The Tr HeelThursday, July 13, 19787
Socialists combine picnics, planning
by Robert Thomason
Staff Writer
Wheeling around Raleigh, the two
men realized they were lost.
"I know it's around here
somewhere, off this road
somewhere," said Doug Clark.
The duo was on its way to a fund
raising picnic. They were sure the site
was near, but they couldn't exactly
figure out how to get there.
It was no ordinary picnic. The
weather or the family lives of the
guests most likely would not be
discussed. More likely the
conversation would cover the
tyranny of Joseph Stalin or Richard
Nixon, the failure of capitalism to
meet the American dream or the way
in which a great revolution would
fulfill that dream.
The Raleigh branch of the Socialist
Workers' Party was throwing a picnic.
"It's got to be around here," Doug
said. Doug is a member of the Young
Socialist Alliance (YSA) in Chapel
Hill. The YSA is not a part of the
Socialist Worker's Party, but has the
same political philosophy.
Another member of the YSA said of
Doug, "He puts more time into YSA
activities than anybody else, so I guess
he would be like a leader for us. But
the YSA in Chapel Hill really doesn't
have a leader, per se."
The two persons in the car came
upon a fork in the street. "Take a left
here," Doug said.
"You're always taking left turns,"
the driver said.
Both started laughing.
At the picnic, most of the food sat
on a table, with the money box. For
$2, one could eat the typical fare of
hotdogs and hamburgers, and drink
beer or soda-pop while listening to
the finest of recorded songs of the
socialist movement.
Across the lawn, some Socialists sat
around two grills, cooking food and
discussing Marxist theory. A walk
across the lawn to the grills was
cosmopolitan indeed. Accents from
almost every continent in the world
could be heard. None spoke with a
southern drawl,though.
Jay had only recently come to
Raleigh from Atlanta. He explained
that the Party had recently
consolidated the two branches it once
had in Atlanta.
"There used to be two, you know,
one on each side of town.," Jay said.
"They just combined them. This left a
number of people free to do other
things.
"The Party asked me if I would like
to come to Raleigh. I said I would."
Jay went on to explain the
organization of the Party. There are
branches of the Socialist Workers'
Party in most states of the Union.
There are between five and fifty SWP
members in a branch.
"With less than five members, it is
sort of hard to organize effective
activities," Jay said. "You really don't
need more than fifty in one place. Its
more important to use the extra
people to spread the movement into
new territory."
There are about a dozen members
of the Raleigh branch. Most have
come to North Carolina from the
North in the last year.
In Chapel Hill the most common
site is the book table for the YSA. This
spring, the YSA's right to sell their
literature was challenged. The
University Administration ruled that
no one could sell material of any type
which had not been produced by an
on-campus group.
One day, Socialists manning the
literature were told of the rule. They
contested it, saying first of all that the
Bill of Rights gave them the right to
distribute literature, and second that
the books were produced by the
national backbone or the campus
organization.
After consultation with the North
Carolina Attorney General's office,
the University agreed to let the YSA
sell literature on campus.
A big topic at the picnics was the
establishment of unionism in North
Carolina. Part of the SWP strategy
for a smooth and peaceful transition
to a Socialist state is placing industry
in the hands of the appropriate
unions.
The transitional program was
drafted by Leon Trotsky in 1938
when he formed an international
movement to establish a democratic
form of Socialism. The SWP is the
American arm of that movement.
One of the Socialists said, "You can
tell how people feel about Socialism
by the way they use Trotsky's name.
If they are sympathetic, they will call
his followers Trotskyists. If they
don't like Socialists, they will call
them Trotskyites."
The Socialists pondered on the
question of a Socialist America.
"People have the idea that people
won't be able to own houses and cars
after the revolution. They will be able
to. It's just that one person can't own
a whole town and the lives of the
workers in it," one Socialist lady said.
"We aren't ogres," she said. "We're
very human. We even have picnics in
our back yard.
"After the Revolution, there will be
restaurants where people can go to
eat, free of charge. There will be
grocery stores because some people
are going to want to fix their food and
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American Socialists have traditionally organized in small groups in order to
utilize their manpower over the widest possible area.
eat at home."
The Socialist Workers' Party
involves itself in most of the
controversial issues of the day. In
fact, it gets much of its membership
through these issues.
"Back in the Sixties, I really didn't
know a lot about the Socialist
Workers' Party, but I was pretty
active in political struggles," one SWP
member said. "After a while I noticed
that the SWP was there every time I
turned around. They were involved in
everything, it seemed, abortion
rights. War protest.
"One day, a group of friends and I
went over to the branch office and
bought about $60 worth of books. We
talked about it a while, and then I
realized that the SWP knew what it
was talking about."
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