BY JOSHUA CARROLL AND ALARIC DIRMEYER
SEATTLE - Organizing a working-class campaign against U.S. imperialism and its war drive against Iraq became the central theme of the international socialist conference held here January 24-25. The working meeting drew more than 250 socialist workers, Young Socialists, and others from across the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. It was held in continuity with recent conferences held in Birmingham, Alabama, and Toronto.

Two presentations served as the starting point for the discussion at the conference. These were "The Siren Call of Economic Nationalism and Washington's March toward Fascism and War" by Socialist Workers Party National Secretary Jack Barnes and "100 Years of Struggle against Yankee Imperialism: The Weight of the Cuban Revolution in a World of Growing Capitalist Disorder" by Mary-Alice Waters, editor of the Marxist magazine New International.

The themes of this discussion were supplemented by classes on the working-class campaign against Washington's 1990 -91 war against Iraq; the Black struggle in the United States; the Quebecois fight for independence; the crisis facing working farmers and the fight for a worker-farmer alliance; and the rise of U.S. imperialism and the struggle against it.

The general feeling that the conference was a success politically was bolstered by the presence of a number of young fighters attending their first communist conference and asking to join the Young Socialists.

J.P. Crysdale, 19, was one such youth who hailed from City College in San Francisco. He had first met the YS in Philadelphia in 1996 through a friend. When he moved to the Bay Area for school this year, he decided to look up the Pathfinder bookstore to see if there were any Young Socialists in the area. After coming to number of Militant Labor Forums, he decided to come to the conference. Crysdale is particularly interested in learning more about the current economic crisis in East Asia. He pointed out that the crisis "is a sign of capitalism's failure. We shouldn't mistake this for the collapse of world capitalism though. It won't destroy itself. But it is a sign that world capitalism is unstable." Crysdale also plans on taking the fight against U.S. military buildup to his campus.

James Hicks, a young worker and member of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) at Northwest Airlines in Duluth, Minnesota, was at his second socialist conference. He attended the 39th Constitutional Convention of the Socialist Workers Party in Oberlin, Ohio, last summer. He has recently been using Pathfinder titles on his job to explain union politics on a class basis to co-workers. One title he has sold on the job is The Eastern Airlines Strike, which he uses to counter the arguments of members of the Airline Mechanics Federation of America (AMFA), an antiunion outfit that was backed by Eastern during the strike. "The strike at Eastern showed the bosses that if they are going to take on the Machinists, they are going to get a fight."

Four students came from Santa Cruz, California. Among them was Americo Castillo, from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Castillo helps organize meetings for farm workers on campus. "I grew up working in the fields," he explained. "I want to learn what it means to be a socialist." He bought The Wages System by Frederick Engels and In Defense of Socialism by Fidel Castro. When asked about his plans after the conference, he responded, "Read those books!"

Five youth asked to join the YS at the West Coast Regional Socialist Conference.

Part of the conference was a send-off to two important international events. A team of supporters of Pathfinder Press from Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom will be staffing a booth at the Havana Book Fair February 1-5. A team of reporters for the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial from the United States will travel to Cuba at the same time, reporting on the book fair and other political developments there. Delegations from the Young Socialists in Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States will also be traveling to Cairo, Egypt, in early March for a meeting to assess the World Festival of Youth and Students that took place in Havana last year and the next steps in building an anti- imperialist international youth movement. An appeal for funds to cover the Militant reporting teams to these events raised about $13,000 in contributions and pledges from conference participants.  
 
 
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