Assembled in St. Louis for the fourteenth national Young Socialist Alliance convention December 28-January 1 were some 1,000 YSA members, friends, activists in social struggles across the United States, reporters, international guests, and... agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, their presence sanctioned by court order. (See article elsewhere in this issue.)
Concluding her organization report to the convention, National Executive Committee member Ginny Hildebrand captured the feeling of the convention: “Get this straight on your tape recorders, FBI, because this convention is serving notice to you that this team is going to win!”
Every session of the convention exuded the enthusiasm of an organization geared for a major campaign. The focus of the YSA’s work for the coming year was set by the convention – building and leading a national mobilization to roll back the racist offensive in Boston.
“This convention marks a turning point for the YSA,” said National Executive Committee member Malik Miah in concluding his political report to the convention. “We are entering a new struggle of national scope. We should do so in the best traditions of the YSA – like we actively involved ourselves in defense of the Cuban revolution, in defense of the Vietnamese revolution, and in the first civil rights movement. We will build on these traditions in the coming year around Boston, and through our active involvement in all the struggles of the oppressed.”
Miah said that “the struggle for equal education through the use of buses in Boston is the most significant development in the Black liberation movement this past year....
“The key to an effective strategy to beat back the racist mobs is mass counter-mobilizations of supporters of Black rights,” he said. In the context of this mass-action perspective, to implement the busing order and defend Black students, “We say all the force necessary must be used by the government to implement their court order, including the use of federal troops....
“Our job is to throw ourselves into this movement and participate in it as fully as we can,” he continued. “The YSA plans to be the best fighters against racism and the best builders of this campaign.”
YSA National Executive Committee member Maceo Dixon described the development of the struggle in Boston and the events leading up to the successful December 14 demonstration.
“What is the next stage for us?” he asked. “When we leave this convention the YSA should be turned loose across the country to build the February 14 national student conference. The most important thing is to make sure that this conference is as big and as authoritative as possible as the very first step. This is our No.1 priority for the next six weeks.”
Dixon mapped out plans for building the campaign. Delegates added ideas based on experiences in their own areas, and a special workshop session was held on organizing for the Boston campaign.
A second major focus for the YSA in the year ahead will be mobilizing support for the 1976 election campaign of the Socialist Workers party. At the convention, the party officially launched its campaign and presented its candidates – Peter Camejo for president and Willie Mae Reid for vicepresident.
YSA National Secretary Rich Finkel gave a report to the convention mapping out plans for campaign support activities. Finkel said American capitalism was entering its deepest economic crisis in decades. He pointed to the growing militancy among working people, as the effects of the economic crisis drive down their standard of living.
Finkel said that the YSA will use the SWP campaign “as the central vehicle for reaching out to young people... and winning hundreds of new members to the Young Socialist Alliance.”
In presenting the international report to the convention, YSA National Chairman Andrew Pulley said the current world situation was characterized by “the worst economic, social, and political crises imperialism has faced since the second world war.” But in the face of mounting struggles and the increasing danger of war, the bureaucratic rulers of the Kremlin and Peking “are misleading the masses into thinking we have now entered an era of peace.” The problem with détente, he said, “is that its fundamental purpose is to block the only way to achieve peace, which is through the completion of the world socialist revolution. The goal of détente is to maintain the status quo.”
Emphasizing the international nature of the socialist struggle, and the collaboration of the YSA with its cothinkers around the world, guests were present from many different countries. Greetings were brought from the Young Socialists/Ligue des Jeunes Socialistes in Canada; from the newly formed group in Puerto Rico, the Liga de Juventud Comunista (Young Communist League); from the Juventud Socialista (Young Socialists) in Argentina; from the Socialist Youth Alliance and Socialist Workers League in Australia; from the Revolutionary Marxist Group in Canada; and from the Japan Revolutionary Communist League. Greetings from the Socialist Workers party were also presented to the convention by Barry Sheppard, the party’s national organization secretary. Written greetings were read from Greece, China, Israel, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Belgium, Austria, Iran, and Spain.
A special panel was held on international defense campaigns. Panelists described the work of the United States Committee for Justice to Latin American Political Prisoners, the Committee for the Defense of Soviet Political Prisoners, and the Committee for Artistic and Intellectual Freedom in Iran. The highlight of this session was the address by Portuguese feminist Isabel Maria Barreno, one of the defendants in the famed “Three Marias” case.
The convention also heard a report from Mary Watkins, the mother of J.B. Johnson, a Black youth from St. Louis sentenced to life imprisonment for a crime he didn’t commit.
YSA National Committee member Olga Rodriguez presented the Chicano report. She analyzed the government’s stepped-up attacks on undocumented Raza workers, recent developments in the United Farm Workers union, the present status of the Raza Unida parties, and the Chicano student movement. “Militant Chicanos are looking for the kind of answers we have to offer,” she said. “Let’s make sure that we reach them with those answers.”
A special presentation by National Executive Committee member José G. Pérez described the development of the struggle of Puerto Ricans in the United States and outlined tasks for the YSA in this struggle.
There was also a panel dealing with the different women’s liberation struggles taking place around the country – the fight for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, the development of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, and the struggle to defend the right to abortion.
In the past year, the YSA had participated in the widest range of political activities in its history, Ginny Hildebrand pointed out in the organization report. The YSA had also strengthened itself considerably, successfully completing a $35,000 fund drive, and increasing the sales of the socialist press. In the four months from September to December, 384 people had been recruited to the YSA.
Among the projections for the coming year, Hildebrand said, were a fund drive to raise $38,000 and a plan to put fifteen teams of Young Socialists on the road for eight weeks, traveling across the country spreading socialist ideas, recruiting to the YSA, and building the campaign to fight the racist terror in Boston.
One evening of the convention, chaired by YSA National Organization Secretary Delpfine Welch, was given over to a presentation on the expansion of the socialist movement. Progress reports were given on what the expansion fund had helped accomplish and what it will finance in the future. The new book by Evelyn Reed, Woman’s Evolution, was released at the convention. This was made possible by the expansion fund.
Also given was a report, with slides, on the progress being made in building a new branch of the SWP in Milwaukee. Welch said that the fund had set a goal of $100,000 to be raised by the time of the SWP convention in August, and was able to announce by the end of the convention that $31,000 had already been pledged toward that goal.
All the reports presented to the convention were approved unanimously by the full delegates. After the singing of “The Internationale,” the delegates elected a new National Committee and national officers – Malik Miah as national chairman, Rich Finkel as national secretary, and Ginny Hildebrand as national organization secretary.
The convention received extensive press coverage. In fact, according to the credentials report delivered to the convention, more than seventy persons attended the convention after hearing about it in the news, including two persons from West Virginia who heard the regular reports on the convention carried by their local radio station, telephoned St. Louis for more details, and drove to the convention. By the end of the convention they had asked to join the YSA, together with twenty-seven other persons.
Perhaps the high point of the whole convention was the rally launching the SWP 1976 campaign. In addition to Camejo and Reid, speakers included Linda Jenness, the party’s 1972 presidential candidate; Robert Harper from the Boston Student Committee Against Racism; Ed Heisler, cochairman of the SWP 1976 Campaign Committee; and Nan Bailey, who will be directing YSA support work for the campaign. Participants at the rally contributed more than $21,000 toward the campaign.
After the candidates were introduced, chanting broke out: “Peter Camejo, Willie Mae Reid – Socialism is what we need!”
The rally was punctuated throughout by rhythmic clapping. The whole atmosphere reflected the confidence and enthusiasm of an organization fully prepared for the campaigns of the coming year.
Source: https://www.themilitant.com/Intercontinental_Press/1975/IP1301.pdf#page=9&view=FitV,3