Barnes, the SWP national secretary, spoke to the March 16-17 meeting of the party's National Committee, in which branch organizers and international guests also participated. Under the report, entitled "Proletarianization and the New International," he returned to the themes of a National Committee meeting held five weeks earlier (see March 4 Militant).

The heart of the activity to build a communist party--through which socialist workers reach out to and join in the proletarian resistance, and find and recruit workers and students--remains the weekly Militant Labor Forum series, consistent sales of communist literature in workers districts, propaganda work at factory gates, and the staffing of Pathfinder bookstores, he said.

Campaigns such as those aimed at winning support for five Cuban revolutionaries in U.S. jails and for Michael Italie, a socialist worker fired from Goodwill Industries for his political views, are also valuable instruments in working with others attracted to the communist movement and in helping to recruit them to the YS and party.  
 
Emerging social movements
Barnes pointed out that the successes of U.S. imperialism during its decade-long economic boom of the 1990s were built on the backs of working people. In the industries where the capitalists have gone furthest in driving down working conditions and wages in order to shore up their profits, social movements have emerged in cities and regions of the country to confront the bosses' attacks.

Several years ago members of the SWP and Young Socialists recognized this shift in the resistance of the working class and set out to find where it existed, join with those engaged in struggle, and carry out party-building work as part of these fights.

The meeting was marked by the contributions of participants who reported on work along these lines and the opportunities to build the world communist movement today.

Frank Forrestal, a member of United Mineworkers Local 1248 in Pennsylvania, had just returned from Charleston, West Virginia, where he participated in the kick-off of the widows' walk for federal black lung benefits. Two widows of miners who died of black lung are on a month-long, 400-mile walk from Charleston to Washington demanding compensation for miners and the spouses of miners who have the disabling and often fatal disease. At each stopover they will be greeted by supporters with rallies, dinners, and other activities.

"These working-class fighters are reaching out to everyone who supports their struggle," he said, "and communists have an obligation to work with miners and other working people, both in the coalfields and more broadly, to join the walk and help put together activities along the route."

Forrestal reminded the meeting that this series of actions is not an anomaly, but part of an emerging social movement in coalfield regions across the United States. Recently, 200 people held a demonstration demanding compensation and the cleanup of an environmentally devastating mine spill in Inez, Kentucky, that happened two years ago. Widows of miners killed in a mine explosion last year at a Jim Walters mine in Alabama picketed across the street from the company, explaining that they have received little or no compensation. Last year four mine floods destroyed some 3,000 homes in southern West Virginia, fostering growing resentment toward the coal bosses among working people in the area.  
 
Western coal fields
Jason Alessio reported that the company at the union mine where he works in western Colorado recently held a meeting announcing attacks on working conditions. "They told us they invested $7 million in Enron and now we need to cut more coal in fewer hours, reduce the amount of drinking water we take underground, and limit the number of pairs of safety glasses we use each month--all to make up for their losses," he said. "Naturally, workers were outraged."

Several co-workers and other miners in the area have started to find out about the widows' march and are discussing ways to offer solidarity, he said. Among the best responses to the Militant from workers across the country is from coal miners, several participants noted.

Working conditions in the large Omaha packing houses continue to spur union organizing fights, Don Reed reported. Workers at one plant regularly meet to discuss how to advance their effort. They have begun distributing a newsletter to their coworkers called La Neta, Mexican slang for "The Truth," to strengthen their struggle. Workers are gaining confidence in their capacity to organize to fight the bosses, Reed said, and La Neta is starting to have a few stinging articles and cartoons that really do portray "the truth" about the bosses.

The fight is one example of how packinghouse workers from South St. Paul to Omaha to Chicago are finding ways to resist the bosses' offensive and are part of a common, if still atomized, social movement taking shape, even as the relationship of class forces in the labor movement remains unchanged for now.

Joe Swanson reported on a meeting that Michael Italie took part in with seven meatpacking workers in Omaha who are part of the union fight. Swanson described the meatpackers' deep interest not only in Italie's description of his firing as an attack on workers' rights, but also in the political questions he championed during his campaign as the Socialist Workers Party candidate for Miami mayor last fall.  
 
Defending immigrant rights
Socialists at the meeting described a series of protests in California and Florida organized by immigrant workers and others to demand the right to a driver's license. A recent action in Watsonville, California, involved farm workers who were part of a hard-fought union organizing drive at Coastal Berry several years ago.

A party member from Tampa, Florida, said that she and other meatpackers arrived at work one day to find flyers posted for a demonstration around the driver's license fight. They are looking forward to hooking up with other workers in the plant and the area to build the event.

Several participants pointed out that when social struggles such as these get going, union organizing drives and struggles have a better chance of winning against the bosses. The unions will continue to get weaker, even as social struggles are on the upswing. A rising social movement will make it possible for workers to begin to fight to strengthen and transform their unions, and organize millions into their ranks.

A number of participants described examples of how Washington has all but worn out its ability to use September 11 to convince working people to hold off their struggles and keep at an arm's length socialist publications campaigning against the imperialist assault.

James Harris from Atlanta reported that more than 20 strikers at Lockheed Martin, a military aerospace manufacturer, bought copies of the Militant during the first few days of the strike. Beth Fineas, who works in a surface mine in eastern Pennsylvania, recounted a discussion she had with several coworkers about a hated mine boss. One pointed to a coal dust-covered American flag hanging on the wall, and made a joke about the boss's right-wing views, saying, "We should stick up the flag of Afghanistan instead... Or better yet, a rainbow flag. That would really get him!"

Barnes noted in his report that Pathfinder bookstores have opened in three cities and towns where the party has branch organizing committees. They are Craig, Colorado; Kannapolis, North Carolina; and Tampa, Florida. Socialist workers in each city have followed the lines of resistance, sunk roots into the proletarian struggles in their regions, and begun taking on many characteristics of party branches.

A March 9 Militant Labor Forum in Craig on the fight against black lung received prominent coverage in the local newspaper. The first major publicity in the region about the widows' march was provided by this newspaper article and the forum itself.  
 
Militant Labor Forums
Several participants spoke to the irreplaceable role of the weekly Militant Labor Forum series for vanguard workers. The forums are unique today because they are the only weekly events in most cities where working people can come together to discuss politics.

Forums presenting a working-class perspective on the case of the five Cuban revolutionists in prison in this country can be used to help the communist movement find other avenues to get out the truth about their fight, Barnes said.

"These five Cuban comrades carried out an international mission to advance the Cuban Revolution and humanity," he said. Only the most selfless revolutionists are asked to take on assignments such as infiltrating counterrevolutionary organizations in the United States to defend their homeland, Barnes said. Their successful operation should be viewed in the same light as internationalist missions to the Congo, Angola, and other countries.

Barnes described how the five were sentenced at the same time as Washington was setting up what will soon be a permanent prison camp on illegally occupied Cuban soil at Guantánamo Bay--a direct provocation by Washington against the Cuban Revolution.

The bits of information published in the big-business press paint a picture of the conditions the prisoners live under. On the weekend of the leadership meeting, a New York Times article reported that the shackles the prisoners are forced to wear--which are never take off--have rubbed their ankles raw as they are walked to and from the interrogation area. Forums on the five Cuban patriots will emphasize the vivid counter-example they provide to the brutality of imperialist "democracy," and will offer everyone the opportunity to support and emulate these working-class heroes, Barnes said.  
 
Cuba and coming American revolution
In a report on "Cuba and the Coming American Revolution," Mary-Alice Waters pointed to the transformation of education and culture in Cuba. She described the expansion of Pathfinder's publication of books that tell the history of revolutionary struggles that Cubans have been part of and experiences and lessons in building a communist party in the United States. Waters, who is the president of Pathfinder Press and a central leader of the Socialist Workers Party, had returned from a month-long trip to Cuba where she participated in the Havana International Book Fair and a series of meetings to present the new book, From the Escambray to the Congo, by Víctor Dreke. Waters is the editor of the book.

The Cuban leadership is organizing a profound transformation of the education system, raising the cultural level of the entire population, she said. "Education for All" classes through the television offer courses on an expanding range of topics, and a wider range of books are being printed to expand the libraries in the homes of working people.

Waters displayed a copy of one of the 400 literary classics being produced in tabloid newspaper format that are being distributed in mass quantities across the island. The revolutionary leadership's goal is to get these books into every workers' home, she said, and to set up "popular libraries" in each neighborhood to make the full range of books accessible to all.  
 
Winning youth to study and work
The revolution is opening the university system to larger numbers of working people, Waters said. A growing number of youth have dropped out of school and are neither studying nor working, a byproduct of the special period and the influence of the dollar, she noted. New social worker schools and accelerated teacher schools are geared toward reintegrating these youth as productive members of society.

Every person who dropped out of secondary school and decides to go back is automatically accepted into the university after graduation, she reported. Most of these programs are politically led and administered by the Union of Young Communists.

Coming out the worst of the special period, there has been a revitalization of the arts and culture, Waters noted. One example is the startup of a new on-line cultural magazine, La Jiribilla, accessible through the growing network of computer clubs. A recent issue included a feature article on the 1912 revolt by Black Cubans--brutally crushed by the forces of the semicolonial regime--against racist discrimination and the banning of the Independent Party of Color.

Waters said the work to publish books that tell the history of the Cuban Revolution, participation in events such as the Havana book fair, and ongoing collaboration in publishing more books that tell the truth about the Cuban Revolution, are all aimed at building a communist party in the U.S. and the world communist movement.

The lessons of the Cuban revolutionary struggle are needed today in building a proletarian party. For example, Víctor Dreke points out in From the Escambray to the Congo that the Rebel Army commanders, and the commanders on international missions, stood with their troops on the front lines, not back in an office away from the heat. This is how revolutionary armies win wars and how their generals lead their troops, Waters said.

The steps the party is taking to move the national office of the Socialist Workers Party, and the editorial and business staffs of the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder into the same location as a New York branch meeting hall and bookstore have the same goal, she said. This will make it possible for the entire cadre of the branches to get out and work together on a daily basis to build the party at strikes, social protests, and other actions of working people in the city.  
 
Leadership lessons in New York
The openings to build the party today place a premium on executive committees working with the standing committees in each branch to lead the weekly implementation of party decisions. Participants noted that leadership collaboration and drawing on the capacities of all members raise the political level of forums, and sales at plant gates and in the workers districts.

Norton Sandler presented a balance sheet of the work of the party's New York local since the previous National Committee meeting and fusion of the New York Young Socialists chapter with the local party branches. In addition to YS members who joined the ranks of the SWP that weekend, two workers joined the party a couple of weeks afterward, he reported.

This opportunity posed new challenges for the local branches. At the time of the fusion, the National Committee outlined the main tasks before the three New York branches to deepen the proletarianization of those branches.

These included working with new members to chart out a plan to get jobs in workplaces where the party plans to build industrial trade union fractions. Integrated into organizing this work are discussions and classes that take up the proletarian character of the party and the centrality of its orientation to the industrial proletariat.

Classes for new members were also placed as one of the main responsibilities of the weekly work of the branch executive committees. The class series needs to start with the communist continuity of the SWP, said Sandler, beginning with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the struggle to build a Bolshevik party in the United States. Through carrying out the weekly activity of the party and taking part in this kind of class series, a new member begins to internalize revolutionary centralism and party patriotism and the fact that communist strategy and theory grow out of an understanding of the line of march, conditions, and ultimate general results of the proletarian movement--not out of a doctrine of "good ideas."

English classes for new members whose first language is not English are also a priority in building a party of equals who can function in the dominant language of bourgeois and working-class politics in the United States, he said.

The New York branches got off to a slow start in implementing those decisions, said Sandler, but had begun to chart a course to do so leading up to the weekend meeting.

Capturing the spirit of the opportunities to recruit to the communist movement in the period ahead, Waters said that "We're looking for proletarian soldiers." Cuba and the Coming American Revolution is one of the best books to introduce working people to the struggle to build a revolutionary movement capable of overthrowing capitalism in the United States, she said. The spring campaign to sell Militant and Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions will be coupled with goals for sales of that book.

The drive to make a success of the campaign to sell $500,000 in Pathfinder books by July 1 will help introduce more workers and youth to the communist movement. Pathfinder's latest title, From the Escambray to the Congo, will be a feature of the book sales effort.  
 
 
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