Like: cool logo, people I’ve met irl were nice, they sometimes hand out cool pins at protests, JT from Second Thought.
Dislike: a lot of things and it’s probably not helpful for me to make an exhaustive list. Suffice it to say, when someone wants to know what org to join, I recommend 3-4 parties/organizations before CPUSA. I’ll try to summarize and hope that it’s constructive in some way:
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Either has a small membership or it is inactive, as they have a small presence at any given action or project. Almost invisible in the labor scene, often tailing rallies or protests and only 1-2 members are present at those things. Other orgs bring 10-60 people in the cities I’ve been active in. Unless the quality makes up for the lack of quantity, people I could send there would probably learn far less about theory and organizing than at a larger, more active org.
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Despite small presence, does not have a strong line on most issues. I can understand some Maoist orgs having low membership or engagement because they’ve painted themselves into a theory/organizational corner that rejects all avenues of growth or organizing in the imperial core. It’s odd that CPUSA frequently presents positions to the right of the DSA but has no growth to show for its triangulation / popular front calculus (or worse). I think the analysis behind those positions is wrong, but more importantly I think it limits the org’s ability to build both vertically and horizontally.
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Given that I’m concerned it’s overall not a very serious org, I’m reticent to send people to it for opsec/infosec reasons. Being a member of the communist party is easily understood by all to be a radical membership and it requires an accounting of the risks for someone to responsibly take such risks, including taking opsec/infosec seriously. I have seen anti-imperialist front groups made up mostly of liberal students that have far and away more concern for members’ identities and safety than the (nice, but seemingly naive) CPUSA members I’ve attempted to work with. I think of people that are interested in socialism as our most precious resource, people who can be developed into powerful organizers and who should be reasonably protected and informed of risks. I know several environments that will be better for them than CPUSA.
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My impression is that there are disconnects between national and local and that a lot of time is wasted on internal struggles that go nowhere. This is not an effective way to use new members’ time, I’d rather send them to an org with active campaigns and expertise to guide them.
I would very much like to see CPUSA thrive and for it to be my number 1 recommendation for people interested in a generally ML education and in organizing to build socialism. It has a storied and impressive history and has commies in it, both things to love. I think it desperately needs to address core questions about its work, develop expertise and a strong embedding in labor and communities, and overcome whatever internal barriers that seem to prevent it from adopting effective strategies. Maybe starting just with the first point: I never see CPUSA represented among union leadership or reform groups or doing agitation projects within unions or forming new unions anywhere in the region I frequent, which is about 1/3 of the country. Maybe they’re hiding their membership? I see anarchists, trots, SocDems, demsocs, other kinds of communist, but not CPUSA. What do you think it would take to make it so that CPUSA is always present and active in every major union and regional union consortium, as well as adopting a popular line and actively campaigning for recruiting through and directing labor work? That’s the bread and butter of communist organizing and it keeps an org/party grounded in the conditions of the workforce and their psychology.
Active local orgs, FRSO, PSL, and even DSA (I give them warnings that their incoherence and acceptance of liberals means you’ll want to find or recruit commies). All of these groups have things to criticize but make up for it relative to CPUSA in critical areas. Example: I can almost always get someone involved in real organizing work wrt unions and anti-imperialism in the DSA and they’ll read ML (etc) books I suggest. There are usually people with decades of experience who, while having far from perfect politics, can pass on the core skills. I can then watch people move on to FRSO/PSL/a local org/my org when they’ve reached their limit (or in one instance, they take over their DSA chapter, which was pretty neat to watch).
In my experience with CPUSA, gaining practical organizing skills and embedding in the community seems to be a pretty low priority. I have seen a handful of events that were organized with CPUSA, though. More of that would be great. Loop more people into it, get them comfortable with the fundamentals of getting other people to do things, building lists, etc. It can be difficult for commies to feel comfortable developing strategies and engagement if they’re not familiar with at least a few toolkits. Or, worse, it can make a group dominated by the people who feel confident despite not having the knowledge, which of course leads in bad directions.
It’s also probably good to join groups like sunrise and extinction rebellion to move people who care on to a higher understanding and better tactics. In addition trans defense groups, and so on.
