For R22: “Class-Struggle Internationalism”
The Author motivates for Resolution 22: “Class-Struggle Internationalism” at the 2024 YDSA convention.
Genocide in Palestine and the fight against the U.S. military-industrial complex have put international issues at the forefront of our organizational vision. Yet, for the longest time, we have avoided politically committing to a distinct vision. Resolution 22 “Class-Struggle Internationalism” seeks to inject YDSA and the soon-to-be reformed IC-YLC (Via R23) with a dose of Marxist analysis that strives to turn the international working class into a fighting mass movement rooted in its class position, not national identity. A movement that will be able to fight against genocide and war across the globe. Delegates at the 2024 YDSA Convention should vote YES on R22.
The main political thrust of Class-Struggle Internationalism is rooted in an orthodox Marxist analysis of capitalism as a political and economic system. At its core is a conflict between the masses of working people who sell their labor for a wage and the small portion of capitalist owners who exploit them for profit. Marx believed that only a self-organized, conscious working class can bring an end to capitalism and the suffering that it brings. Today, capitalism is a global force. Modern technological advancements have made our world smaller and allowed the bourgeoisie to seep into every corner of the world by means of colonialism, militarism, and economic exploitation. The ruling class is united in its desire to accumulate as much wealth as possible, without care for the well-being of the masses on our planet. Only the unity of the international working class can put an end to this misery. And that is why, our main organizing drive should be to always seek to organize the unorganized amongst the working masses. This is why YDSA should re-commit itself to the Rank-and-File strategy (via R3) and train hundreds of young socialists to organize on the shop floor; this is why we seek to build an independent political party that is free from capitalist interests. We must extend the same principles of mass movement building to our internationalist organizing.
While Resolution 22 rejects the notion that individual progressive or nominally communist governments can be used as a shortcut to bring about collective liberation, we still seek to affirm the centrality of U.S. imperialism within global capitalism, driven by a profit-hungry military-industrial complex. As socialists living in the United States, a country with a military budget larger than the total economies of most of the world’s nations, we have not only a political but a unique moral duty to build a robust anti-war movement right here, from the belly of the beast. Joe Biden’s current Democratic administration sends billions of dollars to fund the Israeli genocide of Palestinian people because that is what’s favorable to the imperialist interests in the region. Israel’s settler-colonial nature is an extension of the U.S. bourgeoisie’s material interests. Beyond Israel, capital reaches its nasty tendrils across the globe and subjugates millions to starvation and suffering. Instead of investing in healthcare, housing, and education, the ruling class chooses to send billions of dollars to fund genocide in Palestine, proxy wars, like one in Ukraine, or fuel nuclear tensions with China. Our primary task is to organize a fighting anti-war mass movement of students and workers that can shut down the U.S. war machine. Building such a movement requires us to be intentional and international in our organizing.
R22 does not ask us to form a committee, establish a working group, or run a campaign. The aim of the resolution is to force a political discussion around internationalism, its importance, and our organizing approaches towards it. Our internationalist organizing, embodied by the DSA IC, mistakenly centers an apolitical “diplomatic” strategy to simply facilitate relationships with other parties in power. This is not inherently bad, but currently, we are not learning powerful lessons on how to organize and build a political party – like in Brazil; or how to build an electoral United Front against the far-right forces – like in France; or how to build a fighting student union that contests for lasting power on our campuses – like in Canada. We, as a movement and as an organization, are selling ourselves short of valuable lessons to learn from leaders in labor unions, social movements, and political parties across the globe.
“Class Struggle Internationalism” seeks to identify working-class people across the world as our organizing target and to inject Marxist politics into our international organizing. We must continue to carry out our duty and build an anti-war movement powerful enough to strike at the heart of the empire. Vote for Resolution 22 to inject our internationalism with a Marxist vision and build a movement of students and workers in solidarity across the globe to end wars, genocide, and capitalism.