Kevin Riordan: New Jersey's socialist revolutionaries convene

Two grandmotherly radicals, a dude wearing a Soviet logo who calls himself "a run-of-the-mill anarchist," and a write-in candidate for governor who's barely old enough to vote.

These were among the dozen or so revolutionaries who assembled Sunday for the Socialist Party of New Jersey's biennial convention, a gathering of Garden State residents with grand - if not grandiose - goals for the nation, perhaps the world.

"Upheaval is exactly what we need. Our [current] system is corrupt and sends millions of people into poverty," declares party secretary Pat Noble, 20, who last year was elected to the Red Bank Regional School Board.

"Democratic socialism," he says, "stands for the workers democratically owning and controlling the means of production, and running the society they rightfully own."

I meet Noble, who grew up in Red Bank, Monmouth County, before the convention doors open at the Rutgers Center for Latino Arts and Culture on the New Brunswick campus.

(The statewide get-together barely fills a cozy conference room. Noble claims not to know membership statistics.)

Whatever their number - which would appear to be minuscule - the Socialists and supporters I listen to are bright, personable, and passionate about socialism as the only way.

"I think we need a revolution," says Dorothy Argyros, 85, of Neptune, Monmouth County, who proudly calls herself a "red-diaper baby." (Her parents were communists.)

"I'm very disgusted with the way the country is going," the retired lawyer adds. "One percent of the people own everything, and everyone else is struggling."

"Soon, the billionaires will own it all," says her friend Sharon Surrette, 72, a retired social worker from Wall Township, Monmouth County. "I want to do something before it gets to that point."

I'm reassured to learn that the revolution will be won through democratic, not forcible, means. Not for these Garden State socialists the authoritarian totalitarianism that Stalin, Mao, and the latest North Korean megalomaniac have made infamous.

But make no mistake: The Socialist Party of New Jersey, an affiliate of the Socialist Party-USA, is not a party of moderation.

Reforms? Please. Those sorts of tepid, if sometimes necessary, steps are best left to mainstream pols like that supposed "socialist" in the White House (Obama's not even a progressive, one convention-goer laments.)

However familiar or admirable much of their platform - LGBT equality, an end to racism, peace on Earth - may appear to, say, Democrats, Socialists go much further. They seek to abolish capitalism, which they believe feeds poverty, militarism, sexism, and environmental degradation.

"Capitalism is the root of the current crisis this country and many countries are in," says Maynor Moreno, 19, a Rutgers physics major running the Socialist write-in campaign for governor.

"If everyone owned the means of production, everyone would be able to supply themselves and everyone else with everything needed to live a comfortable lifestyle," the Marlboro, Monmouth County, resident adds.

Moreno's write-in running mate is Stephanie Gussin, 26, of Montclair, Essex County, a photographic retoucher. Their campaign "is symbolic," she says, "but it's also a great opportunity for recruitment, and for spreading information."

Or propaganda?

"We have a toxic system," one convention-goer says. "A virtual police state," says another.

They sound cynical to me, like idealists gone sour.

But Noble is convinced a democratic socialist revolution "can and will" take place. He claims the socialist convictions of many well-known Americans have been whitewashed, although the only name he readily comes up with is Helen Keller.

"The working class is the majority and will always be the majority," Noble declares. "So the power to rise up and overthrow the old regime, so to speak, is always there."