AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager

Saturday, October 22, 2016

*****From The Archives-The Struggle To Win The Youth To The Fight For Our Socialist Future

Logo Of The Communist Youth International

Click below to link to a Communist Youth archival site

http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/yci.html

Sam Eaton, once he got “religion” on the questions of war and peace after a close high school friend in Carver was killed in the jungles of Vietnam in 1968, and Ralph Morris, once he had served in Vietnam after having become totally disenchanted with the war effort and had been discharged back to Troy, New York in 1970 were both very interested in left-wing anti-war politics, in studying about how previous generations fought against the highly-charged war blood lust currents that periodically burned over the American landscape.

Sam, exempt from the military draft since he was the sole support of his mother and four younger sisters after his father had passed away suddenly of a heart attack in 1965, who had been prior to his friend Jeff Mullin’s death been very political in a conventional way but somewhat indifferent to the war blazing all around him in this country as well as in Vietnam and Ralph who was as gung-ho as any naïve young soldier before the “shit hit the fan” (his expression) when he went into Vietnam had met down in Washington, D.C.

Had met under frankly odd circumstances, circumstances which kind of came with the times when people who ordinarily would not run into each other did so as they came to oppose the war in Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, home of the Washington Redskins football team after they had been arrested in different incidents during the May Day 1971 actions. The idea behind those actions by those like Sam and Ralph who were enraged by the continuation of the war was to attempt to close down the government if it did not close down the war. For their efforts, Sam trying to help close down Massachusetts Avenue a main thoroughfare and Ralph at an action at the White House (which his group never got close to), along with thousands of others were placed in the bastinado for several days without much food or shelter and without the quick release demanded by law for such minor infractions (in the event they had actually just walked out of a side exit one day and nobody stopped them, some kind of poetic justice, since law enforcement was totally overworked out on the streets). They had met in some forlorn line when Ralph noticed that Sam had a Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) button on his lapel and had asked him whether he was a member. Sam told him why he was a supporter of VVAW after Ralph told him he was a member and had taken part in a couple of actions on the streets that made people freeze in their tracks when they saw the long lines of anti-war veterans, some on crutches and others in wheelchairs silently marching as was a tactic of the time. That meeting in any case formed a lifelong friendship as Ralph recently had mentioned to Sam when they met for one of their periodic Boston meetings when Ralph came to town.

That May Day event more than any other of the actions which they had participated in during those years was pivotal in bringing them to an understanding that if you were going to take on the government then you had better have more than a few thousand committed souls with you and better be better prepared, damn better, when the “shit hits the fan” (again Ralph’s expression). So they both started to hit the books, to read old time left-wing Socialist and Communist literature to get a fix on things that went wrong with May Day (although Ralph admitted he was not much of a reader of such materials he did plod through the stuff and still remembered a fair amount of it). They would talk about what they had read between themselves and even began to attend study classes provided by a collective in Cambridge (the Red Book collective some of whose members are still around Cambridge although not "red" but aging faculty members at local colleges if anybody is asking) where both young men were staying for the summer of 1972.

Sam and Ralph were especially intrigued by the work that left-wing political organizations did in recruiting young people to the cause, a task that would have made it far easier for them to get involved if such organizations had existed in their respective growing up towns of Carver, Massachusetts and Troy, New York. So for a while they were all abuzz with thoughts of the Socialist and Communist youth organizations, especially when they read about Spain the 1930s and the key role left-wing youth played there and on the battle fronts. Although both would slide away from 24/7 type politics that had driven them early in the decade later in the decade as the aura of 1960s confrontation faded back into “normalcy” and they began careers and families they for a time considered themselves “left-wing youth,” maybe even communist youth although that designation was a tough dollar to swallow given their backgrounds.

During that period Sam, more of a writer than Ralph, wrote up some materials about their experiences. He more recently in the age of the Internet got involved with a blog, American Socialist History, which was accumulating stories about anything related to socialist youth in the 1960s and Sam had written another short piece for that publication. Here is what he had to say:

“One of the declared purposes of this blog is to draw the lessons of our left-wing past, spotty and incomplete as they may be, here in America and internationally, especially from the pro-socialist and communist wing. And particularly how to draw the young into the struggle. Historically these lessons would be centrally derived from the revolutions of 1848 in Europe, especially in France, the Paris Commune of 1871, and most vividly under the impact of the Lenin and Trotsky-led Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, a world historic achievement for the international working class whose subsequent demise was of necessity a world-historic defeat for that same class. To that end I have made commentaries and provided some archival works in this space in order to help draw those lessons for today’s left-wing activists to learn, or at least ponder over.

More importantly, for the long haul, and unfortunately given that same spotty and incomplete past the long haul is what appears to be the time frame that this old militant will have to concede that we need to think about, to help educate today’s youth in the struggle for our common socialist future. An education that masses of previous generations of youth undertook gladly but which now is reduced to a precious few. That is, beside the question of numbers, in any case no small or easy task given the differences of generations (the missing transmission generation problem between the generation of ’68 who tried unsuccessfully to turn the world upside down and failed, the missing “in between” generation raised on Reagan rations and today’s desperate youth in need of all kinds of help); differences of political milieus worked in (another missing link situation with the attenuation of the links to the old mass socialist and communist organizations decimated by the red scare Cold War 1950s "night of the long knives" through the new old New Left of the 1960s and little notable organizational connections since); differences of social structure to work around (the serious erosion of the industrial working class in America, the rise of the white collar service sector, the now organically chronically unemployed, and the rise of the technocrats); and, increasingly more important, the differences in appreciation of technological advances, and their uses (today’s computer, cellphone, and social networking savvy youth using those assets as tools for organizing).

There is no question that back in my youth in the 1960s I could have used, desperately used, many of the archival materials available on-line at the press of a button today. When I developed political consciousness very early on in my youth, albeit a liberal political consciousness, I could have used this material as I knew, I knew deep inside my heart and mind, that a junior Cold War liberal of the American For Democratic Action (ADA) stripe was not the end of my leftward political trajectory. More importantly, I could have used a socialist or communist youth organization to help me articulate the doubts I had about the virtues of liberal capitalism and be recruited to a more left-wing world view.

As it was I spent far too long in the throes of the left-liberal/soft social-democratic milieu where I was dying politically worrying more about a possible cushy career on the backstairs of politics. A group like the Young Communist League (W.E.B. Dubois Clubs in those days), the Young People’s Socialist League, or the Young Socialist Alliance representing the youth organizations of the American Communist Party, American Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S.) respectively would have saved much wasted time and energy. I vaguely knew they were around from my readings but not in my area. In any case the aura of the red scare was still around so it is a toss-up if I had known about those groups that I would have contacted them.

The archival material to be used in this series is weighted heavily toward the youth movements of the early American Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party (U.S). For more recent material I have relied on material from the Spartacus Youth Clubs, the youth group of the Spartacist League (U.S.), both because they are more readily available to me on-line and because, and this should give cause for pause, there are not many other non-CP, non-SWP youth groups around. As I gather more material from other youth sources I will place them in this series.

Finally I would like to finish up with the preamble to the Spartacist Youth Club’s What We Fight For statement of purpose:

"The Spartacus Youth Clubs intervene into social struggles armed with the revolutionary internationalist program of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. We work to mobilize youth in struggle as partisans of the working class, championing the liberation of black people, women and all the oppressed. The SYCs fight to win youth to the perspective of building the Leninist vanguard party that will lead the working class in socialist revolution, laying the basis for a world free of capitalist exploitation and imperialist slaughter."

This seems to me be somewhere in the right direction for what a left-wing youth group should be doing these days; a proving ground to become radicals with enough wiggle room to learn from their mistakes, and successes. More later.

**********

Third Congress of the Communist International

The Communist International and the Communist Youth Movement

Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;

Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

12 July 1921

1 The young socialist movement came into existence as a result of the steadily increasing capitalist exploitation of young workers and also of the growth of bourgeois militarism. The movement was a reaction against attempts to poison the minds of young workers with bourgeois nationalist ideology and against the tendency of most of the social-democratic parties and the trade unions to neglect the economic, political and cultural demands of young workers.

In most countries the social-democratic parties and the unions, which were growing increasingly opportunist and revisionist, took no part in establishing young socialist organisations, and in certain countries they even opposed the creation of a youth movement. The reformist social-democratic parties and trade unions saw the independent revolutionary socialist youth organisations as a serious threat to their opportunist policies. They sought to introduce a bureaucratic control over the youth organisations and destroy their independence, thus stifling the movement, changing its character and adapting it to social-democratic politics.

2 As a result of the imperialist war and the positions taken towards it by social democracy almost everywhere, the contradictions between the social-democratic parties and the international revolutionary organisations inevitably grew and eventually led to open conflict. The living conditions of young workers sharply deteriorated; there was mobilisation and military service on the one hand, and, on the other, the increasing exploitation in the munitions industries and militarisation of civilian life. The most class-conscious young socialists opposed the war and the nationalist propaganda. They dissociated themselves from the social-democratic parties and undertook independent political activity (the International Youth Conferences at Berne in 1915 and Jena in 1916).

In their struggle against the war, the young socialist organisations were supported by the most dedicated revolutionary groups and became an important focus for the revolutionary forces. In most countries no revolutionary parties existed and the youth organisations took over their role; they became independent political organisations and acted as the vanguard in the revolutionary struggle.

3 With the establishment of the Communist International and, in some countries, of Communist Parties, the role of the revolutionary youth organisations changes. Young workers, because of their economic position and because of their psychological make-up, are more easily won to Communist ideas and are quicker to show enthusiasm for revolutionary struggle than adult workers. Nevertheless, the youth movement relinquishes to the Communist Parties its vanguard role of organising independent activity and providing political leadership. The further existence of Young Communist organisations as politically independent and leading organisations would mean that two Communist Parties existed, in competition with one another and differing only in the age of their membership.

4 At the present time the role of the Young Communist movement is to organise the mass of young workers, educate them in the ideas of Communism, and draw them into the struggle for the Communist revolution.

The Communist youth organisations can no longer limit themselves to working in small propaganda circles. They must win the broad masses of workers by conducting a permanent campaign of agitation, using the newest methods. In conjunction with the Communist Parties and the trade unions, they must organise the economic struggle.

The new tasks of the Communist youth organisations require that their educational work be extended and intensified. The members of the youth movement receive their Communist education on the one hand through active participation in all revolutionary struggles and on the other through a study of Marxist theory.

Another important task facing the Young Communist organisations in the immediate future is to break the hold of centrist and social-patriotic ideas on young workers and free the movement from the influences of the social-democratic officials and youth leaders. At the same time, the Young Communist organisations must do everything they can to ‘rejuvenate’ the Communist Parties by parting with their older members, who then join the adult Parties.

The Young Communist organisations participate in the discussion of all political questions, help build the Communist Parties and take part in all revolutionary activity and struggle. This is the main difference between them and the youth sections of the centrist and socialist unions.

5 The relations between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Party are fundamentally different from those between the revolutionary young socialist organisations and the social-democratic parties. In the common struggle to hasten the proletarian revolution, the greatest unity and strictest centralisation are essential. Political leadership at the international level must belong to the Communist International and at the national level to the respective national sections.

It is the duty of the Young Communist organisations to follow this political leadership (its programme, tactics and political directives) and merge with the general revolutionary front. The Communist Parties are at different stages of development and therefore the Executive Committee of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International should apply this principle in accordance with the circumstances obtaining in each particular case.

The Young Communist movement has begun to organise its members according to the principle of strict centralisation and in its relations with the Communist International – the leader and bearer of the proletarian revolution – it will be governed by an iron discipline. All political and tactical questions are discussed in the ranks of the Communist youth organisation, which then takes a position and works in the Communist Party of its country in accordance with the resolutions passed by the Party, in no circumstance working against them.

If the Communist youth organisation has serious differences with the Communist Party, it has the right to appeal to the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

Loss of political independence in no way implies loss of the organisational independence which is so essential for political education.

Strong centralisation and effective unity are essential for the successful advancement of the revolutionary struggle, and therefore, in those countries where historical development has left the youth dependent upon the Party, the dependence should be preserved; differences between the two bodies are decided by the EC of the Communist International and the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International.

6 One of the most immediate and most important tasks of the Young Communist organisations is to fight the belief in political independence inherited from the period when the youth organisations enjoyed absolute autonomy, and which is still subscribed to by some members. The press and organisational apparatus of the Young Communist movement must be used to educate young workers to be responsible and active members of a united Communist Party.

At the present time the Communist youth organisations are beginning to attract increasing numbers of young workers and are developing into mass organisations; it is therefore important that they give the greatest possible time and effort to education.

7 Close co-operation between the Young Communist organisations and the Communist Parties in political work must be reflected in close organisational links. It is essential that each organisation should at all times be represented at all levels of the other organisation (from the central Party organs and district, regional and local organisations down to the cells of Communist groups and the trade unions) and particularly at all conferences and congresses.

In this way the Communist Parties will be able to exert a permanent influence on the movement and encourage political activity, while the youth organisations, in their turn, can influence the Party.

8 The relations established between the Communist Youth International and the Communist International are even closer than those between the individual Parties and their youth organisations. The Communist Youth International has to provide the Communist youth movement with a centralised leadership, offer moral and material support to individual unions, form Young Communist organisations where none has existed and publicise the Communist youth movement and its programme. The Communist Youth International is a section of the Communist International and, as such, is bound by the decisions of its congresses and its Central Committee. The Communist Youth International conducts its work within the framework of these decisions and thus passes on the political line of the Communist International to all its sections. A well-developed system of reciprocal representation and close and constant co-operation guarantees that the Communist Youth International will make gains in all the spheres of its activity (leadership, agitation, organisation and the work of strengthening and supporting the Communist youth organisations).

A View From The Left-Charlotte, North Carolina-Black People in Cop Crosshairs

Workers Vanguard No. 1097	7 October 2016

Charlotte, North Carolina-Black People in Cop Crosshairs

Break with the Democrats! For a Workers Party!

On September 20, Keith Lamont Scott became one of the latest victims of the racist executioners in blue. The 43-year-old father of seven was gunned down by the police in broad daylight in the parking lot of the suburban apartment complex where he lived with his family, just minutes from the campus of the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. The small portion of the cops’ own video footage that was released after days of protests shows Scott walking slowly backwards from his parked vehicle with his hands by his sides. He is then shot four times by a black undercover officer who is off camera. Contrary to the police lie that Scott “posed an imminent deadly threat,” he was quite simply killed for the “crime” of sitting in his own car while waiting for his son to get off the school bus.

Keith Scott is one of over 800 people killed by the police in the U.S. so far this year; roughly one in four were black. Only a few days before the Scott killing, 40-year-old Terence Crutcher was shot dead by a Tulsa, Oklahoma policewoman as he held his hands above his head. On September 27, Ugandan immigrant Alfred Olango was blown away in El Cajon, a San Diego suburb, for holding an electronic cigarette. On September 30 and October 1, two black men, Reginald “Junior” Thomas and Carnell “CJ” Snell, were killed in the Los Angeles area. The bitter reality is that in a country whose capitalist economy was founded on chattel slavery, black lives don’t matter to the ruling class. The cops are armed thugs enforcing a system in which workers are brutally exploited and the mass of the black population is forcibly segregated at the bottom of society. This is why the fight against racist cop terror must be linked to the fight for the working class to overthrow this whole rotten, capitalist system through socialist revolution. A team of comrades from Workers Vanguard traveled to Charlotte the weekend following the killing of Keith Scott to distribute our Marxist propaganda and argue for this revolutionary perspective with those who had taken to the streets in protest.

The cops in “open carry” North Carolina didn’t even bother to pretend that a black man might have the same rights as a white man to carry a firearm, immediately justifying their shooting of Keith Scott by claiming he was armed. They later announced that Scott drew their attention while they were waiting to serve a warrant on someone else because he was supposedly rolling a marijuana “blunt” inside his vehicle, demonstrating that the racist “war on drugs” is a license for the cops to kill black people. Scott’s wife and other witnesses to the shooting all maintain that he was not armed. When our team visited the memorial set up for Scott in the parking lot where he was killed, we heard a neighbor who was lighting candles on the memorial ask who people were supposed to believe, the neighbors who were there, or the cops?

The cops and their media mouthpieces then resorted to the tried and tested technique of character assassination of Scott himself. Burying or disappearing the fact that they gunned down a family man, married for 20 years, disabled and recovering from a traumatic brain injury, the capitalist press has instead grotesquely tried to depict Scott as a lifelong criminal. Scott’s wife, Rakeyia, courageously filmed and made public her own cellphone video of her husband’s killing. She repeatedly appealed to the cops that her husband was not armed and explained that he suffered from a brain injury for which he had just taken medication.

Police Riot Against Protesters

As word of the killing spread on the evening of September 20, protesters chanting “Black lives matter!” took to the streets in Scott’s University City neighborhood. They were met with riot cops who tear-gassed the protesters. The following night, hundreds took to the streets in Charlotte’s Uptown, the second-largest banking center in the U.S., where gleaming skyscrapers, luxury hotels and expensive restaurants abound. Activists described how a prayer vigil and march that night turned into a scene of police violence when the cops unleashed tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets on marchers in front of the upscale Omni Hotel.

In the chaotic scene caused by the police assault on the demonstration, 26-year-old Justin Carr, who had joined the protest on his way to work, was fatally shot in the head. The police claim that another civilian shot Carr, although protesters who were present at the time told us that they believed Carr may have been shot “pointblank” by a police rubber bullet. While the truth behind Carr’s killing may never come to light, it is clear that those responsible for creating a deadly environment were the cops. In a TV interview, Carr’s mother said of her son, “I know that he died for a cause.”

Not missing a beat, Republican governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency in Charlotte and the National Guard was deployed to protect the capitalists’ sacred Uptown real estate. The Democratic Party mayor declared a midnight to 6 a.m. curfew, which ensnared several people who weren’t even protesting. Throughout the week, the cops kept rounding up activists for blocking roads and purported looting of businesses like fast-food joints days earlier.

Extraordinary security measures were announced for the home NFL game that weekend, and local news whipped up hysteria about the “safety” of the fans. Phalanxes of riot cops stood ready to “protect” some 70,000 fans from about 200 protesters, who carried posters ranging from “Don’t Demonize My Blackness” and “Silence=Violence, Am I Next” to “Love Is Unstoppable.” Vans and trucks full of riot cops and National Guardsmen raced around the city to confront what were often no more than dozens of protesters. The state of emergency and curfews have now been lifted, and the National Guard withdrawn. Yet many people are still facing prosecution; over 80 people were arrested during the protests and arrest warrants have been issued for almost 100 more. Release the arrested protesters! Drop all the charges!

Democrats, Reformists Push Police Reform

Charlotte is a textbook case of why capitalist Democratic Party politics and schemes for community control of the police are a dead end. Living under a liberal Democratic mayor, a “progressive” black police chief and a black president made no difference for Keith Scott when he came into the crosshairs of the killer cops. Yet black preachers, Democratic Party operatives and the “radicals” who tail them descended on Charlotte to repackage the same old schemes to reform the police and divert the protests into the safe channels of electoral politics. Leading this effort was the Reverend William Barber II, Democratic Party darling and president of the North Carolina NAACP, who called on protesters to “march and vote together.” With North Carolina a swing state in the Clinton-Trump contest, the Democrats were particularly eager to tamp down images of militant black protesters.

The reformist Workers World Party (WWP) also showed up to promote liberal demands for an “independent investigation” into Scott’s killing and for a freeze on federal funds to the Charlotte police department. This amounts to appealing to the imperialist Obama administration, which is the pinnacle of the whole apparatus of racist capitalist oppression and which is carrying out daily bombing raids against dark-skinned peoples abroad, to help black people at home. WWP also supports the Charlotte Uprising group’s demands for “community control of the police, starting with the creation of a civilian oversight board that has the power to hire and fire officers.”

In fact, Charlotte already has a Citizens Review Board, which was set up in 1997 after three black men were killed by white officers and was given expanded powers in 2013. This made no difference for Keith Scott or for Jonathan Ferrell, a black man who was shot ten times by a Charlotte cop after he sought help at a white family’s home following a car accident in 2013. Even though that cop was indicted for manslaughter, he predictably walked after a mistrial. Schemes for community control of the police only serve to sow illusions that workers and the oppressed can have a say in running the forces of state repression, which exist only to “protect and serve” the interests of the capitalist class against those very same workers and oppressed people. The WWP cynically tries to cover up its role as promoters of this deadly illusion by simultaneously calling to “Abolish the Police!”—a utopian call on the capitalist state to dissolve itself.

“New South”: Liberal Veneer for Vicious Racism

A 35 percent black city of just under a million people, Charlotte is held up as a symbol in the “New South” of what the New York Times calls “racial amity.” In the shadow of the Uptown bank towers, the NASCAR Hall of Fame and the headquarters of Billy Graham’s right-wing evangelical association are sites like Romare Bearden Park (named after the renowned black artist) and a center for African-American Arts and Culture. But the genteel veneer is thin—as in most Southern cities, you can’t go a couple of blocks without seeing a historical marker commemorating the bloody rule of the Confederate slavocracy. It took a bloody Civil War to abolish slavery, yet the promise of black freedom was betrayed when the Northern capitalists ended the period of Radical Reconstruction. The black population throughout the U.S. was consolidated as a specially oppressed race-color caste, forcibly segregated at the bottom of the social and economic order.

The white propertied classes subjected black people to legally enforced racial segregation, stripped them of all democratic rights and held them down through terror, especially lynching. In North Carolina, the former slaveowners mobilized the “White Supremacy Campaign” in order to pit poor white sharecroppers against black freedmen, breaking up the alliance between white populists and black Republicans known as the Fusion movement in the 1890s. Despite the smashing of legally enforced Jim Crow segregation in the South through the struggles of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s, the de facto segregation of black people north and south was not uprooted.

From chattel slavery to wage slavery, the racial oppression of black people is materially rooted in the social and economic structure of American capitalism. This is evident not only in the statistics of those killed, arrested and imprisoned by the U.S. “justice” system, but also in the poverty rates of cities like Charlotte where three times as many blacks and Latinos live in poverty as whites, while 36 percent of black and 39 percent of Latino children are poor. Black people are forced by the capitalist economy into segregated housing and schools, are the last hired and first fired in the workplace, and are subjected to chronic unemployment and mass incarceration. Because black oppression is integral to the very workings of the capitalist system in the U.S., it will take a third American revolution, a socialist revolution, to achieve black liberation.

Racism has long served the capitalist rulers in propping up their oppressive system by keeping working people divided so that they cannot unite in joint struggle against the exploitative profit system. Many white protesters in Charlotte carried signs with slogans like “White Silence Is White Violence” as if all white people who don’t speak up are implicated in the crimes of the rapacious rulers of this country and their cops. This deflects responsibility for racist police terror away from the capitalist rulers who not only oppress black people and other minorities, but also viciously exploit workers of all races.

The Social Power of the Working Class Is Key

A number of activists from around North Carolina described to us how white-supremacists are now increasingly crawling out of the woodwork in their towns and cities, emboldened by the Trump campaign. Racist Ku Klux Klan terror in the South has historically served as an auxiliary to the forces of the state in subjugating black people and keeping trade unions out. Today, the South remains a bastion of open shop, low-wage exploitation for capitalist industry; North Carolina has the lowest unionization rate of any U.S. state. Any fight to organize the “right to work” South poses the centrality of the fight for black rights in the fight to defend the working class as a whole. Yet the existing pro-capitalist trade-union misleaders barely lift a finger to organize the millions of non-union Southern workers into what could be strong, multiracial unions. Instead, they pour massive amounts of union funds into election campaigns for the racist, capitalist Democrats.

At an integrated rally of more than 500 on September 24 in a park opposite the complex of court and police buildings in Uptown Charlotte, protesters expressed to us their immense frustration over the lack of a solution to the epidemic of cop terror. There was a palpable sense of despair that after two years of protests around the country in response to one police killing after another, nothing has changed. This was captured in a poster at the rally outside the football game the next day: “I Can’t Believe We’re Still Protesting This.” A popular sentiment among protesters who were tired of impotently pleading with the powers that be was that only by shutting things down would the rulers respond. Some protesters tried to shut down the surrounding highways while others argued for consumer boycotts of big businesses. These tactics were often tied up with illusions in local community control: promoting local businesses and community-organized social work.

The understanding that protest action needs to hit the capitalists in their pocketbooks in order to have some impact is the beginning of wisdom. But, as we explained in our discussions, the power to do so rests not with small groups of activists nor the consumer, but with the multiracial working class. It is the working class whose labor keeps the wheels of the economy turning; thus it has the power to stop the flow of capitalist profit. And black workers form a strategic component of the U.S. working class. In Charlotte we often used the example of the powerful and heavily black and Latino transit union in New York City, whose members can cripple the finance capital of the world by striking. The power of the working class should be mobilized in demonstrations against cop terror, ensuring that black youth do not stand alone against the bloody might of the armed forces of the state. In itself, this won’t put a stop to cop terror, but it would go a long way toward forging the fighting unity of the workers and oppressed against the capitalist order.

The key to unlocking that power is a fight against the existing leadership of the trade unions and their reformist hangers-on, who tie the workers politically to capitalist parties like the Democrats and Greens. What is needed is a new, class-struggle leadership of the unions. Not surprisingly, the prospect of such working-class struggle seemed either remote or impossible to most of the protesters we spoke with. It was often when we pointed to the need to study the history of class and revolutionary struggle in the U.S. in order to understand why the working class is key that protesters got copies of our publications, including our journal Black History and the Class Struggle. As for the idea of “community control” of the local economy and social programs, we explained that small-time local capitalism and social work are no solution to the rampant homelessness, unemployment and poverty faced by millions under capitalism. Only by ripping the banks and industry out of the hands of the capitalist class and reorganizing the economy on a socialist basis under workers rule can the wealth created by working people be dedicated to quality education, housing, health care and jobs for all.

We in the Spartacist League seek to win anti-racist activists to the understanding that only the overthrow of the capitalist system through the revolutionary struggle of the working class leading all of the oppressed can put an end to cop terror. Linking up the anger of the oppressed with the power of the workers in a fight to sweep the capitalist state apparatus into the dustbin of history and establish a workers government requires the leadership of a multiracial, revolutionary workers party. We are committed to forging such a party through struggle. For black liberation through socialist revolution!

Black Lives Matter: The Next Stage in the Struggle

Black Lives Matter: Boycott Injustice and the Next Stage in the Struggle

by Jess Spear and Stephan Kimmerle

This determination and growing mood to radically change the system and address racism is a strong basis to build on. The time is ripe for the next step in the Movement for Black Lives. Read more...

Fury at Trump Can Fuel Mass Fightback Against Sexism

by Kelly Bellin

Young women want to fight back against inequality and the corporate control of politics. Despite Trump’s platform for hateful ideas, society is moving to the left and fierce movements of working class women are on the horizon. Read more...

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Walking for peace through Maine

October 20, 2016 by Erin Place Norway Advertiser Democrat

NORWAY — They don their walking shoes and continue walking with a purpose – to Stop the War$ on Mother Earth – and, more specifically, environmental issues affecting Maine and its inhabitants.

POUNDING THE PAVEMENT — Roughly 20 participants from the fifth annual Maine Peace Walk play drums, chant and wave flags in downtown Norway on Monday, Oct. 17, to spread their message of peace.

Roughly 20 participants in the fifth annual Maine Peace Walk make a noisy, yet peaceful entrance as they walk along Main Street in downtown Norway late afternoon Monday, Oct. 17. They bang on Japanese fan drums, chant, fly flags and carry signs as they spread their message of peace throughout the state. Their destination is the First Universalist Church of Norway, where church members welcome them with a potluck supper and a place to rest for the night.

The walk began on Oct. 11 at Indian Island to honor the Penobscot Nation’s “struggles for clean water,” according to Jason Rawn, who hails from the Lincolnville area. Outside the church he’s taken off his pair of Asics to give his feet a breather. They have a fresh hole in the side from the day’s journey, as they traveled from Augusta to Norway with 13.6 walking miles.

“These have over 1,000 miles for peace walks,” he says as he holds up his sneakers and smiles.

Rawn is with his new friend, 10-year-old Bailey Kawasaki, who lives in Washington state.

“We walked with the monks,” Bailey says as he sits among the plants in front of the church with Rawn. He’s referring to Buddhist monks and nuns from the Nipponzan Myohoji order. “We carried some banners. They’re long.”

Parked outside the white church is the red van with a silver dolphin mounted to the roof and a mural painted by walker and artist Russell Wray. The mural is new this year and depicts men and women, young and old, holding hands around a tree, with the canopy expanding to the edge of the canvas.

NO MORE WAR — The van traveling with the Maine Peace Walk is parked outside of the First Universalist Church of Norway with a mural sporting this year’s theme “Stop the War$ on Mother Earth.”

“We have the van for old people if they’re feet are hurting or they get tired,” Bailey says matter of factly.

Each year a different route across the Pine Tree State is chosen “based on different kinds of struggles,” Rawn says. The 2016 walk so far has brought the activists to Dexter to meet with Grandmothers Against the East/West Corridor in Dexter and a vigil outside of the Poland Springs bottling plant in Poland.

“We’re walking in solidarity with everyone who is concerned about our planet, about our Earth and all the destructive forces, including the military and the corporate, and concerns that aren’t protecting the environment,” says Katie Greenman of Orland, who’s sitting with a group of walkers behind the church in the parking lot as they take a load off.

Most of the walkers are from Maine, but there are others from New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Jules Orkin lives in New Jersey and says he’s not much of a talker, but he can carry the Veterans for Peace flag and has done so all across the United States, Europe and Japan.

“We’re an eclectic group,” smiles Ian Collins of Liberty.

Jun Yasuda is a Buddhist nun who’s walked across the U.S. at least eight times. She says Maine is a beautiful place. She gives a clever answer when asked why she walks.

“Why we have foot? Why not use it?” Yasuda says, adding the act of walking “is more prayer to me than just hiking.” “Human mission is taking care of this Earth. [It’s a] very important message for us. Our life comes from Earth.”

Bruce Gagnon, an walk organizer from Bath, says from inside the church the first Maine Peace Walk brought participants to Norway, where they were greeted with hospitality, which made a lasting impression on him.

“Norway was so welcoming that’s why we did some shuttling out here from Augusta just to get here,” Greenman confirms. “I think this church does a lot of social justice work.”

Gagnon says there’s another reason for the walk to travel to Norway. One of the goals this year is to bring the peace movement to rural communities – including Old Towne, Pittsfield and Unity – as most peace groups are centered in bigger metropolitan areas. As they travel across the rural parts of the state, they’ve seen plenty of Trump signs.

“The last three miles coming into town was a gridlock,” Gagnon says, adding they hand out plenty of fliers, receive donations and experience honking, waving and people flashing them peace signs. “It was exhilarating. This is supposed to be conservative Maine. … You can’t pigeon hole people. People are more multidimensional than what our political choices allow.”

PRAYERS FOR PEACE — The Rev. Fayre C. Stephenson, center with paper, leads participants of the Maine Peace Walk and members of the First Universalist of Norway in prayer for before the pot luck supper on Monday, Oct. 17. The walkers are taking their message of peace across the state.

Before the pot luck supper commences, members of the Maine Peace Walk and First Universalist Church gather in a circle and hold hands. The Rev. Fayre C. Stephenson addresses the group in front of her before leading them in prayer.

“We Unitarian Universalists join you in your concern about the many different wars being waged on Mother Earth, ranging from over-fishing, deforestation and human-caused extinctions to climate disruption and endless war,” she says.

“Tonight’s gathering is proof that we are not alone when we affirm and promote a world community of peace, justice and sustainable living. And so, I say thank you for journeying to us.”

At 22, Kevin Brooks of Old Towne is fresh out of college and one of the youngest walkers there. He’s trying to figure out what he’s doing with his life and in doing so, has created friendships.

“I’ve made a friend on this walk. I’ve made many more who are here tonight,” he says, as he motions to the group around him.

All the food has been donated to the walkers, as are sleeping spaces in churches, schools and in people’s homes.

“I’ve been eating better on this walk than I do at home,” Brooks laughs.

“We couldn’t do any of this without the support of the communities along the way,” Greenman adds.

And Gagnon wants to extend his thanks to everyone who’s helped them along the way.

“I can’t tell ya how good it feels when you’ve got tired feet, you haven’t been sleeping well, you haven’t had a shower in a couple of days and people are so welcoming. Really it is very, very moving and we say, ‘Thank you,’” Gagnon says.

Then it’s time to dig into the homemade grub since the walkers need their sustenance as their journey takes them to Lewiston on Tuesday, Oct. 18.

eplace@sunmediagroup.net

5^th Maine Peace Walk itinerary

Day 1: Tuesday, Oct. 11, Penobscot Nation on Indian Island

Day 2: Wednesday, Oct. 12, Indian Island to Dexter

Day 3: Thursday, Oct. 13, Dexter to Pittsfield

Day 4: Friday, Oct. 14, Pittsfield to Unity

Day 5: Saturday, Oct. 15, Unity to Waterville

Day 6: Sunday, Oct. 16, Waterville to Augusta

Day 7: Monday, Oct. 17, Augusta to Norway

Day 8: Tuesday, Oct. 18, Norway to Lewiston

Day 9: Wednesday, Oct. 19, Lewiston to Brunswick

Day 10: Thursday, Oct. 20, day off in Brunswick

Day 11: Friday, Oct. 21, Brunswick to Freeport

Day 12: Saturday, Oct. 22, Freeport to Portland

Day 13: Sunday, Oct. 23, Portland to Saco

Day 14: Monday, Oct 24, Saco to Kennebunk

Day 15: Tuesday, Oct. 25, Kennebunk to York Beach

Day 16: Wednesday, Oct. 26, York to Kittery Naval Shipyard

3 p.m. village gate protest vigil

For more information, visit http://vfpmaine.org/.