Let me preface this comment by saying I know you and your friend mean well but there are some factual and theoretical issues with this article. No one is perfect and we’re all improving constantly, so please don’t take the following personally but I have to address it.

“We need to actually combat the feeling of hopelessness among the masses and that can only come from empowerment.”

Nothing beats actual genuine momentum, the veil of progress will not suffice.

“CPUSA, while arguing for a stages of struggle theory towards building socialism, we ultimately believe that in order to win socialism, a just and worker-led democracy, and end corporate and fascist terror once and for all, that we need to have a revolution.”

If the democratic party committed suicide in 2016 when they very publicly screwed Bernie demonstrating to all that there is no democracy in America, then the CPUSA committed suicide in the 1930s and 40s via Browderism, forgoing revolutionary struggle for social reforms and all but saying he used to fantasize about Trotsky in his writings. He was very pro-exceptionalism and even referred to socialism as the American Revolution in the 20th century.

This flip-flopping on the aim of their party (“we now support revolution again…no we don’t…yes we do…” crap) reminds me of Hillary Clinton’s campaign saying whatever she needs to to get elected. There’s a name for this and it’s called opportunism. It reflects a lack of genuine intention on the side of the party performing such actions.

The only thing communist about the CPUSA is it’s name and the new low-level party members. The CPUSA is about as reformable as the democratic party is, both are entirely controlled by professional agents of the bourgeois state and have been for decades.

“In this scenario, both sides are closely matched.”

Yes but the issue with selling people a lie is they tend to mistake it for reality and act accordingly. Because right now our classes aren’t evenly matched, are they? One can create any narrative one chooses to but one which doesn’t match up with reality is a lie. We see this with children and lies in movies all the time. Mind over matter is idealism in action. There is a difference between motivating and deluding the masses.

“This is where I feel the American communist movement is generally lacking. We need to have a calculated vision of how to actually raise the stakes in a meaningful way.”

Well the only thing they’ve spoken on so far is propaganda tactics. This is actually what I see as the biggest failure on the left right now: All talk, little action. We truly are stuck in the “revolution is the freedom to speak the truth” phase, we must move onto “living the truth, breathing life into it” phase.

Figuring out new formations of words as if we must say Ali Baba and the doors to Congress will open for us is ridiculous. We aren’t winning because we aren’t playing. We’re still sitting here talking about the game but not making plays as a team. I could say this sentence backwards, alternating caps, PC, or in 7 different languages and nothing would change afterwards aside from more people hearing my words since I expanded my use of different languages.

“Our task is to take action so that there is no third option to dip out of politics; either you’re going to fight whatever oppression one may be burdened with, be it class or identity based, and thus the ruling class that imposes it, or you’re going to defend its system (and of course to trust workers to overwhelmingly make the right choice, we have to). We need to shift the fight or flight response into a fight-only response”

Suppose one jumps out of a plane without a parachute on, this is why there is a flight response and why all wars are tactical it is not simply a matter of go forward and never stop. This is far too simplistic of an understanding of conflict. It also asks us to step forward with only an offensive game plan. We have never played offense in this country, following this course is a recipe for defeat.

I propose a steady inclination from politics into action remaining pragmatic in our tactics. Dipping our toes into the waters to judge the temperature if you will. As soft as this sounds, what do you personally see the US proletariat doing in a real scenario aside from this? One must acquire experience in order to gain skills. It sucks but we’re starting from near 0, and if we want to get to 100 we have to build ourselves up to there. Revolution isn’t built in a night. And it’s certainly not reached via a straight line with no recourse.

“Let’s look at the most common story structure common in many novels and films:”

Literally formulating tactics from fantasy concepts…this is idealism. This is more nonsense generated from the CPUSA. I beg you to show me 1 revolution what went this way. Big twist: Lenin was actually Stalin’s brother! And “the ending”, well, I believe the 36 constitution and results convey this lesson comrade Stalin and our class learned about the class struggle under socialism.

“The two times the Left had a chance were the Great Depression and the dual-crisis of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Struggle, neither of which was the Left able to seize the moment.”

The first one I refer you to their party’s failures and Browderism. The second was only to be a pette bourgeois/trotskyist revolution due to the economic conditions of the time. Their own chart depicting apathy actually references why.

“Rich Boomers (and some older Gen X) caused it”

Old people didn’t cause it, the bourgeois class caused it. Capitalism caused it. Further their use of generations as opposed to classes just adds to the liberal overtones here.

“At the time, 51% of Americans supported the Minneapolis Police Station burning, while simultaneously rejecting other forms of destructive (again, not said in a derogatory way) acts in different locales.”

Not sure where they’re getting this understanding of the situation. I would put it more like 70/30 and the 30% who dissaproved dissaproved across the board, and they were the bourgeois class and their aristocratic tools.

“yet we saw multiple suspicious figures destroying property and escalating for its own sake, with numerous allegations of cop and FBI infiltrator”

AFAIK Derek Chauvin smashing those windows wasn’t an allegation, the system backs it’s own but our class had him dead to rights. He was recorded in the deed and his ex-wife supported our allegations confirming his identity and activities that night.

At the bottom of the article they link the CPUSA’s site. The entire reason the PCUSA was created was due to the inability of reformation within the CPUSA and this was in this decade.

I’ll just say it outright; You’re wasting your time with the CPUSA. Comrades with much to offer the movement waste their efforts and lives in that party to nowhere. It’s the revolutionary equivalent of the dead-end job. You are free to do as you want of course, I just want to offer my criticism. Ordinarily I wouldn’t criticize a comrade’s party however I believe the history and content of the CPUSA justifies such action.

Very good article.

The best I’ve read in a long time.

Often times, in leftist and anti-imperialist spaces, the articles and especially long-form articles seem to repeat the same discourse and overall opinion.