Footloose YS members from Newark, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles have already agreed to move to either New York or Chicago. They will join in the weekly classes on the history of the communist movement, the effort to get the Socialist Workers presidential and vice presidential candidates on the ballot, and to build stronger YS chapters whose political activity is oriented to struggles of workers and farmers.

Some YS members will also get jobs in industry along with communist workers who carry out political work on the job and in the unions in meatpacking plants and garment factories.

The summer school centers provide a way for members of the YS from different cities to get a chance to work together politically. This helps the YS become a more cohesive, politically homogeneous national organization.

This is the third summer in a row the Young Socialists have organized a weekly schedule of classes. They are focused on the study of the victories and defeats of the working-class movement in the United States, the basic works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, writings of V.I. Lenin, and other books on building communist organizations. For many YS members this will be their first socialist summer school.

This summer the syllabus will feature classes on The Changing Face of U.S. Politics by Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party. One of the central themes that will run throughout the 10-week schedule of classes is how a communist party carries out its strategic orientation to the working class and functions in the trade unions to join with other vanguard workers in battles against the employers, seeking to transform the unions into revolutionary instruments of class struggle.

Classes will also be organized on The Struggle for a Proletarian Party by James P. Cannon, founding leader of the Socialist Workers Party; State and Revolution by V.I. Lenin, the central leader of the Russian Revolution; New International no. 11; and Trade Unions: Their Past, Present and Future by Karl Marx.

The New York summer school center will be located in the headquarters of the YS National Office, which also serves as the hall for the Socialist Workers campaign and the Garment District branch of the SWP. The headquarters is located in the heart of the Manhattan garment district, where tens of thousands of workers are employed in hundreds of union and nonunion factories. Party and YS members can use the hall as a springboard from which to set up tables with Pathfinder literature and the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, and get into political discussions with garment and other workers in the area. Summer school participants will also join struggles going on throughout New York, from the fight to demand the U.S. Navy get out of Vieques, to joining with vanguard workers at picket lines, as well as petitioning and campaigning for the Socialist Workers candidates all over the state.

Out of Chicago, YS members will have a key roll in the ballot drives in the Midwestern states. As the brigades get out to talk with people about the socialist alternative in the 2000 elections, they will meet with farmers who are fighting to hold onto their land, organize to sell the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial at mine portals and at other plant gates, and host a range of YS-sponsored activities, from fund-raising dinners to parties and campaign speaking events.  
 
Petitioning brigades will lead the way
YS members will join and lead petitioning brigades in a number of states, which will be the real driving force of the summer schools this year. Petitioning teams are needed to get the Socialist Workers candidates for president and vice president on the ballot in 14 states and Washington, D.C. Undemocratic laws mean the socialist campaign will not be on the ballot in a majority of states.

Petitioning will begin in New Jersey and Iowa soon, and a schedule for other states, including Minnesota , New York, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Vermont is being organized. The campaign will be launched at a kickoff event in New York the last weekend of June.

Socialist workers and YS members turn the petitioning requirements into a way to get out the socialist program and meet workers and youth interested in supporting the campaign. It is a way that many young people first learn about the Young Socialists and become interested in joining the organization. Teams will be on the streets in many cities and states where there is no organized unit of the party or YS today.

The campaign will provide the perfect opportunity to meet the hundreds and hundreds of youth and workers who are disgusted with the two capitalist parties and are excited to meet young revolutionaries through the campaign.  
 
Active Workers Conference
YS members involved in all these activities will be building the Active Workers Conference that will take place in Oberlin, Ohio, July 27-29. The conference will be attended by workers, farmers, and youth from across the United States as well as internationally. The conference will be an opportunity to discuss world politics and the increasing resistance of the working class and its allies, as well as the progress of the summer schools and the election campaign.

Anyone interested in the socialist summer schools, the Socialist Workers campaign, or learning more about the Young Socialists can contact the YS National Office. Please call (646) 263-8974, or send an e-mail to young_socialists@hotmail.com.  
 
 
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