Upcoming Events
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Areas of Struggle
Housing || Labor || Anti-Imperialism || Climate Justice || Black Liberation & Racial Justice || Community Outreach & Mutual Aid || Indigenous Sovereignty || Political Education || Electoral
Tenants’ Rights Work & Defending Public Housing
YCL members rally with Brooklyn tenants groups in Flatbush to protest slum-lords who have harmed community | June 2022
YCL supporting CAAAV, the Justice For All Coalition, and NYCHA tenants rallying against privatization | March 2021
YCL members, NYCHA tenants, and others rally to protest the RAD process at Fulton Houses | December 2020
Did you know that the first public housing units in New York City were built by Communist-led unions to house workers, which forced the City authorities to negotiate? In fact, the CPUSA and YCL have a long history in the tenants rights movement, stopping evictions and gaining protections for working class renters all across the country. At this moment, the very existence of public housing in NYC is threatened, as a result of nearly 40 years of Republican austerity on the federal level, combined with Democratic Party acquiescence and ineptitude at the state and local level.
Building on our historic work in the housing-rights movement, youth in CPUSA clubs today have been involved in the the fights against gentrification in New York City, from fighting against rezoning in Harlem and Inwood, to working with NYCHA activists to protect public housing, and providing support in building up NYCHA tenants’ associations. YCL members in New York City have been coordinating mutual aid projects at NYCHA housing, helping provide groceries and PPE to tenants.
We are an active partner of the Housing Justice for All coalition, an upstate-downstate coalition fighting to expand tenants protections for everyone, to #CancelRent during this horrific pandemic and economic crisis, and to make laws like “‘Just Cause’ Eviction’” a reality in New York State. We are working with organizers across the country to develop a nationally coordinated plan of action for housing rights and a Housing Bill of Rights.
Additionally, YCL and CPUSA members upstate are involved in the City Roots Community Land Trust in Rochester, and are working in coalition with other socialist organizations to build socialist community land trusts.
Rebuilding a Left Labor Movement
YCL members speak and flyer for the No More 24 campaign at the week long Hunger Strike | March 2024
CPUSA and YCL members rally with the Amazon Labor Union on Staten Island for MLK Day | January 2022
YCL joins striking grad student workers on the Picket Line at Columbia University | November 2021
YCL, CPUSA, socialists, and community members mobilize support for striking Teamsters in the Bronx | January 2021
We as Communists know that it is the working class that makes history.
The capitalist mode of production has basic flaws and contradictions which will make Capitalism its own grave digger. The question is, will we have human life and a habitable planet on the other side?
Rosa Luxemburg asserted a basic truth for our time when she said: Socialism or Barbarism. Only an organized working class can bring about this transition to socialism and avoid complete societal collapse.
The daily struggle against exploitation of working people is at the core of the work of the Young Communist League and the CPUSA. Fighting back against capitalists in our workplace is the most basic and essential work we can engage in the fight for socialism.
The proud history of the CPUSA and YCL in the fight back against capitalists in the US is one we continue to build on today. We organize in our unions, provide support for unionization efforts and striking workers on picket lines, and publicize support through our media. Our members in active in union struggles at Amazon, in fast food, with the Postal Workers, members of the building trades, and have been supporting striking nurses, teachers, graduate students, and other workers across the state.
Along with union workers across the state and country, YCL has been pushing a strategy of salting — getting jobs at workplaces with the goal of unionizing them — and has been training our cadre to organize and radicalize their workplaces. We will continue to build off of these trainings and offer them as schools for the public to learn how to organize their workplaces as well using a solid Marxist-Leninist and historical materialist analysis.
Anti-Imperialism, the Peace Movement, and Building International Solidarity
Young Communist at the 24 Hour Vigil reads names of Palestinian victims of the genocide in Gaza being committed by Israel | February 2024
Young Communists rally against war, NATO aggression, and US funding of the war in Ukraine | March 2022
NY-YCL organizes a rally in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution in response to attempted US-led counterrevolution | July 2021
Anti-Imperialism and and the Anti-War movement have traditionally been one of the cornerstones of the YCL’s struggles. As one of the few revolutionary communist organizations within (as the famous Che Guevara once said) “the belly of the beast,” the YCL has been outspoken in supporting some of the leading American anti-war activists and movements of the last century, from the 1960s anti-Vietnam War movement, to the struggle against US aggression in the Middle East today. The American working-class cannot hope to win against the corrupt elites and warmongers in power if we support their oppression of the international working class, and so we shall fight for their rights just as we fight for our own at home!
New York YCL members have been participating in the solidarity efforts with comrades in Cuba, including through the National Network on Cuba coalition and Cuba Sí, organizing and mobilizing for rallies in support of the Cuban Revolution, working to promote education about the island, and supporting the fights to lift the imperialist blockade against the country. We support the struggle for a free Palestine. We support the struggle for an independent Puerto Rico. We have also been supporting efforts to stem the tide of the new Cold War and push back against the threat of US hybrid-war against China and eastern Asia. We are fighting for a world based on mutual respect and peace, not imperialist capitalist aggression that only pushes jingoist and xenophobic rhetoric and violence.
Through the CPUSA’s International Department and Peace & Solidarity Commission, YCL members work in solidarity with and build connections with young comrades in Communist Party and Communist Youth organizations around the world. In addition to international delegation opportunities, YCL members coordinate educational and cultural projects across capitalist borders. From Cuba to the UK, Vietnam to Spain, China to South Swaziland, everywhere, we are developing the growing international Communist movement.
Black Liberation, Racial Justice, and Prison Abolition
YCL Members publish articles about the struggles and oppression of incarcerated workers.
Out in the streets during the Uprisings | Summer 2020
Since its founding 100 years ago, the YCL together with CPUSA has been ceaselessly fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Black revolutionaries in achieving total racial and socioeconomic equality, often in the face of brutal state repression and overt white-supremacy from both major parties.
In the aftermath of the brutal police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the NY YCL was at the frontlines of Uprisings and protests in NYC, distributing aid to fellow protestors, and marching on and occupying City Hall in the face of direct police violence. In addition to protesting, YCL members have helped provide funding and mutual aid supplies towards jail support efforts for comrades arrested as political prisoners during fights on the street. Together, with our fellow New Yorkers and Comrades, we have helped wage an uncompromising battle against State-sponsored police brutality, white supremacy, corruption, and more. And have continued to be involved in this struggle through the coalition and our own Abolition work.
In addition to street action, the YCL Prison Abolition Subcommittee works to support incarcerated workers and organizers in their struggles for liberation. Through the People’s World Prison Outreach program, we distribute critical issues of the People’s World weekly newsletter to incarcerated people while fostering communication and building a network of solidarity inside and outside prison walls. As a committee, we write articles for People’s World about abolition and the struggles prisoners face, and have begun collaborating with our incarcerated readers and inviting them to contribute articles to People’s World about their own struggles. We have started a longer term pen-pal project, and are expanding the program to reach more incarcerated people. Through this program, we are building solidarity, raising consciousness, and fighting the isolation imposed on incarcerated people by the prison industrial complex.
In addition to local prison reform and abolition struggles, as well as anti-police-brutality actions, YCL members are active in the NAARPR, and help forward the CPUSA’s fight for “Community Control of the Police,” a “non-reformist reform” to give local communities democratic control over police departments enabling them to hold violent police officers accountable through measures such as defunding of bloated budgets, removal of military equipment, suspensions, firings, and criminal liability.
We will not stop until full working-class Black Liberation is achieved.
Community Outreach & Mutual Aid
Mutual Aid at NYCHA’s Fulton Houses | Summer, Fall 2020.
The role of community outreach and mutual aid today are more important now than they’ve been in decades. Our communities are being crushed under the enormous weight of the Pandemic, widening social inequality, a crumbling state-support system, and inhumane healthcare costs. Corporations are being fed trillions of dollars while the American people are more food-insecure than ever. Given this dire situation, the YCL has been providing much-needed food, personal-protective gear, and other aid to our local communities, doing our part to lift each other up in solidarity in tough times.
Our members have also been doing political and educational outreach to register people to vote, provide Know Your Rights materials, and inform people about local community events. And in Albany, young Communists work in coalition with union and community members to lead weekly clean-ups around their neighborhoods.
Decolonization and Indigenous Rights
Recognizing that no just society can be built on stolen land, Young Communists have aligned themselves with the struggle of New York’s Native Nations, working to not only advance the political struggle of the First Nations, but to build lasting relationships and support networks in a deeply marginalized community. Taking thoughtful action with the guidance of Native led organizations, the YCL worked with the Onondaga and Mohawk nations, seeking to undo but also understand the environmental, social, and cultural genocide committed against these peoples. This has included work to bring food stability and food sovereignty to reservation communities through farm labor in upstate New York. Young Communists recognize the intersectional nature of the indigenous struggle connecting food stability, decolonization, anti-racism and anti-patriarchy.
Revolutionary Political Education
NY-YCL Study Group meets to discuss Lenin’s ‘Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder’ | August 2024
YCL Members give a report back from the 17th International May Day Brigade in Cuba | June 2024
In order to revolutionize young Americans, we have to educate young Americans in revolution. Young Communist youth develop and organize political education and cultural events to reach the general public both in-person and through online lectures, panels, and discussions, as well as cultural, musical, and artistic events.
Additionally, YCL members meet weekly to discuss revolutionary theory and action, where we help break down and analyze some of the leading Marxist thinkers and concepts, and how to apply those ideas to today.
We also hold organizer trainings, to give YCL members and others new to organizing the skills we all need to build a fighting working class movement.
Nationally, we work with other youth cadre members of the CPUSA and YCL clubs to develop national trainings, such as our annual Little Red Schoolhouse YCL summer school. We hold national and regional educational sessions to help develop Marxist-Leninist historical analysis, organizing skills, and more.
Come join us with any questions and thoughts you have!
Climate Justice and Building a Working-Class Led Environmental Movement
Growing up with the reality and threat of climate change and climate destruction is something that has been an ever present part of youth consciousness today. Climate anxiety is rampant among youth, and with good reason; but fighting climate change has also been motivation for many young people to enter the movement space. Climate destruction impacts Black, brown, and poor workers the most, and US-led imperialism offloads much of the destruction to the global south. Profits from the energy sectors to the weapons manufacturers continue to drive climate destruction, and these policies are supported by both Republican and Democratic politicians.
Recognizing the multifaceted nature of the problem, the YCL seeks to build a broad, progressive coalition to fight back in all areas. We work with Indigenous collectives, youth-led climate organizations (such as Sunrise Movement and Fridays for Future), anti-military organizations (such as Code Pink), unionists leading green-labor organizing struggles, and many others to tackle this problem on as many fronts as we can.
This is a threat we can only face together. We must continue to fight and grow this coalition and overcome the capitalist system that is literally destroying us and our planet. Socialism or extinction!
Electoral and Legislative Struggle
New York YCL members were an active part of the coalition to elect an open socialist to NYC City Council | July 2021
Protestors rally at the state Capitol demanding Gov. Cuomo resign and that our legislature #TaxTheRich | March 2021
The Communist Party does not endorse candidates from other parties, but we are deeply involved in mobilizing people to participate in elections. While there are many competing priorities and logistical realities for deciding how to get involved, we know that the electoral arena is an area of struggle where we must contest power.
As Communists, we believe in popular front alliances, and will mobilize to turn out voters for Democrats and other party’s candidates with whom we disagree when we see it as advantageous to advancing the workers’ struggle in other ways. The New York State Communist Party plans to start running openly Communist candidates soon, as other state-level CPUSA clubs have recently done.
While we know that that socialist revolution will likely not be won through electoral struggle (and certainly not through electoral struggle alone), we also know that by engaging in electoral struggle we have the chance to influence candidates and electoral messaging to be more socialistic, to advance contradictions that will move to us closer to socialism, and to build connections with many of our neighbors through important issues that matter to them.
We also work in coalition with unions and community organizations in order to advance legislation on a local and national level. Medicare for All, a Green New Deal for Public Housing, Jobs Guarantee legislation, and spending bills which cut funding the police and military budgets are just a few of the legislative campaigns we agitate around.
