Just curious and getting a feel, but why?
I am not in a party myself, because I can’t see any active in my area that I like and those I tried getting in touch with never replied.
For now I’ve settled with joining the IWW and hope to organize my workplace at a later date when I am more settled in, but as of now I am a newbie to my industry and to my company.
Maybe once I learn organizing techniques and get a network of people I can trust in my area, I’ve considered organizing a new party locally, but as of now that is more of a interesting thought than something I can actually accomplish in my current situation with my current knowledge base and current network.
What about you? What challenges have held you up so far?
Seriously, why does this happen so damn much? I’ve had plenty people tell me irl this happened to them, happened to me before and I hear it online all the time. These orgs and parties should be starving for members and yet it’s seemingly super common for them to ignore interested people entirely or to stop responding after 1 or 2 really keen messages.
I think a lot of people underestimate the effort that goes into starting up an actual working organization. Educating people, planning meetings, looking for stuff to focus on and find solutions for said stuff, organize protests, find new members, find money to do things etc. is pretty hard. In my experience a lot of organizations that call themselves communist/marxist/leftist/whatever don’t have a clue where to start. And in some cases there just aren’t any orgs nearby.
It took me a couple of groups to find out which ones were serious and which ones were not. The one I’m in right now actually had some sort of job interview and a vote by members before I could join. Might seem a bit over the top but this way they managed to collect a group of people actually wanting to do stuff.
I hope people on here who haven’t joined a group yet don’t get discouraged by what I’m saying. Keep looking for groups or start one yourself. But also understand that it’s a serious thing to do.
Internal party dynamics play a part. Some people are suspicious of people with no known ties to the party (and probably with good reason), others may not be willing to bring new people in, most of the time they are just lazy and don’t want to answer your messsages.