hi! can you provide any insight on what organizing as a communist in the US would look like? i’ve gone to a couple of PSL meetings and i don’t understand their function, it seems like they’re just political rallies with the same "trump's war" and "trump's ice" slogans as the democrats and no concrete actions (i walked out with a petition to sign and nothing else; they seem to be using whatever the new headline is to get attendants rather than to actually radicalize people into the ideology). i want to get involved but any time i ask questions no one gets back to me. i saw a post of yours that mentions a lack of "communists actually engaged in leading the organized struggles of the working class" in the US and it's something i want to get involved in but don't understand how. i figured you'd have some insight. thank you for reading this if you did!!
hi it's great to hear that yr interested in organizing! i'm going to start with the outlook on the US communist movement that informs my recommendations before i give them, because my perspective as an outsider is very limited and i hope US oomfs can improve on my answer by pointing out any of my inevitable wrong views :)
first, yr local experience with the PSL tailing the democrats does match up with my general outlook on that organization, as well as the other big, legal socialist organizations in the US such as the CPUSA, FRSO, and DSA. the centers of these organizations are structurally held back from leading in a revolutionary direction because they organize openly. look at the history of violent repression faced by Black and Native revolutionary organizations in the US just for existing, interlinked with the repression of the communist party through COINTELPRO. look at the war on drugs, war on terror, look at the increasingly tight immigration bans (read: ICE kidnappings) on anyone who openly expresses support for a socialist or communist party. look at the new FBI-IRS collaboration program to identify organizations with links to "domestic terrorism," look at how terrorism charges have been handed out in the Palestine solidarity movement and the Stop Cop City movement, look at how communists around the world who are actually leading struggles get constantly labeled as terrorists, and honestly ask, in these national and international conditions, how far can an open, legal socialist organization lead along the revolutionary road in the US?
not very far imo! and so they end up tailing someone, whether that be the democrats, the trade union leadership, the social movements, china, cuba, etcetera. they can express an ideological stand with socialist revolution and pick different guys to uphold or not, some local chapters might do political education and strike support and organizer training and reading groups and social investigation and building practical skills, but they can't lead very far into revolutionary politics. the main question for the communist movement in the US and many of the other imperialist countries imo is how to move beyond them to an organizational form that has full maneuverability to articulate and implement a revolutionary strategy for taking power, a revolutionary party. in the words of lenin in where to begin:
It is not a question of what path we must choose (as was the case in the late eighties and early nineties), but of what practical steps we must take upon the known path and how they shall be taken. It is a question of a system and plan of practical work. And it must be admitted that we have not yet solved this question of the character and the methods of struggle, fundamental for a party of practical activity, that it still gives rise to serious differences of opinion which reveal a deplorable ideological instability and vacillation.
at least part of the answer to this question imo will probably come from local groups of genuine communists active within the major legal socialist orgs, but because their centers can't lead, or lead backwards, they are basically dealing with the same level of localism as an org that only exists in one city, of which there are probably hundreds if not low thousands in the US. there are attempts to go beyond this localism with new forms, but in their rejection of the old forms they tend to be a little bit dogmatic and sectarian. for one example see the AEWL, a federation of local communist groups aiming to be an intermediate organization in the formation of a communist party. for another example see the OCR, a unitary underground organization aiming to develop into a party, with a political line that is upheld by the mass organization Dare To Struggle. both the OCR and AEWL take pretty polemical stances towards 'the Four Opportunists' or 'the Left', their respective labels for the major orgs. imo they also take a needlessly hostile and practically negligent view on the labour movement, especially in strategic sectors of the economy, which seems to be a general symptom of the US communist movement rn. i prefer the more ecumenical approach to a general theory of the party articulated by phil neel, even if it's a bit academic and post-marxist. there are two other areas worth looking for theories of organization:
first is the history of the communist movement, especially looking back at the people who figured out the party of a new type for the first time. the AEWL justifies its line on how to organize on the basis of the activities of the russian social democrats in the 1880s, so it puts a lot of emphasis on study circles. the OCR justifies its line on how to organize on the basis of the early 1900s 'what is to be done-ist' bolshevik organizing. i personally like on agitation (sorry the site this is hosted on appears to be insane) which was produced between these periods so i guess im a centrist. someone could probably just as easily make a 'one step forward, two steps back-ist' argument. other unity processes in the history of the US communist movement are also interesting to look at, like the league of revolutionaries for a new america. check out finally got the news to see what a real revolutionary political line on the US labour movement looked like.
second is organizations engaged in higher levels of struggle around the world today. consider the relationship between the communist party of the philippines, engaged in a strategy of protracted people's war, and the national democratic movement. check out urban perspective to learn about underground and above ground communist organizing in the slums of india. my point is not that communists in the US should adopt the armed strategies of these organizations, and it isn't even really about whether or not armed struggle is the right strategy in their original contexts either, or whether the contributions of maoism constitute a universal blah blah blah whatever the fuck can everyone put down the ideology for five seconds, the point is that they are working on the problem of underground methods at a national scope. an example in an imperialist country is the relationship between the (N)PCI and the P. CARC in italy.
...but this is all very high level. i haven't given any practical advice on what to do, only a very general sense of a medium-term political and organizational horizon that i think it makes sense for the movement to aim at, and a few examples of how different groups are orienting (rather lop-sidedly) towards that horizon. so, drawing from all of these examples, here are the practical activities i would suggest regardless of whatever organizational forms you do or don't currently have access to:
relate to whatever forms the mobilization or organization of the masses takes in your area, even better if they aren't explicitly labeled as socialist or communist, because that's where you will find people who don't already agree with you, rather than a bunch of hyper-ideological student activists. look for strikes, look for community self defense organizing, migrant labour organizing, look for international solidarity and anti-war groups, pro-abortion and pro-trans mobilizations, look for events hosted downtown, at Black or immigrant churches/mosques/etc in working class neighbourhoods, at community centres, worker centers, union halls in cities with big union movements, on the nearest reservation, look to get a proletarian job in a large strategic workplace if that's an option for u, even liberal marches that actually bring people out or basically anywhere else before u even consider going to an event on a fuckinggggg university campus. offer them something other than marxist symbols and slogans. in the words of the LRBW: one class conscious worker is worth a thousand students
study, both individual and collective. classics of marxism, documents of current revolutionary organizations, summations of past revolutionary experiences and workplace struggles in the US... inviting people into political education is a great way to consolidate revolutionary unity on a local level regardless of whether there is an active mass struggle you can immediately relate to or not
revolutionary study includes social investigation and class analysis, the study of classes as they exist in real life. push the people who willingly self-select into a reading group to go out and talk to people who are different from them, inside and outside the workplace, to get to know the masses. you can find examples of this in the journals of both the AEWL and the OCR, you really only need a small handful of people to do this on the local level and if you can get it published somewhere it will be of use to revolutionaries across the US for getting to know the actual conditions in a wider range of places
once u are actually going out and listening more than talking to other regular people about the problems that they face and how they relate to the problems of private property and the state, figuring out where they are currently at and what will resonate with them, what contradictions they feel most acutely and what their desires and needs are, then u can start going from the masses and back to the masses (not quite yet the mass line without a party, but the underlying principle still applies), systematizing and concentrating the most advanced ideas into agitation and propaganda related to the struggles people are facing
on this mass basis, escalate struggle and consolidate unity (both with the masses and with other revolutionary organizations) through practice rather than on the basis of sectarian ideological commitments. look for ways to work together, start having conversations about the next steps for organizational forms based on the requirements of the actual level of struggle rather than trying to do populism or to proclaim a bolshevik party into existence by larping as super militant while divorced from any mass base
i hope at least some part of this is helpful, lmk if anything doesn't make sense, i'll stop here for now :)
