BY PAUL MAILHOT AND JACK WILLEY

NEW YORK - As the two major capitalist parties - the Democrats and Republicans - capped off their election campaigns and prepared to orchestrate the next round of attacks on workers and farmers, the socialist movement registered important progress with the recruitment of 10 Young Socialists during the final week of the Socialist Workers election campaign. This levy of fresh forces to the fight against capitalism puts the Young Socialists on a course to meet its goal of recruiting 80 new members by the end of November, when four regional socialist educational conferences will be held. The gatherings will take place November 30- December 1 in Atlanta, Peoria, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

The Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists, the joint sponsors of these gatherings, are using the momentum from the last weeks of the socialist election campaign to launch ambitious efforts to build the conferences. James Harris and Laura Garza, the SWP candidates for president and vice president of the United States, will visit a number of cities to boost recruitment to the communist movement and participation in the educational conferences. These gatherings are the next big opportunity to come together and discuss the meaning of the 1996 election campaign, how to advance communist politics, and recruit to the Young Socialists.

Socialists are launching an all-out effort over the next three weeks to introduce workers and youth to the socialist press and invite them to the conferences. They will use the November 16-24 target week in the Militant subscription drive to win hundreds of new subscribers to the socialist press, step up sales of Pathfinder books, and build the regional events.

A brigade of socialists recently went to Beardstown, Illinois, to get the Militant into the hands of meatpacking workers and others. One grocery worker there is now making plans to go to the conference in Peoria. Over the next two weeks, socialist workers and YS members in Peoria will travel to five colleges in the region and in St. Louis. The team will follow up on a recent a campaign tour stop by Laura Garza in this region, which helped kick off efforts to build the socialist conference in Peoria.

Socialists in California are organizing weekly sales in working-class neighborhoods and campuses in Fresno, where three young fighters for Chicano rights recently joined the Young Socialists. Coming out of the protests against the anti- affirmative action initiative known as Proposition 209, the YS chapter in San Francisco is now beginning a class series on the Pathfinder book The Politics of Chicano Liberation.

From the Wheeling-Pittsburgh strike, to demonstrations against government attacks on immigrants, socialists have found new interest among youth for an alternative to the dog- eat-dog system of capitalism. Leading up to the regional conferences, Young Socialists are projecting classes to build the gatherings and win these young fighters to communist politics.

"The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Charting the working- class road to socialist revolution" is the theme of the educational conferences. They will center on building the kind of proletarian party and communist youth organization that will be capable of leading workers and their allies in the class battles ahead on the road toward taking state power away from the hands of America's ruling 60 families.

Each conference will feature four major presentations, which will be given by leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialists. They will highlight a discussion of today's capitalist world disorder and the class tensions, political polarization, and working-class resistance it engenders. The talks are:

* Fighting Clinton's bipartisan assault on the working class;

* Defend workers in power - emulate Cuba's socialist revolution;

* The revolutionary potential of the working class - communist work and the trade unions; and

* Organizing the gravediggers of capitalism - building the Young Socialists.

A variety of classes will also be held at each of the conferences to discuss subjects like the rise of the Chicano and Mexicano movement; the place of the Black nationality in the fight for the socialist revolution; the history of the Russian revolution; the fight against government and employer spying and harassment; women's liberation and the Marxist movement; the crisis facing working farmers; the counterrevolutionary role of Stalinism; and fascism: what it is and how to fight it.

The Young Socialists and Socialist Workers Party are inviting all those who hate capitalism and want to fight to change the world to attend one of the conferences. Transportation to the four regional events is being organized from two dozen cities around the United States. For the nearest location, see the listings on page 12.  
 
 
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