Building the Progressive Majority and a Socialist Future

by Cathy Hodge McCoid

The 6th national CCDS convention, titled “Building the Progressive Majority and a Socialist Future,” met in San Francisco July 24–26.  It was preceded by a symposium (“Capitalism in Crisis: Socialism for the 21st Century”) on Thursday, July 23, sponsored by the Committees of Correspondence Education Fund. 

Angela Davis was the moderator for the symposium’s evening program, with international speakers giving insight into the struggles to build progressive coalitions in their own countries and internationally.  Participants included Chris Matlhako, from the South Africa Communist Party; Marcos Garcia, Second Secretary of Labor Affairs in Venezuela; Helmut Scholz, head of international relations for Die Linke (The Left Party) of Germany; and Jackeline Rivera from El Salvador, representing the FMLN.

Starting on Friday, convention business included discussions Friday morning and Saturday afternoon of a revised draft of the CCDS Goals and Principles.  The document emphasized that this is a time of both crisis and opportunity to unite progressive forces, with a major goal to build a progressive majority to defeat the right.  Presenters (Mark Solomon and Carl Davidson) said they were asking the convention to endorse the general vision of the document, and discussion urged the writing committee to distill its main ideas into short, interesting materials that can be used by activists in organizing.  The document was adopted, with suggestions to be addressed by the writing committee.

Friday afternoon, a plenary session on building the progressive majority while integrating race, class, and gender, involved reports from different sections of the country emphasizing the need for class-based organizing to build broader coalitions. Many speakers suggested the urgency of reframing the debate, with agreement that the immigrant rights movement is crucial for improving conditions for all workers and that immigration is being used to try to divide workers.

On both Friday and Saturday, there were workshops on the peace and labor movements, the socialist education project, climate change, international solidarity, working class culture and movement building, socialist activism and the civil rights movement in the south, building the progressive majority, economic and social justice, and defending rights (constitutional, civil, and human). This reporter attended the dynamic workshop on youth organizing. Workshop members expressed willingness to help develop a youth outreach committee to generate more youth involvement in CCDS and to help make the next convention more appealing to youth, with text messaging and other new electronic communication, bright colors, music, and art.  They demonstrated how young people are willing to provide leadership for transformation while building bridges with older leaders.

Friday evening featured a reception and tribute to Charlene Mitchell, expressing appreciation for her lifelong movement work. Saturday finished with an evening of solidarity with Vietnam, with an emphasis on helping to redress the continuing consequences of Agent Orange.

By Sunday, the convention had elected new leadership—including co-chairs Carl Bloice of Northern California, Renee Carter of Virginia, Carl Davidson of Pennsylvania, and Pat Fry of New York—and had passed a number of resolutions to promote democracy and socialism nationally and internationally and to address global warming and Agent Orange, among other issues (see the Web site for a complete review:  www.cc-ds.org/).

Cathy Hodge McCoid is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Central Missouri. She lives in Sacramento.

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