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?
I tried getting in touch with SRA, same story as some other comrades, 2 messages then nothing ever again. I also tried out one of the Communist parties in my area that seemed to be pretty hardline ML, at least on the surface. I was with them for about a year. In that time all I really did was sit around and listen to Zoom calls where the old timers, mostly the General Secretary, would complain about the old days, how they were betrayed, how no one is as ideologically pure as them, and how we must do exactly what the leadership says because they “always know whats best”. There was extreme volunteerism with everything. The leadership, local but especially national, was not serious about getting to know their members and how best to direct human resources. Lack of a good new member onboarding process exacerbated this. They would constantly do contradictory things, for example, read a section for an educational that talks about tactics used to derail organizing then proceed to do that exact stuff such as bogging down meetings with needless points of order. The national leaders were totally out of touch with anybody under 30. Not only that but they seemed to also have no idea of the challenges facing a modern working class person and absolutely no plans to alleviate that struggle for me or anyone else. Finally, by the end of my stay things were getting culty around the General Secretary and the party was beginning to adopt the PatSoc line so I left.
My main issue with the groups that I have interacted with is that they really are LARPy. They don’t see what needs to be done; mass unionizing and worker struggles to pave the way for small-scale general strikes and building from there. Aiming for dominance of specific industries. A focus and a program to address the needs of the modern working class. A youth wing that isn’t Moleman dressed like Bart Simpson. These orgs need to look at what right wing groups have done for the last 60 years and copy that model because it works. Lastly, stop pussyfooting around the issue of security. It is inevitable that at some point leftists will be met with violence. Any serious org needs to acknowledge this, plan accordingly, and train their members for this contingency.