The conference will feature presentations by Socialist Workers Party national secretary Jack Barnes, author of the new Pathfinder book Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, and SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters, as well as classes, panels, and films.

The political focus of the four-day event will be the opportunities to build the communist movement through deepening participation in the resistance of workers and farmers to the offensive by bosses and their government; the possibilities and necessity of building a disciplined, centralized proletarian party of professional revolutionaries, based in workers districts, as the Bolsheviks did in Russia to lead workers and farmers in a revolutionary struggle for power in 1917; and the centrality of the example of the Cuban Revolution in building such a party today, will be addressed in keynote presentations at the meeting.

Several hundred participants will bring to the conference recent experience in building the communist movement among workers and farmers and participating in union struggles and social protests. These include actions against police brutality and racist attacks in Cincinnati, Miami, and Oldham, England; the June 9 rally in Columbia, South Carolina, to defend the Charleston 5 dockworkers; strikes, including those by garment workers at Hollander Home Fashions and Up-To-Date laundry workers in Baltimore; a youth congress organized by the Polisario Front in Western Sahara; and actions by working people in mining regions to defend the environment, fight for health care, and demand government compensation for the devastating effects of uranium poisoning and black lung disease.

Garment and textile workers, meat packers and miners, and others from rural and urban areas; farmers involved in actions to defend their land and livelihoods; and participants from several countries around the world will be among those attending the conference.

A highlight of the conference will be two panel presentations that will include communist workers, youth, and trade unionists involved in defending their unions; participating in social movements and protest actions; and increasing the distribution and study of Pathfinder books and socialist publications on the job, from street tables in workers districts and through sales to bookstores and libraries. The panels will also address the international collaborative effort required to produce and keep in print the Marxist and revolutionary books published by Pathfinder; and to build branches of the SWP in urban and rural workers districts that are spreading the influence of socialism among layers of working people through weekly public forums, literature tables, classes, and recruitment work.

Classes will include "Communists and the transformation of nature" by Steve Clark; "The hidden history of the 1963-65 workers and farmers government in Algeria," by Greg McCartan; "Organizational principles of the Socialist Workers Party" by Lisa Potash and Martín Koppel; "The birth of Bolshevism" by Argiris Malapanis; "The Jewish question" by Dave Prince; and "Twenty-two years of the Iranian revolution" by Cindy Jaquith. Translation into Spanish and French will be available for all classes and presentations.

Another special feature of the conference will be the viewing of a series of films. Terrorists in Retirement, a movie that was initially banned from French television because it exposed the betrayal of immigrant workers and resistance fighters by the French Communist Party, will be shown. The Battle of Algiers, a dramatized account of the Algerian revolution; and Salt of the Earth, the heroic struggle of Western zinc miners in the United States, will also be shown. In addition, there will be music, dancing, and time to socialize.

Young people participating in the conference will have a chance to learn about and sign up for the July 22-30 Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange in Havana and the World Festival of Youth and Students, which will take place in Algeria August 8-16. The Young Socialists are planning a meeting Sunday, June 17.

Also on Sunday volunteers in the Pathfinder Reprint Project--who are taking on new challenges and goals after having recently converted half of Pathfinder’s books and pamphlets to electronic form--will conduct workshops and training sessions, and the SWP trade union leadership will meet.

Those interested in finding out more about the conference can see the listing on page 12 to contact the Socialist Workers Party or Young Socialists near them. Socialists in cities and towns across the United States are organizing transportation for anyone interested in attending the gathering.  
 
 
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