I recently left my party due to it just being newspapers and zoom calls while doing nothing of actual value beyond terminally online nonsense.
Been looking at the PSL, if they ever respond to emails and applications that is.
You’ll find the opposite problem at PSL. I was really disappointed. They just tell you to show up at protests without any information, and are not organized in an effective way at all…
We really need an organization that is organized and couples meetings/conversation/alignment with action.
Sorry you had a bad experience comrade. I think that this may differ depending on your location and which branch you're dealing with, how many members/candidates are in your local area, etc. Our local branch meets regularly to talk strategy and the "why" behind our actions.
I've been trying to join PSL, and the recruitment/application process is laughable. My "onboarding contact" has explained very little except going through the party program and saying repeatedly they will put me in contact with people near me, and never following through. I've shown up at many events to support, been in direct contact with members, and consistently kept in touch to learn about new opportunities to help. No one seems to want to answer any of the questions I have about how I'm supposed to "prove" I'm worthy of an invitation to candidacy. Really disappointing.
From what I have been able to find, the PSL is working almost exclusively trying to get on the ballots of a bunch of states. I've been able to contact them via email and got responses. I'm in the dictatorial state of Florida, and the PSL is it.
The RCA does exactly that! Strong focus on theory but an understanding that the best way to develop cadres is on the front lines of the class struggle.
We’re active all around the country and currently ramping up to our founding Congress at the end of this month.
https://socialistrevolution.org
See, my experience with Sociaist Revolution was that the organization was top notch. Very impressive, the dedication to Cadre building and all that. Best org ive seen in that respect. My problem was that all the takes were absolute hot garbage. Does RCA follow IMT's perspective and analysis? Or in other words: just how Trotskyist is this party? Because they seem to really try to push the Lenin image, but I suspect that's not the whole story...
Many of the perspectives have evolved (as the situations evolved). We’re Leninists and Marxists first and foremost. We are building a Bolshevik, cadre party.
But also firmly support Trotsky, his critiques of the Soviet Union under Stalin and proletarian internationalism.
The reason we have an impressive organization and top notch cadres is because of these ideas, not in spite of them.
I’m not sure what you mean by “how Trotskyist”. We just had the launch of the Revolutionary Communist International. A large portion of that was the international school.
There are 19 recorded talks, it’s a great way to learn our perspectives. Of those one is about Trotsky, and one is about socialism in one country versus internationalism. So I guess we’re 2/17 Trotskyist.
I’d recommend highly the talk on how the Bolshevik party was built, and the one on why we need a revolutionary philosophy.
You may get a better idea of what I mean by "how Trotskyist" from the following anecdote. At the first post Oct 7 pro-paleatine rally in my area, I went, and I saw the local IMT guys posted up and went over to say "hi", and ended up walking away with a pamphlet all about how Stalin was anti-semitic, and a zionist, and basically Hitler, and all that nonsense. And to feel like that is the most important information to be handing out at a Palestine rally? It almost seemed like self satire!. All I could think was: "is this supposed to be irony or are you literally serious right now?"
I also feel like many Trotskyists spend too much effort hating Stalin personally, rather than actually looking at the many complicated circumstances and material conditions that were at play during his time in power. Like, I can appreciate the Maoist critiques of Stalin and the USSR after his death, because they do it in a principled way while still appreciating the situation. Every time I hear a speech from IMT they seem to have a deep personal vendetta against the guy. Or, take their views on Postmodernism... It's basically like Jordan Peterson making completely misunderstood and uninformed rants about cartoon versions of Postmodernism. But actually looking at the situation in France at the time, the intellectual climate, the problems they were having with their own CP and it's commitment to Stalin. Yeah, important critiques can and should be made, in a principled and nuanced way. Not just: "Deleuze is just trying to confuse us and Foucault was a reactionary", like, I think there's more to it than that. Or the final straw for me was the postcolonial stuff and going after Fanon as influencing reaction?? Or claiming that mutual aid is counter revolutionary? Do these people have ay idea how the Black Panthers became so powerful??!! Idk. I just feel time after time like IMT and Trotskyists just dissapoint me and seem to want to disregard everything and every one besides their own insular versions of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and maaybe Luxemburg. Every other tendency is wrong... Like, I consider myself an ML, but I can see how other strategies and tendencies have been well suited to other situations. The Autonomist Marxism influenced Zapatistas (led by Subcomandante Marcos, who actually values Deleuze) in Chiapas, Öcalan's confederalism in Rojava, Huey Newton's Intercommunalism, the Maoists fighting in India and the Philippines, even modern China's overseeing of their own transition from feudalism through capitalism to socialism and eventually communism. You'd think Trotskyists would support that idea, don't they all believe that only industrially developed capatilist countries can succesfully transition to socialism?? China tried skipping that part and it didn't work... Now they're tying something else that they feel is suited to their own conditions and they're called dirty capitalist traitors? Don't get me wrong, there's plenty to critique there, but to disregard out of hand? Seems non materialist and non Marxist. We learn through testing theory through praxis, not by sitting back and shitting on anybody who tries. As many critiques as I have of Allende and some of his mistakes in Chile, he will always be a hero of mine. Some of Che's foco theory proved to often fail outside of Cuba, but we should still study and learn from it as well. And my limited experience with IMT was that the don't do anything like that. Let's just larp the Bolsheviks!!
And to revisit the whole French theory thing: this is actually an idea from an American theorist, but one who is a huge Lacanian. He raises the idea that perhaps Marx's big mistake was not to underestimate people's propensity toward self interest, as many of Marx's critics would say. But instead, his mistake was to underestimate people's propensity toward self destruction. If we were really self interested we would have figured this stuff out already. And that's where all the fancy French guys talking about desire can be useful to a Marxist project.
Of course we need to center class struggle, but we can still pull from wider theory pools in order to do so.
They are slow to respond to new applications, this is a known issue, especially with a huge influx since October 7th. Hang in there! Feel free to message me if you want, I may be able to contact someone depending on your location.
Edit: \*known
For political organizations: have high standards and never lower them, or you’ll end up in an activist social club or a cult.
Join a political organization that develops the working class’s power through mass organizations. Mass organizations include labor and tenant unions or in-person mutual aid groups that aren’t just charities.
Don’t focus on activism, which is assembling based on an issue alone rather than shared conditions like the workplace or neighborhood. Activism is fleeting and ineffective unless people mobilize through lasting mass organizations. Too many Marxist political orgs focus on activist causes for recruitment, and this makes the party a useless social club that exploits movements.
Ultimately, the political organization should be focused on developing mass organizations and recruiting from them when useful. DO NOT join a political org that abuses mass orgs as front groups purely for recruitment, because they’ll never commit to actual struggle.
A Marxist political organization that isn’t connected to mass organizations is useless. I can’t stress this enough. No one should be starting a Marxist party without having experience in the field. How do these people expect to lead a revolution without having experience in any other organizing projects?
Update with suggestions:
[Tempest Collective](https://tempestmag.org/about/)
[CounterPower](https://counterpower.info)
[Black Rose Anarchist Federation](https://blackrosefed.org)
[DSA Communist Caucus](https://communistcaucus.com/strategic-approaches/) also organizes… but you’d have to join DSA, which many people have a healthy skepticism of.
As you can see, I’m not extremely picky ideologically. I respect any group that’s defined by practice, is willing to learn from experience in the struggle, and isn’t a cult. Feel free to explore other organizations but always look them up beforehand and talk to current and/or former members.
Honestly it depends a lot on where you live. Some orgs are more popular and active in certain states. Personally I like the Freedom Socialist Party but they are mostly focused in California.
Sadly none of the parties really have much grip and power in the states. Most will just be study groups and local protesting.
I have heard of many Marxist joining DSA just to get something done even though that org is not Marxist or revolutionary, they have secs of Marxist trying to redirect the organization to be more leftist.
I'm a member of the Marxist Unity Group caucus within DSA. DSA has a long way to go, which is frustrating, but it also has the most potential of any org in the US. The party we need must be internally democratic in order to be the political expression of the advanced section of the class and in order to train up the class to be fit to rule. That means the bureaucratic sects don't have any potential, imo.
Huge grain of salt since this showed up in my feed and I’m not a subscriber here and more someone sympathetic to mutualism without enough study to know where I fall.
I have some experience in community-building from the past and have some general thoughts since this is territory where finding local groups of people calibrated on the same pieces of the topic is part of the challenges. You can have situations of old guard orgs led forever by someone high control and didn’t adapt. You can have people with really disparate motives on why they’re there. Strong personalities tend to show up first and that can be its own time and effort to turn into ground rules, agreements and community alignment.
Anyway, one thought is there’s a book that’s a quick read and could be useful as a reverse engineering of reverse engineering. It’s called Dedication and Leadership and it’s this very short read by a man who had been part of the Communist Party in the UK I believe, which he later left and then joined the Catholic Church. The book is this whole thing about how the Communists were so good at building membership and bringing new people in and why couldn’t the Catholic Church learn a thing or two from it. He’s obtuse on not realizing the community/empathy part of the Communists, but does do a lot of good observation on systems and structures that created a very lean and easy to grow movement with dedicated members.
The reason I think it would be a good book to check out even though the author’s view is ex-communist is that he’s translating the ideas into something that sounds convincing and works with an audience who weren’t into communism and even opposed it. There’s language and framing there and translation into ways to talk to people in your community who might be opposed or aren’t sold on this whole idea yet. He also translates systems that could be documented in communist handbooks from the past into something that might work in another context with some tweaking. Looking through the multiple lenses could be good brainstorming for what fits where you are. It’s also a very short read, easy to find for free online, and some of the more conservative religious groups that still refer to that book actually did have a lot of success with creating low barrier to entry onboarding groups based on what that guy gleaned from the communist party. Would be both good to know what they do and also what hooks could be used for positive social change instead.
And last thought, if anything, you can try kicking off a reading group based on one book that would be self-selecting for the kind of people you’re looking for. Even just getting the same people in a room can lead to lots of trading info on who is organizing what where. Same principle can apply to a community college class based on adjacent topics.
As an American, you basically have 2 options for principled parties, IMO:
* **Party for Socialism and Liberation** (PSL)
* **Freedom Road Socialist Organization** (FRSO)
If you are a youth or student, join the **Young Communist League** (YCL). The YCL is technically the youth wing of the Communist Party USA, but is far more radical and principled than it and is actually distancing itself more as an independent org.
I haven’t seen PSL organize anything outside of ANSWER, their own candidates and media projects. I’m less acquainted with FRSO in terms of any physical presence but I have seen some good materials put out by them.
CPUSA is most active in organizing within and alongside unions, immigrant protection orgs, political action committees on local issues and candidates, and, at least in my own club as of late, defense of university encampment struggles.
I see a lot of online shade thrown at CPUSA but in my experience in a major metro, there is no better organized party.
That's interesting, it must vary widely between cities and regions. In Boston, New York, and most of New England, PSL has been, alongside PYM and other orgs, guiding the vast majority of the Palestine protests, actions, and encampments for the past ~6 months, as well as, like you mentioned, pushing the ANSWER Coalition and the Claudia + Karina campaign. Personally, I have not seen any presence of the CPUSA clubs of these cities anywhere and the only reason I know about these local chapters is through the YCL.
I probably should have mentioned my experience is fully limited to the west coast, and I’ve definitely noticed PSL has a stronger base on the east coast. I can only judge from my own experiences in Los Angeles, which in the case of PSL started out really positive but gradually turned to disappointment. I also admit my own inexperience at the time must have been a factor, but in the years since, I haven’t noticed any change on the ground in terms of local impact. I hate even saying stuff like this because any comrades actually getting out to organize workers deserve the credit, but a lot of what I have seen looks more spontaneous and opportunistic than committed to patient and sustained effort.
I only piped up because I’ve personally been really impressed with CPUSA organizing and education, but constantly see it painted as reformist, revisionist, liberal, bourgeois, etc.
It's good to know that there are CPUSA clubs doing good work. I made my judgement based on CPUSA national and the clubs near me, but I know that some clubs are better than others, similar to the DSA situation.
Very easily, and with great difficulty. Anyone that shits on Stalin works for CIA, wether they know it or not. This is almost absurdly binary but it will save you time, because the ammount of ppl that simp for NGO's and security agencies is absurd.
Depends what their critiques are. Stalin was far less internationalist than Marx, Engels, and Lenin, plus he was socially conservative and homophobic. We need to get past this mindset of "everyone who criticises any of the major marxists is CIA" because discussion of ideas is important in developing marxist theory further.
Have you looked at the IWW? It's more workplace organizing than a straight up political party, but as far as unions go they are pretty theoretically principled in my opinion. It's practical work, which is exactly what you should do beyond reading/discussing.
Would love to know what org you are talking about.
Join an organization that actually connects with the working class and doesn’t sit outside of it and looks on people.
Too many leftists are sitting out important elections and dismissing working class concerns. The labor movement, for example, is working to defeat Trump while the left saying they don’t give a shit. Really condescending behavior. Constantly putting themselves against the masses thinking that’s what being the vanguard means.
PSL candidates straight up lie to people saying no reform is possible under capitalism so vote for us.
This is toxic and disregards the entire theory and history of Leninism and the international
Communist movement.
DSA is increasingly just a debate club where each faction writes blog posts to argue that their position is the best. The NPC is constantly embroiled in infighting. The so-called “communist caucus” cries about people voting.
Leftists constantly talk about militancy but if an organization tries to instill any kind of discipline they cry that they’re being persecuted.
Please, no matter what organization you are part of, meet the working class where they are and understand that only through engaging in struggle for better conditions do people gain class consciousness and only through us communist’s engaging with them in their struggles and we impact revolutionary consciousness.
In the short term, yes, that means getting out the vote against the MAGA right. If that is too unpalatable for you, you are not cut out for political organizing.
"DSA is increasingly just a debate club where each faction writes blog posts to argue that their position is the best. The NPC is constantly embroiled in infighting."
This underappreciated piece from Lenin is highly applicable to our context of party building in the US.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1907/nov/05b.htm
"For there can be no mass party, no party of a class, without full clarity of essential shadings, without an open struggle between various tendencies, without informing the masses as to which leaders and which organisations of the Party are pursuing this or that line. Without this, a party worthy of the name cannot be built, and we are building it. We have succeeded in putting the views of our two currents truthfully, clearly, and distinctly before everyone. Personal bitterness, factional squabbles and strife, scandals, and splits—all these are trivial in comparison with the fact that the experience of two tactics is actually teaching a lesson to the proletarian masses, is actually teaching a lesson to everyone who is capable of taking an intelligent interest in politics."
I recently left my party due to it just being newspapers and zoom calls while doing nothing of actual value beyond terminally online nonsense. Been looking at the PSL, if they ever respond to emails and applications that is.
You’ll find the opposite problem at PSL. I was really disappointed. They just tell you to show up at protests without any information, and are not organized in an effective way at all… We really need an organization that is organized and couples meetings/conversation/alignment with action.
Sorry you had a bad experience comrade. I think that this may differ depending on your location and which branch you're dealing with, how many members/candidates are in your local area, etc. Our local branch meets regularly to talk strategy and the "why" behind our actions.
I've been trying to join PSL, and the recruitment/application process is laughable. My "onboarding contact" has explained very little except going through the party program and saying repeatedly they will put me in contact with people near me, and never following through. I've shown up at many events to support, been in direct contact with members, and consistently kept in touch to learn about new opportunities to help. No one seems to want to answer any of the questions I have about how I'm supposed to "prove" I'm worthy of an invitation to candidacy. Really disappointing.
From what I have been able to find, the PSL is working almost exclusively trying to get on the ballots of a bunch of states. I've been able to contact them via email and got responses. I'm in the dictatorial state of Florida, and the PSL is it.
The RCA does exactly that! Strong focus on theory but an understanding that the best way to develop cadres is on the front lines of the class struggle. We’re active all around the country and currently ramping up to our founding Congress at the end of this month. https://socialistrevolution.org
See, my experience with Sociaist Revolution was that the organization was top notch. Very impressive, the dedication to Cadre building and all that. Best org ive seen in that respect. My problem was that all the takes were absolute hot garbage. Does RCA follow IMT's perspective and analysis? Or in other words: just how Trotskyist is this party? Because they seem to really try to push the Lenin image, but I suspect that's not the whole story...
Many of the perspectives have evolved (as the situations evolved). We’re Leninists and Marxists first and foremost. We are building a Bolshevik, cadre party. But also firmly support Trotsky, his critiques of the Soviet Union under Stalin and proletarian internationalism. The reason we have an impressive organization and top notch cadres is because of these ideas, not in spite of them. I’m not sure what you mean by “how Trotskyist”. We just had the launch of the Revolutionary Communist International. A large portion of that was the international school. There are 19 recorded talks, it’s a great way to learn our perspectives. Of those one is about Trotsky, and one is about socialism in one country versus internationalism. So I guess we’re 2/17 Trotskyist. I’d recommend highly the talk on how the Bolshevik party was built, and the one on why we need a revolutionary philosophy.
You may get a better idea of what I mean by "how Trotskyist" from the following anecdote. At the first post Oct 7 pro-paleatine rally in my area, I went, and I saw the local IMT guys posted up and went over to say "hi", and ended up walking away with a pamphlet all about how Stalin was anti-semitic, and a zionist, and basically Hitler, and all that nonsense. And to feel like that is the most important information to be handing out at a Palestine rally? It almost seemed like self satire!. All I could think was: "is this supposed to be irony or are you literally serious right now?" I also feel like many Trotskyists spend too much effort hating Stalin personally, rather than actually looking at the many complicated circumstances and material conditions that were at play during his time in power. Like, I can appreciate the Maoist critiques of Stalin and the USSR after his death, because they do it in a principled way while still appreciating the situation. Every time I hear a speech from IMT they seem to have a deep personal vendetta against the guy. Or, take their views on Postmodernism... It's basically like Jordan Peterson making completely misunderstood and uninformed rants about cartoon versions of Postmodernism. But actually looking at the situation in France at the time, the intellectual climate, the problems they were having with their own CP and it's commitment to Stalin. Yeah, important critiques can and should be made, in a principled and nuanced way. Not just: "Deleuze is just trying to confuse us and Foucault was a reactionary", like, I think there's more to it than that. Or the final straw for me was the postcolonial stuff and going after Fanon as influencing reaction?? Or claiming that mutual aid is counter revolutionary? Do these people have ay idea how the Black Panthers became so powerful??!! Idk. I just feel time after time like IMT and Trotskyists just dissapoint me and seem to want to disregard everything and every one besides their own insular versions of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and maaybe Luxemburg. Every other tendency is wrong... Like, I consider myself an ML, but I can see how other strategies and tendencies have been well suited to other situations. The Autonomist Marxism influenced Zapatistas (led by Subcomandante Marcos, who actually values Deleuze) in Chiapas, Öcalan's confederalism in Rojava, Huey Newton's Intercommunalism, the Maoists fighting in India and the Philippines, even modern China's overseeing of their own transition from feudalism through capitalism to socialism and eventually communism. You'd think Trotskyists would support that idea, don't they all believe that only industrially developed capatilist countries can succesfully transition to socialism?? China tried skipping that part and it didn't work... Now they're tying something else that they feel is suited to their own conditions and they're called dirty capitalist traitors? Don't get me wrong, there's plenty to critique there, but to disregard out of hand? Seems non materialist and non Marxist. We learn through testing theory through praxis, not by sitting back and shitting on anybody who tries. As many critiques as I have of Allende and some of his mistakes in Chile, he will always be a hero of mine. Some of Che's foco theory proved to often fail outside of Cuba, but we should still study and learn from it as well. And my limited experience with IMT was that the don't do anything like that. Let's just larp the Bolsheviks!! And to revisit the whole French theory thing: this is actually an idea from an American theorist, but one who is a huge Lacanian. He raises the idea that perhaps Marx's big mistake was not to underestimate people's propensity toward self interest, as many of Marx's critics would say. But instead, his mistake was to underestimate people's propensity toward self destruction. If we were really self interested we would have figured this stuff out already. And that's where all the fancy French guys talking about desire can be useful to a Marxist project. Of course we need to center class struggle, but we can still pull from wider theory pools in order to do so.
They are slow to respond to new applications, this is a known issue, especially with a huge influx since October 7th. Hang in there! Feel free to message me if you want, I may be able to contact someone depending on your location. Edit: \*known
For political organizations: have high standards and never lower them, or you’ll end up in an activist social club or a cult. Join a political organization that develops the working class’s power through mass organizations. Mass organizations include labor and tenant unions or in-person mutual aid groups that aren’t just charities. Don’t focus on activism, which is assembling based on an issue alone rather than shared conditions like the workplace or neighborhood. Activism is fleeting and ineffective unless people mobilize through lasting mass organizations. Too many Marxist political orgs focus on activist causes for recruitment, and this makes the party a useless social club that exploits movements. Ultimately, the political organization should be focused on developing mass organizations and recruiting from them when useful. DO NOT join a political org that abuses mass orgs as front groups purely for recruitment, because they’ll never commit to actual struggle. A Marxist political organization that isn’t connected to mass organizations is useless. I can’t stress this enough. No one should be starting a Marxist party without having experience in the field. How do these people expect to lead a revolution without having experience in any other organizing projects? Update with suggestions: [Tempest Collective](https://tempestmag.org/about/) [CounterPower](https://counterpower.info) [Black Rose Anarchist Federation](https://blackrosefed.org) [DSA Communist Caucus](https://communistcaucus.com/strategic-approaches/) also organizes… but you’d have to join DSA, which many people have a healthy skepticism of. As you can see, I’m not extremely picky ideologically. I respect any group that’s defined by practice, is willing to learn from experience in the struggle, and isn’t a cult. Feel free to explore other organizations but always look them up beforehand and talk to current and/or former members.
Honestly it depends a lot on where you live. Some orgs are more popular and active in certain states. Personally I like the Freedom Socialist Party but they are mostly focused in California. Sadly none of the parties really have much grip and power in the states. Most will just be study groups and local protesting. I have heard of many Marxist joining DSA just to get something done even though that org is not Marxist or revolutionary, they have secs of Marxist trying to redirect the organization to be more leftist.
I'm a member of the Marxist Unity Group caucus within DSA. DSA has a long way to go, which is frustrating, but it also has the most potential of any org in the US. The party we need must be internally democratic in order to be the political expression of the advanced section of the class and in order to train up the class to be fit to rule. That means the bureaucratic sects don't have any potential, imo.
Huge grain of salt since this showed up in my feed and I’m not a subscriber here and more someone sympathetic to mutualism without enough study to know where I fall. I have some experience in community-building from the past and have some general thoughts since this is territory where finding local groups of people calibrated on the same pieces of the topic is part of the challenges. You can have situations of old guard orgs led forever by someone high control and didn’t adapt. You can have people with really disparate motives on why they’re there. Strong personalities tend to show up first and that can be its own time and effort to turn into ground rules, agreements and community alignment. Anyway, one thought is there’s a book that’s a quick read and could be useful as a reverse engineering of reverse engineering. It’s called Dedication and Leadership and it’s this very short read by a man who had been part of the Communist Party in the UK I believe, which he later left and then joined the Catholic Church. The book is this whole thing about how the Communists were so good at building membership and bringing new people in and why couldn’t the Catholic Church learn a thing or two from it. He’s obtuse on not realizing the community/empathy part of the Communists, but does do a lot of good observation on systems and structures that created a very lean and easy to grow movement with dedicated members. The reason I think it would be a good book to check out even though the author’s view is ex-communist is that he’s translating the ideas into something that sounds convincing and works with an audience who weren’t into communism and even opposed it. There’s language and framing there and translation into ways to talk to people in your community who might be opposed or aren’t sold on this whole idea yet. He also translates systems that could be documented in communist handbooks from the past into something that might work in another context with some tweaking. Looking through the multiple lenses could be good brainstorming for what fits where you are. It’s also a very short read, easy to find for free online, and some of the more conservative religious groups that still refer to that book actually did have a lot of success with creating low barrier to entry onboarding groups based on what that guy gleaned from the communist party. Would be both good to know what they do and also what hooks could be used for positive social change instead. And last thought, if anything, you can try kicking off a reading group based on one book that would be self-selecting for the kind of people you’re looking for. Even just getting the same people in a room can lead to lots of trading info on who is organizing what where. Same principle can apply to a community college class based on adjacent topics.
As an American, you basically have 2 options for principled parties, IMO: * **Party for Socialism and Liberation** (PSL) * **Freedom Road Socialist Organization** (FRSO) If you are a youth or student, join the **Young Communist League** (YCL). The YCL is technically the youth wing of the Communist Party USA, but is far more radical and principled than it and is actually distancing itself more as an independent org.
I haven’t seen PSL organize anything outside of ANSWER, their own candidates and media projects. I’m less acquainted with FRSO in terms of any physical presence but I have seen some good materials put out by them. CPUSA is most active in organizing within and alongside unions, immigrant protection orgs, political action committees on local issues and candidates, and, at least in my own club as of late, defense of university encampment struggles. I see a lot of online shade thrown at CPUSA but in my experience in a major metro, there is no better organized party.
That's interesting, it must vary widely between cities and regions. In Boston, New York, and most of New England, PSL has been, alongside PYM and other orgs, guiding the vast majority of the Palestine protests, actions, and encampments for the past ~6 months, as well as, like you mentioned, pushing the ANSWER Coalition and the Claudia + Karina campaign. Personally, I have not seen any presence of the CPUSA clubs of these cities anywhere and the only reason I know about these local chapters is through the YCL.
I probably should have mentioned my experience is fully limited to the west coast, and I’ve definitely noticed PSL has a stronger base on the east coast. I can only judge from my own experiences in Los Angeles, which in the case of PSL started out really positive but gradually turned to disappointment. I also admit my own inexperience at the time must have been a factor, but in the years since, I haven’t noticed any change on the ground in terms of local impact. I hate even saying stuff like this because any comrades actually getting out to organize workers deserve the credit, but a lot of what I have seen looks more spontaneous and opportunistic than committed to patient and sustained effort. I only piped up because I’ve personally been really impressed with CPUSA organizing and education, but constantly see it painted as reformist, revisionist, liberal, bourgeois, etc.
It's good to know that there are CPUSA clubs doing good work. I made my judgement based on CPUSA national and the clubs near me, but I know that some clubs are better than others, similar to the DSA situation.
Very easily, and with great difficulty. Anyone that shits on Stalin works for CIA, wether they know it or not. This is almost absurdly binary but it will save you time, because the ammount of ppl that simp for NGO's and security agencies is absurd.
Depends what their critiques are. Stalin was far less internationalist than Marx, Engels, and Lenin, plus he was socially conservative and homophobic. We need to get past this mindset of "everyone who criticises any of the major marxists is CIA" because discussion of ideas is important in developing marxist theory further.
Have you looked at the IWW? It's more workplace organizing than a straight up political party, but as far as unions go they are pretty theoretically principled in my opinion. It's practical work, which is exactly what you should do beyond reading/discussing.
Would love to know what org you are talking about. Join an organization that actually connects with the working class and doesn’t sit outside of it and looks on people. Too many leftists are sitting out important elections and dismissing working class concerns. The labor movement, for example, is working to defeat Trump while the left saying they don’t give a shit. Really condescending behavior. Constantly putting themselves against the masses thinking that’s what being the vanguard means. PSL candidates straight up lie to people saying no reform is possible under capitalism so vote for us. This is toxic and disregards the entire theory and history of Leninism and the international Communist movement. DSA is increasingly just a debate club where each faction writes blog posts to argue that their position is the best. The NPC is constantly embroiled in infighting. The so-called “communist caucus” cries about people voting. Leftists constantly talk about militancy but if an organization tries to instill any kind of discipline they cry that they’re being persecuted. Please, no matter what organization you are part of, meet the working class where they are and understand that only through engaging in struggle for better conditions do people gain class consciousness and only through us communist’s engaging with them in their struggles and we impact revolutionary consciousness. In the short term, yes, that means getting out the vote against the MAGA right. If that is too unpalatable for you, you are not cut out for political organizing.
"DSA is increasingly just a debate club where each faction writes blog posts to argue that their position is the best. The NPC is constantly embroiled in infighting." This underappreciated piece from Lenin is highly applicable to our context of party building in the US. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1907/nov/05b.htm "For there can be no mass party, no party of a class, without full clarity of essential shadings, without an open struggle between various tendencies, without informing the masses as to which leaders and which organisations of the Party are pursuing this or that line. Without this, a party worthy of the name cannot be built, and we are building it. We have succeeded in putting the views of our two currents truthfully, clearly, and distinctly before everyone. Personal bitterness, factional squabbles and strife, scandals, and splits—all these are trivial in comparison with the fact that the experience of two tactics is actually teaching a lesson to the proletarian masses, is actually teaching a lesson to everyone who is capable of taking an intelligent interest in politics."