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Vol. 79/No. 22      June 15, 2015

 
(front page)
Conference for workers active
in struggle set for June 18-20

 
BY MAGGIE TROWE  
A three-day Active Workers Conference sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party is set for June 18-20 in Oberlin, Ohio. It will offer an opportunity for workers involved in labor battles, the fight for $15 an hour and a union, the movement against police brutality and defense of the Cuban Revolution to learn from talks, classes and informal discussion and debate.

Several hundred participants are expected from across the U.S. and around the world. The gathering is held on the Oberlin College campus.

Talks by Socialist Workers Party leaders Jack Barnes and Mary-Alice Waters, as well as classes and displays, will address questions such as:

• Openings to build the party as proletarian resistance strengthens in response to the world capitalist crisis, with labor battles becoming more intertwined with the fight of African-Americans and others against police brutality, the developing social movement for a higher minimum wage and other struggles.

• The victory registered by revolutionary Cuba in defending its sovereignty and socialism for 55 years, forcing Washington to begin talks on opening diplomatic relations and ending its decades-long economic war against Cuba — even as the U.S. government seeks other avenues to achieve its goal of reversing the socialist revolution.

• Class politics in the Mideast.

• The need for workers to organize independent working-class political action relying on our own power, as capitalist politicians — Democrats, Republicans and so-called independents and socialists such as Bernie Sanders — launch campaigns for president and other public offices.

As part of the conference, Socialist Workers Party members who are part of the growing workers’ resistance in various industries will meet to discuss their political work on the job as communists, union-builders and workers active in social movements and labor struggles.

Talks and classes will draw on the article “U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War,” a 1990 resolution published in issue no. 11 of the magazine New International. It explains that world capitalism suffered a historic defeat with the collapse of counterrevolutionary Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, which had served as imperialism’s “most reliable instruments for the transmission of capitalist values into the workers states and more broadly into the international workers’ movement.”

For revolutionary fighters the world over, the resolution explains, it is not enough to recognize that imperialism lost the Cold War. That alone does not allow revolutionaries to chart a way forward. They need the living example of Cuba, as well.

John Studer and Frank Forrestal, currently on a reporting trip in Ukraine, will present a class on “Washington, Ukraine and the Putin Regime’s Fight to Maintain Russia’s ‘Near Abroad’ — The Stakes for Working People.”

Steve Clark and Lea Sherman will present: “Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and U.S. Imperialism: Class Politics in the Middle East Today.”

“Cuba: Leveraging a Victory Over U.S. Imperialism and Organizing to Emulate and Defend Cuba’s Socialist Revolution” will be the topic of a class by Dave Prince and Jena Kendall.

Norton Sandler and Diana Newberry will initiate discussion on “How a Bolshevik Nucleus Becomes a Proletarian Party of Mass Action: Lessons from Teamster Politics on Party Building, Revolutionary Centralism and the Fight for Workers Power.” The class draws lessons for communist workers from the new edition of Teamster Politics by Farrell Dobbs, a leader of the Teamsters union during the 1930s and longtime central leader of the SWP, and from The Organizational Character of the Socialist Workers Party adopted by the 1965 SWP convention.

Tables will be loaded with Pathfinder books for conference participants to thumb through and buy at special prices.

Participants can also look at displays that use photos, maps and text to expand on themes of classes and talks, including one titled “Proletarian Resistance Grows: Joining the Battles and Unfurling the Party’s Political Banner” and another called “From the Print Project and Monthly Appeal to Walmart, the Railroads and the Black Struggle: Strengthening the Supporters as an Auxiliary ‘Who See the Party as Their Vehicle to Carry Out Communist Politics.’”

There will be plenty of time for informal discussion and relaxation. Participants get to know each other and exchange experiences and ideas during buffet-style meals at the college cafeteria and at evening socials.

Conference summaries on Saturday will draw together the three days of discussions. An evening panel will feature participants involved in labor resistance and social struggles; international work in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Ukraine and other parts of the world; and Socialist Workers Party election campaigns. It will be followed by a party and dance.

On Sunday, June 21, SWP supporters who volunteer to help produce Pathfinder books and raise monthly financial contributions will meet with party leaders to discuss their work.

It’s not too late to register and organize to drive or fly to the conference with others. To learn more, contact SWP members near you (see list on page 8).  
 
 
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