BY NAOMI CRAINE AND JOEL BRITTON
LOS ANGELES - The Third National Convention of the Young
Socialists and Socialist Conference, held here December 4-6,
registered the growing possibility for workers and farmers to
forge links with each others' struggles and with the activity
of a revolutionary proletarian youth organization. Of the 345
people who attended the conference, 91 were under the age of
27. Many participants were members and supporters of the
Socialist Workers Party and sister communist leagues. Guests at
the conference also included several trade unionists and
farmers leading current struggles.
The final conference session reported on the accomplishments of the YS convention and socialist conference, and preparations for the 40th constitutional convention of the Socialist Workers Party to be held next spring in San Francisco.
In his summary remarks SWP national secretary Jack Barnes stressed that the interlinking of struggles and fighters discussed throughout the gathering reflected the sea-change in working-class politics that has taken place over the last two years: a shift in the mass psychology of the working class away from the specter of retreat that marked the labor movement for nearly two decades.
Barnes noted that growing numbers of workers are becoming convinced that it is possible to win battles against the employers. Instead of each struggle appearing isolated and incidental, as it did for many years, there's a hunger in the working class for solidarity, for struggle, and for learning from each other.
Barnes underlined the importance of the Young Socialists' connection to the working class through the SWP. It's being linked to the working class that offers an effective strategic road forward to the social protests youth engage in. Protests without this working-class component - against the death penalty, for a woman's right to choose an abortion, denouncing police brutality - no mater how worthy, can become simply moral witness.
In this period, the SWP has the perspective not only of recruiting more individual workers, he said, but of getting to know, collaborating with, and fusing with groups of vanguard working-class fighters who are beginning to broaden their political scope.
Young Socialists convention
Eighteen delegates elected by YS chapters and YS members in
cities where no chapter exists yet had voice and decisive vote
in the proceedings of the convention, which is the highest
decision-making body of the Young Socialists. Members of the
National Committee elected at the previous YS convention
participated as fraternal delegates with voice and consultative
vote, as did delegates from Young Socialists groups in Canada,
France, Iceland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
These delegates discussed and adopted reports on building a proletarian youth organization and on the tasks and perspectives of the Young Socialists. They also elected a new National Committee.
Discussion on the main YS convention reports was open for all YS members and invited youth to observe. The convention reports were open to all participants in the broader socialist conference held in conjunction with the YS convention.
The conference sessions included presentations by Mary-Alice Waters, editor of New International, a magazine of Marxist politics and theory, and by Jack Barnes. Several YS members participated in a panel discussion about their experiences and activity held on the evening of December 5. Participants were also able to discuss and exchange experiences in classes, workshops, and at a lively display center.
Young Socialists Manifesto
Samantha Kern, a YS leader and meatpacker in San Francisco,
gave the opening YS convention report, titled, "Building a
Proletarian Youth Organization." She began by quoting from the
Young Socialists Manifesto. This document had been drafted last
April by the Los Angeles chapter in the course of several
discussions where YS members sought to clarify for themselves
the character and activity of their organization and the
necessity of its relationship to the SWP, the communist
vanguard party of the working class in the United States.
This document, which is published in issue no. 11 of New International along with the "Aims of the Young Socialists" adopted at the organization's second national convention in Atlanta in 1997, was discussed in all of the YS chapters prior to electing delegates to the convention. It was adopted by the delegates as a guide for the organization.
The Manifesto starts with some of the key points raised in the article "Imperialism's March toward Fascism and War" by Jack Barnes, published in New International no. 10. That article explains that in the recent past, it was harder for young fighters "to see how they could link up with a social force, with the working class and labor movement, that had the power to bring about change... harder yet for them to connect up with a broader tradition of struggle" in the working class. The Manifesto continues, "But today there exists an open field where the YS can function as a revolutionary youth organization."
Many young people "hate the brutal attack on gay student Matthew Shepard and the assassination of abortion provider Barnett Slepian, which are part of the polarization of politics today," Kern said. "We hate the attacks on gains of struggles like affirmative action and bilingual education, the moves to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal, the FBI harassment of striking coal miners, the government discrimination against Black farmers, and Washington's war moves against the people of Iraq."
The convention was called at a YS conference held in San Francisco in mid-September. Since then, Kern said, YS members have participated in protest actions around these and other questions. Young Socialists have joined in and brought others to actions across the United States demanding independence for Puerto Rico and the release of Puerto Rican political prisoners, and have been on the picket lines of striking workers at Kaiser Aluminum, Titan Tire, Freeman Coal, and many others.
YS members in several cities helped build speaking engagements for Norberto Codina, poet and editor of La Gaceta de Cuba, the magazine of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC). This was important "not only to get out the truth about art and culture in Cuba but to lay the groundwork" for further work with others in defense of the Cuban revolution, Kern said.
A youth organization alone cannot lead workers and farmers to overthrow capitalism, she said. The Young Socialists gets its proletarian character and strength from its connection to a revolutionary working-class party-the SWP. Youth are attracted to the YS because of this, and because the YS "offers the seriousness and discipline necessary to overthrow the most vicious ruling class in the world," Kern added. This report was followed by several hours of discussion by convention delegates.
Cuba as part of the world
The next morning Mary-Alice Waters, who had recently
returned from a Militant reporting trip to Cuba, gave the first
major conference presentation, titled "Cuba as part of the
world: Confronting global capitalism's assault on the toilers
and winning a new generation to communism."
She pointed to the example and the course of the communist leadership in Cuba. She noted that Cuba cannot escape the world capitalist market, the deflationary collapse affecting growing millions of toilers, especially in the semicolonial countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
In Indonesia, for example, millions of workers have lost their jobs since last year - in a country where there is no form of entitlements that protect working people from the ravages of capitalism. Most Cubans are also adversely affected, but because of the revolution - the fact that workers and farmers hold state power - not one person is without access to unemployment compensation, a pension, medical care, education, and other basic social necessities.
For months, Cuban president Fidel Castro has been giving speeches pointing to the spreading social catastrophe and arguing that socialist globalization is the only way forward in face of the global crisis of capitalism.
The political response of tens of thousands of Cubans to the devastating results of hurricanes in Central America and the Caribbean this year has been in the best internationalist tradition of the revolution, Waters said. The Cuban trade union paper Trabajadores reported November 30 that in response to an appeal from the union leadership some 250,000 health-care workers have volunteered to go to Central America in face of a medical crisis that has been worsened by Hurricane Mitch.
Havana has also pledged to provide the medical personnel needed to reduce the infant mortality rate in Haiti from 135 per 1,000 live births to 35 - and a similar contribution in Central America - if wealthier countries provide the financial resources needed. Young communists in Cuba point to this as their opportunity to take part in the kind of internationalist mission that "changes your life forever," Waters said.
This expression of international solidarity is part of the political fight in Cuba to confront the challenges that stem from the worldwide economic crisis and, above all, the lack of advancing revolutionary struggles in the world. In face of this, revolutionaries in Cuba are taking steps to strengthen the proletarian character of their revolution and the alliance of workers and farmers. Waters pointed to three other examples of this fight.
The Union of Young Communists (UJC) of Cuba convened its national congress in Havana the morning after the YS convention closed. Leaders of the UJC explain that the central focus of their congress will be facing the need to win a new generation of youth to Marxism. They are striving to politicize the work of the organization. UJC leaders point to the need to turn to young workers and farmers, to proletarianize the UJC, which today has a smaller presence in the factories and farming cooperatives than on university campuses.
A second example of the political strengthening of the revolution is the discussion that has opened in Cuba on the legacy of racial prejudice and how to combat it. This particular discussion is being carried out on a level not seen since the early 1960s. This was taken up, among other places, at the national congress of UNEAC, which Waters reported on for the Militant. The November 23 issue of the Militant published a document on "Society and Culture" adopted there, which points to the widening social differentiation that results from the capitalist market pressures bearing down on Cuba today, and the need for a conscious political effort to combat those effects.
The third example Waters pointed to was the development of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution. The first congress of this organization, started five years ago, took place at the same time as the YS convention. The organization brings together several generations of fighters, including combatants from the Cuban revolutionary war, the battles to defend the socialist revolution, internationalist missions, and others with at least 15 years in the Revolutionary Armed Forces.
They work in the neighborhoods and schools to win a new generation to the struggle for socialism by conveying the history of the revolution and their own experiences and example. Waters and Perspectiva Mundial editor Martín Koppel interviewed two leaders of the Association of Combatants, Brig. Gen. Gustavo Chui Beltrán and Brig. Gen. Sergio Pérez Lezcano. (The interview will appear in a future issue of the Militant.)
When they learned of the Young Socialists convention, Waters said, these revolutionaries insisted, "Those young fighters of the party have the support and solidarity of the Combatants of the Cuban Revolution. We send greetings, greetings, greetings!"
Waters concluded with another message to the Young Socialists, from revolutionaries who fought with Che Guevara in Bolivia. It was a dedication inscribed in a copy of Seguidores de un sueño (Followers of a dream), a collection of biographical sketches of the fighters who took part in the struggle led by Ernesto Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1966-67 written by Elsa Blaquier. Her husband, René Martínez, fought in Bolivia under the nom de guerre Arturo and died in combat there.
The dedication in the book was signed by Blaquier, herself a revolutionary combatant; Rodolfo Saldaña, who was part of the underground support network for the guerrilla force in Bolivia; and Brig. Gen. Harry Villegas (Pombo), who fought with Guevara in Cuba, the Congo, and Bolivia. It read, "For the young socialists of the United States, with our greatest wishes that you find in the lives of these eternally young men and women the example of altruism and selflessness that must be followed by those who uphold the ideas of socialism."
Need to be armed with Marxist theory
A small vanguard organization of communists like the SWP is
a fraction of the fighting vanguard of the working class, and
that vanguard is a fraction of the working class as a whole,
Jack Barnes said in his conference presentation. That is one of
the conclusions of "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War,"
the 1990 resolution of the SWP, featured in issue no. 11 of New
International. Barnes's talk was titled, "Bonapartism and
polarization: contradictions and instability of the leftward
shift in bourgeois politics."
In the working-class struggles that have been unfolding in the United States since at least the start of 1997 nuclei of parties are being forged. These formations are broader that any individual fighter. There are groupings of workers who have gone through fights together against the employers, gained confidence to protect each other, learned to reach out to others for support, and have begun to draw broader conclusions about capitalism. This development is in its initial, embryonic stages, Barnes said, but it's essential that the SWP have the perspective not only of recruiting individual workers to the party but fusing the party with such groups of vanguard workers who seek to generalize their experiences.
Barnes pointed to the spiraling world economic crisis that is fueling increasing competition and conflicts among the imperialist rulers and driving the employers' attacks on labor. The question is not when the economy will improve in Japan and Korea, he noted, but when the deflationary crisis will come home to the United States.
Long assumed economic and military relations between the major capitalist powers coming out of World War II are being challenged. The dollar will have new competition next year, with the currency of the European Monetary Union, the euro. Even a small shift of dollar-denominated funds to euros can have an impact on the U.S. economy.
On the military front, the decision of the British and French governments to take a step toward making some military decisions through the European Union, outside the U.S.- controlled NATO alliance, is a challenge to Washington's hegemony in Europe.
When the class struggle heats up, a proletarian party must be able to anticipate developments, instead of always reacting to them. Otherwise it cannot be trusted to be responsible to those who look to it in combat. To be effective as part of the working-class vanguard, communists must take ideas seriously. That means working at a better grasp of Marxist theory, strategy, and politics every day, Barnes noted, studying and using tools like the magazine New International.
The working-class vanguard should not be surprised by events like the recent election of a Bonapartist figure, Jesse Ventura, as governor of Minnesota. Demagogues like Ventura will gain more of a hearing, building on the resentments of middle- class layers, and many workers and farmers who fear the instability and dislocation they expect is coming.
Millions in this country, including workers who have been ground down over the previous years under the accumulated blows from the employers, look at the devastation sweeping Indonesia, Korea, and Russia with dread. They become susceptible to the arguments of figures like Ventura, who paint themselves as "strong leaders" able to stand above the corruption of traditional politicians and institutions, cut through bureaucratic wrangling, and offer stability and "order."
The working-class vanguard explaining and campaigning against such forces is a battle for the soul of the working class -for social solidarity among working people internationally against the appeals of Bonapartism and the rightist currents it feeds.
As class conflicts intensify, the brittle bureaucracies that sit on top of the trade unions and other organizations of the working class and oppressed will tend to shatter. That was reflected in last month's victory of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) over the International Association of Machinists (IAM) in a representation vote among mechanics and cleaners at Northwest Airlines. As in the vote for Ventura, a layer of workers were convinced to vote for a "change" against the "status quo" of a union officialdom that does not organize a fight to defend the interests of union members, Barnes said.
Socialist workers campaigned against AMFA, explaining that its leadership has a pro-company outlook that plays into the bosses' hands by attempting to split airline workers along craft lines. But communists keep their eyes on the ranks of workers, regardless of what structure they're organized in. When the working class is advancing in struggle, workers begin to identify the union as themselves, not an outside force, and they refer to the union as "us" rather than "them," as has generally been the case for many years.
In the discussion following Barnes' report, Arlene Rubinstein, a cleaner at Northwest Airlines in Atlanta who will soon be a member of AMFA as a result of the recent election, stressed the importance of not walking away from her co- workers. Before the vote, she said, the situation was very tense between supporters of AMFA and workers who opposed it. Since then, there has been a lot of interest in what the communist workers think, including among those who voted for AMFA. More than 20 co-workers picked up copies of the issue of the Militant that covered the vote. "We've been more than two years without a contract, and are no closer now," she said, "and the company continues to fire workers. It's around these questions that the fight will take place, and we'll be part of it."
YS links up with fighting labor, youth
A panel presentation titled "Bringing Alive the Changing
Face of U.S. Politics" gave a picture of YS activism. The six
panelists were members of the Young Socialists who talked about
their political activity over the last few months and
conclusions they have drawn from those experiences.
Manuel González, a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz, explained how members of the YS chapter there participate in campus coalitions around struggles like the fight for affirmative action. YS members also worked with other students to help organize an 80-person meeting for Cuban poet and editor Norberto Codina, took part in protests against the U.S. attacks on Iraq, and joined a Militant sales team to coal miners in the Navajo Nation in Arizona.
Elena Tate, a high school student in Boston, spoke about her experience in the fight for women's rights. "This starts with the central right of a woman to control her body." Tate said she called people who had expressed interest in the Young Socialists to join with her in building the October 28 protest against the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian, who provided abortions in Buffalo, New York.
One of the students she called came and brought five others. "More youth meant there was more chanting and less crying" at the protest, she noted. Tate also helped bring Puerto Rican independence leader Rafael Cancel Miranda to speak in her school's bilingual education department last year.
Rafik Benali, a YS member in Paris, discussed the importance of YS members in France participating in the work to translate "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War," which will soon be published in issue no. 6 of Nouvelle Internationale, the French- language sister publication of New International. In addition to training a new generation of volunteer translators, "we are reading and learning from it," he noted. Benali also described the sharpening political polarization in France, pointing both to the stepped-up fight by immigrant workers for papers and to an antigay, anti-women's rights demonstration of 10,000 organized by the far right.
Amanda Ulman, a member of the United Auto Workers in Des Moines, Iowa, said YS members there recently met a student who was building a protest against the planned execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal in Pennsylvania.
About 30 people took part in the march and rally. "The YS had a chance to speak," Ulman said. In addition to taking up the question of the death penalty, "We also spoke against the imminent bombing of Iraq, and invited people to a picket in Leavenworth, Kansas, demanding the release of Puerto Rican political prisoners and Native American activist Leonard Peltier. And we pointed to the strike at Titan Tire." The entire group of young protesters decided to go to the Des Moines Titan plant, which was nearby, to support the strikers and learn about their fight.
Paul Carter is a young worker from Atlanta who took part in a successful campaign at his workplace to organize the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union three years ago. He later met communist workers in that plant and joined the Young Socialists. Carter spoke about the crucial importance of workers forging an alliance with farmers, and of the significance of the Black farmers' fight to keep their land and push back government discrimination. He recently participated in a farmers camp-out in Washington, D.C. This struggle is not only one for farmers, he noted, but is part of "a new resurgence of the Black human rights struggle."
Ryan Lewis, one of six Young Socialists members working in the printshop that produces Pathfinder books and the Militant, described the shop as a "training ground for communists. We learn collective responsibility and work habits." The shop is staffed by socialist workers who volunteer for an average stint of about three years. "We define ourselves in struggle, and that's true of the YS members in the shop. After our tours of duty, we'll be stronger to build the movement," Lewis said.
Forging ties of solidarity
Three people involved in some of the important battles
discussed throughout the YS convention and conference - David
Yard, Gary Grant, and Dean Cook - gave greetings following the
panel presentations.
David Yard is a member of United Mine Workers of America Local 1969 on strike against the Freeman United Coal Co. in Virden, Illinois. The 350 workers at Freeman's three mines in central Illinois have been on the picket lines since September 11. "Black farmers and coal miners have a common enemy, and I want to discuss linking our struggles more," he said, turning to Grant, who is the president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA).
"I've been a member of the UMWA 22 years," Yard said, "and I've never seen a strike escalate so fast" as at Freeman. Not only has the company hired Vance "security" thugs, but it has filed a lawsuit challenging the union's right to strike, and announced it is training replacement workers. "We're fighting the federal, state, and local cops as well," said Yard, whose grandmother was harassed by the FBI.
Yard encouraged participants in the conference to invite miners to speak in their area and build solidarity with the strike. "If you do that there won't be more A.T. Massey's" he said, referring to the 1984-85 UMWA strike at that company, which ended in defeat. Three unionists remain in jail today on federal frame-up charges stemming from that strike. Yard referred to defeats suffered some years ago by unionists in Central Illinois and their lingering effect.
Grant spoke next about the class action suit filed by Black farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for discrimination. "Jack [Barnes] talked about organizations that crumble in times of crisis. We've seen that with the organizations that should respond to this crying need" of farmers being driven off the land. "The NAACP and the Black churches have not been able to rise to this. So real leaders of the fight will rise from the ranks in struggle." He described how the battle has unfolded since the first demonstration by 40 Black farmers in Washington, D.C., in December 1996. At a recent hearing October 5 "they had to move to the ceremonial court room because 300 Black farmers showed up."
Dean Cook, a member of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Local 4-227 locked out by Crown Petroleum in Pasadena, Texas, gave the final greetings. He briefly explained the fight at Crown, where 252 workers have been locked out for nearly three years. "Crown wanted to take our seniority and give 105 jobs to contractors. They wanted takebacks on sick pay, holiday pay, overtime pay, callout pay, health benefits, everything. We refused. They charged us with sabotage and locked us out. We've been reaching out, looking for support."
"I admire the Young Socialists," Cook said. "I was 28 when I got my first union job, and 34 when I woke up to the realities of capitalism. Books like The Changing Face of U.S. Politics help me understand" the world and struggles of the working class.
Earlier in the day, John Fogarty, the regional vice president for human rights of the Irish American Unity Conference in San Francisco, addressed the conference bringing greetings from Kevin Barry Artt and Terry Kirby, two of the "H- Block Three." They are Irish republicans who escaped from Long Kesh prison in Belfast in 1983 and have been fighting extradition from the United States to Northern Ireland for the last six years.
Also attending the conference was Eddie Slaughter, vice president of the BFAA, who arrived after taking part in a December 5 meeting of 120 Black farmers in Georgia. He spoke from the floor in the discussion following the panel. "How would you like it in Illinois if some Black farmers showed up with you on the picket line?" he said, addressing David Yard. "And we would love it if you showed up in court with us in your fatigues!"
Ron Martin, a member of the Boilermakers union from Birmingham, Alabama, also spoke in the discussion about the coal miners' strike. "The attack on the Illinois miners is a big discussion in my local," he said. "Miners are heroes in the labor movement in my hometown. I remember them marching though the streets on strike when I was in elementary school in the 1970s." Martin emphasized the importance of union members everywhere supporting the striking Illinois miners to ensure a victory.
Luis Rivera, an apprentice electrician and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who recently joined the Young Socialists in Chicago, commented, "Before I met socialists, I saw a lot of problems in society. You keep fighting them, and a few years later it's the same fight. I felt the same as Dean going into the Pathfinder bookstore the first time" and seeing books that had answers to these questions.
A broad range of classes helped round out the discussion at the conference. Topics included, Teamster rebellion: the fight for a class-struggle left wing; the fight for Black freedom: from "40 acres and a mule" to the fight for a workers and farmers government; 150 years of the Communist Manifesto: its relevance for today's struggles; the Russian revolution: how the Bolsheviks led workers and peasants to power; new rise in the fight for Chicano liberation; and the origin of women's oppression and the fight for socialism.
A special session included classes by Dean Cook, Black farmers' leaders Gary Grant and Eddie Slaughter, and David Yard about their fights and the impact of these struggles on their own political consciousness. Display center tables from all three fights, with photos, T-shirts, and information, were the scene of lively discussion during breaks.
The Pathfinder book tables were also crowded. Conference participants bought more than $1,400 worth of books and pamphlets. New International was the top seller. The Communist Manifesto, Teamster Rebellion, and books on the Cuban revolution were also popular.
There were also two workshops, on work in defense of the Cuban revolution and using the Militant, that were open to all youth at the conference.
On to the party convention
Ryan Kelly, a YS leader and volunteer in Pathfinder's
printshop in New York, reported on the Young Socialists' tasks
and perspectives for the coming period.
"There is no one particular struggle or project that will be at the centerpiece of our work," he stated. "We must use the social weight of YS activism by relaunching our turn into mass work. Being quick, responsive, and a part of the resistance and skirmishes in our area is how we'll build a proletarian youth organization leading up to the Socialist Workers Party convention."
The discussion focused on the activities that will be carried out to strengthen the YS during the four months between now and the SWP convention, which will take place in April in San Francisco. Delegates discussed the openings for advancing their work in defense of the Cuban revolution, and also decided to organize for a larger percentage of its membership to learn Spanish to better fight alongside the section of the U.S. working class whose first language is Spanish.
The convention also reaffirmed its course in making it a priority to keep the works of revolutionary leaders published by Pathfinder in print, by deciding to assign another member of its organization to work in the printshop.
Samantha Kern gave a report to the final conference session on the YS convention's decisions on its tasks, and introduced the new National Committee elected by the convention delegates. She announced that for the next period the YS National Office will move to San Francisco. The new National Committee had just met and elected a National Executive Committee of Kern, Ryan Kelly, and Cecilia Ortega.
Jack Barnes then introduced the members of the party's Trade Union Committee (TUC), who were seated on the platform along with the new YS National Committee. The TUC is the party leadership body that will work most closely with the YS leadership between now and the party convention, he said.
Barnes noted that workers are radicalizing faster than student youth today, which has not been the case for decades. He came back to a theme from the "In this issue" article in New International no. 11. "The evidence continues to accumulate that the working class in the United States and most other imperialist countries has emerged from the period of political retreat that followed the short, brutal - and demoralizing, because largely uncontested - imperial assault on the people of Iraq in 1990-91.
"Signs of renewed defensive action are all around us - more numerous strike actions reflecting the tenacity and resistance of the embattled ranks; a noticeable growth in the confidence and determination of women in industry; the increased weight of Black leadership in labor battles and struggles of working farmers; an upswing in the Puerto Rican independence movement; more actions in defense of immigrants' rights. Such developments prepare the strengthening of working-class leadership in these struggles."
Citing the article written by Karl Marx in 1866 titled "Trade Unions: Their Past, Present, and Future," Barnes said events today increase the potential of the unions to act as Marx described in that article, "as organizing centers of the working class in the broad interests of its complete emancipation."
This means the union ranks are in a better position in relation to the officials, in reality and in potential. It means there are more opportunities for work among women in industry, and new possibilities for leadership in the Black community. In one example of this, a member of the International Association of Machinists from Vancouver described during the conference how the small minority of women in her workplace have recently formed a women's committee of the union and discuss activity together, including supporting a strike by nurses in the area. Socialist workers need to actively search out these developments, participate in them, and publicize them, Barnes said.
He emphasized that the continuity of each struggle that breaks out today, from the Illinois coal fields to Titan Tire strikes in Iowa and Mississippi, to other battles, has less connection to past defeats and more to do with other struggles taking place today. This continuity is not within a given industry, union, or region, but rather in the working class as a whole and in those sections of it who want to fight. The working-class vanguard is every fighter who offers himself or herself to do this and reaches out to others.
Capitalism offers the perspective of more executions, more storm troopers, more brutality, more government intervention in the unions. This puts a premium on competent strategy and tactics in trade union work, Barnes said.
The rulers want fighters to do foolish things, to let anger, not strategy, be their guide. Vanguard workers can't just rely on the most conscious and committed activists in a fight, but need to find ways to organize the largest numbers possible of those affected by the fight into activity, at the same time reaching out broadly to others for solidarity. And do so in a way that does not unnecessarily open up fellow fighters for victimization by the cops and company.
The task of the SWP in the coming months is to help take Young Socialists to working class struggles and industrial plant gates for discussions with workers and sales of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, and to study with them, Barnes said, beginning now with the feature article in New International no. 11, "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War." The goal between now and the party convention is to recruit every YS member to the SWP, to increase the number of fighters who come to that convention five- or tenfold, and to recruit every fighting worker we meet and work with to the SWP on the road to the San Francisco convention.