PSL: To Our Comrades (Rhode Island PSL)
(shawarmarxist.substack.com)
CutieBootieTootie [she/her]
ChapotraphouseHello, it's me again
This is another article that's been going around. I talked to some comrades up in Rhode Island and apparently the author of this kind of has some eh stuff going on and was actually kind of a jerk but still here's more kind of evidence of what's going on.
Notably one thing is that they say that the PSL Miami branch is dissolved. I don't know like anything about this.
It kind of feels like live archaeology at this point, just trying to archive and document the kind of discussions that have been going on. I honestly really have incredibly little faith in the party to continue to survive and end up being the party that we need. I think a new party is clearly going to need to form.
If you have any thoughts or additional points of information that can be used to, like, bring together the understanding of what went wrong and what's been going wrong, please put it below.
For the sake of argument, not specifically weighing in on the truth of whatever the PSL is going though...
If the feds successfully smear one leader with a scandal, they win a minor victory. If the leadership circle closes ranks and moves to protect the smeared leader, the feds win a big victory by bringing all of them into question.
Anyone who is willing to take a bullet should also be willing to take a fall regardless of the truth. Any cadre based party should have a pool of replacement leaders ready to step up.
This is all very unfortunate and deeply affecting toward all members. If you've never been through a split in a group, it is incredibly stressful and demoralizing. People who did nothing wrong are being forced to take sides. I know that there have been claims that PSL has covered up assaults and have a rigid and sectarian internal structure that is self preservationist rather than deliberative and building toward a mass character. I can't really confirm the SA allegations but I have some experience with PSL members being a little too inside baseball wrt their mass work. But I have also worked closely with PSL comrades in a wide range of struggles, I have seen the same activists consistently showing up and organizing in the streets for years in my city. Their org isn't perfect perhaps but many of the people in it are fighting like hell, and now I'm sure they are going through some shit.
PSL internals are being shared outside the internal of the org in a way I have never seen before. There are literal fascists cheering on the demise of the org. Try not to take the bait, don't drink the tea, just let this factionalism sort itself out based on the conditions set by years of organizing. Now is the time to extend a hand, invite members to things, help people create or find a new political home, whether that means transforming the org, liquidating into other groups or forming new ones. Don't stand alongside the fascists in cheering on the destruction of authentic, if imperfect, worker organization. Its time to step up as comrades, not give in to turning a legitimate internal crisis into petty drama.
I have faith that nearly all PSL comrades do not condone or tolerate SA, I do not condone or tolerate it either. But let them figure it out for themselves and don't contribute to toxicity. PSL is made up of real people, good comrades, who are going through some shit and most of them had nothing to do with this situation that a few leaders created. I've seen splits form and take shape a few different ways, and its always ugly. Try to be human and scientific about it.
This is a good take. Thank you.
I've been through it, I have nothing but sympathy and respect for well meaning comrades who have had this thrust upon them. Nobody gets into this work because they want to litigate factional disputes and get to the bottom of actual abuse. Its sad and its easy to lose sight of the fact that PSL is full of people with histories, feelings, and in my experience a lot of grit. My heart goes out to anyone dealing with factional disputes. I have faith in the members to get hold of the reigns and turn it into a better org.
Splitting is dogshit and so are the central committee. Has anyone considered forcibly removing them? Would they call the cops to remove you if you just barred them from all areas?
I think of Stalin regularly. He did shit like this and it was based.
Splitting is dogshit and so are the Central committee
*According to the splitters. And I just want to point out, every one of these letters explicitly states that their goal is to dismantle the PSL and siphon off members. What I find frustrating is how they consistently neglect to elaborate on what they are going to do to build something better.
Now, I can completely understand the perspective that Eugene needed to be expelled immediately, regardless of the fact that Marissa explicitly rejected that option, and regardless of the fact that he did resign as soon as she made it clear in her resignation that she did, in fact, want that.
I deeply resent that you and others here are characterizing me and those who share my opinion as SA apologists for disagreeing with that perspective and believing that it's not so straightforward to issue blanket proclamations on how punishment must be carried out in all instances, especially when you have a fairly limited perspective compared with those directly involved.
Now, I can completely understand the perspective that Eugene needed to be expelled immediately, regardless of the fact that Marissa explicitly rejected that option, and regardless of the fact that he did resign as soon as she made it clear in her resignation that she did, in fact, want that.
And I think it is also a problem that the central committee did not do this and they should step down to a lesser position to save the party.
I deeply resent that you and others here are characterizing me and those who share my opinion as SA apologists for disagreeing with that perspective and believing that it's not so straightforward to issue blanket proclamations on how punishment must be carried out in all instances, especially when you have a fairly limited perspective compared with those directly involved.
?
If you think I am accusing you of this it says more about you than me. What exact thing did I say that caused you to think this?
Oh, yeah. You're victim blaming! Please shut the fuck up, thanks
The leadership must go because they ultimately decided to protect Eugene, and even went as far as to say he "went to therapy" as if this absolves him
So, just to be clear, is your suggestion that the process of consulting a victim, including them in the process of an investigation, and giving weight to their stated desires about the resulting disciplinary action should be considered wrong and harmful? And that describing the process or believing that it's actually reasonable amounts to victim blaming?
Because if that's genuinely what you believe, I completely sincerely want you to explain why.
I think that the number one concern of any communist organization is to excise dangerous criminal and reprehensible actors from harming others in the communist organization, as they create endless liabilities. What the victim wants can fluctuate depending on where they are in their recovery as we can see from Marissa's experience and from my own personal experience. I think as a victim of sexual violence, the ultimate best thing for the victim is to completely separate from the abuser and the geographic location the abuse occurred at. In an ideal world with perfect information, we would simply summarily execute or castrate all sexual abusers or find a way to preempt them.
Can the PSL be considered a feminist organization with leadership that refuses to excise predators immediately? No, they cannot. The PSL central committee also immediately went to attack Marissa rather than staying professional, which shows incompetence.
I ultimately disagree with your characterization, but I do understand and empathize with that position. As a matter of principle, I believe that people are capable of change and growth. I think that is, in fact, critical to my entire belief in the project of building socialism. That includes people who have committed acts of sexual violence. I think it's also true that Eugene's position on the CC made the situation more sensitive. I personally think that his initial resignation should have been accepted. I'm glad he resigned when the issue was re-litigated. But I don't think it's an irredeemable mistake, nor is it tantamount to concealing sexual abuse or protecting a predator, for the party to have chosen a rehabilitative process instead when that is what the affected victim herself declared would be her preference. I think we both understand that the trauma of sexual abuse makes it difficult to advocate for yourself, especially in the immediate aftermath. But isn't it true that if the party's policy was an immediate expulsion (let alone execution/castration) no matter what, that a victim in that scenario would be even more unwilling to come forward? Marissa didn't want him expelled immediately, and the fact that she was empowered to be part of the investigative and disciplinary process made for a safer environment for her to come forward. I believe the disciplinary process that PSL has gives agency to survivors of sexual abuse, and I think that's genuinely important.
Also, I'm really not trying to deflect here, but I do take issue with the concept of "mandatory castration for sexual predators". I fought hard to be able to receive my gender affirming surgery. I cried (sad) when it was delayed, and I cried (happy) when I woke up and began to process it. I resent the association between sexual predators and a surgical procedure that I have received specifically because I am transgender. Transphobes are already constantly portraying me as a sexual predator simply for existing. If being trans makes me a sexual predator, and it also makes me want to "be castrated", it feels like the implementation of a "castrate sexual predators" policy is casting my gender affirming care as actually being a punishment for the crime of existing while trans.
If the mood on hexbear is anything to go by it feels to me like the last 10 years of work is about to disappear.
the PSL has been around 22 years and never won an election. they might as well fully dissolve.
and never won an election.
Winning elections is not the purpose of the Party. (Although with how much they act like 'Democrats but much further left', you'd be excused in suspecting that.)
We got some DSA stans in the audience, I see. Looking forward to the revolution Mamdani brings.
lol nope, DSA is a right wing organization because it doesnt reject the capitalist framework entirely. try another assumption. PSL is an electoral organization, go cry to someone else about how they havent won a city council seat. they are trying to work within a system designed to fuck them over, one that doesn't want even the DSA to have any power, despite whatever reforms they suggest. but maybe theyll achieve something in 44 years besides covering up sexual assaults. them trying to win elections and failing and me pointing that out makes me DSA? fucking lol, socialism will never get anywhere in this country unless things get REALLY bad. Like mass starvation bad. when someone doesnt like your precious party is your automatic response "YOU AM A DEMOCRAT"? Which funnily enough makes you sound like a Democrat talking to a leftist. Really building some bridges arent you? No wonder your precious party is failing.
election
yea your PSL is an electoral organization, what about it? actually i dont care.
our government is holding the president of venezuela in a tiny torture box in new york city and our biggest left wing cadre style organization is still running pr interference for sexual predators in the central leadership
what a joke
This is the correct take. So many people in this thread acting like standing up against SA is anti communist or some bs.
apparently if you don't suck off the PSL it means you're DSA. really sounds like a Democrat talking to a leftist and the Dem says "OH YOU LIKE TRUMP?"
Lenin would shoot everyone here
While exiled in 1899, Bauman had an affair with the wife of a fellow revolutionary who became pregnant with Bauman's child.[7] Bauman responded by openly mocking her, and circulating a vicious cartoon of her as the Virgin Mary with a baby in her womb, with a caption asking "who the baby looked like". The woman later hanged herself.[8]
This story had gained wide currency among Russian political exiles by the time Bauman reappeared in Switzerland in 1902, after the escape from Kiev.[citation needed] Some of those involved in producing Iskra, including Lenin's closest friend and collaborator, Julius Martov and Pavel Axelrod, one of the founders of Russian Marxism, wanted Bauman expelled from the organisation. In 1903, the board of Iskra adjudicated the matter, and Lenin interceded on Bauman's behalf. According to biographer Robert Service, Lenin rejected the party's right to interfere, arguing that the party's task "was to make revolution against the Romanov monarchy and to vet the morality of comrades only when and in so far as their actions affected the implementation of the task".[7] The subsequent controversy divided the party, and has been described as "one of the many personal clashes which came to define the ethical distinctions" between the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions after 1903.
I think this is fundamentally different. First, Lenin put him on risky assignments and he eventually was the first person to die for the Bolsheviks, this seemingly escalated after the affair. Second, the moral situation is very different now in America in comparison to 1899-1905 Russia. Third, Lenin described it as "not a party affair" because these two people were not national decision makers for the party. And finally, the quote:
"was to make revolution against the Romanov monarchy and to vet the morality of comrades only when and in so far as their actions affected the implementation of the task
Is very different in the modern day when the majority of Americans on the left disdain the sexual predators in office and women have many more rights than in 1899 Russia. If you want to meet the base you must root them out. Also, I sincerely doubt Eugene was as important for the PSL as Bauman was to the Bolsheviks, the Bolsheviks had Bauman smuggling tools into prisons for breakouts (see Memories of Lenin by Krupskaya) and had him armed to kill Tsarists. The PSL is not capable of doing such a thing, random street gangs are far more capable.
Lenin also had an edgelord streak. He commented on two old communists killing themselves as good because if you are no longer useful to the party you may as well die. He could've just been in favor of euthanasia when the person consents, but he loved being edgy and had to make a quip.
Reposting what I've said from another pizzle post
https://hexbear.net/comment/7448695
I'll also point out that the Bolsheviks at the time of the Bauman affair were operating as an underground, clandestine and illegal political organization that operated both inside and outside the tsarist empire. That is directly contrary to the current status of the Communist movements in the u.s who operate as open public and legal political organizations. We have to understand that at different phases of agitation necessitate different standards of operation.
If we were to take Lenin's core belief of revolution and the party over all, then we have to adjudicate what what may have been calculated in lenin's time as something that did not affect the implementation of the task to building the revolution, then in turn today with completely inverse material conditions we have to infer that this event does affect the task of building the revolution.
Damn, Bauman sounded like an awful person how he treated that woman. Would the refusal to sanction/expel him not have had a demoralizing effect on you?
Yes. If I was a Bolshevik in the RSDLP I would genuinely be sick to my stomach. I would still follow the will of the party and the central committee because I am committed to building the Party and the Revolution no matter the cost because that is exactly what it means to be a Bolshevik.
I would be completely paralyzed if it was decision. I don't have the strength of heart, the strength of will, nor the wisdom to find the correct path like Lenin.
But I am not Lenin, nor am I in the RSDLP(B) nor am I a member of pizzle so I thankful am for once in my life outside of the whole shitshow. I can however observe and take lessons to suggest to my people and anyone else willing to listen.
I mean, we don't know how things would have played out if Bauman had been ejected. I think it's not very rigorous to look back and say all Lenin's decisions were right because they preceded to a successful revolution. Certainly there's a tension between second guessing history and unquestioning faith in our heroes.
So many people in this thread acting like standing up against SA is anti communist or some bs.
Where? This post doesn't seem to be taking any sort of stance against SA, did you read the content of it? Lots of people assuming it does for some reason tho...
Edit: kinda wanna delete this because of how fucked this has gotten since I made this comment. I hate all of this
This post is a response to said running cover for the Blake family cult that makes up a disproportionate number of leadership positions. PSL is washed we need to accept that.
Right so like I said, it doesn't take any stance wrt SA. Not a single mention of that, though it does mention Walter Smolarek favorably who is trying to split the party in a deeply unserious manner. Who served on the central committee himself while conspiring to split the party rather than leaving, and did so not because of a disagreement over the way the party was led or anything to do with misconduct but instead supposedly because he wants to do a different kind of work than what the PSL is committed to (building the base vs building socialist consciousness iirc). Who seems to have pressured Marissa to wait to publish her experience with SA in the party until it was most beneficial for him and his goals.
For the love of our common goals comrade, please read rather than bandwagoning, and do so critically. Our comrades don't deserve to be accused of claiming that standing up against SA is anticommunist or other such bullshit when they are clearly not.
It doesn't change the fact their leadership has repeatedly covered for abusers and fought to protect leadership from accountability. This article may not be about that but is representative of the same core issue that their leadership clique views itself above reproach. This is unacceptable.
Why are you even responding to me? You take a vaguely dismissive position in response to me noticing a problem with how we are discussing and engaging with this and then try to railroad the conversation away from the point I was making.
Also did you even read the article yet? It isn't about that either, it's about a specific Branch's drama. It attempts to extrapolate beyond that but offers no evidence beyond referencing a document by an obvious wrecker who did engage in SA coverup.
So a small number of members decide to leave the party because they have a political disagreement, and they spin that into a narrative that there is no democratic centralism in the branch? And then explicitly call for everyone to leave and dissolve the branch. And they specifically mention that they are doing this in coordination with the anti PSL faction, which does actually exist as mentioned in this post, a faction which is more focused on destroying the PSL than building anything in its place. A faction which developed alongside a coordinated, dedicated effort within the US federal government to attack PSL through the courts and through other means of overt state repression.
Understand that the state is paying lots of people to strategize on how to destroy PSL as their full time jobs (and other left wing movements). Do you suppose they are just idly collecting paychecks?
This letter is, according to itself, written and published specifically to destroy PSL, and we have people in this very thread taking everything it says at face value. It's so very easy in retrospect to recognize the work of repressive state actions in dismantling communist organizations. But it takes a higher degree of seriousness to recognize it while it's in progress. The leaders in PSL, whom you are so quick to dismiss as ineffective, corrupt, and needing to be replaced — every single one of them is currently facing the threat of state repression head on. We all understand how serious and pervasive of a threat that is.
It's so much easier to destroy something than it is to build something, and all I see in these threads and posts are calls to destroy. But there are hardly any suggestions on what they could have done better, or what needs to come next.
I encourage all of you to approach this, and everything, with the level of seriousness and discipline that is actually required in being a communist.
Absolutely agree. It's admirable to build something and contribute to the cause. If you can't align with the PSL then don't but spend your energy building something else not tearing comrades down.
Getting sexually assaulted by leadership and having the other core clique of leadership cover for them is not a "political disagreement" it is a matter of safety for their members what the actual fuck. This has been going on for a long time. The Baker family is a weird cultish clique using fedjacketing to deflect from actual misconduct of top leadership.
Are we reading the same article?
Yes I read it and it is almost the exact same issue presented by the people seeking accountability for the abusers the party is protecting. They are failing at democratic centralism at almost every turn to protect their leadership clique.
These people are allowing their egos to undermine any semblance of party discipline. These issues are all coming to a head at once because of this fundamental failure of central leadership.
The leaders in PSL, whom you are so quick to dismiss as ineffective, corrupt, and needing to be replaced — every single one of them is currently facing the threat of state repression head on.
If they were "serious" like you describe, perhaps they wouldn't run cover for molestation because, even if we completely ignore things like personal compassion, it creates a catastrophic liability. The only threat they are facing head on is that one of their buddies loses their power. I assume I don't need to argue to you about why the direct perpetrators aren't "serious".
Really disappointed in hexbear users rushing to fedjacket anyone pointing this out.
It's not fedjacketing to point out that the feds are openly and explicitly targeting the PSL, and not just the PSL but in fact the specific leaders that everyone is calling to be removed and expelled. That doesn't mean that everyone participating in the discourse is a fed, certainly not even most. But give me a fucking break, state repression is real. NSPM-7 is real.
So, you're saying they aren't getting congressional subpoenas? You're saying organizers aren't getting stalked, surveilled, and arrested baselessly? Stop talking out your ass; no investigation, no right to speak.
That is, in fact, not what they said. You've done a shit-tier straw man, but why? Their point was that the federal pressure was being used to deflect organizational and nepotism issues. Not that it doesn't exist at all.
The way you've mischaracterized this person's post has, in at least my mind, completely undermined your entire premise. You should consider deleting this reply.
The only threat they are facing head on is that one of their buddies lose power.
This is an explicit rejection of the objective fact that they are facing congressional subpoenas and coordinated right-wing media campaigns against them.
Never mind that "their buddy" offered to resign without protest immediately. And after that was rejected, not by the CC but by the victim, did in fact resign immediately when the victim expressed that she was no longer satisfied with the original resolution.
Hey, I tried. Good luck.
What are all these comments I'm seeing about SA? There's none of that in the letter that I can find. At most, I see references to the SC protecting their personal and romantic relationships, and to an affair, but that wording doesn't imply assault to me.
Is that what this is about? Odd that it's not in the statement. I could totally see them being related though.
Well, they clearly generated too much heat, either through their own incompetence (most likely) or through cointelpro operations (less likely but still possible). Either way, they need to purge the top brass, and get back the leadership that they lost and pursue massive internal reforms to the parties leadership committees. Likely an undoable task at this point.
That said, this is extremely unfortunate, as local PSL leadership here in the Midwest are among the only organizations that actually have a good understanding of what is going on and understand what is actually at stake here with the ICE raids and continued surveillance, with strong theory and organizational education standards.
However, this is clearly a repeated issue within demcent organizations, and theory needs to be developed on how to counter this in a way that does not compromise the other goals of the organizational method. It seems as though policies around abuse and democratic discussion have to be the concrete center point for such organizations to work.
Either way, they need to purge the top brass
They should have done so a while ago but they dug their heels in on this issue, if they had not circled the wagons around an abuser any COINTELPRO bullshit would not have the teeth they may. This is a fundamental failure of party leadership.
It's an issue with non DemCent organizations as well. DemCent just acts like a shibboleth in many of these conversations, it isn't actually being applied coherently most of the time. Even when a DemCent organization is functional it can often be not particularly successful at implementing DemCent.
One of the biggest challenges is in building cadre, the people who should would be democratically making decisions. They are often underdeveloped both theoretically and practically. What this ends up meaning is that for good direction to be maintained, DemCent has to be partially abandoned to force a better decision. It happens all the time and usually relies on the good reputation and influence of leadership. But this is not sustainable. The only thing that is sustainable is the development of cadre and involving them in leadership. Orgs that grow fast are at risk of having a mass of undeveloped cadre that is unsustainable. Orgs that grow too slow because they are all about well-developed cadre (honestly I'm not sure if I've every seen one despite memes about e.g. Maoist reading groups) would presumably face irrelevance. It's a tough subject to tackle given low capacity to develop cadre in the first place and part of important discussions about party building vs base building (I don't fall strictly into either camp). I can't give specific advice except that I believe any US-based org needs to treat cadre development as the #1 priority.
According to Lenin, almost any political organization is demcent, the communists are just honest. Just a little nitpicking
Orgs that grow too slow because they are all about well-developed cadre (honestly I'm not sure if I've every seen one despite memes about e.g. Maoist reading groups) would presumably face irrelevance
damn getting called out in 2026
lol hey it applies to me too
I was just about to make a small edit that was going to address the, not JUST being an issue in DemCent.
All good points.
https://truthout.org/articles/why-misogynists-make-great-informants/
That is an excellent article, thank you comrade!
If anyone is curious how a culture of abuse, retaliation, and dominance could arise like this, the comments here are a pretty good demonstration.
Seriously I am so disappointed in the people trying to handwave this shit and fedjacket people calling out the fundamental contradictions of the party leadership.
I voted for PSL for most of my life, so I am not just ragging on them on this one incident. This reckoning has been a long time coming and they had at least a decade to deal with this and other issues.
This sucks so fucking bad. Mindblowingly dissapointing. I had a lot of hope for the PSL, am I wrong for thinking its looking pretty cooked?
I think I'd try and connect with PSL members in your area, and join them in whatever next step progression they engage in. Tons of smart smart smart cadre who'll probably be finding a way to make it work going forward
Thank you friend, I will do just this.
So they're reforming as the Liberation and Socialism Party (LSP), right?
The LiberalSocialist party more like. Gotta make sure power dynamics are the number 1 priority
Party of Sexpests and Liberalism
Sorry that title is reserved for the nazbol party
Eagerly waiting for the eventual Jackson Hinkle CSAM allegations to drop so I can deploy "Child Predators (U! S! A!)"
Honestly I think if any of them would get outed, it'd be their party enforcer bully got outed for using party funds to pay himself while holding drug-fueled s-pest parties with neo-nazis first, probably stinkle second because he got caught engaging in assault and battery against whoever poor Russian woman that decided to partner up with him, and third place is hard so I'm picking the bowl cut dweeb that runs rtsg.
I would've originally thrown helali in second place but he "quit" because of his greek-israeli spy ties. Also he ruined his most recent relationship and is looking to ruin another woman's life right now.
It really is a sad state (and revolution) of affairs across the board
Weirdly enough I'm happy with where I'm at currently with my crew. I'm also seeing somewhat positive developments from the old party as well. I wouldn't say everything is a complete wash just because one party stumbled. Unionization and worker strikes are steadily increasing across the nation, class consciousness and educational levels on socialism and communism are at heights we haven't seen since the days of the battle of Blair mountain, the Empire is constantly stumbling and is losing the proverbial Mandate of Heaven in both the eyes of the American people and of the world.
I'd say things are actually developing in a positive direction all things concidered.
the psl central leadership being totally useless and riddled with abuse is more suspicious to me
Shut the fuck up, if you can only fedjacket me then I think you've got nothing else. This is already public, and the PSL leadership has decided to do the work of the state by digging in and doubling down despite the immense works and infrastructure party members have built over time. I put years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars down for the party.
Honestly, this is all incredibly destabilizing, and I don't see anything about it online, which is part of what's motivating me to make this post. The PSL is the largest cadre-based socialist organization in the United States, and I don't see anything about this in the news, obviously, I guess, but like, even here. It's been such an important thing for me for so long and to see that the issues that I faced weren't just like bad people but instead like systemic issues, it's very disappointing. I almost don't want to let the topic go out of honestly just recognizing that this is real, that I'm not nuts. This like fucking sucks, but it's not my fucking fault. This is the fault of leadership. Go fedjacket the Beckers or some shit if you want to be accurate about who caused all this
Dude. There's not been any fucking mechanism internally to talk about this shit. When the party leaves no internal mechanism, all we can do is utilize other mechanisms to do so. If you really think that simply talking about our fucking experiences in a niche online leftist forum is doing the work of the federal agents, then I'm sorry, you have completely drunk the Kool-Aid. Which feels absolutely fucking wild to say, but, I can't think of any other way to see it. If criticism and discussions like this aren't allowed internally to the party, then like, what the fuck? Do we just shut up? No! This isn't a fucking game, dude. We have, like, an actual world to win.
The United States is funding this genocide in Gaza, let alone all of the other horrifying imperial machinery that it has enacting across the globe. We need an actual party that's able to handle this shit. If you're just seeing a ton of ex-members talking about this shit, like, that's not an organized smear campaign, I'm sorry. Even if it is, dog, maybe it should be, because a new party genuinely needs to arise with the same political program if this is all the party can do. This is all bad. And my experiences have shown me that I really don't think things are going to reform, especially with the recent statement from the Central Committee, like, are you kidding me?
A huge part of open discussion and debate within democratic centralist organizations is to be able to collect data points for a better direction to be decided. If you think that discussing these data points that so far have really not been allowed to be discussed at all internally with, trust me, huge barriers and punishments for doing so, then like, you are just straight up miseducated.
So don't talk to me like I'm some misguided liberal or fooled anarchist doing the work of the state. I'm not an ultra-leftist demanding perfection; I just don't think this shit is viable to continue as it is and we need to massively rethink our approach to matters thus far
This would be the first beginning steps. For the wide benefit of our movement, the PSL has fostered an environment where many disciplined cadre were able to emerge. I think if we're not honest now, try and wrangle together this built together large wells of cadre to start building something with a good understanding of the pros and cons we faced prior; then we're wasting this moment and the movement will be even worsely impacted.
Just to remind you, instead of engaging in self-development and introspection, the Central Committee decided to double down. They are the ones squandering this moment and making it so much worse.
Building formations and angling at a merge (with each other and maybe eventually with PSL) would be the most principled and productive thing to do. But I would say that I think 90% of the people writing these letters are either burned out or have some personal liberalism that means they won't do it, not right away. To be clear I think most of the examples I've seen are the people who are burned out. But luckily bring burned out with comrades tends to lead to being not burned out so a long as people stay in touch and do some level of work, formations are possible.
Burnout is an underemphasized criticism of organizing, particularly in the US. A lot of organizational capacity is wasted on alienation and frustration that does not need to happen and could be avoided with structure and principled cadre. I've seen many cases where entire programs are built around squeezing labor out of new, young organizers to serve specific campaigns or strategies rather than trying to sustainably build something larger. Several labor unions in the US adopt this strategies with paid organizers, in fact. It's for the young who should not expect work-life balance or sufficient pay, so the logic goes, and if they threaten to themselves unionize, the union adopts the union-busting playbook! Obviously this is a petty bourgeois tendency, part of the important contradictions of non-revolutionary labor organizing, and doesn't purely apply to socialist organizations, but there are some common threads and mechanisms that must be understood and thwarted.
The energy is here is kill the PSL and hopefully something better will be born from the ashes. When has that ever happened?
It certainly didn't happen when the ISO voted to dissolve after a very similar scandal in 2019.
PSL has a history of protecting abusers and is run ar the top by the whole baker family clique. I wanted to think the last couple times this could be cointelpro shit like you say but the more I've looked into them the more it is lear the core leadership is rotten and instead of addressing the very serious fact they protect abusers in their click and repeatedly dig in their heels over shit like this is too much to excuse. They compromised themselves, no need for the feds to do it for them.
Yes. There were a bunch of successor orgs after the ISO collapsed but all the momentum of the early Trump years was lost. I strongly recommend that PSL members look into how the ISO failed and what they can learn from the hasty vote to dissolve.
https://socialistworker.org/2019/04/02/the-isos-vote-to-dissolve-and-what-comes-next has a contemporary overview, and since the ISO was Trotskyist and newspaper-oriented it's easy to find long articles with contrasting views on what happened and the aftermath.
if it's a CIA op then the op is smartly leveraging genuine discontent from fundamental organizational failings that desperately need to be fixed. certain segments of the piece veer a little too interpersonal gossip IMO but the consistent themes across most of these recent documents of obscured centralized leadership demanding blind faith, zero real internal democracy, and a feeling of a corporatized internal culture where rank and file cadre are treated as dutiful little employees all ring extremely true.
if the cia is exploiting a contradiction then they should address the contradiction so the cia cant exploit it
theres been repeating criticisms of this organization for over a decade
yup, agreed 💯 % re: addressing the contradiction. refusal to even acknowledge there might possibly be a problem from leadership is why i and many others in my branch quit.
Didn't PSL national leadership basically call Walter's resignation letter an attempt to turn a faction into a split in Brooklyn? Isn't that basically accusing him of doing what you say he should be doing if he's not a CIA wrecker?
I think we should be realistic about the poor level of organization in the US, generally. There isn't an automatic other org to join and these folks actually aren't organizing a national-level split, they're just leaving the party and doing whatever thing seems best to them.
It's just a fairly typical settler nation party crisis. Systemic incompetency. The timing is a critical mass of frustrations building up and being seen as valid to air once they see they aren't alone.
Fundamentally this is the party's fault, whether it's directly through the cases of malfeasance in leadership or in doing a poor job in developing new members and building discipline through cadre. But most examples I'm aware of are real long-term members leaving over very serious issues that could not be resolved internally despite their best efforts. And there is plenty left unsaid.
If that's CIA shit then you're basically saying the PSL is CIA.
Even if you're right, you're going to lose like this.
You are not Fred Hampton
Youre missing the point. If the feds are attacking your party through its lack of internal democracy then the solution is to build internal democracy not pretend it doesn't exist.
What exactly is "building internal democracy" when the steering committee violates its own constitution? Beg the Becker twins to intervene directly?
How can you "build internal democracy" when the core leadership is acting to stonewall any such efforts? This is their own fault not the fault of the people abused jesus fucking christ.
Interesting how much is happening lately, especially with the timing of the splitting faction and the indictments of PSL and their sister orgs happening recently, as well as the bills that were passed recently about condemning socialism, plus heading into the midterms.
Publishing branch specific drama in an effort to split the party. Literal fed behavior
Okay, you tell me, what should I be doing.
"women should shut up about sex pests if they're also communists otherwise they're feds"
Unless I missed something this sub stack has nothing to do with sex pests.
No, not you. Hexbear isn't consequential enough for sharing it to amount to fed behavior. I'm saying it being published in the first place. Deliberate effort to split the party
"women should shut up about sex pests if they're also communists otherwise they're feds"
This is victim blaming. No one is in their right mind after a sexual assault, especially after being abused before, and even more especially when they thought they were in a safe space. I found so much of what she said as extremely relatable, including the impulse not to impose on the predator (e.g. ruin their life over it, or alternatively, have so many people comment on the thing that makes your PTSD flip out). The default reaction of a party must be to purge the sexual predator, at minimum. I'm saying that it should happen automatically, a victim is usually very concerned about their altered mental state and is often reticent to rock any boats, but ultimately the band-aid must be pulled off in order to protect other women in the organization. She fundamentally self harmed as well, as Eugene came back after a 6 month vacation and she had to deal with it all over again. This self harm also arises from how society teaches women to act. Its a little surprising to me that this organization has not had more reading on Marxist feminist literature, as it would have prepped them on how to handle situations like this.
Please do better.
That seems weasely. What should the publisher have done then?
If the party is shutting down internal discussion and democracy, it’s no longer democratic centralism. The only alternative is to discuss outside of internal channels.
