there will not be a dominant workers party here in the US for a long time. Longer than we have to carry out a revolution before a total fascist descent and climate change destroys everything.
Are you saying that we are all going to die before the revolution happens?
What I am saying is that because of the US’s unique anti-communist characteristics, development and so on, there likely will not be a “usual” vanguard party in the Leninist sense like in past revolutions. We probably just won’t have the numbers that the Bolsheviks did (in time) just because class consciousness is so backwards right now and it takes a lot of work to fix that. So instead of organizing around an explicit “communist party” only, we should be spending our time collaborating with other communists (in an organization) through building mass organizations that everyone can get behind, things that all communists support, but supporting it doesn’t make you a communist necessarily. More specific things rather than just “join if you’re a commie” y’know? Anti-war organizations, tenants’ unions, regular unions, or just an anti-hate org that does a little of everything within your community.
I’m probably doing a bad job of explaining. The point is to get as many people as possible involved - through mass organization because people who aren’t communists won’t just wake up one day and get into a vanguard party - which will inevitably funnel them into more radical and communist-sympathied beliefs. If you’re organizing with a communist around an issue you believe in, and they’re doing most of the work, and dedicated, you’ll eventually realize “holy shit these guys are for the people” and become more interested.
This also doesn’t mean that we want to just make sister organizations that are fronts for the org, they need to be grass-root authentic. In theory a communist doing most of the work who founded the organization could be removed from said org by everyone if they started acting against the people’s interests. We just understand the importance of having communist/advanced political presence in mass organizations which will inevitably lead to further class consciousness.
Hope that made some sense. I am not a doomer at all.
Edit: This is not to say FRSO won’t necessarily become a party some day when the contradictions and public support become so sharp and great. But right now it’s not, because that’s not going to get support fast enough in our opinion.
Are you saying that we are all going to die before the revolution happens?
No, not at all.
What I am saying is that because of the US’s unique anti-communist characteristics, development and so on, there likely will not be a “usual” vanguard party in the Leninist sense like in past revolutions. We probably just won’t have the numbers that the Bolsheviks did (in time) just because class consciousness is so backwards right now and it takes a lot of work to fix that. So instead of organizing around an explicit “communist party” only, we should be spending our time collaborating with other communists (in an organization) through building mass organizations that everyone can get behind, things that all communists support, but supporting it doesn’t make you a communist necessarily. More specific things rather than just “join if you’re a commie” y’know? Anti-war organizations, tenants’ unions, regular unions, or just an anti-hate org that does a little of everything within your community.
I’m probably doing a bad job of explaining. The point is to get as many people as possible involved - through mass organization because people who aren’t communists won’t just wake up one day and get into a vanguard party - which will inevitably funnel them into more radical and communist-sympathied beliefs. If you’re organizing with a communist around an issue you believe in, and they’re doing most of the work, and dedicated, you’ll eventually realize “holy shit these guys are for the people” and become more interested.
This also doesn’t mean that we want to just make sister organizations that are fronts for the org, they need to be grass-root authentic. In theory a communist doing most of the work who founded the organization could be removed from said org by everyone if they started acting against the people’s interests. We just understand the importance of having communist/advanced political presence in mass organizations which will inevitably lead to further class consciousness.
Hope that made some sense. I am not a doomer at all.
Edit: This is not to say FRSO won’t necessarily become a party some day when the contradictions and public support become so sharp and great. But right now it’s not, because that’s not going to get support fast enough in our opinion.