2024 GAMM

NOTE THE CHANGE OF VENUE

June 18, 2024
3 pm to 5 pm
L’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
Montreal, PQ

General Membership Meeting Agenda

2023-24 Financial Statements and 2024-25 Budget

Treasurer’s Report to 2024 GAMM

SSS Governance Committee Report 2024

Current SSS Executive with vacancies

2024 Membership Secretary Report

Call for General Assembly Membership Meeting 2024

3pm to 5pm Eastern
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
Room 3420, Pavillon Sherbrooke
200 Sherbrooke St. W., Montréal, PQ

The Society for Socialist Studies General Assembly Membership Meeting (GAMM) for 2024 will take place in Montreal. This meeting is the Society’s annual general meeting.

The Executive salutes the Society’s 2024 Conference Programme Committee, chaired by Phil Henderson. We decided quite recently to hold our Conference sessions and GAMM at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), given how close it is to McGill where the majority of Congress will occur. We particularly want to thank Éric Pineault for his assistance arranging space at UQAM. We moved away from McGill due to the ongoing threat of police action against the divestment encampment and the potential for an AMPL picket line during Congress.

We are pleased to feature Paul Kellogg as our keynote speaker at 1 pm immediately prior to the GAMM. Paul is the recipient of the 2023 Errol Sharpe Book Prize. His topic: “Truth Behind Bars: Reflections on the Fate of the Russian Revolution”.

The agenda includes reports from Executive officers, the presentation of the financial report, and decisions about our annual budget, as well as proposed changes to the SSS bylaws. Members can find all documents related to GAMM (agenda, financials, budget, bylaw revisions) on the SSS website under “Congress and GAMM”, at the 2024 GAMM tab, https://socialiststudies.ca/2024-gamm/. Executive reports will be posted as they are available.

The Society will also hold elections for several executive posts. We will also be seeking volunteers for the 2025 Conference Programme Committee; Congress will meet in Toronto that year. The Journal also welcomes volunteers. A full list of open executive posts is included in the Call for Nominations below, including vacancies for Members at Large and Scholar/Activist positions.

You can always nominate colleagues for Executive positions from the floor at the meeting, and you can nominate yourself too. However, we encourage nominations in advance so we can provide as many profiles of nominees as possible, posting the profiles as we receive them. Please send nominations, or ask questions about the process, to admin@socialiststudies.ca.

Paid-up membership is a condition for voting and members must have paid their dues for the year 2024. Your friends and colleagues are also welcome to attend. To pay dues or to make a donation in advance of Conference, click here: https://societyforsocialiststudies.wildapricot.org/join-us

To verify your membership status at Conference before the GAMM or to pay outstanding dues, please come to the SSS welcome desk during Conference hours, located in Sherbrooke Pavillon at UQAM. As we approach the GAMM, please check the meeting information page of the website to review pre-posted documents, including Executive reports and advanced nomination profiles for Executive positions.

In solidarity, Will Kujala, Secretary, Megan Aiken, Membership Secretary, and Cheryl Hewitt, Treasurer.

2024 Call for Nominations

The following executive positions are open for election at the Society for Socialist Studies GAMM 2024, held face-to-face at Congress. Section 7 of the SSS constitution describes the responsibilities of all the executive positions (https://socialiststudies.ca/about/constitution/).

Members-at-Large – one positions for a two-year term
Scholar-Activist Representatives – one positions for a two-year term
Student and Youth Representatives – one position for a two-year-term

Nominees are welcome in advance or on the floor of the meeting itself. Advance nominations are particularly welcome, to provide the voting membership with bios, and to allow time for verification of paid-up membership. To nominate yourself or someone else, please write to Will Kujala (Secretary) at admin@socialiststudies.ca AND to Megan Aiken (Membership Secretary) at maiken@ualberta.ca. Sending to both of them helps to simplify the posting process and the membership verification process. Include in the email or an attachment with the nominee’s full name; a contact email address for the nominee; and a short statement of about 100-150 words. That statement could include biography, skills, affiliations, experience, and whatever the nominee would like to share about serving on the executive. Advance nominations of members other than yourself should also provide an indication (such as an attached letter or email) of the nominee’s willingness to stand. Nominees must be members in good standing at the time of election and during their term. Wes will reach out to all nominees to ensure that everyone is up-to-date.

Featuring Keynote Speaker Paul Kellogg, Recipient of the 2023 Errol Sharpe Book Prize

“Truth Behind Bars: Reflections on the Fate of the Russian Revolution”
June 18, 2024
1 pm to 2:45 pm
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

Abstract: No event has done more to shape the contemporary Left than the Russian Revolution of 1917. For generations, it was the reference point for those who saw collective action by the working class and the oppressed as the driving force of history. This book re-examines our understanding of that revolution through a close study of working-class history and a re-examination of core assumptions of political theory. Historically, it uses the arctic city of Vorkuta as a case study, surveying three moments of struggle – hunger strikes during the Great Terror from 1936 to 1938, revolts against forced labour from 1947 to 1953, and mass miners’ strikes from 1989 to 1991. Theoretically, the book suggests that this long history of workers’ resistance to repression reveals the submergence of traditions of self-emancipation under the dead weight of substitutionism. Based on this historical and theoretical survey, the book revisits key texts associated with the revolution, arguing for a radical revision of our understanding of the dynamics within the Russian Left of the 1917 era. In 1843, the then 25-year-old Karl Marx, in a letter to a friend, advocated the “ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be”. To properly assimilate the lessons of 1917, exactly this kind of approach is required.