I’m watching this right now (at around the 59:00 mark as I type this).
It’s probably the more concise and lucid discussions on tactics and the application of dialectical and historical materialism. I especially like the recommendations of works on dialectical/historical materialism that were put forth in the middle of the video. Of course, that comment about Stalin’s “record” is, well, passe and the older members certainly come from a certain period in the Party’s history (the 1990s/2000s period) so take that for what you will.
Ultimately, I decided to stick with the Communist Party USA due to certain changes within the Party and certain directions that it’s taking. At the end of the day, the rank-and-file will inherit the leadership and I do trust the current leadership either way at the end of the day due to their experience, though I certainly don’t necessarily agree with everything they say (especially when it comes to People’s World, which appeals to liberals as opposed to the more official works at cpusa.org).
Anyways, we’re reading Mao Zedong’s Combat Liberalism in my branch so that should be fun; it helps to have people to study with and I know at least two people in my group that have been to China and were deeply influenced by their experience there so I hope to get them to read Neo-imperialism for the book club next week.
Sorry for rambling; hope you enjoyed the video discussion. You can definitely just listen to it instead of watching it while you’re doing other things so have fun with that. Really, let’s all try to join an organization and do what we can on the ground. Or if we’re not able to go outside, we should bide our times when we’re homebound for the time being.
Anyways, I’m pretty optimistic. Take care, folks!
I watched it all. Pretty good stuff, I’d highly recommending this to someone who is starting with Marxism. When it comes to tactics, I only saw it mention it, not address it. Recommending Stalin’s book was honestly a surprise coming from the PCUSA, but the comment about his “darker record” genuinely made me laugh lmao
It’s nice for you to be organized in CPUSA, comrade. It’s better to be in an organization than to be alone in mud waters. Our experiences inside a communist party, whether positive or negative in our conception, will help us develop a higher understanding of our surroundings, establish political relationships, ultimately mature ourselves politically.
Just one thing though. Be aware that this “trusting the leadership” is not the best thought to justify our choice of organizations. There are a lot of dogmatic or reformist (self-titled) communist parties who have this rationalization between their members, they “trust their leadership”, and because of that they feel they are following the correct political line.
The only way we can be sure of our organization of choice, is for us to study profoundly the history of working class movements (mainly national working class history and history of socialist states), understand what we got right and what we got wrong, and especially study revolutionary theory. That way we can address the errors of our leadership if we spot them. This is the ultimate test of a revolutionary organization, the way it deals with critiques promoted by their militants.
