Dave J, New York, NY
Revolutionary communists attended the City University of New York (CUNY) encampment to hear from students and participate in a town hall called by the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), a union representing 30,000 university faculty and staff in the city.
The assembly opened with fiery speeches from student organizers, followed by a speech of solidarity from a PSC organizer. He called for PSC members to vote on adopting the list of demands drawn up by the students.
The floor opened for a lively discussion featuring contributions from workers, students, a food bank organization, teachers, and members of other unions. Two RCA comrades took the opportunity to speak, putting forth proposals to escalate the movement through militant working-class action and echoing other speakers’ calls for a general strike against the imperialist bloodletting.
The CUNY town hall represented the embryo of something much more significant. The crisis of capitalism will eventually reach a stage where American workers will form similar assemblies, not just at one university but in every workplace, neighborhood, and school across the country. It’s through these democratic workers’ councils—or soviets as they were called in Russia—that the working class will take power and begin building a communist society.