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.
It's a good article, my experience with US communist parties/orgs has been largely about too much centralism and not enough democracy. Tailist lines but more importantly tactics, a never ending building of "revolutionary consciousness" that entails bashing anyone that doesn't want to play controlled opposition for the democrats an adventurist. I have to clarify -- building revolutionary consciousness is the goal, but it's done through building dual power, not before. By limiting their organizing tactics to police sanctioned parades and attempting to build revolutionary consciousness among systemically reactionary groups, they're continually doomed to fail and thus function to forever condemn anyone looking to build a functional movement or even do a functional action.
Another aspect in the USA is the labor aristocracy. These orgs fail to see this as an integral part of organizing in the USA due to the fact that many of them are labor aristocracy, forever prioritizing the "white working class" and not building a base among the non-settler classes and then reaching out for settlers to work under non-settler leadership. As it is we have continual issues of organizations headed by white people saying they represent the liberation of black and indigenous people, having those same people abused or even sexually assaulted in the organizations on a systemic basis, and when they call the organizations out they get fed-jacketed. I legitimately think these orgs would have a better shot doing revolutionary work if they admitted their labor aristocracy base, put forth theories of transcending whiteness and committing class suicide, and put themselves at service to the revolutionaries around the world and at home instead of considering themselves vanguards to a cause that isn't in their class interest. No more shit like PSL creating theories of indigenous liberation that just recreate the colonial relationship that exists today, because as long as that kind of thing keeps happening the actual revolutionary classes of america will never have anything to gain from them.
Who says this?
What do you mean by this, specifically? What theory of indigenous liberation has PSL put out that recreates the colonial relationship?
I'm not saying they're directly saying it (although they often do) I'm saying that it's what they do in practice. If a communist organization prioritizes labor politics in a settler colonialist structure they end up with incorrect theory -- "Israeli and Palestinian working class unite!". CPUSA, PSL, FRSO doesn't make distinctions between the white labor aristocracy and the black proletariat, or black labor aristocracy for that matter. A ghettoized black person works a permanent underclass, doing the dirty work at hyper-exploited wages, experiencing near apartheid in every sense in every institution to keep them there or in jail otherwise. A white working class person will be excused from much of this barbarity at their expense, allowed to work IT while black people clean the toilets. These interests are different and the distinction is vital and necessary to be made, or else we end up with incorrect and hell you could even call crypto-trotskyist theory. These orgs always end up becoming majority white as a result, continually trying to unite the oppressed with the oppressor (with the oppressed always being "at fault" for not participating).
For the second example I could bring up so much, I'll start with this red nation article but what comes to mind is their Socialist Reconstruction book where they advocate for the liberation of native peoples under "working class leadership" of the whole of America. I could also mention the numerous times they've mentioned "honoring treaties" as a solution, a red flag we should be treating as if people advocated for a "two state solution".
The present internal situation of the United States is not comparable to the present state of the Israel-Palestine conflict. This is indisputable material fact. The United States is not levelling downtown Chicago to make room for dogshit white eurobeat clubs.
I spent this last Saturday degreasing an industrial molding machine alongside my Burmese co-workers, one of whom is my boss now. You have an insane, and materially incorrect politics.
The conditions are different, but not entirely dissimilar. The thing is now citizenship is a measure of whiteness aside from the ghettoized, so we have an iraqi, burmese, euro-american, etc etc labor aristocracy that do jobs handling the resources gained overseas at a fraction of what we're paid. The united states is constantly displacing ghettoized and homeless people to build gentrified areas and will violently displace natives if their concentration camp happens to be on top of some uranium. Like sure Israelis are less lazy fascists with healthcare and more domestically deployed bombs but americans are still fascists doing the same god damned shit
Let me ask you a very basic question. Do you think that it is necessary to mobilize a majority coalition; that is to say a coalition that represents the interests of the numerical majority of the population, in order to actually materialize a revolution from the lower classes?
If not, I think I see where our points of disagreement come from.
No. I am not a populist or a tailist, I recognize communism is extremely unpopular in america and will not be in the nations popular interest unless the vast majority of lazy white america one day feels like working the fields for the rest of their lives is a good idea as to give their grandchildren a life worth living. Until we smash imperialism these revolutionary circumstances will not arise, and as such I am a revolutionary defeatist in our context. We need to create the conditions.
Ah, so you're an Ultra then? I suspected as much.
I agree with the diagnosis, but not the precise treatment plan. A Socialist revolution has to be a democratic one as well. It has to be democratic, and it has to be majoritarian, because it has to actually provide a material benefit to the majority of workers which it will have to rely on for it to actually survive & triumph against the forces of reaction. If it can't do this, it will be consumed utterly, as happened to the Afghan Socialist government, and the Spaniards before them.
Decolonial theory is not a good practical fit for the United States because it is not a majority black/indigenous country, nor is it one which is surrounded by hostile indigenous nations which could potentially collapse it were they to work in concert to do so.
The difference between Israel & America is that America actually achieved what it intended to do, and we all have to work in the aftermath of that. You can't rewind the historical record, you can only keep going forward as new events & opportunities make themselves apparent.
The best solution to my mind, is to build a multiracial coalition of the working class at home who understand & are committed to Marxist-Leninist principles & who can make a move for power when revolutionary opportunities arise; and simultaneously support national-liberation movements & anti-imperialism abroad in order to create those revolutionary conditions.
The part we seem to disagree on is the middle section.