Program of the League of Young Communists USA
We do not have any illusions that the capitalist system of economic exploitation can ever end the oppression of working class youth. If corporate America can devour a worker after 30 years of loyalty, they can certainly devour a young worker who has been there for only a few years. Under capitalism, only through class oriented union representation can young workers begin to fight for better health benefits, injury-free workplaces, and better economic conditions.
All Americans who work for a living, including the youth, lack proper trade union representation on the job. Individually, our voices are never heard and we often feel alienated from older generations and discriminated by social mores which have been imposed upon us. The League of Young Communists pulls from the traditions of past generations of radical communist youth, such as the Labor Youth League (LYL), W.E.B Du Bois Clubs of America, the Young Workers Liberation League (YWLL), and the Young Communist League.
The League of Young Communists (LYC) aims to give direction to working class youth, and to inspire them in their class struggle war for economic, educational, and cultural advancement. LYC gives youth the confidence that they CAN temporarily win certain advancements for themselves under the present economic system of capitalism, understanding fully well that these advancements can be taken away at any time without warning.
The job of the LYC is to equip the present generation of young workers with the ideological tools of Marxism-Leninism which are needed in the final conflict to make temporary advances permanent in a scientific socialist society. Capitalism has permanent economic problems that are built into its structure, that cannot be solved. The most obvious of these is what Marxist economists refer to as, “the crisis of overproduction.” The productivity of the working class is so high, that too many commodities are produced. Workers’ wages are low and their purchasing power is limited. The world has many nice things and no one can afford to buy them! Layoffs begin, with the last hired being the first to be fired through no fault of their own. The reward for working hard is losing your job! In the capitalist system, the youth are the first casualty. Capitalist economists refer to this as “boom or bust.” The capitalist economy is never stable. The only thing planned about it is chaos. THERE IS A BETTER WAY! We call this socialism-communism: a planned economy run by the workers, producing what is needed by society, not what will make some capitalist a quick buck.
All walls that aim to divide us in our common struggles for economic and social advancement, racism, sexism, homophobia, trans-phobia, discrimination against disabled people, imperialism,
must be shunned and opposed. Today’s youth (as well as previous generations) understand that only a unified struggle can achieve maximum success. Thus, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and other forms of bigotry against other members of the working class historically have hindered our fight for class unity against the exploitation of capitalism and imperialism.
Youth are targeted by US Corporate monopolies to protect the economic interests of monopoly capitalism, both overseas as well as here in the states. Under the mask of patriotism, the military industrial leaders who direct and protect the system of capitalism historically have conditioned us into “serving” in a war machine which ultimately has ended in the murder of millions of American youth in lands thousands of miles away from our homes, and killing innocent civilians abroad. From 1945 to the present, US corporations have been involved in scores of military “adventures” to prop up foreign governments who represent the interests of those who sit on the boards of US multinational corporations. Unemployed working class youth dragged from the poorer sections of the US have been used as “cannon fodder” and considered expendable in Washington’s incessant imperialist drive for cheap markets.
Under capitalism, healthcare has been seen as a profit motive industry. Communists understand that society must put the needs of people before profit. All societies that have been built on scientific socialism guarantee medical coverage for their citizens from cradle to grave (the Soviet Union, eastern European socialist countries, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and present-day Cuba). The United States is the only industrialized nation without universal medical care. 50.7 million people, almost 17%, of the US population lack health insurance and proper medical coverage, and 133 million Americans have at least one chronic illness. The LYC calls for the incorporation of medical rights to all citizens as part of the Constitution.
Regarding education and housing, our job is to make the benefits of scientific socialism permanent so that they cannot be taken away. This includes the right of housing and education for all. Housing and education are rights, not a privileges. In the socialist economy of the Soviet Union. This is not some futuristic dream. This is reality. This is socialism! We can achieve this in the United States.
Multinational US corporations, in their incessant drive for profits, cheap markets and a low-wage work force have decimated the economies of other countries, forcing their workers to seek economic asylum in the US. The vast majority of immigrants are from the working class. Most of these immigrants have experienced great personal sacrifice which includes leaving their family and loved ones behind, traveling lengthy distances, inability to speak the language, working the most dangerous and least desirable jobs, and are not entitled to benefits of any kind. LYC ‘s slogan is not “Workers of the US, unite!”. We are young communists and our slogan is and always will be “Workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!”