Hi turnoviseus,
If you are confussed it is because it is a bit confussing!
Now, Youth For International Socialism was born a few years ago (1998 or 99 I think, not completely sure). A comrade from the US who had been living in Britain for a while was convinced by the ideas of In Defence of Marxism and Socialist Appeal and decided to start working in the US to create a similar organisation based on the ideas of revolutionary Marxism. Amongst other things a website was set up as a good way to reach young people interested in politics. This was the beginning of
http://www.newyouth.com , the web site of YFIS.
Over the months quite a large number of young people in the US started to became involved in YFIS mainly through the web, through the YFIS discussion list, etc. After many months of political discussions, those involved in YFIS who were more serious and commited about building a revolutionary tendency in the US based on the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky and in political solidarity with "In Defence of Marxism" decided to found the
Workers International League and to publish the
Socialist Appeal magazine. This is how they describe their decission in their web site:
In the summer of 2001, a core of members of Youth for International Socialism, in full political solidarity with the ideas at the In Defence of Marxism website, met to form the Workers International League. The US working class has a proud and militant tradition. We look to the accumulated experiences of the American working class - the great railroad strikes, the mine wars, the formation of the Teamsters and the CIO, the Flint sit down strikes, and more for inspiration. We rest on the traditions of William Sylvis, Albert Parsons, Mother Jones, Joe Hill, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, John Reed, Louise Bryant, and the millions of rank and file workers who led and participated in the great struggles of the past. And we are confident that the greatest days of the US labor movement are still to come.. We also base ourselves on the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, and on the further development of these ideas by the British Trotskyist Ted Grant.
(taken from their
founding statement )
YFIS was not disbanded at that point since it was considered that it was (and still is) a very useful resource to attract and educate young people to the ideas of Marxism, mainly on the web, but also through leafleting, intervention, setting uo local groups, etc.
At the same time, because of the international nature of the web, many people from other countries started to write in saying they wanted to join YFIS or get involved, etc. In some of these countries there were already groups working on the basis of the political ideas of
In Defence of Marxism (IDOM) and we put them in touch with them. In others there weren't and we tried to keep in touch with these comrades, educate them and encourage them to set up local YFIS branches, Marxist study groups, etc.
In some cases, already existing Marxist groups decided to take up the idea of YFIS to organise their work amongst the youth. This was the case for instance in Pakistan, where the comrades have started very successful work around the country. They had their
national YFIS Pakistan Convention in November 2002 and they have grown into an organisation of hundreds of comrades. They actively participated in the
struggle against imperialist war in Iraq (you can see some other
reports and pictures here and
here). They are also involved in other campaigns, like the
strike at the Nishtar Medical College of Multan and the
Strike of schoolgirls in Wah.
well, I hope this clarifies the issue (more or less) :confused:
comradely
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