“Uigars” lmao this has to be a parody holy shit

This is a compilation of the PSLs national weekly newsletter for the second half of 2022. I thought these were all on Liberation News but the most recent ones seem to not be. If I find them I’ll post them here. But in terms of progress the most recent newsletter it included news of another branch upgrading their Liberation Center, which is what the party calls the community centers referenced in the article. Most branches have one, even a lot of the smaller cities. The PSL is the only org I’m aware of with such an extensive network. If you have any more specific questions let me know. A good example from earlier this year was the national response to the Tyre Nichols murder. The PSL national called for a nation wide mobilization and emergency actions were ready within days. In my city this drew massive media attention from the mainstream media. Also keep in mind, most stories of local struggle on Liberation News are struggles thf party is directly involved in.

https://www.liberationnews.org/from-the-frontlines-of-struggle-the-psl-in-action-across-the-country/

Ah I see

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.

Wdym lurkers?

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.

That’s a great way of putting it. Trying to do too much at once.

I’ll put together a highlight list later tonight I suppose

I understand that but you are confusing the reason for my original comment. The article doesn’t use evidence to criticize the PSL. That’s all I wanted to clear up.

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.

“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

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.

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

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.