politics

PSL is now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to employ software developers to build an A.I.-powered secret police system with the objective of spying on members of every PSL branch in the country

Come the fuck on. "North korean defector" tier shit

Alright so I read the whole letter. All the leadership shit can be dismissed, leaders concealing their views because they're unpopular and might result in them losing their power is not a solveable problem, it's going to happen in every organisation until the end of time. You are not going to get an organisation with a leadership that does not actively try to keep their popularity and leadership, it doesn't exist, the dynamic that matters is that even with the leadership secretly opposing projects those projects are still going ahead because the leadership can't air their unpopular views and properly shut them down. That's all a non-issue really, just a matter of efficiency being harmed because leaders are fucking around and projects are battling sabotage, harming their success. Alright fine. Whatever.

The more important part of this entire thing basically boils down to the difference between build the party or build the base.

In the UK, I've watched for a very long time now as the communist parties pursue a goal of building the base. Some of them with some degree of successes.

The issue however is that all the parties pursuing this have reactionary policies on cultural issues. CPB, CPGB, CPGB-ML, all of them are transphobic terf fuckheads to some degree. The argument the leadership of PSL makes "it makes the members more conservative" is accurate in my experience.

The problem this creates is that the reactionary lines that these parties have become dealbreakers for new members. You will never get me to join a party with the positions they have, you will never get anyone who knows lgbt people (and cares about them) to join those parties either. They know the parties have lines that throw the people they care about under a bus.

The organisers of the working class are all radicals, the vast majority of which are the most progressive people on all issues, particularly the culture war ones. If you create party policy that turns away radicals, you have no fucking organisers. From my perspective, I prefer PSLs approach and think it's more effective. Solving the issue of the distance between the party and the working class should come once the radicals themselves have been gathered, you can't do shit without organising them and you can't organise them without party lines that are attractive to them. Growing while maintaining enough central power to re-orient later and unleash all the organisers in one single task seems like the better method, at least from what I have seen.

The steps as I see them are:

1. Organise the radicals of the country into one party.

2. Orient the radicals into mass organising and agitation. They get to keep their progressive views and a party line that is appealing to them, but they put their efforts towards mass organising.

3. Keep enough central authority within the party so you can set ALL these radicals onto one single task together all at the same time. This enables a small number of people to do very big things with an outsized impact. My belief is that if you set all of them onto the same task of mass organising simultaneously, around one issue or thing, you'll get better results than distributed groups all doing their own separate things on separate issues. Easier said than done though.

Somewhere in this country, a microparty of forty men is in the process of becoming two microparties of twenty over a question with no merit. A faction expels a faction. A city committee declares the national leadership revisionist and secedes, taking the mailing list and Twitter account with them. The overwhelming majority of such events are of no consequence to anyone.

Lol

Y'know I'd like for one of these orgs to get big enough so shit like this doesn't matter to people. A disgruntled party leader or prominent member leaving for a mix of inter-personal shit and the party not going his way isn't anything outstanding, like at all, but since leftists online for as radical as they claim to be are actually really squeemish about joining an organization they'll dig up every single complain about an org before considering asking on reddit if they should join.

Like imagine if a top democrat or republican left the party, no one would give a shit, you'd still have to join them to get something done, but since the actual organized radical left in many countries is so marginal the orgs don't have enough gravitational pull on their own for these infighting and bombastic denouncements not to matter.

His framing of "gaining influence amongst radicals" (bad) vs "organizing the working class" (good) makes him sound like a tailist. Unless there is a clarification of his political positions in that google doc that no one should click, that is a significant enough political break that this could just be opportunist slander.

“He writes: As capitalism inevitably produces injustices, the revolutionary party [PSL] calls or joins protests. It recruits participants in these protest movements by expressing views that participants come to see as correct. When there are not protests, the party does agitational outreach to show itself and change the minds of more people. Capitalism’s own dynamics ensure that this cycle can be relied on to continue. Eventually, the capitalist system produces a crisis acute enough to throw the system into question, and if the Party is big enough, the protests can become a revolution. This is essentially it. The PSL dresses up this simplistic concept with the socialist consciousness thesis—the idea that unique historical conditions [in modern America] preclude any path to revolution but to widely popularize our particular definition of socialism, positioning the party for the abrupt seizure of power at the time of a revolutionary crisis. What makes the thesis attractive to PSL is that it explains and excuses the sheer marginality of the organization—if the only road to revolution is the popularization of a given line, regardless of its resonance (or lack thereof) with mass struggle, then a group that “popularizes” is discharging its historic duty, and it does not need to analyze anything beyond assuring the presence of this line in the public.”

The only criticism here is that they are small. There is no magic formula for gaining more influence other than organising activities and repeating your own message.

“Smolarek then rejects PSL’s delusional self-conception as a party. He writes: PSL calls itself a party but, by concrete measures, it is an ideological tendency… A party is an organization that can credibly claim to represent a class or a section of a class… A tendency is an organization that gains ground not by organizing the working class but by gaining influence amongst radicals.”

Once again: what is the criticism here, apart from ‘being small’? I’d also love for us to be successful straight away, but unfortunately you have to build things up patiently if you want to establish a large organisation.

“People are afraid to say out loud what they suspect—that not joining any such sect may really be better than the PSL if the goal is to fight the class struggle in America today.”

Doing nothing isn’t better than doing something. Who on earth thinks like that?

“It uses that influence to do one thing: it persuades a generation of young radicals that revolution in America is impossible. ”

How does that work? This is a serious accusation, but is there any evidence to back up this claim?

“All three [PSL, DSA-faction ‘Red Star Caucus’ and the American Communist Party] share the same idealist core: that consciousness is transmitted from above, that the organization's growth within its chosen turf is a worthwhile measure of progress, and that the working class will eventually fall in line behind the correct slogan—a formula that, as Smolarek notes, ignores the atomization of the working class, the strength of the right, and the simple fact that the masses make history only when they are organized as a class.”

• The ACP exists only on social media. Comparing them to those other two is not a serious undertaking.
• It is true that a party is built from the top down. Nobody is born a communist; you become one through ideological training within a party.
• The growth of a party is indeed a worthwhile goal. I agree with the author’s assessment of the opponent’s strength, but why is that an argument against trying to grow within the circles where you have influence? Again, I too would like to see things move faster, but there is no magic solution. The author acts as if one exists and is being kept secret by the PSL leadership. If he knows of it: make it public!

Full disclosure I read the full letter, I did not read OP article. I think it's a far cry from most of the PSL resignation letters you see out there, which seem like fed shit, seem to harden both nonsensical anarchist cases against them, & PSL members against structural criticism based on the history + financial of orgs descending from the Worker's World Party network. From what I know about Brian Becker it rings true. My question is, what does this base-building in Brooklyn look like? Is this an old man bullshitting & crying because his nonprofit is getting turned into the DSA, or is it the fabled "actually doing something" PSL stans seem to imply will occur after years of No Kings rallies + Twitter clapback quotas met being shut down by built-in failsafes

Also OP, FRSO leadership has weird connections to US congress & let black activists rot in prison but was willing to pull those strings for some students. Please just leave the United States when possible

Only interesting part of the letter:

I am leaving alongside the leadership of the Brooklyn District to take the next step in the formation of a viable socialist movement in this country. While we will leave smaller in number than if we remained in the PSL, we are confident that in the long run, cultivating a healthy seed is a better choice than continuing to tend to a dying tree. We will engage respectfully with the members of the PSL who remain, understanding that it is hard to grasp the true nature of this organization without the proximity we have had.

So a branch of the PSL has split from PSL. There will be PSL cadre that will follow the leadership of the Brooklyn branch into the new org.

I do not care if he is right. I am calling him a fed and a wrecker. Sometimes you just need to push on forward and not fall into infighting.

Update: I have read the article. I still do not care if he is right from the small data I have observed

Pretty dogwater smear piece, should've just posted the actual letter and the response.

First impressions are that this is a magnification of PSL's issues for careerist ends, rather than a genuine need to split. This doesn't change PSL's current position as the best Statesian org of its size, and if they are active in your area and you do not have local circumstances pointing you towards another org, you should probably join either as a full member or action network member.

Sad to see this. Probably for the best that issues with the national leadership are being exposed though.

American Railway Union (1893) > Social Democracy of America (1897) > Social Democratic Party of America (1898) > Socialist Party of America (1901) > Socialist Workers Party (1938) > Workers World Party (1959) > Party for Socialism and Liberation (2004)

another split to the pile

PSL CC Leaked Response, copied from the Google drive link so y'all don't have to click on that

Apparently PSL leadership wrote a response, which the reddit thread mentioned was publicly available, but didn't link. Is that available somewhere?

What to do if you want to organize in the US now? Join the DSA? Join the Democratic Party? FRSO?

This begs the question of PSL being discredited. They have not been.

Even if all this shit is true, the PSL is still doing more to mobilize the working class than any other org in my area.

Maybe it's a mark of progress when your party starts producing prominent splits because it seems to always happen

Like even PSL formed from a split of a split of a split

My position is: I'm still gonna vote for whoever they run for president

when i read shit like this im reminded that party purges actually work, historically, otherwise you let the rot fester and it fractures. i mean why even be a vangaurd if you arent going to vangaurd?

Where did that lead you? Back to me!

(I'm sorry I couldn't resist)

Honestly with things like this I think it is important to distinguish between what you read on the Internet and what you see IRL. In my experience and the experience of many others I know across the country, none of these things ring true. PSL and the various local or topic-focused mass orgs that are downstream punch way beyond their weight and frankly beyond most mass orgs, with less members, all while imbuing real class consciousness among a variety of social strata. You'll find everybody from well-paid doctors to deeply exploited immigrants, to students and retired grandparents.

Also his vague arguments seem to amount to economism or trade unionism, the kind of stuff that's easily disputed in "what is to be done". He also complains about his reformist attitudes needing to be hidden because they would be snuffed by zombies who are subservient to a few individuals. No, our leaders are leaders, they have agency, the puppet master trope is the silliest of them all. His reformist thought would be snuffed because he is coming up against a unified party of leninists who have gone through shared lessons in struggle and study together and arrive at similar conclusions because of that. If you have the correct idea then it should be able to prove itself in the battle of ideas and win, which he didn't, and they have not.

Sad to see it come from someone close to the center but there is plenty examples of this kind of thing in history and among successful parties / revolutions, and PSL is conscious of that and structured to mitigate the harm of wreckers like this. It's fresh news now for chronically-online leftists but will probably fade into the dustbin of history and have little effect on the ground.

AI secret police? Seriously?