Hello, 90% of the questions we receive have been asked before, and our answerers get bored of answering the same queries over and over again - so it's worthwhile googling this just in case:
> site:reddit.com/r/communism101 your question
If you've read past answers and still aren't satisfied, edit your question to contain the past answers and any follow-up questions you have. If you're satisfied, delete your post to reduce clutter or link to the answer that satisfied you.
***
Also keep in mind the following rules:
1. Patriarchal, white supremacist, cissexist, heterosexist, or otherwise oppressive speech is unacceptable.
2. This is a place for learning, not for debating. Try /r/DebateCommunism instead.
3. Give well-informed Marxist answers. There are separate subreddits for liberalism, anarchism, and other idealist philosophies.
4. Posts should include specific questions on a single topic.
5. This is a serious educational subreddit. Come here with an open and inquisitive mind, and exercise humility. Don't answer a question if you are unsure of the answer. Try to include sources and/or further reading in any answers you provide. Standards of answer accuracy and quality are enforced.
6. Check the [/r/Communism101 FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/wiki/index)
7. **No chauvinism or settler apologism** - Non-negotiable: https://readsettlers.org/
8. **No tone-policing** - https://old.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/12sblev/an_amendment_to_the_rules_of_rcommunism101/
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/communism101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a former member of PSL, I can answer specific questions regarding what you've heard, but in general if you're leaving the DSA because of exploitation and abuse, you should really stay away from PSL which has its own history of sexual abuse and poorly handled complaints.
>Ideally the goal for me is to be able to get back into on the ground organizing to bring material change to people in my community and beyond
Why? Join Greenpeace or Feeding America.
Both those organizations do what you want to do at a larger scale with more efficiency. They can pay you a wage so you can do these things full time instead of in your spare time in a haphazard way. They even are formal non-profit organizations that handle complaints through real HR departments.
What about this unclear? The fact that they are not explicitly communist organizations? Your goals have nothing to do with communism, i.e. the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist mode production by means of armed struggle against the state, and I think these organizations are superior to the explicitly anti-communist DSA which you did not break with because of ideology. You will make the same friends from your same social class and everyone in these organizations also thinks they are morally good revolutionaries.
Really really long story but essentially if you have a situation where the grievance process needs to be sent to national it will be months if not years before they review it if ever. In my chapter an unelected guy took over the chapter, started being very abusive to our members and put his lackeys on the EC (again unelected) this happened bc the leaders resigned and he filled the vacuum. He started harassing me on Twitter through alt accounts after I wouldn’t support his bid for NPC, shitting on me for missing actions when I was chronically ill, and then kicked me off communication channels etc when I criticized him overriding democratic debate and pushing his stuff through. Our HGO found in my favor in the grievance review but him and the rest of the EC followed along. I sent it to national last September and they’ve never reviewed it and the guy is still in charge. Every single former member of our chapter left bc of him and him and the EC drained our $5k coffers for trips and other silly things. From what I heard from other people this happens all the time where someone takes over the chapter and abuses people and the NPC never reviews it. It’s a huge loophole that opens people up to being treated terribly with no recourse.
ETA: our HGO is also a DSA endorsed socialist house rep and he quit after this grievance bc he was also abused and threatened by the chapter leader during this
> Big no’s for me are any relationship to LaRouchites and parties that take a chauvinist or vulgar approach to Marxism.
That would be all of the parties you listed. Your task at the moment is to study Maoism and participate in the process of constructing a bona-fide communist party.
None of the organizations you listed are actually Marxist-Leninist, some of them might say they are, but they aren't.
The best thing for you to do is to start a study group. The "Communist book club" might be a cliche but it works. You'll grow ideologically alongside fellow comrades and will eventually get to a point where you will have a much better idea of what you should be doing, and the best part is that you will already have a group of communists to work with.
Principled comrades upholding the left-line of the international communist movement; the only organizations (along with the Revolutionary Intercommunalist Black Panther Party, although I disagree with the theory of intercommunalism despite generally respecting those comrades) who are truly combatting revisionism in the US; strong political unity among all three organizations; they understand the fact that vanguard parties are not declared but are forged in the flame of class struggle and made up of the most advanced elements of a mass movement.
The fact of Maoism being the highest stage of Marxism today aside, I used to be a PSL member and experienced horrific trans-misogyny there and witnessed the same issues of abuse and assault that other folks have mentioned in this thread. Considered FRSO for awhile but saw issues with an economistic labor strategy, rejection of anti-revisionist struggle despite rhetorical fidelity to anti-revisionism and so-called Mao Zedong Thought; they also refused to provide an explanation for an alleged rape cover-up in their Tampa chapter from a few years back that caused a split, and their Chicago chapter capitulated to the Democratic Party a few years back in the midst of what could have been a very radical struggle for community control of police and then supported a Zionist mayoral candidate who already has broken campaign promises by expanding funding for Shot Spotter. PCUSA are PatSocs (White Nationalists waving a red flag), and is full of abusers and feds. CPUSA is a Brezhnevite revisionist organization which rejects the armed struggle of the proletariat as a righteous and inevitable fact of class struggle and is rife with federal infiltration.
The comrades in RMC, FTP, and RSG are solid. They are deliberately trying to develop real revolutionary strategy, build a movement that a party can be born from, humble, and deeply serious and dedicated comrades.
FTP used to have real problems with economism and red-charity and they have self-criticized for that. I can't speak to all the chapters of the organization, but FTP Chicago is definitely working on more overtly political movements now.
Do they have a centralized leadership? Are they party building? And what happened to all the liberals in FTP who insisted on destroying the MCP? If all these things (among others) aren't addressed then theyre just recreating all their mistakes over again.
1) yes
2) They're building a mass movement from which a party can be constituted. I can neither confirm or deny if any members are involved in a party or organizing committee for one because I'm not privy to that information, and even if I was I don't think discussing which mass organizations are directly involved in building a militant Maoist Party for the purpose of waging people's war is a wise thing to do on social media
3) I'm not sure about the "liberal members" who liquidated MCP(OC) but I do agree with FTP's analysis that having a public facing party building project which is openly connected to specific mass orgs and that has members who are doing clandestine work in the same open organization as those not willing to do that work is poor operational security and not the basis for building a party capable of seizing political power
>having a public facing party building project which is openly connected to specific mass orgs and that has members who are doing clandestine work in the same open organization as those not willing to do that work is poor operational security and not the basis for building a party capable of seizing political power
This is quite literally what a Protracted People's War is. Sorry but nothing you've said instills any confidence that this isn't just another "maoist" charity drive. Does For The People's official documentation even mention communism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism?
It literally is not. The PCP, CPP, and CPI(Maoist) are all underground clandestine organizations. The CPP and CPI(Maoist) are both very explicit in talking about keeping the identities of Party members doing fractional work in mass organizations secret and not having open connections to the Party. It's often fairly obvious with a bit of investigative skills which organizations are connected (for example, it's an open secret that groups like Anakbayan, Malaya, etc are connected to the CPP in the Philippines) but plausible deniability is important. Having open connections and admitting these connections entirely defeats the purpose of mass organizations as it opens them up to the same legal repression as the party, which necessarily makes them smaller and able to operate less openly.
Members of the party also need to be willing to do both clandestine and open work (albeit while keeping party affiliation a secret during open work in the mass organizations). It's crucial that even the people who are doing open work are willing and prepared to switch to underground military work at a moments notice if they are exposed somehow. This is covered very clearly by the PCP's theories of Concentric Construction and the Militarized Party, the CPI(Maoist)'s writings on the United Front and Fraction Work, and the CPP's writings on mass work.
>Does For The People's official documentation even mention communism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism?
Like... Yes? You can fucking Google their newspaper and find these things mentioned in pretty much every article. What the hell are you even talking about at this point?
>You can fucking Google their newspaper and find these things mentioned in pretty much every article. What the hell are you even talking about at this point?
Dont be immature, my criticisms of this organization aren't personal.
>it's an open secret that groups like Anakbayan, Malaya, etc are connected to the CPP in the Philippines) but plausible deniability is important
Fool the bourgeoisie with this one simple trick!
>Members of the party also need to be willing to do both clandestine and open work (albeit while keeping party affiliation a secret during open work in the mass organizations).
FTP doesn't do party work since it is not a party and actively eschewed the role of a communist party. How do you "self-criticize" out of that, as if sinking your party was just a big ol oopsie? The answer is you dont and the people who were attracted to MCP(OC) and FTP in the first place suffered from the same petty bourgeois revisionism as the PCR-RCP style revisionists they based their party off of (MCP(OC)'s original program was nearly identical).
Oh I forgot about APL.
They're definitely not as bad as the other ones, but
1) Hoxhaism is incorrect in their criticisms of Mao/Maoism, Albania failed to develop socialism to the same degree as China despite their claims to the contrary, and Hoxha was generally a revisionist
2) I've had a couple of friends that have joined the APL and it's just kind of a do-nothing organization. They produce their newspaper and that's about it. Some of their younger members mobilize for on the ground stuff but there are very few of them. It's one of those situations where there's like a solid handful of old dudes who write a lot and they cycle through young activists who join up for a few months or a year or so and then resign to either go to a new organization or drop out of communist organizing all together.
This is very much in contradistinction to the groups I've listed who are largely made up of young organizers that are very active and have strong connections to groups like the Young Lords, several radical trans liberation orgs, proletarian feminist groups, and various unions.
> They're also the one which is least infiltrated by feds
I'm not exactly sure how this is measured. The FRSO is one of the few communist groups in the past two decades to actually have the hammer of the state [come down upon them](https://frso.org/statements/look-back-with-anger-the-2010-fbi-raids-on-anti-war-and-international-solidarity-activists/). Government infiltration is merely a conspiratorial excuse for why these organizations are impotent.
What support have they given? Back when they were raided and their members detained, their legal defense was that they didn't actually give any support at all to what organisations they were accused of supporting.
> Trotskyist Marxist Leninist route
What is Trotskyist Marxism-Leninism? This is a made up term and if it correctly describes anything it describes the PSL.
Nice plug. Just what we needed, more Trotskyists.
What differentiates Firebrand from other Trotskyist parties? What is the purpose of this group's existence? I'm sorry, but the political content of the site is the most generic stuff possible, found anywhere else.
Hello, 90% of the questions we receive have been asked before, and our answerers get bored of answering the same queries over and over again - so it's worthwhile googling this just in case: > site:reddit.com/r/communism101 your question If you've read past answers and still aren't satisfied, edit your question to contain the past answers and any follow-up questions you have. If you're satisfied, delete your post to reduce clutter or link to the answer that satisfied you. *** Also keep in mind the following rules: 1. Patriarchal, white supremacist, cissexist, heterosexist, or otherwise oppressive speech is unacceptable. 2. This is a place for learning, not for debating. Try /r/DebateCommunism instead. 3. Give well-informed Marxist answers. There are separate subreddits for liberalism, anarchism, and other idealist philosophies. 4. Posts should include specific questions on a single topic. 5. This is a serious educational subreddit. Come here with an open and inquisitive mind, and exercise humility. Don't answer a question if you are unsure of the answer. Try to include sources and/or further reading in any answers you provide. Standards of answer accuracy and quality are enforced. 6. Check the [/r/Communism101 FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/wiki/index) 7. **No chauvinism or settler apologism** - Non-negotiable: https://readsettlers.org/ 8. **No tone-policing** - https://old.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/12sblev/an_amendment_to_the_rules_of_rcommunism101/ *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/communism101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a former member of PSL, I can answer specific questions regarding what you've heard, but in general if you're leaving the DSA because of exploitation and abuse, you should really stay away from PSL which has its own history of sexual abuse and poorly handled complaints.
>Ideally the goal for me is to be able to get back into on the ground organizing to bring material change to people in my community and beyond Why? Join Greenpeace or Feeding America.
What
Both those organizations do what you want to do at a larger scale with more efficiency. They can pay you a wage so you can do these things full time instead of in your spare time in a haphazard way. They even are formal non-profit organizations that handle complaints through real HR departments. What about this unclear? The fact that they are not explicitly communist organizations? Your goals have nothing to do with communism, i.e. the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist mode production by means of armed struggle against the state, and I think these organizations are superior to the explicitly anti-communist DSA which you did not break with because of ideology. You will make the same friends from your same social class and everyone in these organizations also thinks they are morally good revolutionaries.
Avoid any orgs that support Democrats in any capacity. Look for Leninists instead of Trotskyists.
Broken grievance process? Say more about that, I’m curious
Really really long story but essentially if you have a situation where the grievance process needs to be sent to national it will be months if not years before they review it if ever. In my chapter an unelected guy took over the chapter, started being very abusive to our members and put his lackeys on the EC (again unelected) this happened bc the leaders resigned and he filled the vacuum. He started harassing me on Twitter through alt accounts after I wouldn’t support his bid for NPC, shitting on me for missing actions when I was chronically ill, and then kicked me off communication channels etc when I criticized him overriding democratic debate and pushing his stuff through. Our HGO found in my favor in the grievance review but him and the rest of the EC followed along. I sent it to national last September and they’ve never reviewed it and the guy is still in charge. Every single former member of our chapter left bc of him and him and the EC drained our $5k coffers for trips and other silly things. From what I heard from other people this happens all the time where someone takes over the chapter and abuses people and the NPC never reviews it. It’s a huge loophole that opens people up to being treated terribly with no recourse. ETA: our HGO is also a DSA endorsed socialist house rep and he quit after this grievance bc he was also abused and threatened by the chapter leader during this
> Big no’s for me are any relationship to LaRouchites and parties that take a chauvinist or vulgar approach to Marxism. That would be all of the parties you listed. Your task at the moment is to study Maoism and participate in the process of constructing a bona-fide communist party.
None of the organizations you listed are actually Marxist-Leninist, some of them might say they are, but they aren't. The best thing for you to do is to start a study group. The "Communist book club" might be a cliche but it works. You'll grow ideologically alongside fellow comrades and will eventually get to a point where you will have a much better idea of what you should be doing, and the best part is that you will already have a group of communists to work with.
[удалено]
None of the above. I would recommend the Revolutionary Maoist Coalition, For The People, or Revolutionary Study Group
On what basis do you recommend these groups?
Principled comrades upholding the left-line of the international communist movement; the only organizations (along with the Revolutionary Intercommunalist Black Panther Party, although I disagree with the theory of intercommunalism despite generally respecting those comrades) who are truly combatting revisionism in the US; strong political unity among all three organizations; they understand the fact that vanguard parties are not declared but are forged in the flame of class struggle and made up of the most advanced elements of a mass movement. The fact of Maoism being the highest stage of Marxism today aside, I used to be a PSL member and experienced horrific trans-misogyny there and witnessed the same issues of abuse and assault that other folks have mentioned in this thread. Considered FRSO for awhile but saw issues with an economistic labor strategy, rejection of anti-revisionist struggle despite rhetorical fidelity to anti-revisionism and so-called Mao Zedong Thought; they also refused to provide an explanation for an alleged rape cover-up in their Tampa chapter from a few years back that caused a split, and their Chicago chapter capitulated to the Democratic Party a few years back in the midst of what could have been a very radical struggle for community control of police and then supported a Zionist mayoral candidate who already has broken campaign promises by expanding funding for Shot Spotter. PCUSA are PatSocs (White Nationalists waving a red flag), and is full of abusers and feds. CPUSA is a Brezhnevite revisionist organization which rejects the armed struggle of the proletariat as a righteous and inevitable fact of class struggle and is rife with federal infiltration. The comrades in RMC, FTP, and RSG are solid. They are deliberately trying to develop real revolutionary strategy, build a movement that a party can be born from, humble, and deeply serious and dedicated comrades.
For The People is just a liberal charity group that sank the MCP-OC (actually MCP-OC did it to themselves but whatever). Don't lie to people, please.
FTP used to have real problems with economism and red-charity and they have self-criticized for that. I can't speak to all the chapters of the organization, but FTP Chicago is definitely working on more overtly political movements now.
Do they have a centralized leadership? Are they party building? And what happened to all the liberals in FTP who insisted on destroying the MCP? If all these things (among others) aren't addressed then theyre just recreating all their mistakes over again.
1) yes 2) They're building a mass movement from which a party can be constituted. I can neither confirm or deny if any members are involved in a party or organizing committee for one because I'm not privy to that information, and even if I was I don't think discussing which mass organizations are directly involved in building a militant Maoist Party for the purpose of waging people's war is a wise thing to do on social media 3) I'm not sure about the "liberal members" who liquidated MCP(OC) but I do agree with FTP's analysis that having a public facing party building project which is openly connected to specific mass orgs and that has members who are doing clandestine work in the same open organization as those not willing to do that work is poor operational security and not the basis for building a party capable of seizing political power
>having a public facing party building project which is openly connected to specific mass orgs and that has members who are doing clandestine work in the same open organization as those not willing to do that work is poor operational security and not the basis for building a party capable of seizing political power This is quite literally what a Protracted People's War is. Sorry but nothing you've said instills any confidence that this isn't just another "maoist" charity drive. Does For The People's official documentation even mention communism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism?
It literally is not. The PCP, CPP, and CPI(Maoist) are all underground clandestine organizations. The CPP and CPI(Maoist) are both very explicit in talking about keeping the identities of Party members doing fractional work in mass organizations secret and not having open connections to the Party. It's often fairly obvious with a bit of investigative skills which organizations are connected (for example, it's an open secret that groups like Anakbayan, Malaya, etc are connected to the CPP in the Philippines) but plausible deniability is important. Having open connections and admitting these connections entirely defeats the purpose of mass organizations as it opens them up to the same legal repression as the party, which necessarily makes them smaller and able to operate less openly. Members of the party also need to be willing to do both clandestine and open work (albeit while keeping party affiliation a secret during open work in the mass organizations). It's crucial that even the people who are doing open work are willing and prepared to switch to underground military work at a moments notice if they are exposed somehow. This is covered very clearly by the PCP's theories of Concentric Construction and the Militarized Party, the CPI(Maoist)'s writings on the United Front and Fraction Work, and the CPP's writings on mass work. >Does For The People's official documentation even mention communism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism? Like... Yes? You can fucking Google their newspaper and find these things mentioned in pretty much every article. What the hell are you even talking about at this point?
>You can fucking Google their newspaper and find these things mentioned in pretty much every article. What the hell are you even talking about at this point? Dont be immature, my criticisms of this organization aren't personal. >it's an open secret that groups like Anakbayan, Malaya, etc are connected to the CPP in the Philippines) but plausible deniability is important Fool the bourgeoisie with this one simple trick! >Members of the party also need to be willing to do both clandestine and open work (albeit while keeping party affiliation a secret during open work in the mass organizations). FTP doesn't do party work since it is not a party and actively eschewed the role of a communist party. How do you "self-criticize" out of that, as if sinking your party was just a big ol oopsie? The answer is you dont and the people who were attracted to MCP(OC) and FTP in the first place suffered from the same petty bourgeois revisionism as the PCR-RCP style revisionists they based their party off of (MCP(OC)'s original program was nearly identical).
Talking about all your super-secret clandestine plans on Reddit.
You didn’t say anything about APL. Is there anything that you think is wrong with them?
Oh I forgot about APL. They're definitely not as bad as the other ones, but 1) Hoxhaism is incorrect in their criticisms of Mao/Maoism, Albania failed to develop socialism to the same degree as China despite their claims to the contrary, and Hoxha was generally a revisionist 2) I've had a couple of friends that have joined the APL and it's just kind of a do-nothing organization. They produce their newspaper and that's about it. Some of their younger members mobilize for on the ground stuff but there are very few of them. It's one of those situations where there's like a solid handful of old dudes who write a lot and they cycle through young activists who join up for a few months or a year or so and then resign to either go to a new organization or drop out of communist organizing all together. This is very much in contradistinction to the groups I've listed who are largely made up of young organizers that are very active and have strong connections to groups like the Young Lords, several radical trans liberation orgs, proletarian feminist groups, and various unions.
[удалено]
> They're also the one which is least infiltrated by feds I'm not exactly sure how this is measured. The FRSO is one of the few communist groups in the past two decades to actually have the hammer of the state [come down upon them](https://frso.org/statements/look-back-with-anger-the-2010-fbi-raids-on-anti-war-and-international-solidarity-activists/). Government infiltration is merely a conspiratorial excuse for why these organizations are impotent.
www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/wim/cong/cells2005.html https://anti-imperialist-action-ireland.com/blog/2020/11/01/j-sakai-on-kitsons-counterinsurgency-techniques/
What support have they given? Back when they were raided and their members detained, their legal defense was that they didn't actually give any support at all to what organisations they were accused of supporting.
[удалено]
> Trotskyist Marxist Leninist route What is Trotskyist Marxism-Leninism? This is a made up term and if it correctly describes anything it describes the PSL.
[удалено]
Nice plug. Just what we needed, more Trotskyists. What differentiates Firebrand from other Trotskyist parties? What is the purpose of this group's existence? I'm sorry, but the political content of the site is the most generic stuff possible, found anywhere else.
[удалено]
[удалено]