So there's a new PSL chapter starting up in my town and I got to meet Gloria La Riva yesterday which was awesome. But I just found out there's also the PCUSA which is more ML? Does it matter which one i join if I want to do praxis stuff?

  • Sen_Jen [they/them]
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    3 years ago

    America is not in a place where sectarian differences between socialism matter. Just look at who does the most in your area and who has the most potential and go with them

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Member of PCUSA here. Obviously I'd be biased and say join my party, but I'll be blunt on this. Get involved, full stop. If there's a party that has a mass line that's in line with your own, then join it. There's nothing stopping you from also joining up with other local groups to cooperate together as a popular front to accomplish objectives you hold together.

    Examples are that both PCUSA and PSL commonly work together to do food and literature distributions, campaigning for each other's candidates, etc.

    Our goal is to swell the ranks of the Communist parties to greater numbers in order to accomplish greater tasks. Theres always time to shit-talk each other in the comradely way we always do, but at the end of the day our goals are the same.

    That said, do check out if there's a PCUSA club near you and join up, but if there isn't, I ain't faulting you for joining up with that spanking new PSL group in your area.

      • Alaskaball [comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Insofar as I'm aware it's Anti-imperialist with critical support for all AES countries on the U.S's shitlist with emphasis on anti-militarism along Leninist lines, aka Revolutionary defeatism. I do have to be clear that our General Secretary is a bit old-fashioned in the sense that he hold the Old Bolshevik views that the PRC's path along market socialism as a revisionist action and therefore personally holds that the PRC is dangerously close to where the USSR was when Gorbachev was at the helm.

        That said the party has not adopted an official line on the question of the PRC, beyond critical support against American Imperialism, so as to maintain focus on building the party instead of having a struggle session. Lots of party members fall into multiple camps of considering the PRC the Socialist, Revisionist, in a state of decay back towards Capitalism, etc. I guess we pretty much decided to say "Lets just focus on what we can control and change, instead of blowing hot air over what we can't change."

        • TeethOrCoat [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          current propaganda narratives on PRC

          I kinda expected your answer of what the PCUSA would be like, but I'm more interested in the question that I quoted. Basically, do PCUSA members believe the shit that the media is spewing about PRC right now like XJ, HK, lab leak, rocket crashing, etc?

          • Alaskaball [comrade/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Never heard anyone remotely talk about anything like that. Usually whenever China comes up it's in reference to theory, or history. Once in a while someone will mention Bayarea415's vids on china whenever they're relevant, otherwise it's generally a non-topic in my district and on national meetings.

  • RedArmor [he/him]
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    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I never heard back from the PSL even months after I tried to contact them. There are a lot of trots, and don’t recognize themselves as a vanguard or Revolutionary party.

    I was contacted the next day by the General Secretary of the PCUSA and he interviewed me. It’s a serious party, with plenty of commissions, outreach, classes and education programs. Each state has their own club, and are each within regions. There are chairs at each level, and elections occur after your candidacy is complete (12 months). During that time you do things for the party, attend meetings, and are encouraged to study and research your own. Representatives from each club and their corresponding commissions they are in, report back in monthly meetings of your club.

    We have a signal chat with a few clubs in our region to better organize and build off of each other. We joke, share news, give each other advice, and are very much comradely with each other.

    Other organizations and outreach programs are highly encouraged, not only to spread word about the PCUSA, but to show that the propaganda everyone is fed about communism/socialism is wrong and twisted.

    Also, PCUSA is exclusively Marxist-Leninist party, but we read works and theory from other revolutionaries. Most recently our club did On Contradiction by Mao.

    • curmudgeonthefrog [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      I thought the PCUSA is the splinter group becasue the CPUSA became libs. And yeah, violence is literally counter productive to organizing, not doing that shit

      • Alaskaball [comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        oh yeah, just to let folks know PCUSA origionally started as a "friends of the Soviet Union" commission in the old CP that when the Party leadership at the time endorsed Gorbachev and his social democratic reforms raised enough hell to be removed from the Communist Party.

        TL;DR PCUSA founding members got kicked out of CPUSA for calling them libs.

    • LeninsRage [he/him]
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      3 years ago

      nah man making bombs in your garage and planting them in government facilities is extremely cool and easy and not at all literally self-destructive

  • Owl [he/him]
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    3 years ago

    Show up to support a march or a picket line or whatever, then join whichever org is actually there helping.

  • Anna_KOC [comrade/them]
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    3 years ago

    Don't worry about it, you can't do any praxis without an armed wing in the first place

  • RealAssHistoryHours [he/him,they/them]
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    3 years ago

    I saw some twitter thread from a former PSL member that basically La Riva is a TERF and the org refused to address their sexual assault issues for a long time. I don't know hoe true these rumors are and how they've been addressing the supposed issues, but that's probably an avenue worth investigating before you join.

    • curmudgeonthefrog [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      3 years ago

      Damn I wished I asked her about her thoughts on our trans comrades. It didn't really come up when she was talking about Cuba. I'll ask the PSL rep I'm talking to this week about the PSL's platform.