This is a good nonsectarian analysis of US ML parties.
First I will say that I don’t know when this document was released.
The writers say that they don’t have experience with the PSL, and honestly, it shows. Their analysis of the PSL comes of as surface level and dismissive, bordering on misinformation. The PSL section is short because it consists of two pieces of information.
The first was a complaint that the party’s program didn’t say enough about strategy… which isn’t the point of a program. The point of a program is to provide people who may be interested a quick description of the party’s goals and focus. To sell them on the party. There is (and has been for years) PSL material on strategy on the party site and Liberation School and more recently the party put great effort into the writing of Socialist Reconstruction, a book that is the most detailed and specific plan for the building of socialism in the US that I am aware of.
The rest of the section is cherry picking one PSL initiative? Declaring it PSL’s “major project” of 2017 as if it’s the only thing PSL did that year? First, when you are looking at planning an event or initiative, it can be externally facing or internally facing. An externally facing event is to immediately connect with the masses who have been depoliticized and draw them close to the org. Internally facing events are to open a space where people already close to an org can engage in political work or development, and may not immediately interest depoliticized workers. Honestly, going to one of an orgs events that clearly is more internally focused - a space for comrades or other interested people to plan other events and develop as organizers - and then bring surprised you see other people already interested in organizing and then concluding the org does no externally facing events, is just disingenuous.
This article reflects a larger problem I see in ML spaces. There is a lip service acknowledgement that “the ground work” must be done but people don’t want to be the ones to do it. This article even goes to talk about how great the PSL’s “justice center strategy” is and says others should do it… but don’t go with the PSL… because. Because they are looking for a party that has already done the work to connect with the masses, not one that is building that relationship.
There is this strange trend that this article is a part of that I have seen other places, notably a growing “anti revisionist” ML YouTube channel. This trend criticizes all existing parties as having made too many mistakes and not adhering to ML principles. Then after all that is done this trend bemoans how small or undeveloped these parties are and abandons all Leninist principles of the importance of a correct line or the need for a vanguard and collective action and tells people to organize with the Green party or with disparate localist groups.
Anyway this has brought out a rant I have had in me for a while. I don’t have anything against the authors and don’t think they purposely attacked the PSL.
I think you (understandably) conflated this article with a trend that is mostly unrelated to it. Not only does this article not “abandon” the Leninist principle of the correct line (instead pointing out how it has been misinterpreted greatly), but the only suggestion it gives that is even remotely close to “organizing with the Green Party or with disparate localist groups” is for organizing in the DSA, which has a significant Marxist sect in it which has been steadily growing, and is anyways much better than having a purist, religious perspective of Marxism.
The PSL obviously isn’t making the specific errors in general action that the article suggests, but the general analysis of this article isn’t really damaged by that. The PSL is more effective than a lot of other parties, but it has the same fundamental issue of hyper-specificity. When I read over the program, my perspective is the opposite of the author of the original article- The PSL is detailing way too much in advance. Not only do they have the rough way the economy would work in their theoretical socialist state, they also have extensive detailed plans for the rights and ideals that this new government would be formed under. I absolutely love all of these ideas in their program, but this is putting the cart way ahead of the horse.
I do not specify this to attack the PSL specifically, in fact, I think the program sounds extremely effective, but I highlight it to demonstrate the main flaw of the Western left- it’s complete and total fear of flexibility and adaptation.
This is why the article put so much time and effort into attacking our current conceptions of a party line, democratic centralism, and Great Thinkers. What we are observing is a fundamental failure of western Marxists to account for the way revolutionaries actually organize themselves and make decisions. Our flawed conception of democratic centralism has led to the exact issue it was meant to solve. Instead of allowing for a significant variety of ideas channeled into one, powerful revolutionary force, we have vulgarized the party line and democratic centralism into an excuse for this mindset of ideological purity and idealism.
We have tricked ourselves into the exact same problematic mindset that we criticize anarchists for, of Utopianism and idealist organizing, but have been telling ourselves that it is correct because, instead of actually learning from previous Marxists, we have instead taking vague interpretations of their writings as an indomitable, unchallengeable truth.
I can observe this, even in your own comment (though I mean no hostility, because this mistake is everpresent, even in the things I say). Why phrase it as “Leninist principles”? We aren’t philosophers, trying to develop an ethical system. We are doing science, and materialist science at that. Nothing we observe or plan makes sense without context, including what Lenin observed and planned. They are still useful, but they aren’t “principles”. They are observations and actions taken in a specific material situation and context.
What we need isn’t to conform to liberalism or entryism, or to join small local organizations that commit the same mistake of a devotion to complete ideological purity. No, what we need is a willingness to actually work with the parts of the Left we disagree with, and to adapt the actual definition of the party line - Internal disagreement, but unity of action.
Look at the deeply reactionary elements of this country. Many of them completely disagree with each other. But despite having supposedly contradictory ideas, they still manage to accomplish things that all of them want to get done. We can blame this on them only having to defend things instead of work for something they want, but the much more depressing truth is that the conservatives and liberals and neo-Nazis have been using the principle of the party line closer to what Lenin intended than our own explicitly Marxist organizations. This is embarrassing. Anyone defending this absurd sectarianism isn’t a “revisionist”, hell, I’ve already arguably committed the greatest revisionism by saying that Lenin’s ideas must all be taken in context rather than universally applied. But rather, anyone who thinks the current, sect-based state of the western left is somehow necessary needs to take a good long look at themselves and ask how such a perspective is any different from an Anarchist saying it’s necessary to destroy actually existing socialism to preserve freedom (it isn’t, they’re the same thing: ideological puritanism)
Indeed, saying I or anyone else is telling people to not join the PSL is missing the point. I’d rather every member of the radical Left join the PSL if I could make it so, but unfortunately, I can’t just wave my hand to make everyone agree with me and, even if I could, criticism inside the party is necessary for ideological growth and the development of theory, and making everyone agree with me would cause the complete stagnation of the left.
We need to let ourselves disagree with each other. The average family has arguments just as frequently as Marxists do but still manages to keep a united front. We should not be worse at organizing than random families! We are communists, not random hobbyist groups.
I will respond to the rest of this later when I have time, but what really jumped out at me is the claim the the word “principles” indicated a religious or moral attitude? This is ridiculous. Have you never heard the term “scientific principles” or “mathematical principles”. All it means is theories that have been repeatedly tested.
As far as the rest goes I don’t necessarily disagree with you but, and this goes back to the reason I wrote my original clarification, the article claims to be breaking down these parties and analyzing them but only makes the most surface level of analysis before lumping on assumptions without evidence. Even what you said about the PSL being “too specific”. You didn’t cite anything specific. Thid isnt how you analyze things. The book Socialist Reconstruction I mentioned is as specific and detailed it could be and the book acknowledges and explains this up front.
Not sure what you mean by claiming the article didn’t endorse a network of loose groups. It does so in the section about the Marxist Center groups.
I was afraid of this, I was going to have another paragraph but I thought it was too confusing, so what I said is a simplification.
The problem is that they aren’t theories that are tested, at least not to the extent that a principle would be. Lenin was in a specific situation when he wrote what he did, and we don’t have enough examples or data to be sure it’s anywhere near a principle. Maybe a good hypothesis, but it would take truckloads more data and scrutiny for it to come even close to a principle. More importantly, It is not near-universally applicable in the way principles of multiplication are, for instance.
It’s true that scientific principle exist, and I apologize for using a simplified explanation, I shouldn’t have done so.
Also, when I said the PSL was too specific, I was citing their program on their website. I suppose it was implicit, so I understand the confusion. But I was not making a vague gesture at nothing, I was reading through the PSL’s program at the exact time I was writing that comment.
And at no point did I say the article didn’t advocate a network of loose groups, I was saying they didn’t advocate a network of disconnected loose groups. A coalition of loose groups is legitimately a good idea right now, and is likely to accomplish more than a hyper-sectarian Maoist death cult or whatever. To be fair, I thought the DSA mention was the only example until you mentioned the Marxist Center being advocated for, but given that it is a unified collection of groups and not just a random assortment, it seems reasonable. Is there any particular reason a loose collection of groups with unified action and contact with each other wouldn’t work?
I’ve seen how useful national resources and contacts are within the PSL. From helping smaller branches get off the ground to organizing training to mobilizing comrades from across the country for major events in DC. Earlier this year we had the March for peace in DC and now just a few months later were mobilizing carpools again for an event in DC on the 25th. There’s also a massive amount of centralized administrative expertise so that branches can focus on local organizing with the masses. None of that would be possible with a loose confederation of groups.
Makes sense to me.
I feel like it doesn’t really dismiss the main point of the article, but the article really gives me a “we had a good idea but made a bunch of extrapolations from it without proof” vibe I don’t like.
Their criticism of the US left is correct, their solution is not. It seems silly to suggest that any one group of people could come up with a solution so easily, anyways.
True, there is a problem obviously. Otherwise the revolution would have happened. But yeah definitely agree that they are right about the problem in broad strokes, not so much about the direction suggested.
My current hypothesis is that we need some kind of centralized organization that focuses on extremely short-term goals for building worker power, as a kind of transitory organization until the extremely sectarian nature of the US left either subsides or boils over. This organization would exist in tandem with other organizations, not requiring or enforcing specific political memberships besides what directly interferes with specific, short term goals decided by organization leadership to build the power of the proletariat (or long term goals which are specific, effective, and do not demand any kind of ideological purity besides a general commitment to building worker power). These goals would have to be decided by committed socialists.
A kind of meta-organization, which would share resources and important information about achieving it’s specific short-term goals, and would let the US left live on “life support” while we figure out exactly what’s going on.
First I will say that I don’t know when this document was released.
- I don’t have anything to build on the rest of your comment.
The party has grown a lot since, especially in New York with the success of the Cathy Rojas campaign. I would encourage you to look into it.
Who is downvoting everyone?
It could be a certain midwestern hoxhaist.
Hoxhaism is objectively the funniest ideology because I have no idea what it is and no one seems to particularly care about what it is
bunk
ers
just looked it up and Wikipedia says that hoxhaism believes in
Hoxhaism asserts the right of nations to pursue socialism by different paths, dictated by the conditions in those countries,[5] although Hoxha personally held the view that Titoism was “anti-Marxist” in overall practice.[6][7]
and
fierce criticism of virtually all other communist groupings as revisionist
How do these two things make sense together?
In my limited experience with Hoxhaists, they’re basically Maoists except 10x more annoying.
Albania fucked up hard in decrying basically all other socialist projects. The CPC posited that the USSR had become revisionist in its shift towards explicit anti-‘stalinism’, why not ally with them?
Nah. Not ideologically pure enough ❌️❌️❌️
Hoxha really flipped off the entire contemporary socialist world, and for what? Decaying bunkers transformed into sexual hideaways, and a niche ideological progeny comprised of useless “left” anti-communists.
It is possible I am missing important context. However, my opinion is that all of those international splits were the dumbest fucking things in the world.
They all occured in the heyday of U.S. intelligence operations, so, many conflicts arose almost certainly from imperial sabotage and false information.
Much of it is far more moronic, however, from ideological puritan testing from Albania to Yugoslavia basically ghosting the international communist movement and throwing themselves at the U.S.'s feet for protection from le evil Red Empire!!! 😳😳😳 (likely misinformation campaigns that led to this, I’d wager). Don’t get me started on the Sino-Soviet split. We could have had a socialist world by now! 😭
Wdym lurkers?
wisconscom, the most sectarian ultraleft in the west
Ah I see
That’s happened in the grad forever now - there’s always one account that downvotes everyone. Sometimes they’ll muster bots and manage 60 downvotes for a day or so, but it never lasts.
we should make every comment start with a score of 2 as a bit, then
This is a good essay. We certainly need more strategy in the western left. Their analysis of WWP reminds me of my experience at PCUSA. The first thing I noticed was that I, like them, was there for only five months. The commonality I noticed is that PCUSA seems primarily focused on having people go to as many RAWM protests as possible, along with trying to grow their membership. I also thought of them with the “debunking the ML party” section, As they seem to think if they get like five people in each US state to join the mystical “vanguard party” will materialize out of nowhere.
if we combined the collective power of all the different parties, we could get a lot of organizing done. instead, it’s all splintered across dozens of different completely ineffectual parties
the fact we have not changed this situation is a sign something is deeply wrong with our strategy. it shouldn’t take all that much effort to connect with socialists we can already contact and interact with, and yet, unification of all these different groups feels almost impossible
it’s deeply ironic that a vulgar form of anti-factionalism has resulted in the most fractured and factional movement i have ever heard of
It would probably be better to have one umbrella organization with factions than whatever we have now. Sure, you don’t have to work with patsocs or leftcoms, but why are WWP and PSL different organizations? They seem to have basically the same platform.
but why are WWP and PSL
I don’t know the whole history around it, but the PSL started from a split in the WWP.
Makes sense, i wonder why. Again, it would probably have been better to just have psl be a faction within WWP
I would urge you to go onto the PSL website and Liberation School site to investigate further. PSL and WWP have very different positions on things. The author admits from the start that they have limited experience with the PSL and honestly make a lot of unjustified assumptions based on the misconception that the PSL is a split faction from the WWP. The PSL was formed from the what was essentially the ML faction of the antiwar movement in DC in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. Some of the founding members were has been members of the WWP and had grown disillusioned with the WWP, but many of the founding members were young comrades just getting into ML politics like Eugene Puryear. The PSL was basically constituted out of whole cloth from its own points of agreement and really didn’t carry anything over from the WWP. I address some other points in another comment
Sure, their positions may be different, but a point made later in the essay is that ML orgs like to act like everyone needs to be on the same exact line and once they agree they can become the vanguard. What actually matters is practice (not the I’m saying the parties are equal in action, but where’s PSL’s insurrection or mass movement?).
“Where’s PSL’s insurrection or mass movement?”
Things like this are the problem I have with this trend this article is a part of. Mass movements don’t come from nowhere. Somebody has to be willing to do the groundwork. You can’t make the criticism that the PSL doesn’t have a fully formed mass movement and at the same time say all the parties are bad and refuse to participate in building the mass movement. It’s not even just with the PSL. If you suggested another party that’s a conversation and the merits could be debated. But this trend is functionally an endorsement of individualism
Haven’t finished reading yet, but I went on a sidequest to read the FRSO class analysis linked within, and that is awesome, clearly delineates our situation. I will be holding onto that for reading groups, as in Canada we are in basically the same class composition, I feel.
Saw this posted yesterday and forgot about it until just now. I got it on my ereader and am gonna push it to the front of the line in my backlog. Thanks for the share! I dig the idea behind this community.
This is what my post was saying but better, smdh
But seriously, I mostly made this community from a vague impression that a space that encourages cross-tendency analysis would be fruitful. This has taken that idea and cemented it as an actual, nuanced attempt at examining the current situation of the US left. Well done finding this.
No problem. I found this article awhile ago and forgot it existed until I saw your post.
