Oh, what a relief. Young people who don't give us any problems.The Young Communist League is to be commended for dropping the teaching of Marxism-Leninism from its Clubs. I never like the concept of Marxism-Leninism anyways. I am asking that anyone seen carrying copies around of the "The Ten Classics of Marxism" be reported immediately to the National Office for purging. I think we still have a few CPUSA Clubs around. We need them to follow the lead of the YCL: How to Build a YCL Club |
| Building a YCL Club Every YCL club has to start somewhere, so take a chance. If you feel like the only communist in your city or sometimes even your state, build a Young Communist club to fight for economic and social justice. Look around at the developments in your city or in your school. Are there issues that piss other people off? Policies that discriminate against people of color, immigrants, gays and lesbians or women? How are poor and working students treated by authorities? The best way to build a club is to build solidarity around issues, and to develop understanding of what the problems are, what systems are in place and most importantly, how those systems can be changed. Call a meeting around a problem in your area, invite people to join a YCL club in order to fight the issue. At first the weight will be on your shoulders, persuade a friend or friends to help you run and plan the meeting. Don't limit your invitations just to friends or people you know. Post fliers with either a phone number or a place they can meet to ask questions. Call other community and youth groups in your area. Talk to anyone who will listen. With time and perseverence you will develop other leaders and organizers who will share in future events. Building Solidarity The best way to fight isolation is to build solidarity. Take the first step towards building a YCL club in your area: Invite a speaker from the Young Communist League or the Communist Party. Post fliers madly, overwhelming odds are that other people also want to fight capitalism. Set up a YCL table at a school event. Call the national office for literature to hand out. Ask questions about what is the YCL so you are comfortable answering other people's questions. Stress that the strength of the YCL is the sum of its members-- members ultimately determine what YCL can mean, what YCL can achieve. Throw a YCL party. Do you belong to a band or know a DJ that has similar interests? Communism is rooted in culture, solidarity and unity, what more does a good party need? Lenin puts it in his own way, "Revolutions are festivals of the oppressed." Be creative. You could run a comic strip contest or a poetry reading around a leftist theme, whatever you're into can help build the movement. Ask for advise from veterans of the movement and communisty leaders. Getting tips from the wise halps you avoid the mistakes they've learned from. Sign up sheets are great. Use them. Call back people who sign up to find out more about YCL. Call back once, twice, three times, leave messages, don't give up on those who are always "out." Distribute responsibilities among members, do not let a small leadership assume all of the work. Invite a wide circle of people, at all costs avoid cliques. The greater numbers of people you draw into the club the greater range of talents and skills you will have. Share the joys of phone calls among all the members. Give each club member a phone list of people to call, contacting these people is their responsibility. Pair up a new member with a more experienced member, working in teams builds confidence and organizing skills. Nuts and Bolts You've put together a club of people who come to meetings consistently, or who work steadily on campaigns. How do you build an organization out of a core group? The club structure varies slightly from club to club, but most clubs have elected office holders, regular (ish) meetings and membership lists. The following suggestions are for guidance, not hard and fast rules. Different clubs develop their own styles for running an effective and participatory meeting. Structure Officers can help a YCL club run smoothly and ensure that club decisions are followed through. Commonly, clubs elect three officers: coordinator, educational coordinator and treasurer who are accountable to the YCL members and club policies. Meetings At the end of each meeting: elect a meeting chair for the following meeting. The meeting chair could be a new member or an older member, for the next meeting they must draw up a tentative agenda (with help from other YCLers), present the agenda at the meeting and make any necessary changes or additions. The meeting chair can write down people's names in the order they raise their hands and call on speakers in turn. The meeting chair makes sure the meeting doesn't go through the night, that all members get a chance to speak, that discussions are respectful and to the point. Members Members should sign a membership list once they decide to join, keep the national YCL informed about new members. Membership dues for the YCL are presently a bargain at $1 per year. To build a strong club, all members should be involved in strategy sessions: one person cannot decide what campaigns to run and how to proceed in campaigns. Member discussions about the club goals and direction are vital to developing a strong club. Leaders The primary responsibility of a leader is to find and develop other leaders. A leader helps other members build the skills to mobilize, inspire and educate other people. A strong leader motivates others to take on more responsibility rather than do everything her or himself. A powerful club builds on the strengths of all its members to build a star team rather than one star player. A good organization demands many different skills and abilities, so build initiative and creativity in members' responses, and trust in the abilities of your comrades. To repeat an old YCL slogan, "Every YCLer should become a leader." Strategy Strong political activism develops from a united YCL. Discuss the club's strategies and goals in meetings, give members a space to express disagreement and come to resolutions about how the club should proceed. Build the line together, give ample room to hear different opinions, actively work to persuade and consolidate different perspectives, since squelching dissent can only lead to problems further down the way. When the club votes on a strategy all members should follow the club's decision as best as possible given the changing political conditions. Communication YCL is a national organization and your club is part of a larger movement to organize young people. Keep the YCL national informed about what's going on in your highschool and city. Drop a note or give a call from time to time. Planning a YCL Campaign The primary purpose of an organizing campaign is to educate people. Campaigns develop leadership, teach people about their collective strength, and most importantly, illustrate in concrete terms how capitalism functions to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few. A well-run campaign can win important concessions, build broad solidarity between people to combat injustice, and strengthen YCL clubs to fight the next battle. Questions to Begin a Campaign: What is the political and economic context of this problem? How does this campaign raise issues of class struggle and the fight against racism, sexism and homophobia? What problem are we trying to address? How can we change this problem? Has this problem come up before? Where? How did people respond? Who are the front-line decision makers on this issue? How will this campaign build and strengthen the YCL club? Who is most affected by the problem? Who is our constituency? Who are our allies? Who are our opponents? Define your long-range and short-term goals: for whom and for what is the YCL club being organized? Be specific in your answers. Characteristics of a Campaign Clear time frame-- There are advantages to short and long-term time frames. While long terms campaigns develop leadership skills and in-depth analysis, they can suffer from burn-out. Look at the conditions for your campaign: keep in mind when and how long vacations are, whether people are around in the summer, and how long members can participate. Most importantly, lay out the incremental steps for a campaign so that people feel a sense of progress. Clear target or enemy-- The campaign should be focused to target either the person who has the power to grant your demands, or someone who can pressure that person to concede. Figure out what structures the target hides behind, and who can influence the target. Also, know your target's soft spots and self-interest. The target may change in the campaign, but aim for specific people rather than amorphous bureaucracies. Clear issues--Define your campaigns so that solutions are brought to the fore. Also, demand specific changes in the system. Rather than organize around a larger problem such as "poor schools," target racist and ethnocentric curriculum and books, weak or nonexistent rape and sexual harassment policies, elitist funding policies that give huge salaries to administrators and peanuts for books, computers and teachers' salaries. Clear constituency--Define the issue to appeal to the broadest possible constituency without compromising the integrity of your campaign. Clear ideological position--Develop a strong critique of the capitalist system to draw the connections between your specific campaign and larger systems at work. Denial of human rights and equal access to resources are an integral facet of a global capitalism. Only in solidarity with each other can we build the strength to combat exploitative and oppressive conditions. The campaign should build your constituency's sense of their collective strength and their rights to economic and political equality. Solidifying the Campaign Once your club has thought through the general campaign, the second stage is to solidify. In this phase you research potential campaign handles, consider your club's resources and plan a strategy which contains tactical steps. Research Identify and thoroughly research your opponents, in the process don't forget to locate your allies. Investigate the dirt on your opponents, you can use this information to draw wider support for your campaign. Research can help you build ethical, political and economic arguments that legitimate the justice of your campaign. Your analysis of the issue shows how your position is good, fair, just, constitutional, legal etc. Use this information to develop a campaign handle. A handle is your point of entry--of turning a "problem" (poor public schools) into an "issue" (failure to allocate enough money towards school resources such as books, teachers and computers). A handle relates your position to specific decision-making authorities who can act to do what is right. A handle does not define the parameters of your campaign but helps your organization and your issue gain legitimacy. Every issue has a wide variety of handles. In the case of poor schools, handles might include: the provisions of an act on public education (get specifics) a federal mandate on minimum standards for public schools (get specifics) a legal case on public neglect of schoolchildren (get specifics) a specific school board member or college trustee who fights for economic justice in education misused federal funds that fail to support the educational future of all students. Resources To effectively plan your campaign take a clear look at your club's resources. Evaluate your club funds, active members in the club, the experience of your club leadership, your club's strength to disrupt the system, any internal problems to solve in order for the campaign to succeed, media contacts, access to decision-makers, and alliances that could lead to other resources. Strategy Clearly outline your long range approach (strategy) and your short range approach (tactics). Strategy includes all of the following parts: Definition of your goals An evaluation of your resources Identification of your constituents, allies and opponents Definition of your target(s) An outline of your tactics. Tactics Tactics include media events, actions for information and demands, public hearings, strikes, law suits, accountability sessions, elections and negotiations Tactics should be fresh, creative, witty, imaginative and pointed. Tactics develop from the idea that you have the numbers and/or the capacity to embarrass a target and alter the usual course of business. Some tips about tactics from Mike Miller, director of the Organizing Training Center: Use tactics that your club understands and are excited by Power is what you have and what the enemy thinks you have The press plays a role in the latter. Whenever possible, go outside the experience of the enemy. Try to catch them off guard, do the unexpected, put pressure where it is not expected. Ridicule (and flattery) are important tools--label the enemy. Keep up the pressure on a campaign. Pick new fights. Have a new action every week. Keep on top of the issues. Have constructive alternatives to offer. Always press for written and binding agreements, for timetables and due dates. Pick the target, personalize it, and don't let the target diffuse responsibility. Know Your Opposition At the beginning of your campaign try to neutralize your opponents by inviting as many as possible to join the campaign. Consult potential opponents to put them in the position of encouraging your action. Recruit individuals who know opposition leaders to ask for their support. For a public meeting, invite a representative of the opposition to attend (you may want to sandwich the speaker between your most effective speakers, or cut down on their time to talk, but the invitation defuses a potential attempt to disrupt the event). Research the background and spokesperson of your opposition carefully. If opponents try to disrupt your event, you can expose their true interests and counter their efforts. If publicity will stir opposition into actions, don't publicize your specific actions in advance. Evaluating the Campaign After an action, or after one leg of the campaign review your actions. The purpose of reviewing the action is to develop a consensus definition of the experience. To build consensus, elicit as many opinions and reactions from participants as possible. Evaluate what meaningful concessions were gained, assess turnout, and press coverage, check the performance of leaders and committees. Connect each event to the campaign as a whole, since the evaluation stage can develop and change your club's conceptualization of the problem and your strategy. Press Coverage Press coverage of YCL campaigns and actions can build your base of support, recruit new members and bring additional people to your events. Press coverage is not entirely predictable, but typing your own stories can help bring you the coverage you want. Also, develop contacts in the press who are sympathetic to the YCL and your campaigns. A press release includes the following: Cover letter -- the cover letter should provide a YCL club member's name who will act as a press contact, the name of the YCL or coalition and a phone number. If possible, address the fax to a specific journalist's or editor's name, the newsroom's or paper's name, and add their fax and phone number (in case your fax goes astray). In "memo" you can tell them if there is a particular release date for the article. If it's reporting a surprise action, ask them to hold the article until a certain time and date. Article -- the article should give a short, engaging and clear account of your event, action or position. Include quotations from people involved in the action or event, provide some analysis of the issues involved. Draw the media into covering the event through your reportage. Chances are that your framing of the issue will affect how the press reports it-- your article gives them a shortcut and can give you good publicity. Press release procedure: Fax the cover letter and article to your local and/or national papers and news channels. For announcements of upcoming events, give your paper time to publish your bulletin, a week or more depending on your paper's policy. The morning before the event is scheduled to take place call the newspaper or TV station: Find out if they received (and filed) your fax Ask if they will cover the story Try to get a definite answer about whether they will attend The Young Communist League is to be commended for dropping the teaching of Marxism-Leninism from its Clubs. I never like the concept of Marxism-Leninism anyways. I am asking that anyone seen carrying copies around of the "The Ten Classics of Marxism" be reported immediately to the National Office for purging. Going as we are we should be able to smoothly phase our operations into the Democratic Party sooner than I anticipated. It is always nice to know we can work so effectively towards our goal. Beware of anyone calling us Dumb Donkeys. They are probably Republican trolls. Sam Webb Chair, National Board CPUSA |
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