The Socialist Equality Party (US) held its Ninth National Congress from August 2 to 7, 2026. Delegates discussed and adopted resolutions on the fight against imperialist war, the breakdown of American democracy, the defense of immigrants, the escalation of class struggle and the building of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), the attitude of socialists to AI technology and the defense of the heritage of the two American Revolutions.
The Ninth Congress adopted the six resolutions unanimously. The congress also heard greetings and reports from the sections and sympathizing groups of the International Committee of the Fourth International.
The congress elected a new national committee and reelected David North as national chairman. The members of the incoming national committee reelected Joseph Kishore as national secretary, Kathleen Martin as assistant national secretary, and Barry Grey and Andre Damon as national co-editors of the World Socialist Web Site.
“The Ninth Congress of the Socialist Equality Party convenes at a critical turning point in the political history of the United States and the world—the point of intersection of war, economic crisis, and rapidly growing social radicalization.”
The Ninth National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party convenes under conditions of escalating imperialist war, deepening economic crisis, the turn of the ruling classes to dictatorship, and a mounting assault on the jobs, wages and social rights of the working class. There is no longer a question of the danger of a world war; its initial stages have already begun.
Since its return to power in January 2025, the Trump administration has implemented a systematic plan to establish a presidential dictatorship. The social character of this government was defined by the party at the outset, as a government of the oligarchy, by the oligarchy and for the oligarchy.
The construction of a dictatorship in the United States is centered on the escalating assault on immigrant workers. ICE, transformed into a paramilitary force, is carrying out a mass deportation operation.
The period since the Eighth Congress has seen a significant acceleration of the class struggle on every continent. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, 458 strikes were recorded across just eight European countries, including five general strikes at the national or regional level: national general strikes in Belgium and Italy, regional general strikes in Andalusia and the Basque Country and a general strike in Northern Cyprus.
The Ninth National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) places the development of artificial intelligence (AI) at the center of its analysis of the world capitalist crisis. In no other technology are the contradictions of the capitalist system so sharply concentrated.
July 4, 2026 marked the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, one of the great revolutionary documents in human history. In the year of the semiquincentennial, the Trump administration and the capitalist oligarchy are constructing a presidential dictatorship.
The second resolution takes up the political and social consequences of that intersection within the United States itself. What is set down in the resolution—of the Trump administration, of the Democratic Party and of the radicalization and developing class struggle—is not an impressionistic response to the events of the past 18 months.
In the first 18 months of its second term, the Trump administration has continued its efforts to establish authoritarian rule by using immigration as the instrument for dismantling the democratic rights of the entire population. The aim of a powerful section of the American ruling class in carrying this strategy through is to abolish the Constitution and the democratic rights won through the American Revolution and Civil War.
The next stage requires the expansion of the rank-and-file committees and, above all, the recruitment into the party of workers who, as the Will Lehman campaign for United Auto Workers (UAW) president has demonstrated, will introduce socialist consciousness into the class struggle. Through this intervention the party must establish its political leadership in the working class.
The explosive contradiction between technological development and the profit system based on private ownership finds its sharpest expression in AI.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, another congress of revolutionists, the Second Continental Congress, was meeting in Philadelphia, just 45 miles from the Mack plant where Will Lehman works. One month earlier, on July 4, 1776, they had adopted a crucial resolution of their own: the Declaration of Independence.
The Socialist Equality Party is a political party of and for the working class. It seeks not to reform capitalism, but to create a socialist, democratic and egalitarian society through the establishment of a workers’ government and the revolutionary transformation of world economy. We seek to unify workers internationally in the common struggle for socialism—that is, for equality and the rational and democratic utilization of the wealth of the planet.
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