cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6501985
I have been considering the obvious organizations such as FRSO or PSL. However, an article really made some points that stood out to me:
https://cosmonautmag.com/2018/10/from-workers-party-to-workers-republic-2/
“What made the “Leninist party of a new type” different was not democratic centralism. Rather than simple centralism, Comintern parties had a form of ‘monolithism’ to use the phrase of Fernando Claudin.14 In other words, Comintern parties emphasized centralism over democracy or often just disregarded democratic norms entirely. While this wasn’t absent in the Second International, the Third was born as a sort of militarized civil war organization rather than a political party in the sense of a mass workers association as envisioned by Marx. While this may have been justified at a time when an actual global civil war against capitalism was on the table, this is not the case right now – we are not living in the same era of ‘Wars and Revolutions’ as the leaders of the Comintern were. When modern Leninists claim the secret of their parties’ road to success is ‘democratic centralism’, it tends to mean an overly bureaucratized group that puts heavy workloads on individual members to make them more ‘disciplined’, and a lack of actual democracy in favor of a more militarized party structure. Factions are forbidden, ideological centralism (rather than programmatic centralism) is imposed from above, and groups aim to build an ‘elite’ cadre that tails existing mass struggles, hoping to bank in on them to recruit members. The Comintern model is simply a recipe for failure in today’s conditions, just another guide to building yet another sect that will compete for the latest batch of recruits. How this actually works in practice is exemplified by the state of actually existing contemporary Leninism in the USA.
Take PSL, FRSO-FB and the ISO as case studies. Alongside schemes to take over union bureaucracy, these organizations essentially form front groups that hide affiliation to any kind of communist goals and aim to mobilize students around the latest liberal social justice issues and work in alliance with NGOs to throw rallies of mostly symbolic value. Through these activities, the cadre (or inner group) of the Leninist organization hopes to recruit parts of the liberal activist community in order to grow their base of support and garner more influence in these social movements. The organizations themselves proclaim democratic centralism, but in reality, there is no public debate about party positions allowed between congresses. At the congresses debate, takes place as little as possible and is usually led by an unelected central committee that composed of full-time staffer careerists. By using their “militant minority” tactics to act as the “spark that lights the prairie fire” in popular struggles, the modern Leninists (with some exceptions of course) tend to tail these struggles instead of fight for a class-conscious approach to issues of civil and democratic rights. One tactic often used is to hand out as many of their signs as possible to appear larger in number, when in reality this is often protesting street theater backed by NGOs connected to the Democrats who are simply using leftists as useful idiots for “direct actions” against the Republicans. Usually, the rationale for this activism is to raise consciousness among liberals. Theoretically, by ‘riding the wave’ of spontaneous activism, the militant minority group will build up enough influence to launch an insurrection. This is a delusional hope. It leads to chronic involvement in activism that takes up time and energy but doesn’t build working class institutions that can actually offer concrete gains for working people through collective action. One could describe this general strategy of tailing social movements as ‘movementism’.”
I have definitely observed this within FRSO's seeding of cadre in "front" "mass" organizations such as New SDS, anti-war groups, or various NAARPR chapters to recruit other cadre.
There is also a strange divide and turf war between otherwise similar programmatic unity between PSL, FRSO, and WWP. Like, UNITE!
Open to feedback and thoughts, need to talk it out with other comrades.
I largely agree with the comments by StalinistSteve in that thread.
I didn't read the article mentioned but I'll respond to the bit you shared.
While this may be what happens in certain western orgs, I would argue that it is because they are not utilizing dialectical materialist analysis to guide their organizational strategy and so it ultimately devolves into this type of formation. Factions should be forbidden, ideological unity is essential. The idea that a demcent org would be tailing the masses by virtue of being demcent is vapid. Organizations are tailists because they don't use dialectical materialism, therefore have an inaccurate analysis of the situation at hand, and thus can not have their politics in command because their politics are undeveloped. The democracy in demcent only works for people who actually know what the hell is going on. When people join orgs for the first time, they are totally devoid of class consciousness while completely inundated with capitalist programming. Some part of them wants to do something to help make the world a better place but spontaneous and sincere desire is not a replacement for study. Just because someone joins an org doesn't mean they should be able to vote, and in many cases these types of undeveloped people will completely derail organizations if they are allowed to have a say in things before they undergo any rigorous deprogramming and education process. Once they go through and can demonstrate that they understand the principles underlying the project, they can become cadre and participate in steering the org, but that process usually takes years. In China it is at least two years, most US orgs have a year long program, which is probably too short in my opinion but americans are lazy, impatient, and economically incentivized to quit organizing so for most of them it is in fact too long.
They really think the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Party For Socialism and Liberation are hiding their communist goals? They are openly socialist organizations which have openly socialist platforms. PSL has a huge media arm now with a lot of followers and they are producing explicitly socialist media. They, FRSO more so but both truly, do not have good grasps of dialectical materialism nor proper implementation of demcent so they are not what I would call good organizations, but I wouldn't say they are hiding their intent. Being a part of front orgs, coalitions ,etc is...a strategy I guess but not typically a good one in my opinion.
The reality is that in a settler-colonial nation like the US, all this "left unity" nonsense is devoid of material analysis. You can not have unity with people who are essentially feds, who parrot US state department lines against anti-US nations, who reject the premise of the ongoing colonial project in the US, who are happy to be in coalitions with literal fascists, zionists, and conservative white people but will fight tooth and nail to make sure the "authoritarians" don't have any influence over organizing strategy. FRSO has openly reactionary positions, this isn't because of democratic centralism, it is because they are run by reactionaries. Their recent article denying settler-colonialism's ongoing existence says it all plainly. They are settlers who believe Indigenous nations don't exist anymore (aside from the "Chicano nation" which erases hundreds of existing Indigenous nations) and they essentially push the idea that non-white people need to get over the daily abuses of racism they have to deal with from white peers and work with those same abusers because they are "both workers." This flawed analysis is because they don't have a basic grasp of Marxism and are just repeating ideas they have read elsewhere and trying to apply them to an entirely different place and time. There is no way to have unity with people like this if you are a sincere Marxist who is working to organize for the liberation of the most marginalized and oppressed people.
PSL I have more hope for despite their blatant flaws, but FRSO is going nowhere and is not a serious organization in my personal opinion.
Look towards organizations like People's Programs for an example of how a demcent org can lead the masses. They heavily lean on the work of Jalil Muntaqim, We Are Our Own Liberators which outlines how to build decolonization programs and integrate with the masses to build dual power, right now. This is the only work worth doing in my opinion, and when the empire shakes and crumbles, average people will know that the people doing this work are the ones to trust and seek out. The masses aren't looking the people showing up to every protest trying to recruit members and pass out signs, or the ones trying to get you in a reading group or a lecture, but the ones who have been in the trenches with them, supporting their survival, and speaking openly and honestly about the need for a socialist future led primarily by Black and Indigenous people.
tl:dr settlers being bad at communism isn't because democratic centralism or dialectical materialism is incorrect or not applicable in the modern context, but because settlers are LARPing leftism while consciously or unconsciously self-sabotaging by refusing to de-worm their treat addled brains and listen to colonized people
This hit me kind of hard, I've long felt that a left unity position was an important part of engaging with other leftists, especially in the face of what we're up against, but in my own organizing I've run into a clique of people in the group that have taken an increasingly sectarian turn as they attempt to "read theory" and seem to have mainlined whatever fed psyops were on reddit.
I want to work with anyone I can, and we had worked together for years. However when I put my foot down about working with transphobes and antimaskers, that was enough for the clique to withdraw their own participation in our work entirely. That left a bitter taste in my mouth and they've only become more sectarian since. I even made the effort to point out the dude they were doing a reading group of was on record as a Zionist, they act like that's something that can just get ignored because the rest of his work is just sooo good.
I'm just tired.
yeah I organized in "big tent" spaces for over 5 years and saw this happen over and over again. I am lucky to live in a place with enough ML's to organize with but I don't think most cities in the US have that option. I have had many good comrades attacked by people from "left" tendencies I won't name due to rules around sectarianism. this includes death threats, doxxing attempts, character assassinations/rumor mongering, and more. some reasons for the attacks: suggesting that a coalition have a rule around not doing drugs/alcohol during organizing meetings; not wanting an org to join a coalition because they were actively being boycotted by over a dozen Palestinian orgs for zionism; not wanting a known abuser to be allowed to constantly derail organizing work; and more totally benign and reasonable requests.
and literally every time after these coalitions push out the MLs, within a few months the whole project has fallen apart and never accomplished anything. absolute wrecker shit and always from the same types of people who adhere to the same "left" tendencies, despite being different people in different groups every time. it's almost like certain "left" tendencies are actually historically anti-communists who exist entirely to sheepdog revolutionary energy into a pit which destroys all progress and growth of class consciousness. not a conversation most people are ready to have
It really is just wrecker behavior. I don't understand how trying to maintain an orthodoxy of accepted narratives/political positions on events on the other side of the planet is somehow more anti-authoritarian than the groups they demagogue against.
I don't even consider myself any particular tendency, what I value is internationalism and treating all narratives and dogmas critically. That has not meshed well with so-called anti-authoritarians who are dead set on pushing an overwhelmingly liberal line (or something dressed up as radical but compatible with capitalism).
Being that concerned about who's going to betray you 'after the rev' just looks like counting your eggs before they hatch.