Yeah, I’d definitely say part of it for me was the unchecked assumption that “those” revolutionaries messed it up because they were cruel or stupid. As much as I looked up to the things they’d done, I looked down on them for their lack of “purity” and lack of democracy.

For me it took genuinely reflecting on my western chauvanistic attitudes, and meeting real communists in Cuba and having a legitimate conversation with them. Once I’d found out what a communist in an existing communist country was like, I’d realized they had the same drive as me, and were far more effective than me!

which, yes, set the entire rest of the world against them. They had a few teeeensy difficulties. They still used it as a license to be otherwise just as awful as everyone else, and handled their problems in utterly deplorable ways.

To be absolutely clear, the poor and lackluster decisions and retreats from “pure” Marxism and Leninism were by far the result of material conditions over a personal desire for power. The USSR was the world’s first socialist experiment and thus went on to make mistakes which would be corrected by later socialist experiments which would survive the 90s, but many of those things were forced by the invasion of 14 imperialist powers and the genocidal war campaign of the Nazis shortly after.

The history of Marxism (from the Marxist perspective) can be seen as legitimately taking the most successful form of liberatory thought and action in the modern day and trying to make it continually work in the cruel world we’re born into. It’s not perfect, but it’s been shown to work on a scale larger than any other strain of thought, and socialist revolutions have fed more children who’d gone hungry before than anything else prior or after.

For more context in this worldview, I highly recommend Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti and Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend by Domenico Losurdo

Nah this is nerd shit, it’s a basically meaningless role that was just easy to clinch with a couple friends, as much as the ACP is the inheritor of the kind of psy-ops the LaRouchites did back in the day, this is materially still quite meaningless and an indicator of the overall fecklessness of this “organization” and it’s lack of real grassroots involvement

Volcel Police!!!

I LOVE MY TRANS COMRADES

Imagine posting that dude

No it be like that sometimes

Honestly that’s kind of a chauvinistic attitude, people really are not stupid generally, if at this time of heightened alienation you can’t find anybody to talk to or commiserate about these things with you might need to go out of your way to find others who are of the same mindset. It’s our job as the people who know these things to explain them patiently and kindly to others who want to hear, because ultimately our perspective is correct and beneficial for the vast majority of people (the working class). I’ve done this in my own community and put a lot of people towards socialism simply by being a good and patient friend and have never once stopped explaining how or why socialism would be better for a given situation.

I don’t blame you for feeling that way though, without being in a proper organization it can feel really depressing and like nobody gets it, and that there’s no way to start these conversations. I really recommend finding whatever org exists in your area and getting connected, even if it’s a bit far out of your way for now. For me, being in a revolutionary org has been able to keep my revolutionary optimism strong, and I’m not so scared or frustrated. I’m in the PSL but I’ve heard good things about FRSO and the DSA as always.

DM me, we’re actively running a drive to make sure we capitalize this momentum. We can exchange matrix info and I’ll try to get you in contact with someone and make sure your application is seen.

The ruling class of this country will not allow this to happen because it would clearly mean they lose power

My experience with the PSL has been good as far as democracy goes, I feel like my ideas and the ideas of my comrades are taken into account and used to shape the overall structure which we work in and novel ideas are often celebrated internally, and while I want to say “this is just my experience with my branch” I’ve found the same experience when working with other branches in other geographic areas. However, as with all things, there’s constant improvements that need to be made always, but this is recognized by almost everyone I work with.

In regards to indigenous issues however, these things are touched on in the party’s book Socialist Reconstruction (available on your libgen instance of choice) in which it was openly recognized that much future indigenous policy would have to then be shaped by working with indigenous organizations and people. However I’d certainly not say from my experience that there’s a colonist chauvanism character to the party or it’s leadership, this has not been my experience.

Ultimately I joined the party because it’s the most visible, largest, and most dynamic socialist party and organization in the United States; while like all things in reality admittedly imperfect. Since joining I’ve been nothing but impressed with the people I work with, with the like-mindedness, and the really productive work ethic and desire towards building a revolutionary consciousness in this country and a revolutionary party ready to confront the next crisis of capitalism the US faces. I shouldn’t be taken at face value though, you should speak to others who’re active in the PSL or a potential recruiter if you’re interested by signing up at pslweb.org/join. If you find that it’s not a good fit for you it’s okay.

Unfortunately with the way these things are usually framed that’s an easy assumption to make lol

For transparency when I said external sources, I meant a statement by the PSL saying he’d been suspended as well as people who I’d met in real life willing to speak about it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ there may not exist a public document saying the words “permanently suspended” but that’s my understanding internally. I hope you’ll understand why a person who is working on the ground may be hesitant to write things down when even mistakes like I made are very easy to make. Frankly these things are serious but also easily able to be wielded by people who don’t really care about the safety of SA survivors and just want to red bash (for example, right wingers attacking queer people with “grooming” allegations) so there’s hesitancy to even give things like this fuel by discussing them publicly, but I think it’s worth being open about in this situation.

My only impressions of the party so far have been professional engagement with the serious matters of being a disciplined ML organization within the imperial core, and issues like this are clearly counter to bringing about the revolutionary change we want to see in the United States and the world. Me and other party members do a lot of work towards achieving this change and I for one would be incredibly pissed if it was wasted on interpersonal drama and protecting people with anti-social desires or tendencies.

Edit: Also thank you for being genuinely curious and open about this discussion, it’s not an easy one

When I was first wanting to join the party, I had friends warn me and link these various documents, and frankly it gave me unease. As part of my entry to the party I asked extensively about this situation and found that the Philly PSL Branch had suspended him permanently, and he’s not rejoined the party in another region since. Speaking again as someone victimized as such in the past, I feel that there are robust and answerable institutions that are responsive within the party to deal with people like this, and is exactly what made me feel okay entering organizer spaces again after some things that have happened to me in the past. There’s no public document I can share though, only my own testimony as someone who’s investigated this internally and willing to speak on it.

AFAIK the incident many refer to has to do with the former member Steven Powers in 2020. I say former because he’s been permanently suspended from the party, something not often mentioned when his name is brought up, and both internal and external sources to the party can attest to that. There really isn’t any evidence of widespread covering up of SA and Abuse, and if it did exist it should be taken extremely seriously. Unfortunately libel and smearing like this is part of the history of dismissing large socialist organizations, and all socialist spaces that grow to a certain point will have to and have had to both seriously deal with incidents like this within their organization and show internally and externally that it does not define them, that it is in fact counter to their goals and methods.