The PSL just released two documents related to the recent Marissa Sanchez post detailing her experiences at the national level of the PSL. I'm going to be posting both of them as well as their full text for archival purposes.
I should note a couple things before I link these things:
- At multiple points, the report mentions that Marissa was reportedly fine and thankful during and after the immediate events of this incident and it's cover up. This is shown to be an example of proof that she was fine at the time, and leads into building the case that this is a factional decision. However, I am not convinced that this means she is cynically using this to split the party for her own ends. Betrayal Blindness is a collection of responses and symptoms broadly related to a person being betrayed by someone whom they rely on for financial, personal, romantic, or political needs. In order to come to terms with my experience of the same exact tendencies on a local level I read the book "Betrayal Blindness" by Jennifer Freyd, and I implore everyone to read it as well.
- Repeatedly they claim this is the result of a factional dispute. That might even be true in some ways, perhaps Marissa saw that there was a different way to organize going forward and it gave her the ability to be able to accept the abuse she faced. This, however, doesn't have to only come from a sense of macabre cynicism, being able to finally use her trauma as a loaded gun to split the party for her own selfish ends as described in the article. For myself, when I stepped away from the party for my Leave of Absence, I was able to begin to be engaged in mass organizing work that I wasn't in prior, that I didn't have the time for. This has given me the courage to be able to stand up and say that I don't think is acceptable at all.
- I am not in a faction, have not been in communication with anyone in a faction, and my disgust is only colored by my own similar experiences and emotional waves being thrown right back in my face as someone who's faced the exact same tactics myself. I'm genuinely just a trans woman by myself, I have some friends and comrades, but our local branch is still up in the air
The party routinely expects things like this to be leaked, so they prepare for the possibility. Given they already know we're going to do this, I'm just going to share the documents here for you and others here, and I leave it up to you and your comrades to decide how you feel about the party and it's current leadership. For me, the emphasis on how this fits into factional warfare is not only not convincing, but honestly disgusting.
Comprehensive Report from the Central Committee in Response to Marissa Sanchez’s Letter
NDC Statement (Sept. 2026), the password is ndcstatement
c\main so main
Comprehensive Report from the Central Committee in Response to Marissa Sanchez’s Post
spoiler
This document was approved unanimously by the Central Committee on Sept. 10. It represents the most comprehensive report we can provide to members.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation has never taken the issues of sexual assault and misconduct lightly. The entirety of our politics is grounded in a well-developed understanding of the nature of oppression and exploitation in capitalist society. Sexual violence affects all people, but it does not affect all people equally. Women are, because of the system’s reliance on patriarchy, subjected to the most horrific forms of sexual violence to keep them dehumanized, isolated from society and the struggles of our class, and highly exploited within the political and economic system. Addressing the manifestations of oppression and the sexual violence that occurs is a requirement of the highest order. We have a proud 22-year history of confronting, rooting out and appropriately addressing these issues.
On Sept. 7, a lengthy article was published on Substack by-lined by former PSL member Marissa which relates a 2020 incident involving Eugene Puryear, a long-time Party leader who resigned in March of this year. That a woman worker who experienced violence as a young person, and then experienced a violation from a trusted leading comrade, is disturbing, and hard to read for all of us — including those of us who were aware of the incident and did not speak of it widely out of respect for confidentiality of the victim. The Party leadership has maintained, from the moment it took place to now, that this was an absolute violation, which required a swift response, and that Marissa should be supported.
At the same time, the narrative that she now develops, six years later, about what took place after the incident, is false. The history is rewritten to erase the actual care that was provided, to erase the accountability that took place, and to erase what Marissa communicated then and her feelings expressed for years afterwards of feeling supported by the Party leadership. The agreed upon norms of confidentiality in this and other accountability processes — which she helped devise — she now falsely portrays as a cover up.
As written, it appears as an unrelated exposé independently confirming the allegations of the faction that the Party’s elected leaders are nefarious, undemocratic individuals who cannot be trusted. In fact, it was released in a coordinated plan with the same factional operation that goes back as far back as March — which we document at the end.
We respect the right of all people to change their feelings and opinions over time about such traumatic incidents in their lives. But there are significant factual inaccuracies in what she has related about the accountability process that followed, the level of support she received and about the internal institutions of the Party. These must be corrected, and more information must be provided for accuracy. Due to the high-profile nature of this case, and the fact that we are currently under the highest form of state scrutiny and attack, letting a false narrative like this stand would only serve to sow greater confusion and provide a basis for the opportunistic larger attacks working to disrupt the Party and members’ work at this critical time.
Under our norms, the details of disciplinary matters and outcomes are kept confidential — especially out of respect to the privacy of someone subjected to sexual misconduct. But given that she has published an article, it is clear that at this time, six years later, we have no choice but to respond.
The incident and immediate aftermath
There has never been any effort to deny or question what happened to Marissa in November 2020. Eugene sexually groped Marissa at a holiday party. She was believed and not disputed. The Party leaders were shocked and angered that this could take place. Eugene, having been heavily intoxicated, said he did not remember the assault, but did not contest what Marissa said. He accepted responsibility and offered to resign immediately. Marissa said she did not want his resignation, and so another accountability process would be devised in discussions with her. Marissa was at no point challenged or questioned about the incident, as so often otherwise happens in society when women bring serious allegations against men in leadership. There was no foot-dragging or bureaucratic process. We moved swiftly and decisively in support of her and for accountability. The quickness of moving towards a resolution was not a form of pressure, but rather ensured real and immediate accountability from Eugene, and support to her. It was not an option to delay. He was immediately suspended and removed from the situation.
Before leaving the building, they had a brief meeting where he accepted responsibility, and said he would do whatever he could to remedy the harm; she told him why his actions were hurtful and disappointing, especially as a leader that she had looked up to previously, and with whom she worked so closely almost every day. She wanted to be able to work with him in the future, but it would take time and he would need to get professional help and work on himself. At the end, they tearfully embraced.
Screenshots of her messages to a confidant that day read, “The meeting went good. I said what I needed to say and feel that I got a very genuine apology. He is suspended. No clear time when he will be back.”
When such acts of sexual misconduct take place, there is no perfect process to repair the harm. Engaging the victim in the accountability process is important to restorative justice. In this case, the resolution, worked out with Marissa in the days that followed, was not that Eugene would “not chair CC meetings for a while,” as she says now. Eugene was suspended from all Party activities for six months — public meetings, internal branch meetings, all bodies of the leadership he sat on, all protests, etc. He was mandated to go into therapy, to try to get to the root of how this happened, and told to give up alcohol for the duration of the suspension, and not go to social activities where Party members would be present. This was developed in discussions with Marissa as an appropriate punishment and response for an offense of this type. She was adamant that Eugene not be expelled, as she told both Ben and the people she confided in at the time. The idea that Ben proposed to just “move on” and never speak of it again is totally untrue.
After taking some time off after the incident, Marissa insisted on returning to her work. Eugene returned to his office for his professional work, five weeks later, but remained under suspension from all Party work.
Eugene complied with the terms of the suspension. During this period, he forwarded on all speaking invitations he received, refusing all but one, which Marissa authorized in advance. He signed up for therapy and showed documentation of his visits. He swore off alcohol for the duration. In a series of private conversations, including in the debrief at the end of his suspension, he demonstrated genuine remorse and understanding of the harm he had committed, volunteered to do whatever else was needed, and affirmed that such heavy drinking was unacceptable. The Party leadership had confidence such a violation would not recur and was not a threat to the safety of others — and there have been no charges against Eugene in the years since.
After six months out of Party leadership and all Party activity, Eugene was reintegrated into Party life and resumed the many responsibilities he had been elected to perform. Under the practices and principles of our Party, leadership is not an “elevated status” but an embrace of more responsibilities — chief among them the development of more leaders. In the years after he returned, Eugene played a key role in recruiting, mentoring and training many new cadres, and Black cadres in particular, bringing them into the spaces of the Black freedom movement where he was already the Party’s most well-known figure. From that position of leadership, as a popular communicator and first rate historian of Black history, American history and global politics in the Marxist tradition, he resumed to make a significant contribution to the movement for socialism. Long-term demotions take place in the Party only when the assessment is that the person has a pattern of bad judgment or untrustworthy behavior, or has not adequately learned from their mistakes. In general, after an accountability process is completed, the Party puts members back to work to serve wherever they can best advance the struggle. For people who remain in the organization, there are no forever punishments.
At this time, there was no National Disciplinary Committee. The National Disciplinary Commission (NDC) was formed in 2021 and ratified by the 5th Party Congress in 2022 to institutionalize the accountability and disciplinary practices the PSL has engaged in since its founding to address any issues of sexual misconduct. If such an incident were to take place today, it would go directly to the all-women National Disciplinary Committee, which has independent authority vested by the Congress, and which all members, including Central Committee members, are subject to. Its decisions are final, and can only be overturned by the Party Congress itself.
cont below.
spoiler
Prior to the formation of the NDC, when any charges came up, the existing process over the preceding 15 years was for a higher body to handle the charge. There had never been a charge against someone in the top leadership itself. Marissa at this time was one of three observers to the five-person national leadership, which Eugene was a part of and which met remotely. The only other full-time national leaders in NYC were Ben and Marissa, which is why Marissa came to Ben and he responded to the situation the same day. To give a sense of the scale of the organization at that time, the two of them had been working out of Ben’s apartment in the years before COVID as the “national staff.”At the time, two elected members of that leadership on the West Coast were told over the phone that Eugene had been suspended for six months due to misconduct at a party while heavily inebriated, without divulging the name of the victim, and he should not be contacted. The observer members of the leadership were told that he was being put into mandatory therapy including for alcohol abuse, and so would not be in the meetings for six months and was not to be contacted so he could focus on that. Marissa had input in what would be told to others, and what would not be shared.
Marissa’s letter includes supposed quotes from a conversation with Gloria La Riva shortly after her resignation in 2026. Gloria has replied, “The quotes Marissa provided are totally untrue and the description of the conversation is an outrageous distortion. While I knew Eugene had been suspended in 2020, I had not known it involved Marissa in particular. I did not say Ben and Brian mishandled disciplinary cases – leaders who I have total confidence in. The call turned to something I now realize had a deeper purpose on her part. In my conversation she began to say, ‘Everyone knows you and Richard were pushed out from the leadership.’ I said, ‘who says that?’ I was incredulous. When she insisted that was the case, without naming anyone, I told her that he and I are in California, and are in the Central Committee, and the Executive Committee is based in New York, as it should be. Even if I didn't have a leadership post, I told her I have plenty of work in the party, and I am very satisfied with what I do. It was clear to me she was trying to turn me against the party, by appealing to what she assumed would be unhappiness on my part. I realized what she was doing. But what I didn't know was the extent she was in ongoing communication with a group intending to rip apart the party. That became clear in the following weeks and I deeply resent her trying to use me against the Party leadership.”
To go back to the events of 2020: under Party norms, confidentiality is a central part of accountability proceedings, especially in sensitive issues. There was nothing unusual about that, then or now, and this did not constitute a “cover up.” She did not object to this norm. As someone who directed many disciplinary processes herself in the years before and after this incident, she always insisted on the same for others in her situation. Marissa helped write those very disciplinary norms into the Party By-laws, and into the National Disciplinary Committee protocols. In some cases, but not all, depending on the wishes of the impacted person, an apology and resolution may be communicated to a wider group of members. We make exceptions to confidentiality where we believe someone poses an ongoing threat to others’ safety, in which case they are expelled and other members, and others in the movement, are notified. When that is not the assessment, as in this case with Eugene, our process is informed by restorative accountability. Unlike the traditional retributive justice system—which relies on public record, public shaming, and punishment—restorative accountability relies upon confidentiality: for the privacy of the wronged party, for repairing harm, for creating space for honest self-reflection, and for successfully reintegrating the individual into work after they have sufficiently complied with the accountability process. An additional dimension in radical political work is that any and all sensitive information can and will be utilized by anti-Party forces, and state agents, to inflame internal contradictions or defame an organization publicly.
With that said, when Marissa expressed that she would like to confide in some more people, she then did so without any reprisal whatsoever. First she told two of the comrades she most trusted about what had happened, and her boyfriend at the time already knew. To the three of them, she said she felt supported by the Party leadership, and supported by Ben in particular, saying she had been treated with great sensitivity. She told a third leading member the same thing about suffering an assault and being well-supported by the Party leadership, without naming Eugene. She apparently told a fourth leader, also a close friend in the Party leadership, shortly after the suspension was over, naming Eugene. None of these confidants of hers were coached in any respect. When she expressed that the Party had supported her, these appear to be her genuine feelings at the time, confirmed by multiple people, including her then-boyfriend and closest confidants. Three of the comrades she brought into her confidence about this incident remained close with her for years afterwards; while she continued to confide in them about any range of personal things troubling her, no one has any recollection of the 2020 incident as one of them. All this was independently verified by the NDC in a 2026 review of the case. The NDC did not exist in 2020.
The following months and years: care and support in NYC and Los Angeles
In January and February 2021, Marissa went through a difficult and intense break-up in her relationship with her boyfriend. She confided in Ben repeatedly during this period, including coming to his house to talk about her relationship and personal struggles. During this emotionally challenging period, she received extensive care, attention and support – and expressed no dissatisfaction about the handling of the incident with Eugene. Her boyfriend, now ex, was also a co-worker in the same building. She had been doing intense Party work for a few years, which is a common cutoff time period for a staffperson. All this was impacting her work and happiness, and she expressed that it was time for a new chapter. Over time, she expressed the conclusion that perhaps leaving NYC would be preferable. The Party leadership thought of Los Angeles as a place she could make a big impact.
Contrary to her narrative, she was supported throughout this process. A comrade was assigned to drive her around full-time to see if she would like the city. When she did, she was given the apartment of a comrade in Los Angeles, money for rent and to buy a car — since in L.A. she would need one, and it is difficult to save enough as a staff person to buy a car. This was a sign of care and appreciation – and we have similarly provided relocation expenses for other former staff people after years of service to the Party. It is outrageous to now twist this into “hush money.” In Los Angeles, she was immediately integrated into the branch leadership, and her presence was celebrated as a newly arrived national leader.
Of course, with a new teaching job, and later grad school, while living thousands of miles away, the frequency of her communications with the party leadership in NYC changed. But it remained very warm, personal and caring. Below are just some of the exchanges. In 2022, while waiting to start back up at her job, she reached out for financial help from Ben, and he loaned her his own personal money. In 2023, after a tragedy in her family, she reached out to Ben for comfort: “I know we don’t talk as often as we used to, but you’ve always been in my corner so I wanted to reach out about this tough situation.” He immediately responded.
In 2023, after Ben helped her resolve a series of issues she was having in the Los Angeles branch, she wrote to express her gratitude: “I know you’re super busy, but it means the world to me that we have leaders like you that always make time for people.” When she heard Ben and his family were coming to Los Angeles that year, she invited them over for the holidays, and to meet her new partner.
All of this was in the years after the 2020 incident, at Marissa’s own initiative. This is not the behavior and words of someone who was shunned or grievously wronged. Although less frequent than when she was in New York, she still called Ben about major life decisions, and questions she was struggling with personally and organizationally. She did not bring up the 2020 incident in any of these discussions. If she had, there is nothing to indicate she would not have received the same sensitivity and attention she received in every other area of her life where she asked for support.
Marissa remained active in the National Disciplinary Committee throughout this period, and did not at any point ask to reopen or revise the remedies she sought from Eugene or the Party, nor did she advocate to revisit any of the Party’s disciplinary norms or procedures. It is not true that Ben and Brian directed the NDC’s work, nor did they overrule its findings and the targeted demonization of both in the letter is without factual foundation. It is also insulting to the members of the NDC who are strong and principled women comrades. The NDC, including Marissa, handled several complex cases during this period with great sensitivity and principle, providing a sense of justice and accountability to people seeking redress, while also upholding due process and Party norms. The NDC, founded in 2021, only was in session in the event of a serious case of misconduct, and none of the cases it has handled have brought disrepute to the Party.
Wait wdym several???
What exactly do you want to see happen? To live in a perfect world where nobody is ever harming anyone? You're seriously ???ing an organization establishing structures to handle disciplinary action to deal with sexual abuse and using those structures to appropriately deal with them when it happens?
I'm wondering how endemic the sexual predators are in PSL
I think to start I'd like to see them publicly oust anyone that admits they're a sexual predator for the sake of women in the movement knowing who to avoid
Sexual abuse can occur with any group of more than 1 person. It's going to happen at some point or another when you have thousands of people together in proximity. That fact doesn't mean it's "endemic" any more than it is in society at large. What's important is that the organization has structures in place to address it when it does happen.
So if you'd read the statement, you'd know that this is the actual official policy.
If that structure only leads to a half year suspension from a leadership position then it’s not an adequate structure and it’s reasonable to conclude that this organisation is not safe for women.
spoiler
So something changed to cause this presentation after 5-6 years about both the NDC and the support she received. Marissa had remained in the Central Committee, and was re-elected to it in 2022, having been motivated by other national leaders at the Congress. But afterwards in Los Angeles, other local leaders began to find her less responsive to the needs of leadership, and hard to work with when she did show up. With interpersonal tensions rising, which had nothing to do with anyone in New York, she left the Los Angeles Steering Committee and became much less active in the Party, focusing on her work and family life. After a while, in December 2024, she requested to be re-integrated into national work, and was immediately added back in. She reported to a confidant that her meeting with Brian “went good!” “I feel proud of doing what I had to do [in her personal life] and am deeply thankful I can integrate back in.”At that point, she understood she was not going to be re-elected by her branch to the Party Congress, and would therefore not be eligible to be in the Central Committee anymore. She made an appeal to Ben to have the Central Committee directly elect her to the 2025 Congress. The National Organization Department discussed this and decided that this would not be appropriate because such positions are reserved for people who had been primarily active in national areas of work, which she hadn’t been over the preceding period. Ben communicated this to Marissa, but explained if she were now able to be more active in other areas of national work, there were many projects she could contribute to for the next few years. She said then that she accepted this, and was excited to rebuild her level of activity. In retrospect, she later told multiple people, she felt not being specially elected by the Central Committee to the Congress as a voting-delegate was a breaking point in her feelings towards the leadership.
According to Marissa’s own narrative, in 2025 before the Congress, her feelings about the Party as a whole started to change, and now she looked back on the 2020 incident with Eugene totally differently.
But this feeling was still unknown to the leadership. In January 2026, Ben wrote to Marissa to wish her a happy new year, and that all the anti-war activity around Venezuela reminded him of her, and how we are still fighting the same battle all these years later. She wrote back “Man unfortunately yes. It makes me think of being in NYC with you all [and your daughter], but she was so little! Miss everyone. Hope you and the family are well 💗.”
How we learned of Marissa’s changed position, and our response
In March 2026, we received a call from one of Marissa’s closest friends that she had privately told him a factional operation was being prepared to break away multiple branches across the country. She had just met secretly with a Party leader who was covertly working with others to break away branches and members, who have since left to do precisely that. In this context of considering an effort to split the Party, she stated for the first time in over five years that she felt the 2020 accountability process was insufficient, and no longer believed it should have been kept so private. He alerted the party of the factional operation, but also mentioned her remarks about 2020. The Party leadership began to investigate the factional operation as this was the first time it learned there was a potential plot to break the Party apart. Marissa’s friend told her that he had reported back their conversation about the factional plot for the good of the organization, which upset her very much. Ben, still hoping that he and Marissa had a close bond and that the factional plot was untrue, sent her a message offering to come talk to her in person in Los Angeles if she did not want to talk on the phone. She did not respond. Then a few days later, she replied that she did not want to talk, had been harmed in 2020, and left all Party chats, resigning.
Marissa’s recounting of how this happened, and her subsequent resignation, leaves out the factional plot entirely.
As soon as this happened, the Party leadership informed Eugene that Marissa had told others she was no longer satisfied with the 2020 resolution, although had not indicated what other remedies would be. He again offered his resignation on the spot, and this time it was accepted. As in 2020, the Party leadership moved swiftly and decisively out of principle, again based on what we believed Marissa wanted. This too has been twisted into its opposite.
About a month before the leadership became aware of Marissa’s changed position, Eugene received an advanced, potentially life-threatening health diagnosis, which he is still dealing with, and which can be exacerbated by intense stress. He had already stopped coming into the office. We hoped that this ultimate political decision — leaving the organization he helped build his whole adult life — would demonstrate to Marissa his sincere contrition, and show that her concerns, even as they changed, were taken seriously. The NDC reached out to Marissa again to talk after the resignation, but she did not reply.
What we did hear from other friends of hers is that she expressed that more leaders should know the story. Knowing that, the Central Committee was informed about the incident that had occurred in 2020. We recognized that all victims have a right to change their opinions and feelings about past wrongs, and she should not be judged for that. We did not disclose to any comrades the reports of a factional operation, which we were still attempting to verify and unravel. We did not speak badly about Marissa at all, and continued to respect her confidentiality and request for space. All Central Committee members were under discipline, if asked, to not break the confidentiality of a situation that Marissa had not yet widely disclosed. Therefore, they were only authorized to disclose that Eugene has a severe health situation. We have had no contact with Marissa since.
Marissa continues to say she never wanted Eugene’s expulsion or punishment, nor does she want it to “define the rest of his life.” If that were the case, this is not how she would have gone about things.
Women’s leadership
The letter appears designed to direct the shock about the awful incident in 2020 into distrust of two members of its current elected leadership, Ben and Brian, and to completely deny the reality of the PSL’s collective leadership. This can only be achieved by repeating the factional operation’s narrative that erases the role of women in building, maintaining and developing the practices and policies of our party. That is now a common theme in all the attacks.
In addition to co-drafting this statement, the women members of the Central Committee want to speak separately in their own name on this point, “We are not pawns or pieces to be moved by some small cabal of men who supposedly predetermine our actions, but revolutionary socialists in our own right. Very few women in the party and in society do not have some experience of sexist violation. We are committed to building a world free from the exploitation and violence and abuse that we ourselves have suffered. Yet in a post that claims to seek a better world, those who are named are described as only extensions of the desires of our male comrades. Any serious leftist should think twice about this. We too lead the party. We make up the National Disciplinary Committee. We have spent hours on investigations and interviews and in discussions to ensure our party treats sexual misconduct with care, empathy and on principled views of what it means to transform our class and our society. We strategize the struggles in our workplaces and in our schools and in our communities. We play a visible and necessary role in the struggle and in the Party. It is unconscionable that we are repeatedly denied the right to visibility in attacks that claim to speak against the very violence that women are subjected to in society.”
For 22 years, the PSL has built a foundation we can be proud of. We have had significant growth over the few years as the popularity of socialism rises among millions, and contributed massively to a range of movements for justice. We have built institutions and processes internally along the way to strengthen the Party, and we remain fully committed to always improving on what exists. We have proven this in practice. Through every stage and phase of the Party’s development, the Party has nurtured a culture inside our organization to not tolerate bourgeois-capitalist attitudes and behaviors of patriarchal violence, misogyny and sexism. The Party has a democratically developed Constitution and Bylaws that empower our members and give legitimacy to our institutions and elected leaders to defend these norms.
This is core to realizing our shared goal of building a genuine socialist party that can, standing with our class, build the movement for a socialist reconstruction in the United States.
Connection to the factional operation
Marissa has the right to change her feelings about a traumatic incident in her life. But why distort and misrepresent what did take place in the accountability process, the care provided and the reasons she either lost or stepped down from her leadership positions in the Party – which had no connection to the incident with Eugene?
That the letter’s broadside attack on the PSL leadership and institutions coincides with the narratives that are already circulating online against the Party leadership is not just coincidence; it is by design and coordinated.
spoiler
In June, a faction of PSL members who had become dedicated to the destruction of the Party announced their resignations and characterized the PSL as a moribund organization arguing that they would commit themselves to “mass organizing” of the working class, and not Party-building or spreading socialist consciousness. Since resigning, the anti-PSL grouping has carried out a coordinated attempt to split members from the Party where they believe they find weaknesses. It seems instead of trying to organize and recruit among the 150 million unorganized workers, their only recruitment targets are existing PSL members. After leaving, they conspired to encourage a grouping in a new city to conceal their political differences and then resign; a battle over control of Party dues and offices ensued. In another city, a factional member used a false name to rejoin the Party in a new branch, and then helped organize the resignation of members. They claimed they would not stoop to personal intrigue and scandal to build their organization, but that is now demonstrably untrue. Factional leader Walter Smolarek was reported as “giddy” about Marissa’s letter, and started calling around to identify weak spots, and has been talking with current PSL members to uncover their most salacious stories, personal intrigue, old traumas and is seeking details in past internal disciplinary proceedings, presumably to prepare another round of attacks. It’s clear that the grouping has adopted a method to drive a wedge in the PSL, encourage resignations and to break trust with Party leaders using shocking “tell-all” innuendo.In the last few days we have confirmed more about the connections to the factional conspiracy:
Final thoughts: NSPM-7
Right now, at a moment of intensifying repression, the PSL is playing a leading role in so many vital struggles. Some comrades have asked whether we believe any of this involves the state. It is not possible to know this with certainty at this stage. What we know for certain is that A) there is a multi-billion dollar law enforcement operation to “destroy and dismantle” the “far left” under NSPM-7 (COINTELPRO 2.0), a document operationalized by a Department of Justice memo to use the full range of tools and methods at their disposal. B) According to media reports, the PSL was specifically named by senior Department of Justice official Harmeet Dhillon as a target to be “dismantled,” a federal grand jury has been convened in the Southern District of New York, and we have faced an unprecedented range of state and Congressional attacks in the last 9 months. C) There is a multi-layered ongoing factional operation underway, that has been rolled out over many months and across many cities, focused on trying to dismantle the PSL from within — rather than focus on organizing towards their own vision.
Predictably, a right-wing media activist, who funnels stories to FoxNews and the Department of Justice, was the first to post Marissa’s letter. We believe the hidden hand of where state forces are operating will be inevitably revealed in due time. We know from history that COINTELPRO’s favored methods are not overt repression but covert acts to "foster factionalism and cause confusion within the targeted organization," specifically aiming to discredit its leaders. That requires identifying and manipulating any existing or potential contradictions or grievances, and then hitting relentlessly so that a sensation develops of “where there’s smoke, there must be fire.” The history of COINTELPRO shows that many activists were manipulated by bad actors without any knowledge this was happening – that was in fact the most common form of sabotage. Members and former members have informed Party leadership that the anti-PSL grouping has approached them sowing discontent, searching for potential inflammatory or negative information, and trying to recruit them to the project of taking down the Party.
When a radical organization is facing a multi-layered operation to discredit it, there is nothing it can do or say to stop the attacks from coming. That is because the operation has a mission — not to improve the PSL or make it stronger, but to make it weaker and collapse the bonds of trust that hold it together. We know the state and far-right want nothing more than to tear apart the largest Marxist party that is playing a critical role in the fight-back against massive right-wing attacks. Building a mass movement against genocide in Gaza, against ICE terror directed at immigrant families, and in defense of democratic rights is the PSL’s real fight, and we aren’t going to back down from it, even in the face of a discrediting, disruption campaign.
Across the country, comrades are collectively and individually grappling with the shocking news that Marissa publicized on Monday. It is distressing to read, as we are sure parts of this document have been too. But it is critical we not concede to a false narrative intended to decapitate the Party and undermine our ability to continue contributing to the struggle. The true narrative presented here will take time to process. We encourage comrades to read this multiple times and to engage in discussion with the leaders in your branch and city.