u/RedSpartakus

"Daniel Morley’s article on sectarianism, published in The Communist, sets out to answer a question that any small revolutionary organisation must eventually confront: is it sectarian to refuse unity with the broader left? The answer Morley gives is no. The argument he makes to reach it is more revealing than he intends."

"On the CPUSA's "Communist Plus," the No Kings demonstrations, and how a politics meant to overcome economism keeps reproducing it."

"The No Kings protests are not simply expressions of economic dissatisfaction; they are grievances directed against the state apparatus itself, against the legitimacy of the existing undemocratic institutions. Their incoherence does not consist in an absence of politics, but in a failure for a political organism to adequately link itself to that social movement’s real demands and political aspirations. That may not only be due to a lack of size in that organization, but also due to a lack of ability to truly express that social movement’s worldview. To treat the spontaneous movements as pre-political in this sense is to misrecognize their most important feature."

"Lenin’s intervention cuts through the presented yet false choice. The problem is neither that the movement is insufficiently radical nor that it is insufficiently practical. The problem is that there does not yet exist an organization capable of mediating between its spontaneous energies and a coherent political project. The task, therefore, is not to adapt to spontaneity or to reject it, but to overcome it—to construct a party capable of providing not only activism reinforcement but rather a mobilization of activist energy into a concrete political expression that can imprint its will onto present events.

The foregrounding of the demand to boycott Target, as an example, is only the same error expressed in the realm of tactics, but, if we look at the demands themselves, they are the same error yet again expressed in the realm of program. Issues such as “taxing the rich,” recently the driving ideological slogan for NYC-DSA’s failed attempt to follow up on Zohran’s election via similarly activistic measures, or even “breaking up monopolies,” are meaningless unto themselves. These measures are only relevant to people when made concrete to them in the form of the actual elements of the political world they live in. Taxing the rich… to what end? Breaking up the big monopolies… for what reasons? There are many rational and individual reasons one might wish to do these things, as well as a clear goal that might be achieved by the method. But this is also the reason they fall flat as a politics: they do not offer the masses more than what they already possess. Perhaps no one says it better than Antonio Gramsci: “It is on the level of ideologies that men become conscious of conflicts in the world of production.”

To approach the No Kings movement or today’s May Day demonstrations in this spirit is to recognize that its incoherence is not a deficiency to be lamented, but an opportunity to be seized. Its antagonisms—to oligarchy, to unilateral militarism, to the hollowing out of democracy—are already present. What is absent is the form through which those antagonisms can become structurally transformative; that absence will not resolve itself. It can only be addressed through the conscious construction of the communist party. In their conception of the ‘Communist Plus’, it’s clear that the CPUSA seeks such a concretization of its position in relation to the ongoing mass movements, but actively hampers its own ability to do so within its implicit justification of the economism it attempts to reckon with."

"Alex Rivera of Reform & Revolution and the South Brooklyn branch of NYC-DSA addresses the ongoing debate over how the chapter should orient to the struggles of home care workers."

I yearn for the day factions can debate politics without being bogged down in discussions about tone and debate culture.

"An examination of how Haz Al-Din, Jackson Hinkle, and the American Communist Party mistook social media engagement metrics for popular sovereignty—and why their theory of an "empty signifier" could never fill MAGA with anything but MAGA."

"Having abandoned your project at the exact moment you theorized would achieve its historical breakthrough, you leave us with a lingering question: what comes next?

MAGA Communism was not sabotaged. It was tested and found lacking. Since the re-election of Trump, you have effectively ceased to publish works about the political struggle in America. The lone exception is a recent piece by Carlos Garrido, which attempts to frame the ACP’s full-scale retreat into basic community activism—activism indistinguishable from that which many Democratic Party activists and associated nonprofits do—as "building dual power." [9] Garrido is a Historian and Theorist—he knows what dual power really means, and he should be embarrassed to mangle this concept for political cover.

You are at a theoretical standstill and politically directionless. However, you have not quite achieved nothing. You have consolidated your entire tendency into one place. Will you clarify the failure of MAGA Communism? Will you emerge ready and willing to join with the popular movement for democracy? Or will you follow the path of countless other petty sects—and take your ball and go home with it?

This is a direct invitation to all MAGA Communists: write a response. Geese Magazine offers to publish any such effort to reconcile such matters in good faith, toward the realization of an American communist class theory and party."

THE CHARTISTS’ DECLARATION

We joined Your Party because we believed in a member-led socialist party.

We organised. We waited. We submitted motions when conference came, built proto-branches

in our villages, towns, and cities; we reached into our own pockets, and did the patient,

unglamorous work of building dozens of branches from the ground up.

We were not met halfway - nor, really, to be honest, at all.

Those branches were not recognised. Motions at conference were unheard. There is no

accountability on staffing or funding, and there is little confidence there will be.

Tens of thousands of members already reached much the same conclusions and are gone -

many to the Greens.

We have chosen to organise, and we published the Members' Charter as a final, good-

faith effort to make the party work as it was promised.

The last meeting of the CEC and the resulting inevitable expulsion of socialists & socialist

organisations is the last straw.

So no more complaints: now is the time for action.

We believe that the working class does not need a figurehead, shadowy backroom deals, ex-

Tories or landlords.

We need democratic organisations that we control directly, from below, through our own

collective decisions.

We believe that the structures we build must reflect the society we want to live in: democratic,

accountable, and rooted in the communities and workplaces where people actually are.

We believe that no executive, however well-intentioned, should be able to act without answering to

the membership that mandates it.

We believe that political education and solidarity are not secondary activities to be fitted around

electoral cycles. They are the substance of socialist politics.

We will therefore call a conference to discuss the formation of a new socialist federation:

a democratic organisation built from the groups that already exist, governed by its members,

and accountable at every level.

This federation will be formed not as a ready-made political party with a programme, but with

three fundamental tasks:

1. To provide a home to any group which aligns with a set of socialist points of unity, which

will be established collectively by the founding branches, groups and individuals.

2. To provide networks to enable united action, solidarity, and defence, against poverty,

war, racism and the far-right.

3. To provide a democratic structure for vigorous and principled debate, to collectively

arrive at a programme, structure and strategy for a socialist party of the working class.

The proto-branches, campaign groups, and communities of organised socialists that were built

in spite of Your Party's leadership will, we hope, form the great foundation we build upon.

This conference will be open to socialists who share these commitments.

Its purpose is not to rubberstamp a predetermined plan, but to discuss and decide together what kind of organisation we want to build, how it should be structured, what its politics should be, and what it should do.

We will bring proposals. Others are welcome to bring theirs.

We know what is to be done. Let’s do it together.