Cecilia Ortega of the outgoing National Executive Committee presented a report outlining the fall campaigns of the YS, to build on gains registered in the previous months. At the center of its work is the perspective of building chapters of three or more members through participating in the growing proletarian resistance in the cities and the countryside.

There was discussion about the examples set by YS members who took the initiative to organize regional educational conferences of the YS and SWP, which had recently taken place in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The Birmingham YS was in the midst of planning for a southern regional conference October 23-24 in Atlanta. The regional conferences have been central to YS recruitment work; both the New Jersey and Chicago chapters of the YS have recruited new members.

The YS decided to continue working with a regional perspective on political actions and fund-raising in order to deepen the national collaboration of the YS. As part of this perspective, the California YS decided to organize the YS members to participate in staffing the Pathfinder booth at the Guadalajara, Mexico, bookfair in November.

The YS is campaigning with the Socialist Workers Party, to get Capitalism's World Disorder, as well as other Pathfinder titles, placed in bookstores and libraries where workers and farmers buy their books. The YS aims to get a member on each regional team that visits bookstores, factory plant gates, mine portals, campuses, and working-class communities.

Jacob Perasso, the YS National Fund Drive Director, reported on the progress made by chapters and at-large members in the previous three weeks in organizing fund-raising events as part of raising money towards the goal that each city with YS members has established. As of October 17 just over $2,000 had been turned in to the national office in San Francisco. Participants in the meeting voted to raise $3,000 over the next two weeks in order to put the YS on course to make its national goal of $8,000 by November 14. Fund-raising ideas raised in the discussion included political video showings and raffles.

The YS NEC will work with chapters to seek out the opportunities that exist to organize YS speaking events on campuses. This will be a chance for the YS to take advantage of the fact that YS members have returned from international reporting teams for the Militant to Cuba and Puerto Rico. These events can be important YS fund-raisers as well.

The leadership meeting also decided to produce a pamphlet that YS members can campaign with as a tool in recruiting new members. It will include the Young Socialists Manifesto; a document on recruitment; the aims and political principles, the organizer, and a selection of articles from the "YS Around the World" column from the Militant that reflect the activities, political perspectives, and international character of the YS.

Coming out of the meeting, the YS projects a national convention early next year to register progress made in building a revolutionary youth organization, and to elect a new National Committee that reflects the broadening leadership in the organization.

The meeting also elected a new National Executive Committee to lead the work of the organization in the coming months.

BY SAMANTHA KERN 
The Santa Cruz YS chapter will be hosting a weekend Socialist Educational Conference on the UC Santa Cruz campus November 6-7. The central theme of the conference will be the origins of women's oppression and the fight for women's liberation today from a Marxist perspective. The conference will also include a class on Buchananism and the culture war, and a panel of Young Socialists and vanguard workers involved in the increasing working-class resistance today.

This conference was initiated by a discussion held at the YS National Committee's expanded leadership meeting (see above) on the question of violence against women and the organizational norms of the Young Socialists. YS leaders discussed the fact that various forms of abuse are a reality women face living under capitalism.

The Young Socialists makes no pretense that the communist movement can be a utopia or a refuge for women, or that relations between men and women are perfect. But the Young Socialists follows proletarian norms, habits, and policies that stem from our political line, including the fight for women's liberation, which put women in the best position to lead and become capable, political equals.

Two examples that came up during the discussion were the longtime polices of the Socialist Workers Party and the YS to have separate rest room facilities for men and women at public gatherings, and organizing separate housing for men and women on regional teams. Both of these policies minimize the vulnerability of women to physical violence and fear of sexual abuse or attack, and create the best conditions for women to become political leaders of the communist movement.

The conference provides a perfect opportunity for the YS in California to clarify and discuss these important political questions, and attract fighters to the YS who are interested in a working-class perspective on the fight for women's rights. YS members from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, and fighters throughout the west coast region are building the meeting.  
 
 
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