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From International Socialist Review, Vol.30 No.6, November-December 1969, pp.1-2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
This issue of International Socialist Review contains three of the major resolutions adopted by the Twenty-third National Convention of the Socialist Workers Party, meeting in New York City during the Labor Day weekend, 1969.
All of the resolutions had been submitted in draft form prior to the convention to allow full discussion by the membership in line with the provisions of the party constitution governing pre-convention debate and discussion.
Several exceptions were made to the usual procedure in relation to two of the resolutions acted upon. In the case of the draft resolution, A Transitional Program for Black Liberation, the party authorized a public pre-convention discussion in the pages of The Militant to enlist the views and opinions of readers of the party press as well as members and sympathizers.
This exception was motivated by the fact that for the first time in the history of the radical movement a fully elaborated transition program for the black struggle had been codified in resolution form. With appropriate amendments in the light of the discussion the resolution was unanimously adopted by the convention.
Another procedural exception was made in the case of the main political resolution, The Course of US Imperialism and the Revolutionary Struggle for a Socialist America. While adopting the general line of the resolution published here, the convention decided to continue the discussion in literary form following the convention, with the final decision incorporating appropriate amendments to be made by a plenum of the national committee.
The decision to continue the discussion on the political resolution was made, in part, in consideration of the character of the resolution. It is not of a conjunctural type, but deals with basic trends involving a fundamental analysis of the struggle against US imperialism. Among the proposals advanced for amending the resolution was the important one of dealing in some detail with the Chicano, Puerto Rican and other Third World movements playing an increasingly weighty role in the mobilization of forces for revolutionary socialist change. All proposals will be considered in elaborating the final draft on the basis of the general line adopted by the convention.
In addition to the resolutions published here, the SWP convention heard and discussed several reports on the international situation, with special consideration given to a discussion of the party’s position on the Maoist “cultural” revolution.
The report by Gus Horowitz on the anti-war resolution was published in the October 10 issue of The Militant, to which we refer our readers for an elaboration of the SWP’s position on this most important aspect of revolutionary socialist activity.
The convention also discussed a highly inspiring report on the development of the socialist youth movement with particular emphasis on the growth and increasing influence of the Young Socialist Alliance.
There were also panel discussions on women’s liberation, the trade union movement, Third World activity and press and publications.
The concluding report on the state of the organization recorded the fact that the Labor Day convention of the SWP was the largest held in this country since the days of the postwar radicalization in the middle 1940s, and outlined a program of intensive expansion in all areas of party activity. All in all, the convention marked a new higher stage in the growth of the American Trotskyist movement.
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