|
Socialist Action proudly traces its political and
organizational roots back to the founding of the socialist movement in this
country. We stand on the experiences and revolutionary political
tradition of the early Socialist Party (1901-1919), the early Communist
Party (1919-1928), the Communist League of America (1928-1936), the Workers
Party of the U.S. (1936), the Socialist Appeal tendency of the Socialist
Party (1936-1938) and the Socialist Workers Party (1938-1983).
Socialist Action was founded in its current form in 1983.
Here in the upper-Midwest though we are a
fairly recent arrival. While this region had a very strong Socialist
Party and Communist Party presence during the first half of the 1950s, the
American Trotskyist movement – which are a part of – was not able to
establish a base here until the founding of a student group on the
Northland College campus in Ashland, WI in the winter of 1997.
This initial group of activists went
through several name changes (Students for Socialist Action, the Young
Socialist League, etc.) before settling on the name of Youth for Socialist
Action in 1998. That same year several members of YSA joined
Socialist Action and set up a separate SA branch that went by the name
Ashland Socialist Action. From then on there has been sustained
Socialist Action and Youth for Socialist Action branches in the
Northland. Youth for Socialist Action was set up as a group where
students and young people could easily join and gain some initial
experience in organizing and socialist politics, while Ashland Socialist
Action was the party that YSAers graduated to once they made the decision
to devote themselves to becoming revolutionaries.
Limited initially to Ashland, WI, the early
YSA and SA groups focused mainly on campus work. Regular forums on
socialism and current events, some modest anti-war organizing against the
sanctions on Iraq and the 1998 bombings of that country, and a sustained
campaign to save the life of Black political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal
filled these early days.
YSA organized fundraising concerts for
Mumia’s legal defense (the biggest of which drew over 200 young people) and
after a three year struggle, succeeded in getting the Northland College
Student Association to pass a resolution calling for a new trial for Mumia
following a student referendum that was overwhelmingly in support.
YSA also organized some modest pickets
against the U.S. bombings of Iraq, the Cassini space probe and raised money
for the striking Detroit newspaper workers.
During these first three years the Ashland
Socialist Action Organizers were successively Adam R., Rob W., Mark O. and
Kristin T.
In 2001 both YSA and SA began a dramatic
expansion in the region. In the spring of that year a comrade moved
to the Twin Ports, and by the fall of that year there was a Twin Ports YSA
chapter and Ashland Socialist Action was revamped to become Lake Superior
Socialist Action.
Both the new Twin Ports group, the more
veteran Ashland group, threw themselves into anti-war organizing in the
wake of 911 and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. On the evening of
911 Youth for Socialist Action initiated what was to prove to be a major
anti-war force in the region during the years to come – Students Against War
(SAW).
SAW was a coalition of various student
groups and individual activists that eventually spread from International
Falls, MN to Ironwood, MI. It established chapters on a dozen
different high schools and colleges in International Falls, Duluth, Superior,
Washburn, Bayfield, Park Falls, Ashland and Ironwood. During the two
years that SAW was up and running it organized dozens of campus protests
and pickets, teach-ins, film showings, study groups and forums on the war
in Afghanistan, and later Iraq.
The momentum of Students Against War
spilled over into the community at large in the winter of 2002/2003.
Following a SAW rally in Duluth in October 2002 that drew an impressive 300
people – it was decided to issue a call for a broad, non-partisan, mass
action focused community anti-war coalition. The end result was the
Northland Anti-War Coalition. NAWC went on in the coming months to
organize the largest anti-war demonstrations this region has ever seen –
the biggest being the Jan. 25 ’03 march in Duluth that drew 2,500!
Within the anti-war movement Socialist
Action and YSA fought to keep it independent of the Democratic Party, to
link it up with the labor movement (which resulted in the unprecedented
endorsement of the Duluth Central Labor Body and several union locals of
NAWC’s rallies), and to focus on building massive, broad and legal
demonstrations as the most effective way of demonstration the breadth of
opposition to the war and affecting political discourse in the region.
In the process of working through NAWC and
SAW Youth for Socialist Action began to attract dozens of high school and
college students throughout the region who attracted to our seriousness and
our political positions which explained the U.S. war drive as a profit
driven thing that was the natural end result of the workings of
capitalism. Soon YSA not only had chapters in the Twin Ports and
Ashland, but was recruiting new members in places like Park Falls,
Ironwood, Bayfield, Washburn, International Falls, the North Shore and the
Twin Cities. And at the same time many of the early recruits to YSA
in the Twin Cities took the step of joining the party, which resulted in
Lake Superior Socialist Action hitting the double digits for the first time
in its history.
At the same time as we were engaging in
anti-war work, Socialist Action and YSA were also making a mark in the
local anti-war movement. From its inception in the summer of 2001 YSA
was intimately involved in HERE Local 99’s campaign to organize Canal Park
hotel workers. At the same time YSA comrades were also involved in
efforts to unionize group home workers in Ashland. While in the end
both union organizing campaigns failed to win union recognition, they did
succeed in winning modest improvements in the conditions of the workers
involved, served to introduce a number of young people to the labor
movement, and resulted in an ongoing SA/YSA presence in the local labor
movement.
Following the U.S. occupation of Iraq the
anti-war movement lost a lot of steam. Many activists unfortunately
became demoralized, and began looking to the upcoming presidential campaign
of the pro-war/pro-capitalist Democratic Party as the only hope.
Despite this stampede out of the anti-war movement, Socialist Action
remained committed to keeping the movement alive. Partly through a
process of consolidation (SAW dissolved into NAWC in the spring of 2004)
and a more modest level of activity (NAWC for a time was forced to move
away from holding rallies to instead putting on forums and picket lines).
Standing against the electoral tidal wave,
Youth for Socialist Action and Socialist Action attempted to keep alive
independent, in the streets activism. During 2003 and 2004 we worked
on several projects such as anti-death penalty work on behalf of death row
prisoners Scott Panetti and Kevin Cooper, in support of same sex benefits
for state workers, in solidarity with illegally fired workers from the
Duluth airport, Palestine solidarity and for the legalization of marijuana.
Despite the growing isolation that came
with our refusal to compromise our principles by supporting the pro-war
Democratic Party we also kept our spirits up in a number of ways. We
conducted a symbolic campaign to elect Che Guevara mayor of Duluth!
We also began what have become annual events now for YSA and SA – Marxmas
parties, summer-time Red Poets on the Beach events andCamp Class Struggle.
And then of course there is the Commie
Sporting League! During good times and bad, the CSL’s ‘commie
soccer’, ‘commie boxing’ and other activities have served to keep our
comrades physically fit and in good spirits. After all, all work and
no play makes for dull revolutionaries!
During the 2004 elections we called on
working people to vote socialist. In both Minnesota and Wisconsin the
socialist candidates on the ballot that we supported were of the Socialist
Workers Party. And while the SWP candidates only got several dozen
votes in the Northland, it was a dramatic increase over the vote socialists
had got in the region in previous elections.
Following the 2004 elections many on the
liberal left became deeply demoralized by the re-election of President
Bush. SA and YSA tried to counter this demoralization by making a
renewed push to convince people that the solution to the social ills of the
region, and indeed the world, could best be served by revitalizing the
social movements and getting them back into the streets. The initial
reaction was limited, and sometimes even hostile, but in time many of our
former allies in the anti-war, queer, feminist, labor and student movements
began to come around.
As a result 2005 has seen a boost in
activism. It has, in particular, seen a resurgence in anti-war
activism, in support of gay marriage, and in opposition of the Arrowhead-Weston
line. The most dramatic result of this resurgence was the successful
blocking of the Arrowhead-Weston line by Save Our Unique Lands and
Socialist Action at a Douglas County Board meeting of Feb. 2.
Socialist Action and YSA have been in the
forefront of all of these battles. And out of these struggles our
reputation as serious, hard working activists is growing. 2005 has
become witness to a ever optimistic, and ever growing socialist movement in
the Northland.
YSA boasts solid chapters in the
upper-Midwest in St. Louis County, Douglas County, Cheq Bay, International
Falls and the Twin Cities – meaning that it is the only student activist
group with a truly regional network of members and supporters. It has
elected members to the student senates of both Northland College (Carl Sack
and Kevin Smith) and UWS (Lucas Dietscher and Tegan Wendland). It has
members in several local trade unions. And it is viewed as one of the
most dynamic and successful activist groups on the campuses.
At the same time Lake Superior Socialist
Action continues to grow in numbers and experience, and is even
contemplating running candidates for local officer in the next two years.
In summary we are proud of the role we have
played in the workers’ and social movements of this region, and are
confident that we can and will continue to play a crucial role in building
a left in this region that do its part to make a better world possible!
|
We
are a party that fights for workers’ democracy and socialism, for human
needs not profits – for the full liberation of workers and oppressed
peoples everywhere!
