For R10: Lessons Learned from International Organizing
This article argues for a yes vote on Resolution 10: “Fighting for Victory in the Heart of Empire.”
The structure of our international organizing has been hotly contested within YDSA. Each of the last three conventions have yielded two opposing resolutions on how our committee should be structured. This year is the same with R10: “Fighting for Victory in the Heart of Empire” and R23: “For an Independent Youth International Committee.” These two resolutions take different stances on whether or not our international organizing should be housed within DSA’s International Committee.
The past three years’ convention results have resoundingly decided that our international committee, the International Committee Youth Leadership Committee (IC-YLC), should remain in the International Committee (IC) with the rest of DSA’s international organizing. This year we should continue to learn from our shortcomings and build on our successes with this convention-tested structure by passing R10.
This year there is a consensus on expanding the committee. I see this as a benefit of Bread & Roses, the caucus that often sponsors independence resolutions, having joined the IC-YLC for the first time in the past three years.
This year, YDSA’s response to October 7 and the rising movement for Gaza across campuses has revealed some lessons about how we should effectively structure our international and anti-Zionist political organizing.
The First Lesson
The NCC formed the Palestine Liberation Organizing Committee (PLOC) in January–months after October 7–after expressing concerns over the capacity of the IC-YLC to take on spearheading Palestine organizing back in November. PLOC itself has experienced significant challenges in capacity. Its membership remained low, being composed only of NCC members, IC-YLC leaders, and a few consistent chapter leaders. Neither PLOC nor the IC-YLC was capable of meeting the moment and maintaining the capacity necessary to put the organization into motion. We lacked the sort of stable body necessary to both develop and build YDSA expertise in the long term and move the whole organization into collective motion. Within the IC-YLC, we realized that we could be that body with our focus on international affairs if we had a larger membership base. Lifting the membership cap off of the IC-YLC would ready us to heed the current moment for Palestine and sustainably build for the future crises that will emerge.
Correcting the Record on the University of Sao Paulo Statement
However, I am dismayed to see that some of the lessons of the past year were not taken to heart by some of my comrades, as in the case of the IC-YLC statement on a student strike at the University of Sao Paulo (USP) which forms the crux of the argument in “For R23: Why YDSA Needs Its Own International Committee.” Their description of how the vote proceeded lacks a lot of the context that I as co-chair of the committee and a leader within the IC feel is prudent to share.
After I wrote the statement and it was voted on by the IC-YLC, it was presented to the International Committee-Steering Committee (IC-SC). The vote was slow because our steering members checked in with their contacts in Sao Paulo to get more context on the student strike. Our contacts within the Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL) and the Workers Party (PT) informed us of ongoing debates among the Brazilian left on the student strike. We also spoke with workers at USP who informed us of an upcoming vote within the Faculty Union regarding the student strike.
When the vote for our statement was given to IC-SC, the faculty union had not yet written their statement, a fact which is misrepresented in the “For R23” article. We also learned that this strike was initiated a week before the eighth National Congress of PSOL, and we felt that it was good to caution against putting out a statement which would be seen to favor the faction that was a part of the strike before their elections. After the PSOL Congress ended and the faculty union released their statement in support of the strike, IC-SC voted unanimously to approve the same statement with additions because more groups across sectors and the country had joined the Sao Paulo students on strike. Ultimately, it took a little more than two weeks from the initial request to have the statement approved and translated into Portuguese.
The point from the authors of the “For R23” piece that the IC-YLC statement reached the brave student strikers at USP after the peak of the strike is correct and upsetting, however it was not because of “unnecessary” delays on the part of the IC Steering Committee. Rather, the IC-YLC member tasked with adding Portuguese captions did not complete the task or delegate it to another member, so the video of the statement being read by NCC member Hailey S. did not reach our comrades in Sao Paulo for another three weeks after approval. The delay on the part of IC-SC was necessary in maintaining our relationships with a variety of parties and organizations across the working class and left in Brazil, and the delay on the part of the IC-YLC was due to the same problems our committees in YDSA tend to have: We are all overworked college students.
The Second Lesson
This experience instilled in me and many of my fellow IC-YLC members the opposite of what it taught other comrades. Instead of seeing this as an example of our relationship with the IC holding back YDSA like proponents of R23 might interpret it, we see it as an example of our relationship strengthening YDSA. The IC has a knowledge base from their longer experience working with parties around the world and the connections with members of those parties across workplaces that YDSA truly benefits from.
I am not an expert on Brazilian politics. None of the members of the IC-YLC are. The NCC is not either. The broader IC leadership body including both SC and subcommittee leaders had two people in Sao Paulo at the time of the strike and a member from Brazil. These experts were able to offer advice after they had seen the statement that our IC-YLC had passed without expertise. This experience taught those of us on the IC-YLC about the specific political dynamics at play in Brazil, and more generally about the necessity of a measured, rational approach to developing long-lasting international relationships. A relationship like that proposed in R23 would separate us from the leadership discussion spaces within the IC. We would no longer be leaders within the IC and it would limit who we would have relationships within the IC. It would lead us to act callously and without regard to the nuances of complex international moments that require our due diligence.
The Third Lesson
Lastly, I think we should learn from the IC’s varying roles in much of the committee’s successful work this year: our YDSA Cuba Delegation Speaking Tour, which pioneered a new model of national committee to chapter relationship; the Palestine solidarity trainings and calls like the “How to Run a BDS Campaign” workshop at Winter Conference; and YDSA’s joint call with the IC on how DSA chapters can support the encampment movement. These projects had differing relationships to the IC-SC and the IC’s subcommittees based on their various goals, scopes, and contexts.
After IC-YLC members coordinated with the Cuba delegation organizers to send YDSA leaders on DSA’s first general membership delegation, IC-YLC members saw an opportunity to bring lessons and experiences from the delegation directly back to chapters. The IC-YLC drafted a proposal for a Cuba delegation speaking tour, voted to approve that proposal, and the IC-SC passed it unanimously. Here, the work of the IC-YLC was directly strengthened by our direct membership in the IC and our ability to send YDSA members as delegates to Cuba and support organizing to end the blockade on Cuba. This would not have been the case if we did not have YDSA members who were also members of the IC.
The IC-YLC’s development of the Winter Con “How to run a BDS campaign” workshop was much less tethered to the IC-SC or any IC subcommittees. The audience of the workshop was YDSA members and the content centering on divestment campaigns at university campuses merited less direct oversight from the IC-SC.
In contrast, the IC-YLC’s coordination of the joint mass call with the IC and YDSA on how DSA chapters can support encampments involved much more coordination with IC leaders. Because IC-YLC members are active members of other committees and seen as leaders, we were able to develop and execute Palestine Subcommittee proposals like the joint call. The call was one of the first spaces for DSA chapters to hear from YDSA members about the struggle and to learn from other DSA chapters’ strategies to assist YDSA chapters in encampments. The IC-YLC’s position as an active IC subcommittee keeps student organizing in the minds of the other subcommittees and we use our position within the IC to orient DSA work to strengthen YDSA as well.
The IC-YLC is a joint project of YDSA and the IC, and the versatility of that project existing under the International Committee’s decision-making has been an asset in setting forth successful internationalist organizing projects. In the current structure of the IC-YLC and the structure proposed by R10, YDSA members set the political direction of YDSA’s international organizing and have various paths available through the international Committee to accomplish those goals.
At convention I hope that you take the lessons that I have shared to heart. The IC represents a vibrant part of DSA, and we should continue to be pioneers with our cross-section structure. YDSA’s international work is strengthened because we are housed in YDSA and the IC. This weekend, let’s continue fighting in the heart of empire and pass R10. Vote YES on R10 and NO on R23.