The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in the United States held its eighth national convention from August 4 to 9, 2024. Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the convention was held online.
The Congress unanimously adopted two resolutions: “The 2024 US elections and the tasks of the Socialist Equality Party,” which explains the programmatic foundations of the SEP’s presidential campaign with Joseph Kishore and Jerry White, and “Freedom for Bogdan Syrotiuk!” These resolutions were the subject of extensive and detailed discussions by the delegates during the six days of the Congress.
The Congress was an international event, with numerous delegations from all sections and sympathizer groups of the International Committee of the Fourth International. Leading members of the ICFI from Great Britain, France, Germany, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Brazil brought greetings to the Congress.
David North was unanimously re-elected as the party’s national chairman by the congress delegates. The newly elected National Committee re-elected Joseph Kishore as the party’s national secretary.
Kathleen Martin was elected deputy party secretary. Lawrence Porter, who has served as deputy party secretary since the SEP’s founding convention in 2008, announced his resignation from that post and will remain in the party leadership. Martin, 32, joined the SEP in 2014 and has been a member of the SEP National Committee since 2018.
The new National Committee appointed three co-national editors of the World Socialist Website: Barry Grey, Andre Damon and Niles Niemuth.
At the opening of the Congress, David North paid tribute to Helen Halyard, a long-time leading member of the Socialist Equality Party and its predecessor organization, the Workers League, who passed away on November 23, 2023, at the age of 73. Comrade Helen was a member of the National Committee of the Workers League/SEP from 1973 until her death.
“Helen played an important role not only in the history of the Workers League and the Socialist Equality Party, but also in that of the International Committee of the Fourth International,” North said. “Her contribution is embedded in the foundations of our world party. Although Helen is no longer physically with us, everything she contributed to the party lives on.”
North placed the work and tasks of the congress in the context of the history of the party and the extraordinary crisis of the entire capitalist system.
“The Eighth Congress is taking place under conditions of a massive economic and political crisis of the capitalist system,” he said, stressing that the US presidential election would be dominated by two issues: “the escalation of American imperialism toward global war and the collapse of democracy within the United States.”
The resolution, “The 2024 US Elections and the Tasks of the Socialist Equality Party,” outlines the characteristics of the global capitalist crisis and the political basis of the SEP’s presidential campaign. “The SEP does not have an independent electoral program,” the resolution states. “It uses the election campaign to develop and publicize the party’s program, which is rooted in and based on the perspective of the International Committee of the Fourth International.”
The resolution details the escalation of the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, the imperialist-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the extreme growth of social inequality and the turning of the ruling elites towards fascism and dictatorship. It states:
The crisis of global capitalism finds its most concentrated expression in the United States. Bourgeois democracy in America is on its last legs. One of the main parties of the ruling class, the Republican Party, has taken on an increasingly openly fascist character. At its head is former President Donald Trump, who less than four years ago instigated a coup that sought to overturn the outcome of the presidential election and the entire constitutional order. The Democratic Party’s primary goal is to cover up this political change in order to gain bipartisan support from Republicans for the massive escalation of imperialist wars.
The resolution points to the growth of mass opposition and class struggle around the world. “The transformation of this objective process into a conscious movement for socialism, however, is not automatic,” it says. “The building of a revolutionary leadership in the United States and worldwide is the crucial strategic issue on which the fate of humanity depends.”
The congress was devoted to a detailed examination of the historical background of various elements of the global crisis of capitalism and the SEP’s response to it.
Introducing the resolution, Joseph Kishore placed the party’s intervention in the 2024 elections in the context of a review of the SEP’s political practices in the 16 years since the party’s founding congress in 2008.
“It is a characteristic feature of our approach to politics that we do not react impressionistically,” he explained. “We always try to anchor our current analysis in the historical development of the capitalist crisis and to assimilate the lessons of the experience of the working class as consciously reflected in the history of the movement itself.”
There were detailed reports on the outbreak of imperialist war (by Andre Damon), the attack on immigrants (by Eric London), the collapse of democratic forms of rule (by Tom Mackaman and Tom Carter), the development of class struggle and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (by Tom Hall and Jerry White), and the experience of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic (by Evan Blake and Benjamin Mateus).
One session of the Congress was devoted to a report by Clara Weiss and a discussion on the campaign of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) for the release of Bogdan Syrotiuk. Syrotiuk is the founder and leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL), a Trotskyist youth organization that has declared its political solidarity with the ICFI. Members of the YGBL took part in the discussion.
Comrade Bogdan was arrested by the fascist Zelensky regime in Ukraine on trumped-up charges because of his opposition to the NATO-instigated war between Ukraine and Russia and his struggle for the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers against imperialism and capitalism.
The resolution, which was passed unanimously, calls for Bogdan’s immediate and unconditional release and states that the SEP “supports and encourages the widest possible dissemination of this resolution on social media and other platforms. It calls on individuals and organizations to sign the petition for Bogdan’s release and to join this important campaign in their communities.”
The World Socialist Website will publish the resolutions, reports and greetings to the Congress in the coming days. We urge all our readers to study these documents and decide to join the Socialist Equality Party.
