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    Vol.63/No.7           February 22, 1999 
 
 
Join The Discussion, Come To Socialist Workers Convention  
"There is a... political hunger among workers and farmers - the fighting coalition that will make up the government that will carry humanity into a new world. It's a hunger for solidarity, for struggle; it's a hunger to learn from each other. A refusal to accept that the pattern of struggles today is decided by past defeats.... Resisting indignity and isolation, the emerging pattern is taking shape. The vanguard of working people whose actions will define it is increased by every single fighter who reaches out to others and offers to fight." - Jack Barnes, "A Sea Change in Working-Class Politics"

Reports in this issue of the Militant paint a vivid picture of this shift in working-class politics. Refinery workers locked out in Texas, catfish workers demanding their dignity in Mississippi, farmers fighting for their land and against racist discrimination, striking auto workers in Illinois, and many others forging links of solidarity. Youth attracted to these fights and involved in social protests have been joining the Young Socialists.

A growing number of these fighters are among the readers of the Militant. We urge all of you to join in the discussion now under way leading up to the April 1-4 convention of the Socialist Workers Party in San Francisco, and to make plans now to attend and participate in the conference activities surrounding it.

Last week's Militant devoted a special International Socialist Review supplement to the summary talk, quoted above, by SWP national secretary Jack Barnes to a conference in December 1998 sponsored jointly by the party and Young Socialists. The conference was held in conjunction with the third national convention of the Young Socialists. This week's issue includes "Youth and the Communist Movement," a June 1992 report discussed and adopted by a joint congress of the Communist League in the United Kingdom and three young socialists groups. Both talks will be published at the end of February as part of Capitalism's World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium by Jack Barnes.

These documents - together with the 1990 SWP resolution "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War," recently published in issue no. 11 of the Marxist magazine New International, and the party resolutions and reports contained in The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions - provide the political foundation of the discussions communist workers and youth are organizing as they prepare for the SWP convention.

If you want to join the discussion, contact the SWP branch or Young Socialists chapter nearest you.

 
 
 
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