Training a New Generation of Communist Fighters

SYC Speech at Los Angeles Holiday Appeal

(Young Spartacus pages)

We print below, slightly edited for publication, an excerpt from the speech given by Spartacus Youth Club representative Tony Duran at the Partisan Defense Committee’s Holiday Appeal for Class-War Prisoners in Los Angeles on December 13. The Partisan Defense Committee is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League.

The SYC wants to train a new generation of revolutionaries in the tradition of the Trotskyist Fourth International:

“To face reality squarely; not to seek the line of least resistance; to call things by their right names; to speak the truth to the masses, no matter how bitter it may be; not to fear obstacles; to be true in little things as in big ones; to base one’s program on the logic of the class struggle; to be bold when the hour for action arrives—these are the rules of the Fourth International.”

—Leon Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (1938)

The Spartacus Youth Club speech at the November 19 UCLA Regents protest garnered much applause when students heard our advocacy of free, quality, integrated education for all. In fact, as I concluded my speech, I received a couple of text messages from a friend. The first one read, “I heard you speak.” The second said, “You had them until Obama”! Our opposition to Obama hit a nerve with many of the students who have illusions in him.

When Obama was elected we said that this was nothing to celebrate for the working class, speaking the truth to the masses no matter how bitter. Reformists like the International Socialist Organization were busy “meeting people where they are at” in their present consciousness, at parties organized to celebrate an end to eight years of Republican rule. In this country, the main obstacle to revolutionary consciousness is illusions in the Democrats pushed by these reformists and trade-union bureaucrats. The SYC does not fear obstacles and is not interested in seeking the line of least resistance; we will meet these illusions head on and aim to break workers and students from this false and deadly consciousness.

The Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which overthrew capitalism in Russia, was not a Russian peculiarity. It was the revolutionary Marxist program of the Bolsheviks that was able to lead the Russian working class and oppressed masses, when they rose, against the capitalist system and for socialist revolution. The SYC seeks to train a new generation of young communist fighters in this tradition. You better believe that, armed with this revolutionary Marxist program, this new generation of communist fighters will be prepared and bold when the hour for action arrives! Break with the Democrats! For a revolutionary workers party! Forward to a socialist revolution!