When I got started as an aspiring Marxist a few years ago, I joined the only Marxist org in my area. I was excited at first, but not long after it morphed into a weird Trot cult focused on the chairman. People started leaving until it was mostly Trots circle jerking about how they’re the only true Marxists, all AES are “degenerated workers’ states” that betrayed the revolution, and apparently no one since Trotsky has advanced Marxism in any meaningful way, among many other things. I quietly and reluctantly went along because I was still new and didn’t want to speak on matters I had no knowledge of.
At some point I decided to read some Mao, and after I quoted “Combat Liberalism” I got interrogated by senior members for some sort of perceived “Stalinism”. I got some lecture about how Mao and his “clique” unfairly suppressed the Trots during the revolution, and how Stalin forced the CPC to ally with the reactionaries and how that led to a bunch of people getting killed, or something like that. The point they really wanted to get across was that Mao and Stalin were traitors to the revolution and were not to be trusted. That really shook my confidence, but shortly after that the org suddenly dissolved because the chairman got exposed for… Inappropriate behavior. In retrospect, there were so many issues, I’m not sure what I thought could possibly be accomplished. I got really disillusioned for a long time.
Now I’m wanting to get politically active again, but the problem is that there are no Marxist orgs around in my part of the U.S. I’m not sure how I would go about starting one, and I’m afraid that I’m carrying remnants of not only liberalism, but also whatever erroneous ideas I may have picked up while in the cult.
So with all that said, I’d greatly appreciate advice and reading recommendations to help me start fresh. In particular, I’d love a comprehensive reading list that would help me develop into a proper Marxist-Leninist. Thank you. <3
A lot of parties and orgs exist solely to collect dues from members and justify their own existence. Trots are the most brazen about it but far from the only ones. If you look at their recently unveiled socialism AI for example, they sell absolutely ludicrous paid tiers for it, like 20$ a month and you only get ~500 messages. Which is a lot to use in a month, but deepseek for example is completely free to use with no usage limits whatsoever and can also look at the wsws site or whatever other source you want.
The more important part is looking at who talks about their “AI” (it’s a RAG wrapper around chatGPT but I digress) and you see it’s mostly other WSWS members. Not even other trotskyists. And they have a whole spiel about “I asked socialism AI X question, here’s what it had to say”. It’s so blatant; they know they will only ever sell this AI to their own members to extract more money from them.
I think one marker of a red flag is a party that hypes itself up severely, and has excuses for all their dysfunctions. I remember someone telling me the CPC (Canada lol not the based one) doesn’t go too far in their program because they don’t want to be declared illegal or censored. I mean… isn’t that a good thing to be attacked by the enemy? If you’re made illegal then you just go underground and you use that censorship to agitate people. But no yeah it’s apparently better to be no different from socdems and not make too much noise because god forbid we do anything but electoralism and collecting dues. It’s true what she said, those who don’t move don’t notice their chains.
Another marker is “oh but the comrades on the ground are super revolutionary” but then there are no such revolutionary members in the central committee or in leadership positions. In fact it only ever seems to elect reformists and social-democrats. That’s not a red flag against the comrades on the ground, it means that the party has ossified leadership - and chalk another red flag up if the leadership is always the same or very similar. Third red flag: if they have ready-made answers to handwave criticism away and nobody wants to talk about it with you. Like how People’s World doesn’t belong to CPUSA or a CPUSA committee but to a private name. Technically it belongs to Long View Publishing Co., Inc and Long View [Inc meaning Incorporated meaning a private company structure of a certain type btw] belongs entirely to John Bachtell. He owns People’s World and can do whatever he wants with it.
But when you point that out the only response you get (drilled into members’ heads no doubt) is that by law they “can’t” have a party newspaper. Okay then find that law, cite it, assuage our doubts instead of entrenching yourselves further in “I must defend the party at any cost”. What do you owe them that they got you like this lol.
Frankly at this point a party needs to deserve me. I don’t mean to sound arrogant because I think every comrade should think like this. It’s not a given that you just join whatever party calls itself communist, they need to deserve you and offer something that makes you want to stay. If they only ever use you and your labor then that’s not a party that’s an employer.
With that said IRL organizing yields much practical experience and as someone else you can’t fully understand theory without practicing it. But we deserve to be discerning about who we give our time to.
The trots in China worked with KMT and Japanese. heres a short reading
the org suddenly dissolved because the chairman got exposed for… Inappropriate behavior.
Lol and the RCI (ex-IMT) changed their names because it was too toxic. Literally just changed the trench coat.
This is a nice reading list that I bookmarked a while back, you might find it helpful: https://lemmy.ml/post/22417306
Thanks for recommending the list I made! OP, I designed the list to be pretty gentle up front and work up over time, but you can skip around if you feel like it!
These sound to me like people who don’t apply the Marxist method to actually understand and try to change society. Their perspective gets warped the more they continue to talk this way with each other. It’s sad that it happens, but I’m glad you recognized it and left (and it sounds like this org had tons more issues than even that). I think the next step is to work with the working class in real life. We all need more education all the time, but working with the people is an essential type of education that affects our ability to understand and apply what we read at home. It sounds like you’ve already read some good theory and probably need to start with real-life work with the people rather than another reading list. That being said, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire was transformative for me, and it sounds like it might be good for you right now too, and On Practice by Mao explains some of what I’m saying and is also really solid if you haven’t read that yet.
If there is no Marxist organization in your area, I’d begin with whatever vaguely left or even liberal organization can at least get you organizing experience and exposure to the people. It might be frustrating, but you’ll still learn. The PSL is a great Marxist organization, and you can join the PSL Action Network online from anywhere in the country and learn about what they’re doing in real life and start to connect with them through that. You can do that at the same time as whatever work you’re getting involved in locally, and it might help you make your local work more effective. Once you’ve learned through these things, maybe you’ll be the one to start the local Marxist-Leninist organization or connect with the people who can start it with you. It sounds like you’re thinking right and are prepared to do the work that needs to be done next!
I had a same problem. Only organization was a Trot org. I used them to discuss basic marxism when I felt advanced enough left them.
This sounds like I’m beating a dead horse but do you have any friends or know anyone thats also a communist? You could start a small group and proceed from there
