The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a communist political party in the United States. FRSO formed in 1985 as a merger of several Maoist-oriented New Communist movement organizations.
In 1985, the Proletarian Unity League and the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters merged to create FRSO. In 1986, FRSO fused with the Organization for Revolutionary Unity. In 1988, FRSO absorbed the Amílcar Cabral-Paul Robeson Collective.
FRSO's component groups believed that ultraleftism was the US New Communist movement's main error. Merging under the FRSO banner, these groups hoped to consolidate the movement's remnants in a single organization and move beyond the sectarianism that marked the previous decades.
1999 split
In response to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, FRSO began to develop two distinct positions on socialist countries. The "Left Refoundation" group, aligned with democratic socialism, argued that these events resulted from a deep crisis of Marxism. The "Fight Back!" group, aligned with Marxism-Leninism, argued that these events resulted from revisionism rather than failures within Marxism. These divisions grew during the 1990s. In 1998, the Left Refoundation group wrote an internal document, "Theses on Left Refoundation", and requested an organization-wide discussion.
Both factions claimed the name "Freedom Road Socialist Organization". In 2006, the Left Refoundation group renamed itself to "FRSO/OSCL", combining the English and Spanish acronym. In 2019, the Left Refoundation group renamed itself to Liberation Road.
Publications
FRSO's main publication is the website and monthly paper Fight Back! News (FB!N) and its Spanish section Lucha y Resiste.
Congress
The 9th Congress of FRSO, held in spring 2022, came at a critical juncture in the development of the people’s struggle and the accelerating decline of monopoly capitalism in the U.S. As the call to the congress states, in the recent period “we have seen a level of struggle that is unprecedented since the 1960s. The great rebellion following the murder of George Floyd, which was both broad and militant, signals the shape of things to come. It can be said the burning police stations helped illuminate the road to freedom. The fight against police crimes led to a resurgence of the African American national movement.”
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What exactly happened in Tiananmen Square? What was the protest about? How was it responded to?
Is there a decently informing video essay or documentary on it?
There is the documentary "the gate of heavenly peace" on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1LAUkTtxoFs
It came out in 1995
Got warnings for misinformation? Someone in another comment said this was written by western propagandists.
It has been criticizes by "both sides". Things are rarely so simple. The title screen shows that it was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
I think the film does a good job of laying out the complexity of the events, and anyone who is starting from 0.0 pieces of information would benefit from watching it. Anyone on hexbear is going to have enough media literacy to continue to develop their understanding from that point, so I feel comfortable suggesting it.
Even if it is a typical liberal, iirc they depict the protestors as singing the Internationale, and it is accurate about the crackdown violence happening outside of the square after most of the protestors had been dispersed. I think the tone is largely sympathetic to the protestors, and frankly I think that's fair (downvotes to the left). Between the liberal leadership of the protest movement and certain attitudes of the online left, it can get lost that there were in fact socialist comrades involved in the protests as well.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Its more well known as the June 4th incident in Chinese history and should be understood in the context of the societal transition of the Reform and Opening Up and the demise of the Gang of Four.
Like what they're doing in Iran currently, the US tried using insurgents from Hong Kong to do a color revolution and then fabricated atrocity propaganda when they didn't get their way. The student leaders from the event are still alive in the US and apparently one of them got in trouble from forcing their employees to pray. Liu Xiaobo was the Chinese version of the Venezuelan Maria Machado who passed away in a Chinese prison (good ending).
Theres a documentary on the event called "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" that while written by western propagandists uses archival footage that may be interesting to see.
Tienanmen square is also just a famous landmark in China. Its kinds like saying "what happened in the Washington monument park?" There are far more impactful changes in Chinese society than the June 4th incident like the Tax Sharing Reform of 1994 but you can read user XHS's posts on that.
The Tian’anmen Square ‘Massacre’: The West’s Most Persuasive, Most Pervasive Lie | Mango Press
A failed attempt at a color revolution. The US backed insurgents shot a few cops. No one got run over with a tank. Lots of US propaganda
I recommend you read the Redsails article. The short answer is that there was a core of the protests who were liberal students who wanted to move past the Mao era, but there were multiple other ideological and class elements that went in opposite directions.
https://redsails.org/another-view-of-tiananmen/
Here's one good overview
Hakim just reuploaded a censored version of his former Tiananmen video that got taken down
i believe this is the original version
https://tankie.tube/w/2S836zBaoNzKCYv9k7h8he
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