A few weeks ago, having previously observed the increasing spread of communist and leftist stickers, posters, and other propaganda, I decided to attend one leftist organization to observe and listen in on what was driving this. On March 14th, in one of the many Folwell classrooms, the UMN chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) had one of their bimonthly meetings where they would discuss current areas of interest, ongoing projects, and a general status update of their group members and their work.
The day I had attended, over a dozen students from the University of Minnesota were in attendance. These students were brought together by shared left ideologies as well as other mutually held identities and values. The meeting was relaxed, many people seemed familiar with each other. While some may have the view of a strict, regimented leftist organization, it seemed one of the goals and aspects of the organization was also to build a sense of community among these politically left identifying students – a sort of social club.
The meeting began with (an optional) sign in for new and current members. This was to help account for who was currently in their organization, but also to push out news from the organization to members. The agenda was outlined and began with a brief preface on the Native lands the University of Minnesota currently resides on and related injustices. Afterwards, friendly introductions were made. In this instance who the person was, preferred pronouns, and interesting things members had done over spring break – a nice social ice breaker. Afterwards, the agenda and topics of discussion were outlined.
The first topic of discussion was UMN YDSAs attendance at the national YDSA convention in March 2024 (“Wintercon”). Several members, with funding from the state level Democratic Socialist Party (DSA), were able to attend the national YDSA conference. Here they briefed ongoing YDSA projects at the national level, but they also disseminated skills and ways to spread socialist awareness and presence. One of these methods was “wheatpasting”, or the method of adhering paper posters to surfaces with a mixture of flour or starch and water. These common items are cheap and allow for the spread of paper flyers en masse. Not only is this cost effective, the messy adhesive is difficult to remove (whether that be for flyers or vandalism).
Recent (and ongoing) events in Palestine and Israel have spurred calls to action for protesting and other demonstrations against Israel. While the Israeli-Palestine conflict may not be the primary ideology of the YDSA, members were unanimous in their concerns for Palestine and many had reached out to pro-Palestinean organizations to coordinate with.
Other local projects included a Gender Affirming Clothing Drive, which according to their members, was very successful. Gender affirming clothes may include items such as binders or sports bras for trans people. Given this success they intend to have another Gender Affirming Clothing Drive. Many members also found this event empowering and had reported that non members attracted to the project also found it empowering.
Finally, as working class action is one of their intrinsic goals, the UMN YDSA is actively campaigning for the Public Employment Labor Relations Act or PELRA. PELRA establishes and empowers collective bargaining between Minnesota public employers and representatives of their public employees. In effect, the unionization abilities for public employees. While the YDSA would naturally be interested in unionization, in particular one section of the PELRA includes student workers. Student works (at time of writing) have largely been unable to unionize at all. Not only is the UMN YDSA attempting to help pass this legislation, they’re attempting to retain the student worker portion of the act which has recently come under threat.
Overall, the UMN chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America has been incredibly active. The socialist ideology that many young people are partial to along with the sense of community that their organization has carved clearly shows they have committed individuals who are willing to put in the labor to proliferate propaganda and drive projects furthering their organization
. Time will tell if conservative organizations grow again at the University of Minnesota and become as active as left organizations have.
