Young People's Socialist League

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YPSL's Logo

The Young People's Socialist League (YPSL) is a democratic socialist youth group originally affiliated with the Socialist Party of America. It is currently the autonomous youth affiliate of the Socialist Party USA, with which it shares a substantial portion of its membership.

1 History
2 Three Arrows
3 Membership
4 Famous Members
5 Bibliography
6 External links

[edit] History

YPSL (commonly pronounced "Yipsel") began in 1907 as a youth circle in Chicago, Illinois. In 1913 it was established as the Socialist Party's national youth affiliate. As World War I was beginning, YPSL had over 100 branches and almost 10,000 members. In 1919, the Socialist Party's communist faction broke off and formed what would eventually become the Communist Party USA, YPSL decided to follow it out of the Socialist Party.

By 1932, during the hard times of the Great Depression, YPSL had grown to 2,500 members. A fight between factions happened in the Socialist Party in 1936 between left-wing "Militants" and the right-wing "Old Guard". YPSL sided with the Militants. The Old Guard lost the faction fight and left the Socialist Party, forming the Social Democratic Federation.

In March 1936, the Trotskyist Workers Party of the United States entered the Socialist Party as part of the French Turn. The Workers Party members remained a faction in the Socialist Party until they were expelled late in 1937, taking YPSL with them into the newly formed Socialist Workers Party.

By 1952, the Socialist Party's YPSL had 134 members, 62 of which had been recruited that year. The Independent Socialist League (ISL) affiliated Socialist Youth League (SYL) had been making overtures to YPSL. SYL members had an anti-war quarterly publication called Anvil which was theoretically independent, although SYL dominated it, some YPSL members became editors of the quarterly. The Socialist Party told YPSL it couldn't have contact with the "totalitarian" SYL or ISL, although YPSL ignored this, and the relationship between YPSL and the Socialist Party worsened. In 1953, the Socialist Party cut off money to YPSL, and then suspended YPSL's New York branch, which was the one with the most contact with SYL (and the ISL). In August, YPSL, including the "suspended" members, voted to disaffiliate with the Socialist Party. In February 1954, the Young People's Socialist League merged with the Socialist Youth League to form the Young Socialist League.

YPSL was reconstituted and helped organize a nuclear test ban march in Washington DC in 1962. YPSL subsequently split into two factions, a left-wing one which wanted to create a mass labor party, and a right-wing one which wanted realignment with the Democratic Party. In 1964, the left-wing faction took over YPSL, after which the left-wing faction itself broke into factions. YPSL was dissolved shortly afterward. Two years later it was reconstituted, but remained small throughout the 1960s compared to groups like SDS.

Nevertheless, the YPSL had about a thousand members by the early 1970s. It had fairly large branches at major universities such as Harvard, Yale, NYU, Cornell and Columbia.

Steve Kelman of the Harvard YPSL chapter published a well known book at the time entitled When Push Comes to Shove.

The YPSL chapter at Cornell University achieved a certain notoriety when it publicly campaigned for the closing of racially segregated housing on and off campus. Civil rights leaders including Bayard Rustin and Roy Wilkins of the NAACP backed the YPSL campaign, even though it included a demand to close down a dormitory that included only Black students, known as Ujamaa. The Cornell chapter eventually grew to become the second largest YPSL chapter (the largest was in New York City) by the mid-1970s. From 1972-5, it published a weekly newsletter known as The Ithaca Call.

But the organization was deeply divided over the Vietnam War, with some members supporting an immediate and unconditional US withdrawal while others (the majority) supporting a negotiated settlement that would prevent a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. The dissidents backing a US withdrawal called themselves the "Coalition Caucus" and was identified with a similar tendency in the parent Socialist Party.

The supporters of the majority faction were also enthusiastic supporters of Israel and opponents of the "New Politics" wing of the Democratic Party represented by Senator George McGovern. A number of them became enthusiastic supporters of the Presidential campaign of Senator Henry Jackson.

By the time of the annual YPSL convention, held outside San Francisco in 1971, where the last major public speech was given by Max Shachtman, the organization was on the brink of splitting.

In 1973, the Socialist Party of America had three factions, and each split into a new group.

The rump Socialist Party was renamed the Social Democrats USA and was chaired by Bayard Rustin. Its youth section, the YPSL, changed its name to Young Social Democrats (YSD). For a time, it published a magazine called The Social Democrat.

The largest of the groups to emerge was the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, led by Michael Harrington, which broke away from the Party. Its youth section became known as the DSOC Youth Section, which held its first meeting in 1975 in Boston. It later published a newsletter called Days of Decision, named after the song by Phil Ochs. In 1980, DSOC merged with the New American Movement to become the Democratic Socialists of America. DSA's youth section is now known as Young Democratic Socialists.

The third group, known within the party as the "Debs Caucus", renamed itself as the Socialist Party USA. YPSL became the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party USA in 1989.

A number of the YPSL leaders from the late 1960s and early 1970s went on to become notable figures on the American Right, including the founding director of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Gershman as well as such neoconservative writers as Josh Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute and Max Green, the author of a violently anti-union polemic -- Epitaph for American Labor: Radicalism in the Union Movement (1996). Gershman, Muravchik and Green were the Vice Chairman, National Chairman and National Secretary of the organization in 1971.

[edit] Three Arrows

YPSL's traditional symbol is the 'Three Arrows', which can mean many things. The arrows are meant to symbolize the three ways in which humanity works for a better society. They are:

Education - YPSL publishes pamphlets and magazines and holds educational forum meetings
Direct Action - YPSL engages in protests, non-violent demonstrations and engages in strike support
Elections - Through its parent organization, the Socialist Party USA, YPSL supports candidates for public office

[edit] Membership

Membership in YPSL is open to any comrade under the age of 30 who agrees with the principles of the Young People's Socialist League. Members are workers and students at all levels. As a D.I.Y. league, YPSL will help with any local campaign their members decide to carry out. The organization is democratically run and open and accessible to all members.