OAKLAND, Calif. — The depth of interest in discussing how to deal with the crisis of capitalism workers see all around us is reflected in the response to the Socialist Workers Party election campaigns and the spring drive to win 1,300 Militant readers, sell the same number of books by SWP leaders and other revolutionaries and raise $165,000 for the Militant Fighting Fund.
With the pace and intensity of world political developments picking up from last year, the campaign ended strongly. Members of the SWP and the Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom took the international effort over the top, selling 1,316 subscriptions and 1,624 books, and raising $171,685 for the fund. Campaigners in every city made their quotas in full and on time.
The spring propaganda and fund effort supplemented campaigns by Socialist Workers Party candidates for office that were aimed at extending the reach of the party and its program, and finding workers interested in joining its ranks.
SWP campaigners everywhere find concern about the way all capitalist powers are working to build up their military forces and seek new allies. And about how the fight against Jew-hatred and pogroms in the Middle East is today at the center of the threat of wider wars.
At a trailer park in Lakeville, Minnesota, Kevin Dwire, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of Minneapolis, spoke with Alesandro, who works in a factory that produces flagpoles.
“Why are there just two parties?” he asked Dwire. “Maybe Bernie Sanders would be better.”
“Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are trying to reform the Democratic Party. More workers are disgusted with both bosses’ parties and Sanders is trying to drag workers back toward the Democrats,” Dwire said. Sanders says the problem workers face is a few oligarchs — his name for Donald Trump and Elon Musk — not the capitalist system itself, founded on exploitation of the vast majority and on the political rule of the capitalist class.
“Capitalism can’t be reformed,” Dwire said. “Workers need to break with the Democrats and Republicans and build a revolutionary movement to take political power into our own hands. That’s what the Socialist Workers Party exists to accomplish.”
Alesandro was interested in learning more. He subscribed to the Militant and got a copy of Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? Class, Privilege, and Learning Under Capitalism by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes.
In Washington, D.C., Samir Hazboun reports SWP members campaigned “at a trailer park in Lothian, a rural area of Maryland, May 18. Many workers there are employed at a distribution hub nearby where Amazon, Nordstrom, Target and FedEx have warehouses. In just under an hour, four workers subscribed to the Militant.”
Jacob Perasso, SWP candidate for Seattle mayor, participated in an online candidates forum May 13 organized by the Young Democrats at the University of Washington. Three other mayoral candidates — Ry Armstrong, Joe Molloy and Katie Wilson — took part. The race is officially nonpartisan, but Perasso explained he was the candidate of the SWP.
“The future of humanity will be decided by which class rules, workers or capitalists,” Perasso said in his opening statement. “My campaign explains the need to build a revolutionary party to lead the fight for workers power to disarm the warmakers.”
The other candidates expressed support for a variety of liberal reforms they argued would make the city better for working people, including tax schemes to fund more public transit.
Wilson, the candidate regarded as the foremost challenger to incumbent Bruce Harrell, bragged about how she’s won “many victories for working people.”
Workers need to rely on our class
In contrast, “the SWP seeks to help lead and organize victories by working people, not for them,” Perasso said, “increasing workers’ confidence and fighting capacity — the only thing we can rely on in face of today’s unrelenting capitalist offensives, crises and the wars it breeds.”
Perasso condemned recent anti-Israel protests at the University of Washington that called for the university to boycott companies with ties to Israel.
“Israel’s defeat of Hamas and its Jew-hating sponsors in Tehran is in the interest of working people in the Mideast and around the world,” Perasso said. “People in Gaza are protesting against Hamas. Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom in Israel, rocket attacks against Israel and calls for another Holocaust are against the interests of the Palestinian people and working people in the region.”
SWP members set up a table at the Malcolm X Festival in Dallas May 18 organized by the Pan-African Connection Bookstore. It was marking the 100th anniversary of the revolutionary working-class leader’s birth. “We spent an enjoyable day discussing political developments and putting forward the SWP’s revolutionary perspective,” Hilda Cuzco reports.
“In spite of rain, the event was well attended and we sold 30 books and six Militant subscriptions.” A co-worker from the bakery where Cuzco works joined campaigning at the SWP table.
To join the SWP and take part in its activities, contact the campaigners nearest you listed in the directory.
