Socialist Workers Party conference: 'Respond to rulers' political crisis'

Militant/Laura Anderson

From left, Jack Barnes, national secretary of Socialist Workers Party, and SWP leaders Mary-Alice Waters, Steve Clark, Norton Sandler.

The Socialist Workers Party's Active Workers Conference this year took place under the banner: "Deeper into the Working Class. Act on the Rulers' Deepening Political Crisis. Build the Young Socialists and the Party." The gathering was held in Oberlin, Ohio, June 15-17.

Next week's Militant will carry a full report on the conference.

The unprecedented character of this political crisis of U.S. capitalism and its two-party system was brought home by events on the eve of the conference. On June 14 James Hodgkinson, a Bernie Sanders supporter, attempted to assassinate Republican U.S. representatives during practice for an annual baseball game, wounding one, aiming to substantially narrow the Republican majority in Congress.

Deeply shaken by the outcome of the 2016 elections, liberals in the Democratic Party, the middle-class left, and the media fear the workers who voted for Donald Trump, hoping to "drain the swamp" in Washington. These self-styled "progressives" are frightened that the ballot results foretell coming struggles by working people, whose living and job conditions and basic dignity are being hard hit by capitalism's unfolding economic and social breakdown.

"More workers recognize what's happening today as a political crisis," Jack Barnes, national secretary of the SWP, said in the opening talk. And political crises are gripping the United Kingdom and countries across Europe. This brings new openings in workers neighborhoods and elsewhere to campaign for SWP candidates, win readers of the Militant and books by communist leaders, and recruit to the party and young socialists.

The conference heard talks by SWP leaders Waters on "Without Internationalism We Wouldn't Be Communists: Reaching Out in Africa, Asia and Beyond" and Clark on "New Avenues for Extending the Communist Movement in the Middle East." There were classes and a closing rally.

Young socialists and party members come out of the gathering organizing to campaign for SWP candidates in Albany, New York — where the party is running Margaret Trowe for mayor — and other cities. They're building support for fights by cable employees, silver miners and farmworkers, as well as protests against cop killings and for women's rights. Along with members of Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, SWP and YS members are organizing to participate in an October Che Guevara brigade to Cuba and the World Festival of Youth and Students in Sochi, Russia.

— TERRY EVANS