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Youth, Class & Party
Organizational Rules
Article I. Name
The name of this organization shall be the REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST YOUTH, herein after referred to as the RCY.
Article II. Statement of Principle
The RCY seeks to build a revolutionary socialist youth movement which can intervene in all social struggles armed with a working-class program based on the politics of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. Rejecting the concept of youth vanguardism, we seek to work as a disciplined part of the revolutionary movement as a whole, in political solidarity with the Spartacist League. We work for the formation of a revolutionary vanguard party of the working class to lead the struggle here and internationally for a successful communist revolution, which will lay the basis for freeing the energies of all of humanity toward creating a truly free society.
Article III Membership
1. Membership in the RCY is open to all young people (from age 15 through 29) who are in agreement with the principles of the RCY, accept the program and discipline, and become a member of the RCY chapter where such exists. In exceptional cases, the National Bureau may permit or encourage a person below or above this age to become or remain an RCY member.
2. Applications for membership shall be submitted to RCY local chapters. If the applicant is not in an area with a functioning RCY chapter, he or she must apply directly to the National Bureau. Applications for membership must be voted on by the body having jurisdiction.
3. For new members of the RCY who agree generally with our political program and who want to work within the RCY, but have not yet made a decisive commitment to revolutionary politics, there is a candidate period of two months.
4. Candidate members wishing to become full members must apply either to the chapter they are a part of, or if members-at-large, to the National Bureau, at which time the application will either be approved, a further period of candidacy recommended, or the applicant may be dropped from membership. Applications shall be voted on by the body having jurisdiction.
5. The period of candidate membership maybe waived in cases where the applicant indicates a strong commitment to RCY politics and capacity to apply them, and agrees to abide by all decisions of the RCY.
6. All fully-employed RCY members shall pay a regular minimum pledge of from $5 to $10 a month, to be decided by the local chapter or the National Bureau, whichever is appropriate. All unemployed RCY members shall pay a regular minimum pledge of $2 a month. One-third of pledges shall be retained by each RCY local chapter. Members-at-large shall pay their full pledge directly to the RCY National Office.
7. Failure to pay a pledge for more than two months shall be grounds f or being dropped from membership.
8. All new members shall pay an initiation fee of $5, which shall be forwarded to the National Office.
Article IV. Discipline
1. The RCY is not a democratic-centralist organization as such, since democratic centralism is the organizational form of the revolutionary vanguard party, and reflects the fullest commitment of professional revolutionaries. But as a section of the revolutionary party, we seek to provide a training ground in democratic centralism for young revolutionaries.
2. We recognize that new members are not yet fully-developed communists; every attempt must be made to convince them of the program and the necessity of carrying it out in a disciplined manner. Nevertheless, the RCY is a communist organization and cannot tolerate hostility within its ranks to the program and work of the RCY.
3. All RCY members must carry out in a disciplined way all decisions and actions decided on by the RCY body having jurisdiction. Candidate members have the rights of full members except that: candidate members shall not have a decisive vote in RCY national decisions and may be dropped from membership without recourse to a trial procedure.
4. Members will not in their habits, conduct or lifestyles be either a serious or chronic detriment to the RCY.
5. Any member or body of the RCY may bring charges against any other member for violation of the program, decisions or rules of the RCY. The charges must be initially presented in writing to the highest body of which the accused is a member. If a higher body decides to act directly in a case, the trial shall be so transferred.
6. No body shall meet as a trial committee unless all members have been informed in advance of the business at hand. The accused must be given notice of a trial date and a copy of the charges at least 7 days preceding the trial. Failure to appear or to send a letter of defense in the absence of excuse for such failure shall be grounds for conducting the trial in absentia.
7. Disciplinary measures which are available in the event the accused is found guilty are, in increasing order of severity: censure--private or public, reduction to candidate for a period, suspension--partial or complete, and expulsion.
8. The accused or accuser may appeal the decision of any body to the next higher one, up to and including the National Conference whose decision shall be final. An appeal must be filed within 15 days alter the action being appealed.
Article V. National Conference
1. The highest body of the RCY is the National Conference, a national meeting of the entire membership. There shall normally be an annual National Conference.
2. The National Conference shall be called by the National Committee (NC) which shall provide for a pre-conference discussion period of at least ninety days.
3. The pre-conference discussion shall include the publication of national membership bulletins containing all resolutions and discussion material submitted by a set deadline by members and bodies of the RCY. Local chapters have the responsibility for providing adequate time in meetings for discussion on all material submitted for conference decision.
4. Election of conference delegates shall take place in the local chapters. The ratio of delegates to members shall be set in the Conference Call. Members-at-large, although not able to vote for delegates, shall be able in all other respects to participate fully in the Conference proceedings. Only members in good standing may vote or run for delegate.
5. Where there is a political division in electing delegates, election shall take place on the basis of a proportional representative system as set by the NC in the conference call. A political division shall be considered established and defined by the presentation for vote of conflicting written documents as the basis for representation.
Article VI. National Committee
1. The National Committee (NC) shall be the highest continuing body of the RCY between National Conferences. The NC shall have final authority over all RCY publications, public and internal, local or national, and over all RCY bodies, local and regional, and over all RCY fractions and committees.
2. The National Committee shall consist in size of such full RCY members as is set by the National Conference. In electing the NC, if conflicting political divisions are present, the Conference will use proportional representation with the limitation that a Conference majority is entitled to a minimum of three fifths of the NC seats.
3. The NC shall regulate internal written and oral discussion of conflicting positions in accordance with the principle that a living, continuous internal life is vital to the RCY. Hence any limitation on discussion must be justified in each particular circumstance. All politically-defined tendencies shall have the rights defined in the SL organizational rules and developed by the SL at National Conferences and in Central Committee and Political Bureau decisions.
4. NC regulation of discussion requires the technical centralization of written internal discussion, which shall take place exclusively in bulletins and mailings the NC has given prior authorization.
5. The NC shall normally meet at least three times during its regular term of office, including immediately after and before successive National Conferences.
Article VII. National Bureau
1. The NC shall elect from among its members a resident National Bureau (NB) to serve as its executive sub-committee, and shall also elect such national officers as it sees fit. National officers shall be responsible to the NB for their work.
2. The National Bureau shall act on behalf of the National Committee between its meetings. The National Committee has the right of review of all NB actions and decisions. Among the normal functions of the NB will be the supervision of the RCY National Office and national publications and the appointment of the national staff, including the editorial board of the RCY Newsletter.
3. Minority tendencies shall be entitled to the same proportion of seats on the National Bureau as on the National Committee.
4. The NB shall normally meet at least monthly and shall send minutes of its meetings to all NC members.
Article VIII. Local and Regional Organization
1. The basic units of the RCY shall be the local RCY chapter [and Organizing Committee]*. Three or more RCY members in a common locality may constitute themselves an RCY chapter, upon approval of the National Bureau.
2. RCY chapters are responsible for holding regular meetings, collecting pledges from their members, and sending regular minutes and summaries to the National Office.
3. RCY chapters shall elect an organizer and such other officers or committees as are necessary to carry out their work.
4. Where more than one chapter exists in a locale or where a single chapter has grown unwieldy, a regional organization may be set up, subject to the approval of the National Bureau. A regional organization shall include a regional executive committee and such officers, such as an organizer, as the region sees fit. Between delegated regional conferences, the regional committee shall be the highest body within the regional organization. Regional conferences shall take place no less often than annually.
Article IX. Miscellaneous
1. RCY chapters will be sent free of charge RCY literature and publications for sale in such quantities as are agreed to by the National Office. In return the National Office shall receive all proceeds of these sales.
2. All decisions in the RCY shall be by simple majority vote. No second shall be required for motions in any body of the RCY. The chairman of all meetings and committees has a right to voice and vote. The nay vote shall be taken first in calling the question.
3. At all meetings at the RCY Roberts’ Rules of Order (Revised) shall govern the meetings, except where they are in conflict with these rules.
4. These organizational rules shall be considered provisional, and subject to review and revision at the next National Conference.
-adopted by the RCY National Conference
3 September 1971
* Decided by the Third National Conference of the RCY.
Youth-Party Relations
1. The Revolutionary Communist Youth is the youth section of the Spartacist League. It functions as an autonomous Spartacist League affiliate: it is politically subordinate and organizationally independent.
2. The RCY and SL are, taken together, a common movement, each discussing all disputed questions and, being bound by the discipline of the common movement, each carrying out all decisions arrived at. Therefore given these conditions within the RCY the dual SL members will not function as a fraction separate from the other RCY members.
3. The highest body of the common movement is the Spartacist League National Conference at which the RCY National Committee will have, [three] delegates with full rights who proportionately represent any factional divisions within the RCY. The SL Central Committee is the highest body at the movement between National Conferences. There will be [three] RCY representatives to the SL Central Committee, one of which shall sit on the SL Political Bureau. In the event of a factional division in the RCY National Committee, the minority shall be entitled to that proportional representation which most closely approximates its strength in the RCY National Committee. There shall be one full representative from the Spartacist League Central Committee and Political Bureau to the corresponding RCY bodies.
4. In all corresponding bodies of the RCY and SL there shall be an exchange of representatives, each enjoying full rights (voice and vote). Except at the national level there shall be one representative from each corresponding body to the other. The representatives at all levels are bound to carry out their instructions except for the RCY delegations to the SL National Conference and Central Committee who are not under binding instruction. SL members, other than the SL representatives, should not attend RCY meetings except by specific invitation. As a privilege, all full RCY members should be encouraged to attend SL local meetings.
5. Unresolved disputes between RCY chapters and SL local committees shall be reviewed by the RCY National Bureau and if the dispute remains unresolved to the satisfaction of all concerned, final decision shall rest with the SL Central Committee.
6. SL members in the RCY shall pay pledges at the same rate as other RCY members and pay their SL Sustaining Pledges at the same rate as other SL members. The SL shall grant back to the RCY a regular monthly amount as agreed to by the SL in accord with the national RCY budgetary need.
7. All SL-related youth work shall be directed through the RCY. Any exceptions to this policy must be agreed to by the RCY National Bureau which in any case shall retain general supervision.
8. The SL notes the RCY upper age limitation at 29. In the event the SL wishes to transfer to other work SL members who are RCY cadre, it must do so in consultation with the appropriate RCY bodies.
9. Older and more politically developed RCY members should orient toward early becoming SL members.
--adopted by the Spartacist League Central Committee Plenum and the Revolutionary Communist Youth National Committee, 6 September 1971.
Apendix
YOUTH, CLASS AND PARTY
(Article reprinted from RCY Newsletter #9, October-November 1971)
“Youth” in itself is neither revolutionary nor a class. The “youth” consists of young workers, future petty-bourgeois technocrats and administrators, members of the ruling class, as well as radical intellectuals and future communists. Hitler, Trotsky, Mao and Nixon were all young once. The currently popular notion of the “Red University” and all forms of youth vanguardism reflect a conscious adaptation to the theory that students (youth) are somehow a revolutionary social group. The youth conference held at Essen, West Germany over July 3-4, sponsored by groups affiliated to the International Committee of the Fourth International (IC), also reflected an adaptation to this idea of the undifferentiated youth as inherently revolutionary.
Youth and the Working Class
The present period of economic crisis and resulting heightened class militancy requires absolute clarity on the relation of youth to the revolutionary movement. First, one must differentiate “youth” into its social components. While they share certain generational problems affecting all youth, nevertheless young workers see their interests as primarily tied to those of the working class as a whole. Particularly in America, where there are only vestigal traces of an apprentice system such as the European one, young workers tend to be integrated directly into the working class. There are, however, specially oppressed layers. Black youth, for example, because of their extreme economic dislocation, which freezes many of them out of the labor movement, are an essential layer of American society which the communist youth movement strives to reach directly. In other circumstances, too, young workers may be open to direct recruitment as youth by the communist youth movement; for example, where a bureaucratic union freezes out young workers from its ranks, in tightly closed industries, or during periods of mass unemployment which strike particularly hard at young workers, forcing them outside the organized framework of the labor movement.
Youth Radicalism--What Direction?
However, the main arena for “youth radicalism” in America continues to be the campuses. Students overwhelmingly reflect petty-bourgeois aspirations and ideas. Despite a certain interpenetration of working-class and petty-bourgeois youth in junior and community colleges, the higher education system is primarily a training ground for the future technocrats and administrators of the capitalist state, cultural and scientific institutions, and corporate bureaucracies. As Trotsky pointed out in his analysis of the rise of fascism, the petty bourgeoisie is not an independent class and thus cannot pursue its own class politics but is forced to choose between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Students, as the most volatile section of the petty bourgeoisie, will play an active role in all “radical” movements, whether of the left or right. The Nazis were vastly stronger in the German universities in the ‘30s than either the communists or social democrats. Moslem students in Indonesia butchered thousands of communist workers and peasants. Today one sees certain implications for the “worldwide radicalization of the youth” in the rise of the right-wing, repulsive phenomena of the “Jesus freaks” and the Jewish Defense League.
As Trotsky pointed out, “...under conditions of capitalist disintegration and of the impasse in the economic situation, the petty bourgeoisie strives, seeks, attempts to tear itself loose from the fetters of the old masters and rulers of society. It is quite capable of linking up its fate with the proletariat. For that, only one thing is needed: the petty bourgeoisie must acquire faith in the ability of the proletariat to lead society onto a new road.” (The Only Road for Germany, 1932). The petty bourgeoisie can break from its origins and ally its interests to those of the proletariat. But for this, decisive leadership must be taken by the working class and its highest organized expression in struggle, the revolutionary vanguard party.
The radical intelligentsia, primarily campus-based in America, can play an essential and valuable role in the building of the revolutionary party, once broken from its class origins. Gramsci wrote: “One of the most important characteristics of every class which develops toward power is its struggle to assimilate and conquer ideologically the traditional intellectuals.” It is to this struggle that the RCY is dedicated. We seek to develop young radicals into lifetime communist militants, through socialist education and struggle, and to organize and link them, through the vanguard party, to the working class. The European Young Communist Leagues of the early ‘20s, while struggling to become mass organizations of working-class youth, made their primary contribution in the full and all-sided training of young communist cadres. We follow in this tradition.
Youth and the Revolutionary Party
The RCY stands in the tradition of the first four Congresses of the Communist International, which worked out the full Leninist conception of youth-party relations. The leadership of the working class, the only class with the social power to smash the capitalist state, is decisive. The organized framework of proletarian struggle is that of the revolutionary vanguard party. Any conception of a youth movement as independent of this struggle is a capitulation to petty-bourgeois illusions.
The struggles of all oppressed sections of society, and all opposition to imperialism, must be linked to this driving force of revolution if they are to be successful. To cut the revolutionary youth movement off from the party, which embodies the historical experience of the revolutionary proletarian movement, is to cripple it and doom it to flounder in a classless swamp. But each generation comes to socialism in its own way, as Lenin said, and must work out its own ideas. For this an arena must be provided for the freest and fullest discussion of all political questions. Political education also involves the experiences of decision and action, so the revolutionary youth must have the organized means to carry out its program in practice.
These considerations--the need for young communists to explore the burning questions of the socialist movement and acquire the experiences of decision and action, and the need to link this struggle to the highest form of revolutionary organization, the vanguard party--resulted in the concept of the relation of the revolutionary youth movement to the party as “organizationally independent and politically subordinate.” The revolutionary party as the vanguard of the working class is also the leadership of the revolutionary movement as a whole. Since we as a communist youth organization are also a part f this revolutionary movement, we must necessarily place ourselves under its common discipline, in order to achieve the necessary unity in action.
The Spartacist League
At our first national conference over Labor Day, the RCY voted to become the youth section of the Spartacist League.
The Spartacist League is the nucleus of the revolutionary party in this country. The politics of the Spartacist League uniquely embody the communist program for working-class revolution--Trotskyism, the modern development of Marxism-Leninism. We base ourselves on the traditions of the early Communist International and on the experience of the American Trotskyist movement. Our development into a revolutionary youth organization has been made easier by the experiences and working out in practice of the Leninist conceptions of youth-party relations in the founding of the YSA. The degeneration of the YSA, after the expulsion of its original leadership, into a reformist front-group of the SWP was the result of a long process of political degeneration on the part of the SWP. The SWP lost faith in its ability to lead the working class, and substituted tailing after Third Worldism, youth radicalism, etc. This inability to struggle against revisionism led the SWP to organizationally strangle the youth, being unable to lead it politically.
Internationalism
Youth-party relations have international implications, since the overriding task of the revolutionary movement in all countries is to struggle for the rebuilding of the Fourth International of Trotsky. Youth organizations would function essentially as auxiliaries to the particular national sections of the world party, the Fourth International. A youth international would reflect on an international scale the same relationship the national youth organization has to its national section of the world party. This conception has nothing in common with the “Revolutionary Youth International” proposed by the Essen conference, which is to be unaffiliated to any party formation and whose politics are to be explicitly “non-Trotskyist” so as not to alienate “radical” petty-bourgeois youth.
Crisis of Leadership
“The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.” (Transitional Program, 1938). The task of communists is to build and develop this leadership. The historical choice posed before humanity is indeed that of socialism or barbarism, The RCY as the youth section of the revolutionary nucleus, the Spartacist League, will devote itself to preparing the cadres for the day when we can help lead the battle for world socialism.
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