The focus of the reports and discussion at this National Committee meeting was the possibilities and need to transform the work of party members and branches in order to meet the potential to recruit workers.

The party has already been successful in beginning to integrate itself into the resistance of workers and farmers in town and country, establishing headquarters and regular political activity in workers districts, and building party fractions in garment shops, textile mills, meatpacking plants, and coal mines, where workers are organizing to defend themselves and their unions against employer assaults.

Attending the meeting were members of the party’s National Committee, organizers of SWP branches and organizing committees, members of the steering committees of the party’s national trade union fractions, representatives of the Young Socialists, and leaders of Communist Leagues from several countries.  
 
Workers coming around the party
During the course of the meeting socialist workers from California to Florida to Massachusetts gave examples of how their work over the past months has led to a greater number of workers coming around the party, making contributions to the party’s work by passing on suggestions about its activities, informing party members of protest actions and political meetings, and joining tables to sell revolutionary literature.

They noted the interest among co-workers and others in books on revolutionary politics published by Pathfinder Press, as well as in the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial. In some cities the Militant Labor Forum is becoming a regular place for a broader layer of workers and youth who view the weekly event as a unique opportunity to engage in serious political discussions.

Today the party faces bigger openings to begin to recruit workers and young people to the communist movement than at any time since the early years of the SWP’s turn to the industrial unions in the late 1970s.

There is a gap, however, between the number of workers and youth who can become contacts, supporters, and members of the Socialist Workers Party, and the party’s ability to take advantage of these opportunities. Closing that gap is a decisive question for the movement, SWP leaders noted, a challenge that the membership and leadership can meet by working week in and week out at the course of proletarianizing the party.

In his political report to the meeting, SWP national secretary Jack Barnes said that the party today is preparing for the struggles that will break out as the crisis of capitalism deepens. "In the midst of gigantic battles," he said, "great opportunities in the working-class movement shatter parties that are not prepared."

The party met the opportunity of the Minneapolis Teamster strikes that erupted in 1934 because of what it had done beforehand in skirmishes in the coalfields, a major strike by hotel workers in New York, and other working-class struggles--along with its defense of Bolshevik continuity against the rise of Stalinism. As a result, the party was able to respond, be a part of the leadership of the battles in Midwest trucking, and begin to win a layer of workers to its banner.

The party is an organized part of the layers of the proletariat that are the main targets of the employers’ offensive, said Barnes. Having no predictive powers, communists, like other working people, live and act in the moment; but they situate unfolding skirmishes and political developments in, and organize their own activity according to, the historic line of march of the working class.

Barnes noted a major advance that working people today can build on. In earlier decades communists had only a few classic works of Marxism in English to draw on as they were up to their necks in labor and social struggles. The extensive publishing program of Pathfinder Press, which includes a range of titles in five languages, is something new for the revolutionary workers movement and is a source of strength. Publishing communist and revolutionary literature enables the party to reach wider layers of the working class both inside the United States and internationally.

Party-building work day-to-day is frequently carried out on different fronts by one or two communists as they take up opportunities to talk politics and distribute literature on the job, sell in front of factory gates or at street corners, and participate in political meetings and coalitions.

It is this work that the weekly meeting of the SWP branch reviews, assesses, and adjusts. The activity, and not the branch meeting itself, is the focus of the week. "What gives the week its rhythm is mass work and systematic work with contacts," Barnes said. "The branch meeting is a by-product of this regular work that draws together the lessons of the week."

The key to advancing proletarian work on the job is the combination of communist activity inside the plants and the work organized by party branches to set up tables, sell the socialist press, and engage in political discussions with workers at the plant gates. Both are necessary components of developing a weekly rhythm of party activity to meet workers, win them as contacts, and recruit them to the communist movement.

Consistent sales near Pathfinder bookstores in workers districts are a weekly priority of party members. So is establishing regular bookstore opening hours so workers know where and when they can find socialists, discuss politics, and purchase books.

The weekly Friday night talks and discussions at the bookstore that advance the education of all party members and those interested in the communist movement are essential, Barnes said. Even when the Militant Labor Forums are small, the party members, Young Socialists, and others who attend need this regular opportunity to grapple with important political questions and developments.

The question of recruitment, and the gap between what is possible and what is being accomplished, is posed sharply by the party’s progress in rooting itself in those industries and unions where the employers, despite having dealt harsh blows, are not breaking the resistance of workers and farmers. The stirrings and struggles of these sections of the working class are the base for building a revolutionary communist party that wants to fight for power, Barnes said.

Party members should only work at a plant or mine if, through consistent political effort, they can meet co-workers who are interested in the movement, he said.

If we do our work, said Barnes, workers will see in us the kind of party needed to lead a revolutionary struggle for power by tens of millions of workers and farmers in the United States. "The party is designed to face the fact that the U.S. rulers will go to war, a war that will determine the history of humanity. That is what you are preparing for."

The SWP is following the lines of resistance in the working class--lines that lead to a proletarian milieu that today is the only platform to build and strengthen the communist movement, he said.  
 
Recruiting to revolutionary politics
When young people are drawn to the revolutionary movement, said Barnes, the party must meet them on their own ground, debate and discuss differing political ideas through to the end, and encourage them to participate in joint political activity. In the case of students, he said, "We are indifferent to whether or not they quit school and get a job. It doesn’t have any bearing on their recruitment," he said.

As they become convinced, young socialists will start taking more responsibility for the movement and make decisions about what to do with their lives.

Joel Britton, the organizer of the Chicago branch of the party, presented a report entitled, "Communist Branches, Fractions, and Recruiting Vanguard Workers." Britton described the continuing meetings and actions by the illegally fired meat packers at American Meatpacking Corporation (AMPAC) in Chicago. By following the lines of resistance among working people in the city, the party branch in Chicago has become more involved in several struggles, helping its members to take steps toward transforming the weekly work of the branch along the lines described by Barnes.  
 
Following the lines of resistance
Establishing regular sales off literature tables on street corners in workers districts has been an important part of meeting workers who are part of political actions and union resistance. Recently a worker informed the members of one sales team about a meeting to discuss a wave of firings on the grounds of alleged irregularities in Social Security numbers. Some 300 people, socialist workers among them, turned out to the meeting. The sales team also got to know some worker militants and sold several books and three subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial.

Socialist workers in every workplace need a weekly team at the plant gate that is selling the socialist press and talking politics, Britton said. "Using some imagination in how we organize the sale raises the political level of the work and helps win recruits to our cause," he said.

At a large garment factory in Chicago one co-worker suggested that the team set up a literature table during their weekly sale outside. A livelier sale resulted.

Britton proposed that the National Committee approve a request by the steering committees of the party’s industrial union fractions to extend by two weeks the drive to win new subscribers to the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial and to sell copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution. The extension, Britton said, "is to be movement-wide to fight to make every goal--fraction, branch, and international--enabling us to go into the convention with deeper relations with our co-workers and others, and increased recruitment opportunities." The meeting approved this proposal.

Britton described the solidarity that is growing up among meat packers involved in struggles in the Midwest. This is manifest in back-and-forth messages of support between groups of workers who won a union representation election in Omaha, Nebraska; meat packers at Dakota Premium Foods who are fighting for a contract in St. Paul, Minnesota; and AMPAC workers in Chicago.

"Following the lines of resistance of working people will get us into struggles that have elements of a social movement," said Britton. "We will find individuals who continue to join fights."

The branch in Chicago has also carried out some effective work at book fairs and political events in the city. The local Pathfinder bookstore sold nearly $3,000 worth of literature in one month. People participating in the Socialism 2000 conference organized by the International Socialist Organization purchased over $1,000 worth of revolutionary books published by Pathfinder, Britton reported.

At the event socialist workers and young socialists were also able to join discussions and debates over the ISO’s stance that there has not been a socialist revolution in Cuba. They also discussed why joining with bourgeois parties such as the Greens in electoral alliances heads the working class away from the fight for political power, and why a revolutionary strategy for power is based on the recognition that the imperialist powers remain organized on the basis of nation states.

Building the nuclei of communist parties in country after country is an integral part of the work of the SWP and Young Socialists, said Jack Willey in his report, entitled, "Revolutionary Youth and Communist Nuclei."

"The communist movement is not yet known in most parts of the world, but at the same time working people are resisting and there is openness to our perspectives," he said.

Willey, a leader of the SWP, was part of a delegation invited to speak at a forum sponsored by the Young Socialists in Haiti. The May 17–18 event "offered an opportunity to present a world program for socialist revolution" to the 50 youth who attended, he said.

At the event itself, and off a table outside a university, socialist workers from Canada and the United States sold more than 70 Pathfinder titles in French. The exchange has opened up possibilities for further collaboration with revolutionary-minded youth in Haiti.

Interest in revolutionary books and the ability to move them around in country after country is one example of the political space open to building the communist movement. The greatest obstacle facing revolutionary workers organizations from the 1930s was the Stalinist movement, he said--a movement that was responsible more than any state power for blocking interchange between revolutionary-minded working people. With the fall of the Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, previously locked doors have begun to open for communist forces.

Along with Young Socialists from Britain and New Zealand, Willey will attend a July meeting of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) in the Hungarian capital of Budapest--a meeting that will begin discussions on the host for the next festival, and on the event’s political character. Together with other organizations, the YS has worked to reinforce the anti-imperialist character of the world youth festivals and other gatherings organized by WFDY.

The Cuban Revolution and the work of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) remains a crucial component of this struggle, Willey said. Revolutionary-minded youth are attracted to this revolution and want to emulate its example. That is why communist workers and young socialists in the United States help to distribute books by leaders of the revolution, build support for tours of leaders of the UJC to the United States where they can explain the truth about the first socialist revolution in the Americas, and organize solidarity with Cuba. Today this includes the defense of five revolutionaries who were framed up by the U.S. government and are serving hard time in U.S. prisons. See contact details below.

Through this work "we are finding young people who are not won to the Stalinist counterfeit of communism, and who are hungry for revolutionary examples to learn from," Willey said. "We have been able to keep broadening the layers of youth and working people with whom we are collaborating, thereby expanding the prospects for building a world communist movement."

Socialist workers and youth from New Zealand are also expanding the reach of the communist movement in the South Pacific. They have been invited to New Caledonia, a French colony also known as Kanaky, to meet with revolutionary-minded workers who are interested in building a proletarian party.

Participants in the National Committee meeting brought recent experiences in organizing plant gate sales and in drawing workers and students closer to the movement.

Laura Garza and Ted Leonard from Boston described how as a result of consistent work on the job, regular workers district literature tables, and involvement in working-class struggles in the area, the attendance at the weekly Militant Labor Forum has picked up. Some workers coming around have begun making suggestions on new spots for sales tables, and in some cases have offered to help out on sales efforts here and there.  
 
Discussion with students
Brian Taylor described political give-and-take with a student at a university in Alabama. SWP branch members have been meeting her for discussions on political questions several times a week, mostly at her request, he said. She brings questions and criticisms that are raised by professors and fellow students, some of whom are trying to win her away from her interest in the Young Socialists.

At the coal mine where he works, Taylor was recently encouraged by a co-worker with more years on the job to step up his political activity and show the Militant to more miners. "He let me know that I should use the political space that is open to me," Taylor said.

James Harris from Atlanta explained that he recently returned to visit farmers in southern Georgia who have been involved in the fight against discrimination by United States Department of Agriculture officials against Black farmers. Harris, who had worked closely with the farmers, said that one "welcomed me ‘back on the team.’ I realized I shouldn’t have let as much time pass as I had done," Harris said.

"The farmers pointed out that if the Militant isn’t covering their fight, no one will. Two farmers bought subscriptions to the paper on that trip."

Mary-Alice Waters said the central political challenge coming out of the meeting is to lead the party membership to transform their work and that of the branches, leaving behind the kind of routinism described by several speakers because it blocks the ability of the party to attract workers. This is crucial in recruiting workers "as communists who are going to lead the working class to power."  
 
Communist Leagues
The meeting registered a convergence of the political course of the Communist Leagues in several countries with that of the SWP. Of particular note was the founding convention of the Communist League in Iceland scheduled for June 29–30. Communist workers in the country have just published the first issue of New International in Icelandic and built union fractions in the fish processing and aluminum industries. The new organization will combine several generations of revolutionary workers, including a significant component of younger cadre.

In both Sweden and Britain Communist Leagues have established organizing committees, and members have gotten jobs and begun political work in meatpacking and garment plants. In the United Kingdom the organizing committee in Scotland has been instrumental in putting the league in touch with struggles of farmers and mine workers they would not have otherwise know about.  
 
Capitalist economic crisis
In his report Barnes said that the world has entered a dangerous phase of the long-term capitalist crisis. In the United States this is marked by the ongoing decline of the stock market reinforced by corporate scandals, such as the $3.8 billion accounting fraud just uncovered at WorldCom.

Recent sharp drops in the stock prices of what had been high-flying companies in the United States have dealt a blow to the idea that workers or middle-class layers can find a way to protect their savings, or that pension plans will somehow grow at the rate promised by investment funds.

The capitalist devastation that first gripped Argentina has now hit Brazil and Uruguay, but the U.S. rulers continue to do little in response. The IMF and other imperialist lending agencies, as well as top government officials, approach negotiations over new loans to Argentina, a sovereign nation and an economically weighty country in South America, as if they were shaking down the books of a corporation.

Barnes noted that the sell-off of state companies by capitalist regimes in Latin America--a measure promoted by the imperialists’ International Monetary Fund and other proponents of the "free market"--is meeting resistance from working people. Selling a state-owned enterprise is a one-off deal, not a cash flow over years, he said. Once the sale is complete and the money spent, there is no income left to pay workers and invest in infrastructure. Argentina, whose government followed Washington’s proposals along these lines during the 1990s, now has little or nothing left to sell to foreign investors.

In northern Mexico, U.S.-owned companies and other corporations are shutting down plants and moving them to China in search of even lower wages than they are paying south of the U.S. border. Companies are expanding the growing of coffee in Vietnam, where it can be produced more cheaply than in Latin America. This has devastated exports from countries such as Guatemala and led to huge layoffs and devastation of whole regions of the country.

Part of Latin America is Cuba, which is going through an economic squeeze, Barnes said. The country is under growing pressure because of the cutoff of oil from Venezuela, a decline in the number of tourists, and the decline to rock-bottom levels of export prices for sugar. Over the past decade there has been a growth of a middle-class layer in Cuba that has benefited from the legalization of the dollar and investment by capitalist firms from abroad. The hopes of this layer in "market reform" have been raised by the growth in the dollar economy.

Measures being taken by the revolutionary leadership in Cuba to protect the standard of living of working people by raising prices at dollar stores will hit this aspiring layer the hardest, he said; consequently, the class struggle will deepen in Cuba.

Barnes took note of the propaganda shift by Washington from its use of the terminology of "rogue states" to denunciation of the "axis of evil" of Iran, Iraq, and north Korea. The latter incorporates an explicit "preemptive" strategy that parallels the "preemptive" and "pre-crime" course pursued by the administration in policing inside the United States. This includes the continued incarceration, under the guise of the "war on terror," of hundreds of people on minor immigration charges, and the jailing in military prisons without charges of two U.S. citizens.

The U.S. rulers are determined to win support for military attacks on countries that have the potential to put nuclear warheads or other weapons on intercontinental ballistic missiles and launch them in response to assaults by U.S. imperialism. Preventing any country that has the necessary economic, technical, and engineering capacity from carrying out a missile attack is essential in giving Washington a free hand to continue its aggressive and brutal course in the world.

In the Mideast, the Palestinian people are outlasting the brutal repression of the Israeli rulers and dividing the government. Generation after generation has stood up to Israeli brutalities, and the best fighters will find their way to communism and a proletarian party, even though this is a long and bloody road.

As working people fight for a social wage, said Barnes, they reach out in solidarity, a unique quality of the working class, a propertyless class for which politics is the highest calling. The tendency toward human solidarity is an attribute of working people and the only thing that makes it possible for them to fight the assaults by the superwealthy rulers. What marks politics today is the world character and depth of resistance, in which millions of toilers keep entering into the breach regardless of the lack of revolutionary working-class leadership. And there are no time limits on how long this can continue, Barnes said. Although none of these struggles heads toward a breakthrough in the construction of a revolutionary working-class leadership today, in struggle after struggle there are individuals who emerge ready to reach out, to seek new battles to join as they unfold, and to find their way to the proletarian party.  

 

Ramón Labañino Salazar (Luis Medina), Reg. #58734-004, USP Beaumont, P.O. Box 26030, Beaumont, Texas 77720-6035  
 
 
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