Vol. 71/No. 46      December 10, 2007

BY KYLE BELLAMY
AND BJÖRN TIRSÉN  
EDINBURGH, Scotland—The Young Socialists here have been campaigning to defend the Cuban Revolution and to oppose the British government’s participation in the imperialist “war on terror.”

At the University of Edinburgh’s Freshers Week Societies Fair, held September 12-13, the YS and the Communist League met students and introduced them to revolutionary literature. We built a public meeting entitled “Meet the Young Socialists, an international revolutionary youth organization,” which took place on the fair’s final day. Many young people who approached us at our literature stalls expressed interest in the Cuban Revolution and some wanted to find out more about the perspective of the YS of making a socialist revolution in the United Kingdom.

The 11 people at the meeting, including several first-year university students, heard Alex Xezonakis, a YS member in Leeds and student at the university there. He reported on a conference on the campaign to free the Cuban Five in Havana he had attended in April, as well as other activities of the YS.

YS members from across the country also helped publicize and build meetings, held in Glasgow and Edinburgh in mid-October, on the book Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution. In the process they met students who were interested in the YS and purchased the Militant and other revolutionary literature. (See Militant November 5).

On November 3 the YS joined others in a “People and Parliament against Trident” march and rally held in Edinburgh. Trident is the British government’s submarine-launched nuclear weapons system, based in Scotland.

The march organizers, Scotland’s for Peace, made a big feature of the fact that the Scottish Parliament, led by the pro-capitalist Scottish National Party, had voted in June against replacing and upgrading Trident. The vote, of course, has not changed London’s military plans.

Arguing for a working-class approach to oppose imperialist war and nuclear weapons, the YS and CL marched with slogans demanding, “Not a penny, not a person for Britain’s wars! Troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan now! Hands off Iran!”

Margaret Bresnahan, 20, a literature student here who is originally from Minnesota, took part in the “Meet the YS” event and the meeting on Our History Is Still Being Written in Edinburgh. “I liked being in an environment where you could have discussion, meet other students my age, and see the theories in action,” she said at a November 16 Militant Labour Forum that she attended. “That’s why I keep coming back.”

Radek Polkowski, 19, a politics student originally from Poland, attended the same meetings. He said he had been inspired to read more about the example of the Cuban Revolution and looked forward to continuing to participate in political activity with the YS and Communist League.

Kyle Bellamy and Björn Tirsén are YS members in Edinburgh.  
 
 
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