The Party for Socialism and Liberation’s first ever National Conference on Socialism brought more than 400 attendees to Los Angeles for a full weekend of speakers, workshops and discussions. The new political and economic period, the challenges facing the working class at home and abroad, and the prospects for socialist revolution were primary conference topics.
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Held at University of California, Los Angeles, on Dec. 6 and 7, the conference was a resounding success on all fronts. It was the result of a nationwide effort of PSL members and allies to mobilize workers, students and organizers to an event about socialism and the fight back movement needed today.
In Los Angeles alone, PSL members and friends distributed 15,000 palm cards and 2,000 flyers, handed out 3,200 posters and 15,000 stickers, made over 2,000 phone calls and mailed 850 information packages locally and another 600 nationally. Outreach teams were sent to schools and workplaces, and PSL members promoted the conference through independent media outlets.
Conference participants came from all areas of Southern California, including San Diego, Orange County, Long Beach and the South Bay, Los Angeles proper, Ventura, Oxnard and so many other cities. Others came from Central and Northern California, and from Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Washington, D.C. and Washington State.
In the opening plenary on Saturday, the audience heard about the PSL’s recent struggles and campaigns—from the PSL’s election campaign to the party’s intervention in the anti-war movement, from the struggle against the bigoted Proposition 8 to the struggle against racist police brutality. PSL member Carlos Alvarez, a candidate on the ballot for L.A. mayor, spoke in the session.
Stevie Merino, a PSL candidate member from Long Beach, Calif., explained what it means to become a member of the PSL. She is presently going through the PSL’s candidacy program, a six-month period in which new members familiarize themselves with the party’s program and develop as revolutionaries.
During the keynote plenary, the PSL’s 2008 Vice-Presidential candidate Eugene Puryear made a call for working-class unity, denouncing the wedges of racism and bigotry used by the ruling class to divide workers. PSL Presidential candidate Gloria La Riva then painted a picture of what socialism would look like in concrete terms.
Brian Becker, the national coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and a member of the PSL’s National Committee and Political Committee, discussed the capitalist offensive workers are facing now and the prospects of waging a fight back struggle. Becker used the auto industry as a case study to underscore the need to expand beyond customary labor union tactics in order to overcome the problems faced by auto workers and all of labor during the present crisis. When asked about the shortcomings of the labor union leadership, Becker responded: “If you don’t have a union, you have to fight to get one. If you have a union, you have to fight to make it fight.” Becker emphasized that workers must conduct this struggle artfully, and with attention to the specific conditions of the region and the jobsite. “There is not a one-size-fits-all approach,” he added.
Becker made the point that sit-down strikes and the physical takeover of factories that are threatening to shut down or run away are essentially defensive tactics. Unions and all workers are put on the defensive during an economic downturn, but these tactics put the issue of workers’ control on the agenda. Becker said, “The most important need is to help workers break out of the traditional acceptance of the capital/labor relationship.”
Fighting for justice
Following the morning plenary session, conference participants were given a choice of two major panels to attend: “Organizing against Racism, Bigotry and Repression” and “Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and the Leftward Shift in Latin America—What’s at Stake?”
A spirited and well-attended panel on racism, bigotry and repression featured presentations and discussion on fighting against police brutality, immigrant bashing, women’s oppression and LGBT oppression.
Conference attendees packed the room for the Latin America panel where presenters discussed socialist Cuba, the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, and anti-imperialist turns in Bolivia and Ecuador. The discussion portion touched on a number of Latin American and Caribbean nation states including Mexico, Paraguay and Haiti.
Following lunch, two more major panels took place: “The Global Resistance to Imperialist War and Colonial Occupation” and “Socialism: The Only Alternative to Capitalism.”
In the panel on imperialist war, speakers discussed Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela, the Philippines, and imperialism in Africa. Conference participants gave standing ovations several times to express solidarity with workers’ struggles around the world.
“Socialism: The Only Alternative to Capitalism” drew intense discussion on the meaning of socialism and the historical significance of the Soviet Union and China to revolutionary developments worldwide. Panelists talked about the nature of capitalism versus socialism, the PSL’s view of support for workers’ states and the necessity of revolution while also fighting for reforms.
Many participants in the socialism panel were people relatively new to the revolutionary socialist movement. One student asked about the need to update Marxism to the current day, given that the composition of the working class in the United States has changed, with relatively fewer factory workers and many more service workers. Panelists explained that the common thread for workers today and in Marx’s time is exploitation—all workers are exploited by an increasingly centralized capitalist class.
Fairfax High School student Kristine Klein thanked the panel for their presentations. She said, “I did not really know what socialism meant before hearing these talks today. It now makes sense.”
International solidarity
At the close of the conference’s first day, there was a lively and entertaining International Solidarity Session featuring keynote speaker and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Clark congratulated the PSL on the gathering and implored its members to continue their hard work for justice. He discussed the struggle against imperialism in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, focusing on the important role played by activists in the United States.
Other featured speakers included Yousef Abudayyeh, Free Palestine Alliance; Christine Araquel, KmB Pro-People Youth and the Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines; Jollene Levid, Gabriela Network; Jim Lafferty, National Lawyers Guild-Los Angeles; Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Partnership for Civil Justice and ANSWER Coalition national steering committee; Berny Moto, FMLN-Los Angeles; and international guests Miguel Edgardo Mira Lopez, Director, Center for the Study of Investment and Commerce and leader of the Movement for Peace and Social Justice in El Salvador; Sakoda Hidefumi, International Affairs Department, Japan Communist League; and others.
Mira Lopez eloquently discussed the challenges facing the movement in El Salvador, over 15 years after the end of the civil war. He stressed the importance of understanding that elections alone will not bring about a new society, and made a call for Latin American unity.
Sakoda delivered an impassioned talk focusing on the JCL’s important struggle against U.S. bases in Japan, for workers’ rights and against imperialist aggression. He thanked the PSL for its work and solidarity with the workers’ movement in Japan, emphasizing the need for revolution. Sakoda brought the crowd of hundreds to their feet with a rousing universal call to action: “Working class and oppressed people in the U.S. and Japan, unite! Working class and oppressed people all over the world, unite! Down with imperialism!”
PSL member Sarah Sloan discussed the PSL’s perspective in the coming period and the necessity of socialist revolution in the United States. Party members from New York, Boston and Los Angeles chaired the session, leading the crowd in chants like, “Free, free Palestine” and “Women’s rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” The evening closed with an acoustic performance of the Marxist multimedia performance piece “Proving Ground” by PSL member and filmmaker Travis Wilkerson and the band Los Duggans.
Leonard Shelton, a conference participant and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, told Liberation that he found the conference very informative. Speaking about his experiences of being radicalized in the military, Shelton said that, for him, Ramsey Clark’s talk was a conference highlight: “He saw the light. I see the light. Having him there was very inspiring to me.”
Socialism: the only alternative
On Sunday morning, four breakout sessions took place. These focused on theory and also on different areas of work, including “Students and Teachers Organizing Against Budget Cuts,” “State and Revolution: What it Means Today,” “Marxism and the Capitalist Economic Crisis,” and “Expanding the Reach of Socialist Media.”
Tony Blum, a student from Santa Monica High School, said her reasons for attending the breakout session “Expanding the Reach of Socialist Media” were anything but theoretical. “Our goal is to radicalize the students,” she noted. “Right now I’m gathering staff and comrades.” She said that the discussion with the editors of Liberation and pslweb.org provided practical suggestions to help her create an alternative high school paper.
A set of major panels were also held on Sunday: “Building a New Workers Movement to Defend the People from the Bankers and Bosses Offensive” and “Understanding and Fighting the Expanding Police State.”
Boston PSL member C. Gonçalves spoke in the workers’ movement panel about his experience organizing a union at his workplace and the company’s aggressive anti-union campaign. When the bosses found out that Gonçalves and his co-workers were attempting to join the Teamsters, they mounted an all-out anti-union offensive. Their tactics did not work—the hard-fought union drive was victorious. Other panelists discussed the prospects for a renewed labor struggle and the necessity for communists to be at the forefront.
During the police state panel, people shared diverse experiences of encounters with manifestations of the emerging police state. Tamara, a Palestinian student from Fullerton, Calif., compared the checkpoints in Washington, D.C. and San Juan Capistrano, Calif., to checkpoints in Palestine. Partnership for Civil Justice co-founder, Carl Messineo, replied that the similarities are no accident: U.S. police go abroad to study repressive techniques used particularly by Israel and other racist states.
The conference’s closing plenary featured several concluding talks. PSL candidate member Marquis Belton from Kent, Ohio, spoke about why he joined the party and urged others to do the same. PSL member Peta Lindsay then addressed how the PSL views leadership and why building a revolutionary party of leaders is necessary: “Nothing is more important than to build this party. Without a revolutionary socialist party, rooted in the working class and among the most oppressed sectors of the working class, it will not be possible to win.”
Ian Thompson, PSL member in Los Angeles, summed up the conference, highlighting that the PSL, as a Marxist party working in the heartland of world imperialism, is full of optimism: “We don’t see the world through rose-colored glasses, but we know that there is an alternative—and only one alternative. There is no third way. There is only multinational workers’ power. There is only socialism.”
