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“Sit down, shut up and take it.” That was the ruling class’s message to workers and poor people in 2010. While capitalist politicians paid lip service to people’s needs, they carried out the dirty work of their bosses on Wall Street. Workers endured massive layoffs, cuts to social service programs, and foreclosures and evictions last year, while capitalists championed their “economic recovery.”
A wave of corporate privatization hit public schools. College students had tuition hikes shoved down their throats, in some states nearly doubling the cost to attend school. This was just the tip of the iceberg.
Where were the Democrats, the self-described representatives of working families? Along with the Republicans, they were leading the anti-worker charge. The Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, yet the attacks on workers were fiercer than ever. Nothing was done to alleviate the widespread suffering of poor people.
But the working class didn’t just “shut up and take it.” In cities and towns across the country, people fought back. The Party for Socialism and Liberation helped lead the way.
Founded just six years ago by a small group of dedicated communists with the goal of building a revolutionary Marxist party, the PSL has grown rapidly into a dynamic, fighting organization with members in nearly 30 states.
Through mass demonstrations, pickets, community organizing projects, political campaigns, conferences and meetings, the PSL has expanded its size and work over the past year.
A watershed year
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In November 2010, the PSL organized its second-ever National Conference on Socialism in Los Angeles. The event brought together over 500 people from across the United States to discuss how to build the working-class movement. It was a major step forward for the PSL and the struggle for socialism in the United States.
Held on the University of Southern California campus, the conference was two full days of speakers, including PSL leaders, allied organizations and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark; panels, like “The class struggle in Africa and the fight against imperialism” and “Building a new workers’ movement: organized labor and the challenges ahead,” among others; organizing sessions on the practical experiences of building a revolutionary socialist movement, a revolutionary writers’ clinic; and a special International Solidarity and Awards Session that featured the PSL’s first-ever “Fighters for Justice, Champions of Freedom Awards.”
At the conference, Robert King Wilkerson—award recipient and the only member of the Angola 3 out of prison—said of the PSL: “The old adage that faith, hope and whatever else you may have can move mountains, well, it can, but faith and hope is the power of the people. I have faith in all of you.” Other awardees included political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier and Lynne Stewart, and civil rights lawyers Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund.
The conference raised the profile of the PSL and showed a renewed spirit of revolutionary struggle, especially among the many hundreds of students and young people who attended.
Just days later, right-wing media guru Glenn Beck dubbed the PSL “the enemy within,” showing video footage from the conference on his show. Beck wanted to demonize the PSL precisely because it is growing, energetic and fights tirelessly in the interests of the vast majority of people.
2010 also opened a new phase in organization for the PSL. In February, the PSL held its first-ever National Congress. Convened in the tradition of the communist movement, elected delegates held three days of deliberations and discussions to strengthen the internal workings of the party. The delegates elected a representative Central Committee to steer the organization in between Congresses. The body also discussed and voted on over 100 amendments and proposals, in the end unanimously approving a constitution and political program.
In word and deed
Last year ushered in a new aesthetic for Liberation, the biweekly newspaper of the PSL. On its third anniversary, Liberation transformed from an excellent socialist news source printed in black and white into a superb publication printed in full color. One of the newspaper’s most popular articles, “Eight myths about socialism—and their answers,” was shared widely on the Internet and distributed on college campuses.
Dozens of new contributors have been trained to write for Liberation and the party’s ever-improving website, PSLweb.org. The PSL is developing real “people’s media” outlets where working-class people tell their stories, and where incisive political analysis is presented from a Marxist perspective.
The PSL organized an international book tour by Richard Becker, author of the PSL publication, “Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire” (now in its second printing). The tour included more than 100 events in 20 states and Canada.
In addition, the PSL just published a new book, “The Program of the PSL: Socialism and Liberation in the United States.” The volume is comprised of the PSL’s political program and a significant document about the party’s worldview, titled “Who we are, what we stand for.” Meetings across the country were organized to discuss the book. More meetings will continue in 2011.
Anti-war struggle
A central area of the PSL’s work is the mass anti-war struggle. As an anchoring member of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), the PSL has played a leading role in the anti-war movement, organizing mass protests and pickets to stop imperialist wars abroad.
March 2010 marked the seventh anniversary of the criminal U.S. invasion of Iraq. The ANSWER Coalition spearheaded nationwide demonstrations, drawing thousands into the streets and demanding money for people’s needs, not war. In October, ANSWER organized protests against the escalating war on Afghanistan in cities across the country.
March Forward!, an organization of veterans and active-duty service members affiliated with ANSWER, experienced growth and garnered attention for its uncompromising stand against U.S. imperialism. March Forward! played a critical role in mobilizing young Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans for the anti-war protests in March and October, and for a civil resistance action at the White House in December where over 130 people were arrested.
The PSL intensified its continuing work to support the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people. In May and June, after the Israeli military massacred humanitarian activists on the Mavi Marmara aid flotilla bound for Gaza, ANSWER organized emergency response protests in dozens of cities.
Just weeks later, the PSL in San Francisco helped organize the first-ever boycott of an Israeli ship at a U.S. port. Nearly 1,000 people blocked the gates of the Oakland docks, prompting union longshore workers to refuse to cross picket lines. It was an unprecedented and historic action in solidarity with Palestine.
As the U.S. and South Korean governments targeted North Korea with war threats in late November, the PSL jumped into action with its allies in ANSWER and the Korean-American community, and helped to organize a coordinated day of rallies to say “no” to a new Korean war.
Mass initiatives
Fighting against racism and for immigrant equality was a main point of struggle last year. On May Day, the PSL promoted and helped organize mass demonstrations demanding full rights for immigrants. In Los Angeles, PSL members spoke at a march of 350,000 people. The mobilizations took on additional weight as Arizona’s racist, anti-immigrant SB 1070 became law in April.
SB 1070 spurred the PSL to join the ANSWER Coalition in organizing a mass regional protest in Boston outside a national meeting of state governors. People came from all over the East Coast to demonstrate. Then, on the night before SB 1070 took affect, the PSL again worked with ANSWER to organize an action on the lawn of the Arizona state capitol.
PSL members also did focused work on the Seize BP campaign, an initiative of ANSWER, in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster that ultimately leaked over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. While other progressive and left forces waited, the Seize BP campaign took action, organizing protests at BP offices around the country to demand full compensation for the affected workers of the Gulf region. PSL members traveled to the region on a fact-finding mission, making contacts, assisting local organizing efforts and documenting the damage to the region.
On the international front, PSL members provided leadership to the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. The PSL mobilized for a week of international actions demanding the Five’s freedom. In addition, the PSL participated in Latin American solidarity coalitions in various cities, such as Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco.
Socialism and the elections
Struggling in the electoral arena was an important area of work for the PSL in 2010. As it has in years past, the PSL used the elections as a tactic to fight the capitalists where they are most comfortable.
This year, statewide and local campaigns in California and Ohio reached hundreds of thousands with the ideas of revolutionary socialism.
In April, PSL member and college student Stevie Merino garnered 16 percent of the vote when she ran an openly socialist campaign for mayor of Long Beach, Calif., a city of 600,000.
PSL candidates also achieved ballot status in statewide races for governor and secretary of state in California, garnering over 250,000 votes combined.
In Ohio, 18-year-old Corey Ansel ran a vibrant socialist campaign for state representative.
Building the struggle
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Around the country, PSL branches are hubs of activism and theoretical study. Day-in, day-out, the PSL participates in numerous struggles against imperialism, war, racism, exploitation and environmental destruction, in defense of labor, immigrant, women’s and LGBT rights, and in solidarity with all those around the world resisting the Empire.
More revolutionaries are entering the party’s ranks. Established areas like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Boston, Baltimore, New Haven, Conn., South Florida, Philadelphia, Albuquerque, Seattle and Sioux Falls, S.D., have grown stronger over the year.
PSL members are starting branches or actively organizing in Austin, Tex., Syracuse and New Paltz, N.Y., Columbus, Ohio, Pittsburgh and State College, Penn., St. Louis, Mo., Denver, Colo., Spokane, Wash., cities in Louisiana and California cities, like San Diego, Long Beach, Riverside, Sacramento, San Jose and Santa Cruz.
In New York City, PSL members are leading a campaign against the racist NYPD “stop and frisk” policy, and organizing students at universities and community colleges against tuition hikes.
Chicago’s PSL branch helped lead the largest action against the war on Afghanistan in October, a Midwest regional protest that rallied over 1,500 people.
The PSL in San Francisco continued to demand justice for Oscar Grant at rallies and meetings. Members also worked with community and labor activists in a coalition to stop public transportation rate hikes, and built critical solidarity with UNITE HERE Local 2 in its struggle against Hilton hotels.
In Los Angeles, PSL members helped lead a rally of nearly 2,000 people against neo-Nazis, organized Spanish-language meetings and forums, and held a regional conference on socialism that drew 250 people.
Washington, D.C., PSL members joined with community organizations to fight for a moratorium on electricity shutoffs and mobilized support for the massive Oct. 2 “One Nation” rally on the mall, raising the slogans “Stand against war and racism” and “Jobs, not war.”
PSL members in Syracuse, N.Y. are helping to organize a movement to demand justice for Chuniece Patterson, Raul Pinet Jr. and other victims of racist police brutality and abuse.
The PSL organized workshops at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit. The Boston and New Haven PSL branches organized a major New England regional conference on socialism. And the PSL in San Diego built a rally denouncing a local ICE raid and calling for legalization for all.
This is just a fraction of the work that the PSL carried out last year.
A document discussed at the PSL Congress titled “Building the PSL in 2010: Assessment, evaluation and proposals for going forward,” summed up the party’s challenges in that year and the years ahead: “The current objective situation presents to the party dual tasks: We must build a new workers’ movement based on the issues of the day, and at the same time strengthen the position of the ideological current that promotes socialism and communism.”
The magnitude of our tasks is great, but our dedication to building a true working-class movement is even greater.
Long live the struggle for socialism!
