YOUNG SOCIALISTS' PLEDGE ON REVOLUTIONARY PARTY

STEPHEN 1,700 working-class youth and students pledged this weekend to build a revolutionary leadership to meet the Tory challenge in the im. mediate months ahead.

Two special trains transported approximately 900 youth from London alone to Blackpool.

The setting was the Blackpool Winter Gardens and the occasion, the 13th annual conference of the Young Socialists-now a decade from their expulsion from the Labour Party by the right wing but still Britain's largest and fastest growing youth moveThe spectrum among the delegates and visitors covered the whole life and struggles of the working class-hospital workers, engineering apprentices, building workers, youth from the shipyards of the Clyde, students and many others.

All pledged their determination to get rid of the Tory government and build the revolutionary party of Britain.

THEY SALUTED the role of youth in the heroic struggles of the working class in Vietnam, the Middle East, Ireland and the colonial world against the oppression of imperialism.

THEY CALLED for mass industrial and political action, including a • General Strike, to force the Tory government to resign. THEY DEMANDED that the traitors in the Labour movement who want to talk with the Tories be given their marching orders.

AND THEY discussed and passed a full socialist programme of nationalization of all the major MEETING police raids APRIL Conway Hall Red Lion Squal ear Holborn Tu London WC2 Speakers:

Tariq Ali ernational Ma Jim Higgins ternational Socialist Gerry Healy (Socialist Labour League) Conference delegates vote to support May 1 strike-for report see page 12.

industries, without compensation under workers' control, as an answer to the capitalist economic crisis.

The conference was proof that youth are not the pawns of the Tory courts and the employers, or fodder for the dole queues, but a force that will lead the fight for a socialist Britain.

YS national committee member Maureen Bambrick opened the weekend's discussion by moving the main resolution for the transformation of the Socialist Labour League into a revolutionary party.

She started by stating that the crisis workers faced was international.

It is to be found in every shopping bag carried by a housewife in the streets this weekend.

'If you are a woman in Tokyo your prices will be going up because of inflation. The same would be true if you were a housewife in London, Frankfurt or Paris' Tory liars said this crisis was caused by wages. But the government themselves were major culprits-as Britain's balance payments declined, the purchasing power of the pound had declined and prices had increased proportion.

Inflation was rooted in an international monetary crisis. Faper money was declining in value because it had lost all its gold backing.

Maureen Bambrick went on to warn that this crisis meant one thing - the Tory government would deprive the w irking class of all their basic righ s and drive down living standar Is to save their system. YOUTH WILL LEAD They had been • able to do this only because of the cowardice of the trade union and Labour leaders who based themselves on the theory that capitalism could be reformed.

"This system is beyond reform,' she said.

'The Tories have assumed virtual dictatorship over wages and living standards. The moment the working-class fights the government they enter politics.

"This is why we have always argued against those who say "no politics" - the syndicalists, ho talk about the "spontaneity" of the working class.' Comrade Bambrick said that on all the issues-housing, jobs and wages-the working class required fundamental changes that demand a transfer of power from the ruling class to the working class. All these issues were raised in the present situation.

•You cannot solve these basic questions by protesting. FIGHT speculators you have to nationalize the land. To get rid of the building profiteers you have to nationalize the building industry.

'To get rid of the building societies you have to expropriate them. To engage in an emergency rehousing problem you have to requisition all available property for occupation.

'This is how you would solve the housing problem, and the same approach can rid the problems, Class of all the other The movement had now reached the most crucial stage in the campaign for the party: she went on. Large numbers of trade unionists and youth were being drawn into the discussion for the preparatory conference at the end of May.

The miners' rejection of strike action emphasized the dangers that lay ahead if this question, ot constructing the revolutionary party, was not tackled.

Since last May the YS paper 'Keep Left' had been appearing as a weekly, and despite a considerable strain on its resources remarkable achievement and had paid its way. This was a showed that when the YS set out to accomplish a political objective they had the strength and knowledge to do it.

Now these had to be utilized in building the party: turning into the trade unions and the factories, organizing the working class and progressive section of the middle class.

The issues of rade Bambrick these:

• Mobilize the full forces of the working class to create the industrial and political conditions that will make the Tory government resign. • Fight to unite class in struggle on socialist policies. • Demand that the next Labour government must implement these policies. In the fight to bring down the Tory . government, we simultaneously fight to expose the Labour and trade union leaders who betray. the hour, Comstressed, working basis of

Press, Monday. April e won't