Build a fighting revolutionary LPYS!

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THE NATIONAL LEFT WING YOUTH the system are most likely to come MOVEMENT AND THE LABOUR - and it is a good channel to draw PARTY YOUNG SOCIALISTS into the activities of the labour We are part of the LPYS. At the moment ment and the struggles within the the LPYS is the biggest socialist youth organisation and is recognised by the The LPYS is dominated by the suplabour movement as its official youth porters of the Militant' newspaper. They organisation. For those reasons it is the control the National Committee of the organisation that youth wanting to fight LPYS and the LPYS apparatus at Labour movement. across youth movelabour

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Party HQ in Walworth Road, South London. They call themselves Trotsky. ists but we don't think they are._ Their attitude to the class struggle and fighting for socialism is reduced to campaigning purely on certain fixed economic demands. Often you hear them say that 'nationalising the top 200 monopolies under workers' control with compensation in cases of proven need' is the major iy of achieving socialism. Questions like women's oppression, gay oppression, and the fight for Irish freedom are seen as things which will sort themselves out automatically after the general economic demands. We think there is no separation. Fighting for women's liberation, for example, is part and parcel of the fight for socialism.

They are ambiguous over the Parliamentary road to socialism. We think that a revolution cannot be legislated through the House of Commons, that socialism will be achieved through the mass mobilisation of the working class outside Parliament - through workers' struggles (though we are in favour of using Parliament in the interests of the working class as far as that is possible). Militant have the idea that passing an Enabling Act in Parliament will allow power to be handed over to the working class. This is a reformist idea. The ruling class is not so meek and mild as Militant seems to think.

There would be a vicious resistance to such a move from the capitalists. They are not going to let go of their system that easily. We only have to look at Chile, where the Popular Unity government led by Allende was overthrown in 1973 by the Army. If Benn were the leader of the Labour Party in Britain, if a Labour government were elected, and if it seriously tried to carry out its manifesto, then there is a real danger that a similar coup would happen. Field Marshal Carver has already admitted that senior officers talked about a possible coup in 1974 when industrial action by the miners brought down the Tory government.

To deny this and peddle illusions in a peaceful road to sociatism through Parliament, as Militant do is very dangerous and, we think, irresponsible.

We take the fight for socialism more seriously. We think we have a duty to explain the issues truthfully to arm the working class for the battles to come.

The fight for democracy in the labour movement also applies to the LPYS. At the moment the NC of the LPYS is elected at regional conferences before the national conference, and then the NC dominates the national conference. The NC is not accountable to national conference. So we argue that NC members should be elected at national At YS conference NC members have extended speaking time from the platform - cutting out speakers from the floor. They use this as a way of dominating debate. We say NC members should have only as much time as other delegates.

Often at YS conference you get speaker after speaker saying the same thing, putting forward the Militant line. Consequently there is very little discussion or debate. This also applies to 'Socialist Youth', the YS paper. We think a youth organisation that doesn't allow debate and discussion from different viewpoints isn't a lot of use to youth trying to work out their political ideas. So we argue for open debate and discussion at YS conference and in Socialist Youth We appeal to other youth organisations - YCND groups, Revolution Youth and any groups of youth looking for a political response to the capitalist crisis to join us in the LPYS, to fight for leadership of the LPYS and build a real fighting revolutionary youth organisation

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entatives would act in your interest . If they didn't they could be broughi to account at workers' meetings and kic ked