BY CARLOS HERNÁNDEZ
LOS ANGELES - Young Socialists leaders from 13 cities
participated in an expanded meeting of the organization's
National Committee September 19-20 to discuss the work of the
YS leading up to its convention, which participants decided to
hold in Los Angeles December 4-6.
For two days, YS leaders discussed the need to build chapters of the Young Socialists that make collective decisions, have a serious approach to finances, and put recruitment to the organization at the center of its work. Participants voted to carry out several national campaigns that will require the active involvement of all members. These include helping to organize and promote December 10 actions calling for the release of Puerto Rican political prisoners, building solidarity with and participating in labor struggles, and campaigning for Socialist Workers candidates across the country.
"The YS convention will give us a time frame and focal point for the YS nationally to carry out common campaigns that will make us a stronger and larger organization by the time of the convention," said YS leader Verónica Poses in a report to the meeting.
The national leadership meeting was called following a successful West Coast conference sponsored by YS chapters in California September 5-6 (see article in the September 21 Militant). That conference reflected progress in building a communist youth organization that participates in politics with other forces and recruits young fighters to its ranks. The YS National Executive Committee had asked participants in that conference to vote on whether or not the weekend's deliberations indicated that the call for a YS convention was warranted. After several hours of discussion, the 30 youth present decided that would indeed be a help in generalizing some of the advances reflected in the conference discussion.
Much of the discussion at the national leadership meeting two weeks later focused on the need to develop a "nose for recruitment." Samantha Kendrick, who is the YS organizer for the California region, explained, "We need to develop a recruitment culture, where contacts are invited to forums, classes, political actions, and social events. We need to follow up with those who do participate with us in common activity to convince them of why they need to be part of a communist youth organization."
Several YS members who volunteer at Pathfinder's print shop participated in the meeting. They brought with them the new Pathfinder pamphlet Puerto Rico: Independence is a Necessity, which contains two interviews with longtime Puerto Rican independence leader Rafael Cancel Miranda. "This pamphlet is very attractive not only to Puerto Rican fighters but for all revolutionary-minded young people," said Poses in her report. This pamphlet will be an important political tool of the YS for the next months in the work to build the actions to free the Puerto Rican political prisoners and to explain why fighting for an end to U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico is essential for the working class in the United States.
The leadership conference also reflected the work that YS members have been a part of in their cities. Paul Cornish, a member of the United Steelworkers of America in Atlanta, described his experiences participating in the Million Youth Movement events in Atlanta earlier this month. "Many young Blacks are looking for answers to the social and economic devastation they face, and raise questions that we need to be ready to answer," he said.
YS members will soon start a period of preconvention discussion. All YS members will participate in a written discussion on the program and organization of the YS, as well as exchanging experiences and evaluating developments in world politics.
The YS Discussion Bulletin will be opened with the "YS Manifesto," a document drafted by the chapter in Los Angeles as a set of working notes developed through several chapter discussions, as well as the YS Organizer, which was adopted by the second national convention of the YS, held in Atlanta in March 1997. The YS Manifesto and the opening section of the YS Organizer, "Aims of the Young Socialists," are published in the new issue of the Marxist magazine New International. That issue, which features the Socialist Workers Party resolution "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War" by Jack Barnes, will be one of the central political weapons of the YS to study and sell to others in the coming months.
Leading up to the convention, YS chapters will organize oral discussions on the Manifesto and the Organizer, as well as other materials that chapters deem relevant to their work. This discussion will lay the basis for the election of delegates for the YS convention.
"A central part of our activities this fall has to be fund- raising," said Poses in her report. Chapters will start raising "scholarship funds" to help youth who are interested in going to the convention but can't afford all the expenses related to it.
At the same time, YS members will raise money to help finance the expenses of the national office, which leading up to the convention will be higher than usual. This money will be used for paying bills such as phone, fax, postage, printing of the Discussion Bulletin, and travel.
At a Militant Labor Forum Saturday night, supporters of the YS contributed more than $1,200 to help with the expenses of holding this meeting, as well as moving the national office from Chicago to Los Angeles, where it will be based leading up to the convention.
The meeting also celebrated the graduation of nine YS members who have left the YS in order to focus their attention on their leadership responsibilities in the Socialist Workers Party. A new National Executive Committee was elected composed of Carlos Hernández, Samantha Kendrick, Cecilia Ortega, and Verónica Poses.
Maithong Yang, a YS member in Los Angeles, contributed to this article.