The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 73/No. 22      June 8, 2009

 
Socialist conference to discuss
crisis, workers road to power
(front page)
 
BY PAUL MAILHOT  
The program taking shape for the June 18-20, 2009, Socialist Education and Active Workers Conference in Oberlin, Ohio, will feature talks by Socialist Workers Party leaders, complementary classes on Marxist politics, and skills-training workshops for communist workers in the garment and meatpacking industries.

This integrated program of political talks, classes and discussions, and practical communist work in the labor movement and on college campuses will deepen the understanding of conference participants in the unfolding historic world capitalist economic and social crisis. It will also point the road forward for the working class in organizing to take political power out of the hands of the capitalists and reorganize society from top to bottom in the interest of the toiling majority.

Participants from across the United States and several other countries will discuss their work in building communist parties, the opportunities to work with young people on campuses on a range of political issues, and recruitment to and building the Young Socialists. The conference will also prepare participants to read, study, and sell the forthcoming Pathfinder book with the working title Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Jack Barnes, SWP national secretary, will present the conference political report and the conference summary talk. Party leader Mary-Alice Waters will give a featured talk on the Cuban Revolution and its place in world politics.

Another talk will highlight the progress communist workers have made the past 12 months in improving their sewing and knife skills as part of the efforts to strengthen the SWP, a proletarian party with members in the garment and meatpacking industries.

Working collectively on improving their skills is decisive to the ability of communist workers and youth to maintain jobs and carry out political work under the increasingly difficult conditions posed by mounting unemployment and the slowdown of world trade. This talk will discuss why systematic work on campus to attract fresh forces to the communist movement is equally decisive to building a proletarian party today.

Conference attendees will choose from several classes on Marxist politics that will be repeated throughout the conference so participants can attend two or three different ones.

Three classes will focus on the themes of the upcoming international conference on José Martí, Benito Juárez, and Abraham Lincoln, to be held in Monterrey, Mexico, next October. These interconnected classes will explain the impact that the U.S. Civil War and the defeat of the slaveholders had on revolutionary developments in Mexico and Cuba.

Classes will be given on two Pathfinder titles—Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? and Capitalism and the Transformation of Africa (see box on this page).

There will also be film showings, social activities, and special gatherings for first-time participants hosted by the Young Socialists and the SWP.

On Sunday, June 21, the Young Socialists will meet to discuss its work and priorities. Supporters of the communist movement will also hold a series of workshops that day to advance their work in formatting, proofreading, designing, indexing, promoting, and selling Pathfinder books.

Classes at June 18-20 Socialist Conference

 
 
 
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