If you have been following the happenings of Young Communist League, USA recently, I am sure that you have heard tell of the Little Red School Bus Tour. This was a series of regional schools on Marxism and its application to the present day. These schools had a dramatic affect on the regions that they were held in, such areas as Chicago, Florida, Connecticut, Los Angeles, and Texas. YCL membership has continued growing across the country.

The affect that these schools had in Texas was no less dramatic than in the other areas. At the beginning of July when the Little Red School Bus Tour made its final stop in Hurst, Texas, there were only about five people active in the YCL in Texas. Now there are nearly 40.

One might ask how it is possible for there to be so many open Communists in Texas. Well, first of all, to many people’s surprise, there are actually whole lot more left-wingers in Texas than one might think. Second of all, it as has not been easy bringing those people together. Texas is the second largest state in the United States. Those nearly 40 comrades are hundreds of miles apart from one another. It is nearly one thousand miles from Orange, Texas to El Paso, Texas, along Interstate 10 and nearly 800 miles from the Red River to Brownsville in far South Texas.

This has required a lot of hard work, and some unique methods. The first thing that the Texas YCL did to try and get these comrades together was to build a “virtual” infrastructure.  How was this done?  They used Facebook.  Funding is limited and Facebook is free. If one looks up the Texas Young Communist League on Facebook, members and club pages from around the state come up. This was a way for members to chat, see pictures of each other, and organize events.  Members from across the state also set up pages such as, Texas Young Communist League (Red River Club) to serve as, in a sense, free billboards.

The Texas YCL has also taken advantage of one of the free conference call systems, which helps to put voices to names. 

These methods, however effective, were not enough. So the members of the Texas YCL sought to organize face-to-face meetings. Members of the Texas YCL made trips to Beaumont, Copperas Cove, Dallas, Fort Worth, Jasper, Linden, Lufkin, Plano, and Waco. 

There are still more trips in the planning, one of which includes a visit from the National YCL Organizer. These trips are helping to put faces to voices and names and helping the Texas YCLers to develop real friendships with one another.

A couple other things that these visits have done are to help the Texas YCLers learn some valuable lessons about life and to start to answer some very important questions about their politics. The biggest lesson learned during these trips was one about discrimination.

This being Texas, some might think that the lesson involved race. Well, it did not. It involved a little rivalry here in Texas that exists between big cities and small country towns. While in the midst of visiting each other, the Texas YCLers realized that they were falling prey to a form of division that is used to keep the working class divided. They learned that City Slickers and Country Folk alike are both predominantly working-class groups.  They are people and comrades to be praised for their hard work, not ridiculed because of where they live.

The questions that the Texas YCLers have been answering about their politics are equally as important.  Here are just a few of the questions along with their answers:

1. How do we deal with the distance between us? – That is being worked on through Facebook, conference calls, and trips.

2. How worried should we be about right-wing backlash? Is there going to be some of this going on?  – Of course there is, but we cannot allow that slow us down. We must move forward, looking back only to learn from our mistakes.

3. Who should young people support for the U.S. presidency? – This question has perhaps been the most difficult. With the passing of the NDAA, many radical and left youth do not feel inclined to support Obama on a personal level.

However, on a political level, they know that he is the best option, and they know that this does not require them to give full support to the Democrats. 

This is a political decision. Honestly, who really wants to see a Ron Paul, Rick Perry, or Mitt Romney presidency? The results of such a presidency as one of these would be disastrous for the working class.

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