Vol. 74/No. 8      March 1, 2010

The World Festival of Youth and Students has been an international gathering of young people from around the world held under the banner of fighting imperialism. Recent festivals have included workshops, panels, rallies, and conferences, providing a forum for discussion to advance the fight against imperialist domination and war, in solidarity with national liberation struggles, and on other social and political struggles.

The festivals began in 1947 and were then dominated by Stalinist youth organizations that looked to the bureaucratic regime in Moscow for political direction. For nearly a decade no festival was organized following the collapse of the Stalinist apparatuses in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In 1997 at the initiative of the revolutionary government in Cuba, a festival was organized in Havana that attracted thousands of youth from many different political backgrounds from around the world.

Other successful and broadly attended festivals were held in Algiers, Algeria, in 2001; and Caracas, Venezuela, in 2005. Some 17,000 young people from 144 countries attended the most recent festival in Caracas at a time when working people there had defeated repeated attempts by sections of the capitalist class, with Washington’s backing, to oust the government headed by President Hugo Chavez.

The selection of South Africa means this year’s festival will be the first to take place in sub-Saharan Africa and only the second ever on the continent.

The first International Preparatory Meeting to discuss the program of the festival will be held in Caracas April 16-19.

Alex Xezonakis in London contributed to this article.  
 
 
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