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Our History
On this page are two essays – the first of the
history of the revolutionary socialist youth movements of the U.S. from the
past century, and the second is about the first several years of Youth for
Socialist Action.
You may also be interested in the following misc.
texts from the history of the revolutionary socialist youth movement in
this country:
 1960s Reading
List from the Young Socialist Alliance
Martin Abern’s
“Foundations of a Communist Youth League”
1938 Open Letter to the Young
Communist League
1939 Leaflet to the YCL on the
Hitler-Stalin Pact
History of
Socialist Youth Movements in the United States
The long and colorful history of the socialist
youth movement in the United States goes back to the very beginning of
socialism in America. Soon after founding the Socialist Party of America in
1901 by Eugene V. Debs, its youth group, the Young Peoples Socialist
League, was founded.
Together with SP affiliated college student organizations, the YPSL grew to
incorporate thousands of young and militant Americans in the tumultuous
pre-World War I years in this country.
With the outbreak of World War I though, and the ensuing crack down on all
radical groups by President Wilson, the YPSL was subject to harassment and
to numerous violations of its members constitutional rights by the
government, and the patriotic mobs that that it whipped up.
In the midst of this anti-radical persecution, which continued well into
the 1920s, the 1917 Russian Revolution led by V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky
grabbed the attention of every radical in America, young and old.
A huge debate broke within the ranks of the Socialist Party and the Young
Peoples Socialist League over what attitude to take to the new fledgling
workers’ state in Russia.
The revolutionary spirited elements parted ways with the conservation wing
of the Socialist Party, and launched the American Communist Party in 1919.
And again, shortly afterwards, the students and young workers attracted to
the new party’s banner came together to found a youth group, the Young
Communist League.
However, the Young Communist League and the CP were born in troubled times.
Continued government persecution, now including forced deportation of
foreign born radicals, forced the young movement underground. At the same
time, intense pressures from imperialist countries, and the overwhelming
destruction and backwardness which faced the Bolsheviks, was resulting in a
bureaucratic degeneration of the revolution in Russia. Led by the ruthless
Joseph Stalin, a self-serving bureaucracy has usurped power in Russia
following the death of Lenin in 1924. It quickly moved to quench dissent,
and abandoned the idea of world revolution, contenting themselves instead
with preserving their new power and privilege.
In America, the leadership of the Communist Party went along with the
changes taking place in Russia. Following Stalin’s example, the leadership
of the CP sought to end any dissent, demanding unquestioning loyalty to
whatever policy the leadership passed down.
A small group of Communist Party members around James P. Cannon however, who
were still committed to democratic ideas of the Russian Revolution,
challenged the CP leadership. In 1928 they were expelled. Immediately
afterwards they launched a newspaper, the Militant, and a new
organization, the Communist League of America.
Despite being isolated and attacked by the now Stalinist Communist Party,
Cannon and the CLA fought to defend revolutionary politics, and as a result
the CLA grew in both members and influence. In the early 1930s it launched
a youth group, the Spartacus Youth League.
In the same manner as its parent organization, members of the SYL and their
newspaper, the Young Spartacus, sought to win the hearts and minds
of students and young workers in competition with the Young Communist
League and the Young Peoples Socialist League.
In 1936, both the Communist League of America and the Spartacus Youth
League dissolved and re-entered the Socialist Party and the Young Peoples
Socialist League. This was in response to a dramatic growth of the
Socialist Party, and the Socialist Party leadership’s call for a party that
would be home to all socialists.
Taking into the SP though their revolutionary politics, the Trotskyists
were attacked by the conservative leadership of the SP, who now worried
they may loose control of the SP and the YPSL.
After enduring numerous organizational maneuvers and attempts at censorship
by the SP leadership, the Trotskyists left the Socialist Party, and in 1938
founded the Socialist Workers Party. Hundreds of workers left the SP with
them, as did all the youth. The Young Peoples Socialist League now became
the youth group of the new Socialist Workers Party!
By this time however the winds of World War II were beginning to blow, and
once again the left came under attack by the government and its henchmen.
The SWP was evicted from its position of power in the Midwest Teamsters
union, and its leadership arrested and put on trial for opposing U.S. entry
into the war.
Buckling to the intense pressure upon the left to abandon any defense of
the Russian Revolution, including the gains which continued to survive
despite the bureaucracy, a wing of the SWP under Max Shactman split the
party, taking most of the YPSL with it. The remainder of the SWP continued
to defend revolutionary politics throughout the war, as well as the
McCarthyite 1950s, but it was unable to maintain a youth group.
The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the beginnings of a significant
radicalization of young people. Fueled by the inspiration provided by the
civil rights movement in the United States and the Cuban Revolution of
1959, a growing number of young people began to look to radical answers to
the injustices they saw around them.
The Socialist Workers Party responded to this radicalization by reaching
out to these young people, and launching a new youth group, the Young
Socialist Alliance.
Throwing itself into the growing movement against the unjust war in
Vietnam, the YSA quickly grew to become one of the largest and most
effective radical youth groups in America. Despite competition from various
ultra-left, Maoist and Stalinist groups, the Young Socialist Alliance,
through coalitions such as the Student Mobilization, was able to build a
mass youth movement against the war in Vietnam around the slogan of “Bring
the Troops Home Now!” This was in contrast to the slogans of “Drive the
G.I.s Into the Sea” and “Tune In, Tune Out” of its less serious
competitors.
The result of the YSA’s and the SWP’s role in the anti-war movement, a
majority of people were swung to oppose their government’s policy in
Southeast Asia, and to no small degree, end the war.
The YSA entered the 1970s with a strong base on all of the major U.S.
campuses, and the respect of student activists everywhere. Its newspaper, the
Young Socialist, had a readership in the tens of thousands. Armed with
the experience it had gained in the anti-war movement, the YSA was able to
play a significant role in the struggles around racism and continued
segregation in the schools that unfolded in the late 1970s.
The size and valuable experience of the YSA however was largely destroyed
in the early 1980s when a new leadership in the Socialist Workers Party
began to abandon the politics it had stood by in the past, and engaged In a
series of twists and turns.
Members of the YSA were ordered to quit school and to go and get jobs in
industry. In response to this, and the bizarre political lines being passed
down by the SWP leadership, many youth in the YSA dropped out, and were
lost from the revolutionary movement.
Just as a group of sincere revolutionaries had resisted the degeneration of
the Communist Party in the 1920s, so too was the case with the SWP. These
dissenters, like James Cannon, were also expelled, and forced to form a new
organization. The name of the new group was Socialist Action, the party
that Youth for Socialist Action is tied to.
Being born in the conservative 1980s however, Socialist Action found it
hard to find young people interested in revolutionary politics. Several
efforts were made to reach out to students on the campuses, and throughout
the 1980s and early 1990s several “Students for Socialist Action” clubs
were formed in places like San Francisco and Cincinnati. Unfortunately it
wasn’t until the mid and late 1990s that Socialist Action was able to
gather around it enough young revolutionaries to begin thinking about
launching a youth group.
The organization that was created by these initial young people was Youth
for Socialist Action. Today, the new YSA is able to stand with the
confidence and wisdom inherited from an almost century old revolutionary
youth tradition behind it. Drawing from the lessons of the early Young
Peoples Socialist League, Young Communist League, Spartacus Youth League
and the Young Socialist Alliance, Youth for Socialist Action is proudly marching
into the twenty-first century with the banner of revolutionary socialism
held high!
The essay above was written by Adam Ritscher in 2000.
YSA’s First 7 Years
It's accurate to characterize the overall student
and youth radicalization in the United States today as uneven and erratic.
Without a clear political program, it has not been able to sustain the
consistent action necessary to fight capitalist globalization, attacks on
women's rights, rising tuition costs—and most important, the U.S.-led
imperialist war.
However, in these difficult times, the potential
for a new and dynamic youth radicalization exists, stemming from the
sharpening contradictions of capitalism. On the one hand, the federal
government can provide billions of dollars for profit-motivated, racist
wars, not to mention trillions of dollars in tax cuts to the ultra-rich; on
the other hand, young workers and students are faced with slashed funding
for health care and education and must struggle to purchase their basic
necessities.
Under capitalism, youth bear the brunt of
economic and social deterioration. With an ascending number of layoffs,
unstable work opportunities, and unemployment rates higher than those of
their adult counterparts, individual solutions to social problems don't
seem rational anymore.
Young people are increasingly questioning why the
status quo is unable to meet basic human needs. That's why a new generation
is seeking anti-capitalist solutions.
From its modest beginnings in 1997 in Ashland,
Wis., Youth for Socialist Action (YSA), has steadily built a layer of young
socialists nationwide.
Based on V.I. Lenin's tenet, "without
revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement,"
education has always been the cornerstone of YSA's work. In addition,
YSAers have participated in and led a broad range of fights on their
campuses and high schools, at their jobs, and in the streets.
From Ohio to the Northern Great Lakes region,
YSAers have helped initiate union-organizing drives at their workplaces.
They've learned first-hand about the impotence of organizers entrenched in
the union bureaucracy (a comrade working full time while going to school
was left to do the ground work for the union while the official organizers
sat on their haunches), the treachery of bosses (a comrade was fired as a
result of his organizing efforts), the violent role of police against
organized labor (an off-duty cop attacked a labor solidarity rally), and
the need for sustained organizing among the rank and file.
Following the 2001-2003 HERE Local 99 organizing
campaign in Duluth, Minn., gains were won, including some improved working
conditions and modest wage raises for Canal Park hotel workers. The
unionizing drive was headed off by the bosses. However, as an important
component of the struggle, YSAers earned respect and credibility from
workers and community.
In 1999, the Northland College campus, in
Ashland, was the stage for a bitter battle over a resolution calling for
freedom, justice, and new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Right-wing elements in
the student government sought to block its passage, but YSAers were able to
form a broad united-front-type coalition (Northern Mobilization to Free
Mumia Abu-Jamal), whose consistent efforts led to the student government
voting to pass the resolution.
Riding the wave of victory, the Northern
Mobilization organized a hugely successful benefit concert, "Jams for
Justice," in 2000 and 2001, which raised money for Mumia’s defense
fund and proved that concerts could be politically charged.
Youth for Socialist Action gets around. They sent
a delegation to Cuba to meet with the UJC (Cuba's revolutionary youth
organization). When Israeli attacks on Palestine reached a fever pitch,
they organized pro-Palestine rallies. Attacks on the democratic rights of
gays and lesbians were met with YSA rallies defending gay marriage. YSAers
around the country were active in building coalitions to organize protests
against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Wal-Mart stores saw YSA picket lines.
However, not everyone appreciates the YSA’s
determined work for social change. In May 2001 two YSAers were kicked off
the UW Superior (in Superior, Wis.) campus by a cop for holding a forum
there on police brutality called, "The Role of Police."
The American Transmission Company, an energy
corporation, has had to reckon with YSA. Last month, YSA dove headlong into
a fight by group of upper Midwest farmers from SOUL (Save Our Unique Lands)
and various student groups to halt the building of ATC's 345,000-volt
Arrowhead Weston transmission line. And they won.
Finally, after eight years of organizing and
education, Youth for Socialist Action will hold its first national
convention at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minn., on April 2.
Socialist ideas are becoming increasingly
attractive for those who want to make a better world. But YSA goes further,
fighting to build a different world that does not subordinate human needs
to capitalist profit. The goal is
socialism, a system based on meeting human needs, and Youth for Socialist
Action will keep fighting because not only is that goal realistic, it is
necessary.
The essay above was written by Mark Ostapiak in
2004.
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