The Scottish YCL Congress

The everyday work of a branch level committee member involves the tasks that never make the history books; its the writing of reports, managing messages from comrades, meetings of the committee or otherwise, planing and executing actions, building up networks and so much more. It is the micro level work of building a fighting orginsation, ready for leadership whenever it comes.

But all branches must lead to roots that unify the tree, thus, all the branches of league must come under a unified leadership formed form its own ranks. Therefore, ’The Sovereign Body of the League shall be the Congress’ is a statement built from the logic of the everyday work of the league and the conditions this work must evolve under. Thus, in amongst the fortest of books, mountains of papers, busts, portraits and pamphlets delegets from all of Scotlands branches gathered in the offices of Unity books to decided our path at a Scottish Congress.

The congress meet at a time that demands the most careful and serious consideration of the problems that confront the working class movement. It is clear we are entering a period of new struggles and for these we must be prepared. The days of constant moblisation, protest and ‘pure’ electoralism in face of all contrary evidence of their successes and failures have pushed to working class movement to edge. Yet, this edge is only a slippery slope towards an more intense struggle that demands organisation in the face of growing odds. Beyond heroism and poetic language, our struggle is a very real one, based on consistent efforts to create practical and reasonable goals in our struggle for socialism.

As the Scottish Secretary made clear: “By this I do not mean simply increasing the frequency of what we already do well, but increasing the work that is taken on by individual cadres within the sphere of their own lives. In our branches the question still sometimes arises of what should we do next, or what should our focus be at some given moment; what are we meant to do as communists and how do we place ourselves at the front of the class struggle? Our members are already perfectly placed to carry out revolutionary work. Our members are from the masses, of the working class and they are already present in the very places where class exploitation can be most readily exposed; schools, communities and primarily workplaces. Sending our members to organise in these places, must be the foundation of our work. In order to do this, we must produce reports on everything we do. Without reporting there can be no self-study and no study of the work of those below. And these reports must be written documents, otherwise the knowledge and experience gained from all of our work will not be able to travel through the league to go where else it needs to, confining vital experience to individuals”.

There is perhaps nothing new about this call to organise, it is one as old as the movement itself. Yet the circumstances that demand it and the results of our efforts to achieve it will be our own. Everything under the sun is not yet fully in chaos but hour by hour and day by day, the contradictions of capitalism intensify. Passivity in the face of these contradictions, as numerous and as they are deep, is fatal.

Thus, a scientific effort to sharpen our spears must be made. The Scottish Congress was the grindstone on which this sharpening occurred. The creation of more concrete reporting systems, proposals for cultural efforts, the election of a new committee, the handling of issues amongst the cadership all centred upon democratic centralism allowed for the strengthening of an organisation and membership that can fulfil the revolutionary tasks of the Young Communist League.

It’s here that it is made apparent why congress is the sovereign body of the league. It is the hub from which each branch can receive inspiration and the central organisation can learn to fight better.

Grant MacDonald, is a member of the YCL’s Edinburgh Branch