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| A socialist newsweekly published in the interests of working people Vol. 64/No. 25  June 26, 2000
Young Socialists Around the WorldSocialist youth in Minnesota will host summer school center The Young Socialists is an international organization of young workers, students, and other youth fighting for socialism. For more information about the YS, write to Young Socialists, P.O. Box 33 Times Square Post Office, New York, NY 10108, or call (212) 695-1809, or send an e-mail to: young_socialists@hotmail.com BY SAMANTHA KERN Members of the Young Socialists from Newark, Detroit, and other cities will launch the socialist summer schools one week ahead of schedule in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Jake Perasso, a leader of the Young Socialists in Detroit, is working with the Twin Cities chapter to organize political activity centered on the fight by workers at the Dakota Premium Foods plant in St. Paul to win union recognition and a contract. Last week, the YS National Executive Committee voted to organize a third summer school center in the Twin Cities. Footloose YSers on their way to the Chicago or New York centers will make a stop in the Twin Cities to join in that socialist summer school's first week of activity. "The response the Young Socialists have gotten from workers and youth to the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial's coverage of the sit-down strike is electrifying," said Perasso, referring to a June 1 work stoppage by meat packers at Dakota Premium. "This will really charge the summer school classes." Since the sit-down strike, members of the YS have organized teams to sell both publications and also leafleted to build participation in a June 12 march to the plant organized by the workers (see front page.) Sales were organized all week at factory plant-gates, including at a picket line at the Pepsi plant where 450 workers organized by the Teamsters union are on strike, as well as school campuses. The chapter built and attended a Militant Labor Forum featuring a panel of the workers who organized the one-day strike. Those attending included a young meat packer from Des Moines, Iowa, and two students from the Twin Cities. "By carrying out this activity oriented to the working class, the YS can strengthen its proletarian character and it will concretize what we're going to study," said Perasso. The summer school activity will kick off with regional sales teams dispatched from the Twin Cities across Minnesota. Perasso explained how the participants will incorporate the summer school syllabus into the work done on the teams. "The teams will get out the story of the meat packers' struggle for a union." There is an overlapping of struggles across the country, and the YS can help get out the political weapons fighting workers and youth need while studying lessons from the 150 year history of the working-class movement. These teams will also give momentum to the petitioning brigades that will hit the pavement in Minnesota, Iowa, and other Midwest states in a just a few weeks to get the presidential and vice-presidential candidates for the Socialist Workers campaign on the ballot.
National syllabus for Young Socialists summer schools This syllabus, adopted by the YS National Executive Committee, will be studied at three socialist summer school centers--New York, Chicago, and Twin Cities--and where campaign brigades are petitioning to put the Socialist Workers candidates on the ballot, and anywhere young socialists want to study collectively the history of the communist movement with members of the Socialist Workers Party. June 18–24 Class 1 Changing Face of U.S. Politics "A New Stage in Revolutionary Working-Class Politics Sections I and II, pp. 232-–265 Class 2 Changing Face of U.S. Politics "A New Stage in Revolutionary Working-Class Politics Sections III and IV, pp. 265–312 June 25-–July 1 Class 3 Changing Face of U.S. Politics "The Turn to the Industrial Unions," pp. 393–419 Class 4 Changing Face of U.S. Politics "Capitalism's March Toward War and Depression" pp. 33–48 July 2–8 Class 5 Changing Face of U.S. Politics "Leading the Party into Industry," pp. 127–166 Class 6 U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War New International no. 11, Section II, "U.S. Imperialism has lost the Cold War," pp. 109–124 July 9–15 Class 7 U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War New International no. 11, Section II, "U.S. Imperialism has lost the Cold War," pp. 125–150 Class 8 U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War New International no. 11, Section IV, "Rebuilding the World Communist Movement," pp. 207–254 July 16–22 Class 9 Struggle for a Proletarian Party pp. 21–43 Class 10 Struggle for a Proletarian Party pp. 43–94 July 23 Class 11 Struggle for a Proletarian Party pp. 94–127 July 27-–29 Active Workers Conference August 6–10 Class 12 & 13 In Defense of Marxism, "A Petty-Bourgeois Opposition in the Socialist Workers Party," pp. 98–123, and "From a Scratch–To the Danger of Gangrene," pp. 173–231 August 13–19 Class 14 State and Revolution, chapters 1 & 2 Class 15 State and Revolution chapters 3 & 4 August 20–26 Class 16 State and Revolution chapter 5 Class 17 Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay pp. 33–47, Afterword to Teamster Bureaucracy, pp. 285–298 August 27–September 1 Week to make up classes There will also be a special weekend including three classes: Introductions to Che Guevara Talks to Young People, To Speak the Truth, and Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism History of American Trotskyism, Chapters 4–6, pp. 79–145 Chapters 7–8, pp. 146–203 YS chapters on final push for fund Young Socialists chapters and members across the country are working to meet their fund drive goals by the June 15 deadline. Events include dinners, raffles, and socials. Several chapters have passed their goals and decided to increase their contribution to the $7,000 national target. Chapters in Tucson, Los Angeles, and Birmingham collected over 100 percent of their local goals. Chapters, members, and supporters of the YS can send their final contributions to the YS National Office. The address is: YS NO, P.O. Box 33, Times Square Post Office, New York, NY, 10108.
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