth to the communist movement. Three YS members first met the movement at a literature table in a working-class district. "We are starting to see the fruits of weekly sales of Pathfinder books, the Militant, and Perspectiva Mundial in these districts and have recruited two young workers since June," Green said. One student from west Africa first met socialists at a campus table. He later came to a send-off rally for the youth exchange at Hostos Community College where he learned about the Algiers anti-imperialist youth festival. He decided to go, and through his experience working with the international YS there, joined the organization.  
 
Hunger for socialist ideas
Green pointed to the sales of hundreds of Militants on New York campuses this fall as an example of the hunger for ideas among students. The day following the YS Weekend, Martín Koppel, recent Socialist Workers mayoral candidate, spoke to 20 students at Brooklyn College on the need to build a movement capable of leading workers and their allies to make a revolution in the United States.

Sarah Voyles from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, spoke about the recent classes and speaking events on her campus with YS and SWP leaders. She is part of a new campus group that also calls itself the Young Socialists. Jack Willey toured Indianapolis and Muncie a week earlier as part of the buildup to the Chicago weekend.

Voyles pointed to the large number of Pathfinder books purchased by Ball State students. "After checking out the library, I only found a handful of Pathfinder books, and they were all from the 1970s," explained Voyles. "We need these books in our campus library and bookstore so more students have access to this literature." She said some students plan to work with professors and others to get Pathfinder into the library and bookstore.

Jack Willey described the emerging anti-imperialist movement worldwide, which includes toilers from the semicolonial and imperialist countries. This was demonstrated at the Algiers festival in August and a similar festival four years earlier in Cuba. This movement includes Western Saharans fighting for independence from Morocco, the Kanak people in New Caledonia fighting for independence from French imperialism, as well as Palestinians, Puerto Rican independentistas, and many others. He pointed out that this movement has a communist component as part of its leadership, namely the Union of Young Communists in Cuba, who presented a revolutionary perspective in Algiers and offered the example of the road that workers and peasants in Cuba took to break from imperialist domination once and for all.

Young Socialists internationally are an integral part of the anti-imperialist movement, Willey said. The most important responsibility that the YS had at the festival was getting Pathfinder books and New Internationals--which offer the program, strategy, and continuity of the communist movement--into the hands of hundreds of delegates in all the languages they are published in.

In the discussion period, Natalie Cor-vington, from Ohio State University in Columbus, described the initiatives she has taken with the Cleveland branch of the SWP. They have started showing political films with discussions afterward to attract other students to the communist movement.

"We've had weekly literature tables since September and have sold $400 in books," she said. "I bring books to classes to introduce to other students. The professors don't all like it and say they want me to 'transcend' revolution, but there's a good receptivity among students, so I'll keep bringing them in," said Corvington.

In answer to a question about YS members' role in producing Pathfinder books, Olympia Newton reported on the four Young Socialists volunteers in the printshop that produces the books and the Militant. "We are driven by an internalized discipline that comes from our understanding of the need for communist theory and continuity embodied in the books," Newton said.  
 
YS maps out campaigns
On Sunday, the YS National Leadership Council held its meeting and opened the session on its campaigns to all YS-age participants in the conference, who were given voice and vote. YS-age participants were also invited to the report on leadership and the National Executive Committee election.

Jacob Perasso presented the report on the tasks and perspective of the organization. He placed the Mike Italie campaign at the center of the Young Socialists' work and pointed to the range of support that has already been won through the efforts of Italie supporters in Miami. Perasso urged all YS chapters to work with student groups and others to set up speaking events for Italie and his supporters. Another opportunity to defend workers' rights and the Cuban Revolution is the fight to free five Cuban patriots locked up in U.S. jails after frame-up trials. The five were in the United States trying to obtain information on attacks launched from U.S. soil by counterrevolutionary groups in order to defend the Cuban people from violent assaults. This is another case that YS members can build support for, organize campus meetings, and use the Militant to widen knowledge of the fight.

"Another goal of the entire communist movement is to sell $500,000 in Pathfinder books by June 2001," Perasso said. "What Young Socialists do in joining campus tables, literature sales in working-class districts, and in placing books in campus libraries and bookstores will build on the advances we have already made in Pathfinder sales this year."

The National Leadership Council elected a National Executive Committee, responsible for implementing the decisions of the council between meetings. Rosa Green, Olympia Newton, and Jacob Perasso were elected.

Participants went on a buying spree of used and new Pathfinder books in the course of the weekend's events, purchasing more than 100 books and pamphlets to read and use for study classes.

Rosa Green contributed to this article.
 
 
Related article:
A revolutionary perspective  
 
 
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