This essay is a part of Negation's Organizational Culture Dossier. The rest of the collection can be found here.

Curiosity, the desire to know, the wish to learn the new accompanied him until the last days of his life. And if anything, he highlighted the limitations of his own work, spurring friends and comrades not to stop, to go beyond established assumptions and paradigms. Sandro Mezzadra, “For Toni. An early and very personal remembrance

Self-criticism, frequently highlighted as an integral part of communist analysis, is flagrantly absent from the current milieu. Its absence has left us rife with poor judgments, uncomradely “critique” and dogmatism. While many individuals and organizations promote the notion and practice of self-criticism, the manner in which it is taught and promoted has a great deal of influence on its quality. Communists seek to educate those inside and outside the movement on the importance of ruthless criticism, but how effective are these efforts? In the course of my investigation, I have elected to study what is supposedly a cure to prevent (but may yet be a cause of) both individual and organizational deterioration: communist education. 

Rather than doing the reading my shelves demand of me, I have been doing some reading about reading. Specifically, I have been reading about the educational programmes offered by certain socialist/communist organizations and caucuses within the United States. I consider education to be a pivotal task in both the short and long-term for communists, and as such, I decided to investigate the sorts of education currently being conducted by socialists and communists in the American sphere. The most notable (and simple) form of organized educational efforts is that of collected works shared by organizations and caucuses within them for the purpose of educating new and prospective members. These lists of works, whether containing ten readings or one hundred, have indicated to me a number of flaws in communist education. Plenty of these flaws could be dismissed as ideological disagreements, but the greatest of these flaws are those which go beyond the content of the pieces on the lists and delve into the question of why these lists exist in the first place. I shall begin, though, with the content of the lists. There are four lists which I have perused, all belonging to caucuses in or around the Democratic Socialists of America, the most relevant organization in American left–wing politics. These readers belong to the Marxist Unity Group, the Bread & Roses Caucus, the Red Star Caucus, and the Communist Caucus.

Who Controls The Present

I began with the Marxist Unity Group, a DSA caucus with multiple members on the National Political Committee, and found their website’s list of texts quite easy to locate.[1] The list contains a variety of texts from older and newer sources, with several directly from Marx, Engels, and Lenin while others are more recent commentaries on some of their theories. Included above the list is a passage that reads: 

The following list does not represent a comprehensive curricula for an education in Marxism: it’s specifically geared towards our shared views on party-building and strategic orientation, and what makes those views unique as a political project within DSA. Thus it necessarily excludes important topics, such as political economy, black liberation, imperialism, etc. We look forward to building curriculum on these and other topics that will be usable in DSA chapters.

While one could offer criticism that such a limited education does little to fashion well-rounded cadres, I understand the decision to turn out effective proponents of a particular strategy as opposed to jack-of-all-trades generalized Marxists. When a caucus is aiming to promote a particular vision, said caucus needs members equipped to promote their specifics as opposed to the general positions where overlap might exist with other caucuses. That said, I would not recommend this educational program to an unfamiliar beginner as it is quite clearly engineered for the purpose of making caucus members rather than DSA members or marxists more generally. Readers get the chance to engage with both works in the canon as well as commentaries on said works, but both the originals and the newer additions are selected for the aforementioned specific purpose. Those combing through the foundational texts of the Marxist Unity Group would need a decent (but not unreasonable) amount of knowledge before undertaking the educational journey. Any gripes with the positions that the group asks members to take up are not mine to make, but this educational program is unsuitable for the uninitiated and focused on a foundation for the caucus. 

Following the Marxist Unity Group is Bread & Roses, a DSA caucus with a greater number of members on the NPC that describes itself as “a national caucus of Marxist organizers in the Democratic Socialists of America.” The reading lists, again, are a more effective method of ironing out the aims of the caucus, at least with regard to the education of communists and growth of the movement. Bread and Roses have a reading list of incredible length, addressing a wide variety of topics including feminism, imperialism, racial justice, climate change, and socialist strategy.[3] With such a wide-ranging and expansive reading list, I was compelled to peruse a number of the works from different sections. The first of these selections was Vivek Chibber’s “Rescuing Class from the Cultural Turn”.[4] As someone with a particular interest in both the differences and similarities between economic classes and social classes, it seemed like the perfect sort of article to begin quality control tests with. The thrust of the article is that it rejects the “broad thrust of intellectual production”, which Chibber claims has abandoned materialism for the “Cultural Turn.” Chibber uses writings from William Sewell to outline what the cultural turn entailed, and then begins the most important part of his argument in a section entitled “What Makes Class Structure Different”. In a subsection of this passage, Chibber writes:

Now it is of course possible that some kind of sanctions are also placed on him, in a manner reminiscent of the proletarian, that impose costs on him should he choose to reject his role. He might be ostracized by the community and experience other kinds of social pressure or perhaps even physical punishment. But this is not in fact a parallel at all. In this latter instance, what we have are instances of agent-imposed sanctions. They require some kind of monitoring by social agencies dedicated to preventing transgressions of just this kind and, on top of that, willful intervention by individuals or the community. Short of these consciously imposed sanctions, the parishioner is free to walk away and refuse to accept his role. In the proletarian’s case, there is no call for conscious intervention by anyone. She does not have to be monitored to ensure that she accept her role — she will accept it on her own volition. She will therefore orient her meaning universe in a way that enables her to find and then keep employment, so that she might survive. But if this is so, then we cannot say that class agency of the sort just described is the effect of meaning. To the contrary, we can suggest that the proletarian’s meaning orientation is the effect of her structural location.

There are many who will read the passage’s claim that the distinction between agent-imposed sanctions and structure-imposed sanctions is too great for there to be “a parallel at all”.[6] I find this quite objectionable, though. On top of the apparent denial that those dissatisfied with wage labor can ever become members of the bourgeoisie, there is a more significant issue with this line of argumentation. The glaring hole is in the material effects of the refusal to play a role. While Chibber argues that we are structurally compelled to accept the role of wage laborers and only socially compelled to play roles of our race, our gender, and sexuality, this fails to account for the real nature of the situation in an incensing manner.[7] It overlooks a quite important piece of scenarios involving punishment: the consequences themselves. The outcome of refusing one’s role as a waged laborer can be starvation, provided that networks of aid and state assistance are not prolific enough to provide acceptable assistance. The outcome of rejecting a social role (or even accepting one!) can also be death. If one is put to death for being LGBTQ+, murdered in a femicide, or slain in an incident of racial violence, they have been given just as harsh a punishment as the one who rejects wage labor and cannot be sustained through assistance. The supposed lack of a “parallel” is an absurd claim upon investigation, chiefly due to the fact that the results can be identical.[8]

Chibber aims to draw a line between the two forms of sanctions by highlighting that death for social misbehavior must be brought about by a social actor. Someone else must report your activities and another person must punish you. He argues that structural deprivation is a process which does not require being reported and sentenced to death, making the two situations incomparable. Aside from the fact that the two outcomes can be identical, Chibber also ignores the fact that starvation does not happen in a vacuum. There are social agents about, including those who would deny a claim on unemployment assistance, those who would prevent other benefits from being provided, and those who would apply punishment should one steal to survive. The two situations are not anywhere near as different as the author makes them out to be. Chibber’s piece has these glaring holes in its attack, which make it questionable as a choice for those in need of foundational readings for communist education. Some might suggest that the argument’s being “Marxist” is more important than it holding water, but I would rather be correct than “Marxist” when being “Marxist” requires me to place economic class on an altar for worship and social class in a pit for denigration. I need not pretend that such an idea is universal among communists and indict Bread & Roses for having something outdated or niche in their readings, but I do believe that the proliferation of such ideas contributes to a worsening of the communist movement on the whole. In other words, spreading the notion that class is a primary contradiction (or that primary contradictions even exist) is an educational failing, even if it aligns more closely with the traditional notions of what “Marxism” and “communism” ought to be. The notion that placing a premium on class conflict and resolving the contradictions of capitalism will end all other ills has an extremely limited foundation. I stand convinced of the fact that the symbiotic relationship between racism and capitalism as discussed in works like Class, Race, and Marxism is not a codependent one.[9] Defeating one does not entail defeating the other, and placing a premium on defeating one evil sacrifices the campaigns to attack other ills. I do believe, as has been penned in other Negation work, that our only hope is to treat all evils as unnecessary and combat them all simultaneously.[10] 

I elected to continue reading in the hope that abandoning the Jacobin selections would provide me with a reading of greater quality. In this effort, I selected a reading of apparent importance (it had an asterisk next to it, meant to signal it as a reading suitable for “newcomers to socialist politics”).[11] The reading was authored by Meagan Day, bearing the title “Why Socialists Should Fight for Structural Reforms”.[12] Published on the DSA’s Socialist Forum, the article makes a case for, as the title suggests, structural reforms of the American system. The most significant section of the article is towards its conclusion, where Day writes:

Socialists can have reasonable disagreements over what exactly constitutes a structural reform struggle. That’s okay, and that's exactly the kind of debate the socialist left should be having with itself. We should, however, dispense with conceptions that counterpose reform struggles to the ultimate goal of socialism as a different kind of society. The logical conclusion of hostility to reform fights is abstention from working people’s ongoing efforts to improve their quality of life. That kind of perpetual bench-warming leads to a kind of sectarian isolation made sterile by a lack of meaningful contact with the millions of people who currently stand outside the fold. Class conflict is always happening under capitalism. Our task is to locate the most promising currents of mass working-class resistance, support them, and to win leadership roles in them on the basis of our good work. This would imbue them with a socialist perspective and character and draw in as many people into the struggle as possible.

The passage highlights two issues I have with the entire “democratic socialist” approach. The first of these is a logical leap made by the author in assuming that hostility to reform campaigns means an opposition to any minor improvements made by “working people” to improve their lives. The conclusion is made here while overlooking a cornerstone piece of left-wing organization today: mutual aid. Opponents of mutual aid often disregard it as being little more than charity work, denigrating the idea that it is a worthwhile effort for communist organizations to partake in. This attitude is not only a strategic error, it is part of a common misunderstanding surrounding such efforts. Mutual aid is quite plainly an effort by the underclass to better their lives through collective effort. While mutual aid can be (and is) often criticized for a lack of larger results beyond short-term survival, the survival-state of communist politics as a whole has been perilous for so long that it feels quite obvious to understand why communist organizations would play a policial Catenaccio (an Italian hyper-defensive football strategy) and attempt to deny things getting worse before fighting to improve their conditions. As much as it remains possible for the efforts of mutual aid to amount to charity campaigns, the possibility also exists for these campaigns to improve quality of life for people in a manner reminiscent of reform campaigns, but a manner that avoids the levers of state power. Those who disregard mutual aid prefer to suggest that labor and state campaigns can produce more stable results, but such campaigns are also due for critical evaluation. These campaigns require far more political power than many groups currently wield, and a change in tides can result in a crippling of your methods, as with the Taft-Hartley Act. All of that is to say that the claim is simply untrue. Mutual aid works to better people’s living conditions without being a reformist campaign which legitimizes the system we supposedly oppose. 

Day also claims that we are tasked with locating, supporting, and (hopefully) leading working class struggle. If we take leadership roles within working-class organizations, this will “imbue them with a socialist perspective and character”. To say that this perspective of organization is up for debate would be an understatement. Cam W.’s article “The Premise of Organization” dissects this framework of socialist organizing as being something from “outside” that must be introduced to the unenlightened (alternatively framed as pure) masses.[14] Cam writes:

I do not think that the merger thesis ought to describe the goals of contemporary politics. The contradiction between workers and intellectuals was a historically specific contradiction which masks a greater one: the contradiction between leaders and led. Reading the history of communist politics as a contradiction between leaders and led helps illuminate some of the problems of socialist construction in the USSR, the cataclysmic event of the GPCR, and the class struggles of the ‘60s and ‘70s in western social democracy. Understood in this way, we can interpret the difficulties experienced in the USSR and China as the result of the maintaining of the division of manual and intellectual labor, where the party is responsible for decision making and administration, while the workers are still subordinate in the labor process and politics.

This framing of internal struggles as a question of leadership is far more useful than one which frames struggles as something for communists to simply find, investigate, and commandeer to revolutionary ends. Cam’s picture of communist struggle shows us that rather than framing our politics as something that must be introduced to the the multitude (or proletariat, if you must), we should understand ourselves as being members of the multitude and eliminate this supposed contradiction between the communists outside the class and the workers who make up the class. Denigrating workers as unenlightened serves nobody. Self-denigration of communists as impure intellectuals serves nobody. We should not simply locate and aid labor struggles as if that is the horizon of communist activity. We should be struggling anywhere that there are losses to be prevented and gains to be won. 

While the fights against police militarization, mass incarceration, and racial injustice exemplified by the effort to stop Cop City are not ones that can be wholly characterized as “working class” struggles, the fact remains that there are important sites of struggle for communists, whose liberatory aims are greater than any one class (or should be, if they are not yet). The aim is not to capture working-class movements and point them in a socialist direction, the aim is to fashion organization from disorganization, creating community’s strength to replace isolation’s weakness. We organize ourselves. We do not save the working class, nor does the working class save us. Communism is an effort of, by, and for the multitude which (whether through social initiatives, mutual aid, or revolutionary upheaval) allows the multitude to create its own destiny. 

The reading list on the whole is too long to read before publication of a piece addressing several caucuses, and as such I will not make the claim that the entire list’s content is equal in quality. I only object to that which I know is objectionable. The problems of these articles are theirs alone, but across these three articles, they can be indicted for oversimplifications, factionalism, dogmatism, reformism, and any number of -isms such that listing them all would leave one red in the face. Using authors whose idea of socialism is largely rooted in the notion that democracy comes above everything would be fine if not for the fact that these writers are affixed to electoral dead-ends and class-first politics that fail to appreciate other axes and strategies for struggle. The questions I aimed to ask of the caucuses were answered in a very frustrating manner by the Bread & Roses Caucus. They recommended multiple texts which subscribe to outdated and questionable strategies while promoting a vision of communism that, while perhaps a good fit for the notions of “Democratic Socialism”, is wholly alien to me. 

While the entire list has a disclaimer at the top which reads, “Though it presents a roughly coherent Marxist point of view concerning the subjects under consideration, the inclusion of a particular reading does not imply full endorsement of every argument the author makes,” the fact that some of these articles may receive even a partial endorsement through their inclusion on the list is enough for me to be bothered.[16] The subject of education does not have its own section in the reading list, so the only possible room for discrepancy on the topic is the discrepancy between different articles of the eclectic bunch provided. The texts are largely chosen, it seems, for easy accessibility. I do not resent the decision to select writings less difficult than a volume of Capital, but I do resent the fact that, in attempting to paint simple-enough pictures of communism and communist organizing, there have been details left out of the image. Readers are not expected to have much, if any, knowledge of socialism/communism, which is where a reading list of this sort is perfectly-suited. The problems with this list are not in the language, the expectations placed on the readers, or the inapplicability to the current moment. Instead, the writings are overwhelmingly concerned with explaining current sites of struggle to newcomers. This would not be an area of concern if not for the fact that a number of said explanations are unsatisfactory. Some might question why I did not attack some of the writings I oppose from the Marxist Unity Group’s reading list. The rationale is quite simple: the reading list from Bread & Roses is aimed directly at newcomers to socialist politics with the explicit goal of educating them. The Marxist Unity Group reading list is not aimed at beginners but aims to fashion committed caucus members who can make the arguments needed to advance the positions of the group, an issue that nearly all caucuses appear to have in common. 

Red Star Caucus, a Marxist-Leninist contingent within DSA, was my third site of investigation. I have often been skeptical of similar actors’ political efforts to revive 20th century socialist strategy for the present moment, but I went into the educational readings with as open a mind as I could muster. Upon checking out the readings, I was rather glad I did. The list has little that is quite offensive to the senses, and the authors on the list are quite important within the Marxist canon. Lenin, Marx, Engels, Fanon, and Mao are all given space on the “Red Start” list.[17] In addition to the provided readings, they also offer podcast episodes and audiobooks for some of the readings, which addresses a concern that has been frequently brought to me over the idea of reading theory. 

The gripes I have (because of course I have gripes) are with what the entire list seeks to accomplish. As with the Marxist Unity Group’s slate (including Kautsky’s writings and a number of Kautsky-aligned thinkers) and the collection curated by Bread & Roses (over forty readings published by Jacobin Magazine), this reading list serves to turn communist neophytes into excellent Marxist-Leninists. All three of these reading lists serve the purpose of fashioning sectarian super-soldiers who will be masters of only their organization’s worldview. One reading of Marx on the whole list to match the singular Stalin reading does not look like a recipe for a knowledgeable Marxist. It appears to be a recipe for a committed caucus member, sure, but what good is a committed caucus member, exactly? Why are all of these organizations attempting to produce such specific forms of communists? The simple answer is (without trying to read the minds of the authors) that these organizations are acting as they see is best for the current crises. They are firmly committed to the particular forms of communism that they belong to and wish to see others subscribe to their persuasion. Problems arise, though, when discourse occurs between these groups. When members of these different groups interact, they are interacting with others whose training identifies alternative forms of communism (if it identifies them at all) as being detrimental to the state of communism more broadly. While Red Star deserve praise for including a piece of writing critical of some of their beliefs, Rebuilding the Left by Marta Harnecker, one piece of writing that levies criticism at the party-form is hardly a full introduction to anti-party communist thought and practice. These organizations have created (and continue to create) individuals and groups dedicated to combating fellow communists as much as they combat external threats. 

Finally, there is the Communist Caucus, a group that, while not officially functioning as a caucus in the DSA with members on the NPC, still possesses influence on the workings of left-wing politics in that milieu. The Communist Caucus’s educational program is divided into halves for the independent and collective study portions. This division is undoubtedly more beginner-friendly, as those in need of having their questions answered can share them with other members of an educational class. The group-study portion of the educational programme for the Communist Caucus has four main areas of investigation: capitalism, resistance to capitalism, racism as a barrier to anti-capitalism, and the struggles of recent times. This is a largely acceptable way to introduce Marxism to a beginner, but I can and will take issue with two aspects of this group-study initiative. First, I find the framing of the study section “BARRIERS TO POWER: RACISM” to be misguided at best. As established by Sean Alderson in his essay “A Class of All Oppressed Classes”, framing racism as being dependent, subservient, or secondary to struggles of economic classes is an obfuscatory attitude that harms a Marxist framework more than it helps.[18] This is not to accuse the Communist Caucus of failing to address racism in some material way, but I do believe that this is a discursive error which can negatively impact the educational programme. Second, the lack of a section for feminist writings in the group study portion does a disservice to those who need to gain a better grasp on the patriarchy’s mechanisms of oppression, especially as beliefs about patriarchy’s demise are far more common than they should be.[19] The self-study portion of the educational program also does not contain a section on feminism, but it does continue the largely solid foundations provided in the group-study with sections on ideology, labor organizing, tenant organizing, and organizing strategy. The Communist Caucus is not the worst offender of the caucuses with regard to intellectual diversity. Their list contains readings from both Mario Tronti and Mao Zedong in equal amounts, signaling a greater commitment to a broad education than is offered by some of their competitors. I would still aim criticism, though, at their lack of differing opinions within the guided-study portion of the curriculum. I believe that, to appropriate a phrase from creationists, one must “teach the controversy” with regard to figures like Lenin, Mao, and (most significantly) Stalin. If we cannot educate on these historical communists and their actions from multiple angles, we will never succeed in teaching newcomers the all-important critical thinking skills required for being worthwhile communists. 

When Ignorance Reigns 

Even though the groups of people responsible for creating these different educational efforts have formed quite different selections of readings and methods for teaching said readings, they are more alike than they are different. Each of these programmes serves a similar purpose to the others: to advance the communist movement through the transmission of knowledge. This transmission occurs either between the recommender and the recipient of the recommendation or between the teacher of the reading and the student. There are, though, more aspects of an educational strategy than just the method of teaching and the materials taught. The assumptions and beliefs that feed into these selections are also under scrutiny, but my mutation for reading minds has yet to emerge, meaning my ability to critique intentions is limited.

The creation of an educational plan for budding communists is a task which cannot be taken lightly. Those who sculpt these plans take the responsibility for the creation of communism’s future. It is not wise, though, to place the blame for the weakness in certain educational tracks solely at the feet of their creators. Those whose opinions I disagree with vehemently likely operated under the same assumptions that those I agree with did. They believed that offering up the readings they chose would produce communists better-equipped to advance the movement. One could quite easily fall into the trap of thinking that the problem, then, must lie at the feet of those who educated the bad educators. This, too, is an unwise belief to hold. Those who believe (and spread the notion) that social-democratic political figures hold the keys to a communist future cannot pin those views solely on those who taught them. 

Responsibility lies, I have begun to realize, mainly on the shoulders of systems. The existence of a big-tent organization designed to house multiple communist currents necessitates the creation of internal programmes to educate members in the ways of the current. With this in mind, it becomes easy to understand why it is that the bulk of multiple reading lists is made up of readings tailored to a particular caucus. The groups are not incentivized to create those who wield what Paulo Freire called “critical consciousness” through a sampling of multiple perspectives.[20] Instead, they are incentivized to create footsoldiers for their sect in the hope that the caucus will continue to thrive and wield greater influence on the future of the big-tent organization. As Freire writes in Pedagogy of the Oppressed:

Sectarianism, fed by fanaticism, is always castrating. Radicalization, nourished by a critical spirit, is always creative. Sectarianism mythicizes and thereby alienates; radicalization criticizes and thereby liberates. Radicalization involves increased commitment to the position one has chosen, and thus ever greater engagement in the effort to transform concrete, objective reality. Conversely, sectarianism, because it is mythicizing and irrational, turns reality into a false (and therefore unchangeable) ‘reality’.

Sectarianism to Freire is not only an obstacle to our organizational accomplishments, but an impediment to our ability to perceive the world around us. In an organization plagued by sectarianism, inability and unwillingness to charitably interpret others’ words and actions abound, and nowhere was this been more evident than in the DSA’s debates surrounding the international delegation sent to observe and learn in Cuba.[22]

The Cuban affair could be seen as indicative of any number of problems within the organization. All parties involved saw fault in the actions of others that indicated a particular problem within the culture of the organization. Some saw a lack of discipline, while others viewed the argument as indicative of others’ unwillingness to hear alternative viewpoints. Outside observers like myself were inclined to view this as an issue of sectarianism, but, as previously mentioned, the sectarianism is not a product of poor character on the part of caucus members. Rather, it is a combination of two factors: the structure of competing caucuses and the internal characteristics of these caucuses (as exemplified in their educational recommendations). The caucuses are encouraged to score points on one another in the hope that they will increase their own influence while decreasing the influence of their rivals. In addition, they benefit from training new recruits to be effective at scoring points, effective at winning arguments, and effective at producing more members. It is for these reasons that I believe the big-tent nature of the organization, in addition to other factors, has been hampering the effectiveness of communist education. In leaving so much sway over ideologies in the hands of groups that succeed when sectarians are made, big-tent organizations enable the creation of their own worst enemies. 

This does not, of course, mean that splitting all of the caucuses into their own separate national organizations would be a more effective strategy for communist organizing. More ideologically-committed groups like Socialist Alternative and the Party for Socialism and Liberation are more than capable of producing ideologues of the exact same sorts while claiming fewer members and exerting small amounts of influence on a national scale. The best claim these organizations can make about their ideological commitments is that they allow for united action and fewer pointless disputes, but a pattern of avoiding “pointless” disputes quite easily transforms into a pattern of stifling dissent. The best case scenario, then, is not for the DSA to fragment into a number of smaller communist organizations that occasionally work together. Instead, a better scenario for the state of communist education would be for the organization to grow in numbers, but growth accompanied by two changes to the structure of education among chapters.

First, all organizations should take a greater interest in the theoretical foundations of its newcomers, taking a cue from Freire when he wrote:

The insistence that the oppressed engage in reflection on their concrete situation is not a call to armchair revolution. On the contrary, reflection–true reflection–leads to action. On the other hand, when the situation calls for action, that action will constitute an authentic praxis only if its consequences become the object of critical reflection.

The DSA, in its big-tent style, understandably avoids presenting certain educational writings due to a number of concerns. If the National Political Committee (or the membership at large) were to function as planners for communist education, would the same problems of sectarian conflict not simply seep into the debates around which readings and resources to provide for aspiring members? Rather than avoiding the issue with the possibility of different sects pushing their own versions of communism in the platform, it would be better to embrace the possibilities brought about by having competing visions. The representatives who fashion the educational programmes for socialist organizations ought to reflect the diversity of ideas within the organizations, making sure that as many voices are heard as possible. Of course, if an organization is to allow as many viewpoints as it can to influence the charting of its course, the possibility exists that some individuals or groups could push reactionary or otherwise questionable ideas into the platform. While one might hope that communists-in-training can engage with conservative or fascist viewpoints as part of rejecting them, it is an entirely different affair to have said viewpoints presented alongside works in the Marxist canon on an official reading list. Even though it is quite possible for right-wing individuals to work their way into the ranks of organizations and attempt to promote their ideas in an environment that promotes open discussion, attempts to prevent this outright (vetoes, reprimands, expulsions, etc.) could easily be weaponized by any one group wielding a majority against groups or individuals lacking the same influence. 

Ultimately, there are no solutions to the possibility of fascist infiltration and promotion that do not boil down to either engaging with the ideas in a critical manner or creating the power to deny a platform to any ideas deemed to be anti-communist. Both of these solutions involve placing power in the hands of people capable of misusing it. The whole of an organization can misuse the power they have in educating newcomers should members place unchallenged reactionary viewpoints on a list for those in need of learning. A majority of the leadership in an organization can misuse the power it has in educating newcomers should they crack the whip against their opposition and deny them the chance to have their views heard. I trust the mass membership more than I trust the minority that make it to leadership roles, and I believe that there is no view which cannot be effectively critiqued. 

Second, organizations should aim to promote peer-to-peer education, enabling learners to build off of each other’s work as they progress through whichever new learning materials they might select. In an attempt to avoid what Freire described as the “Banking Concept of Education,” wherein teachers simply deposit information their students for the purpose of later regurgitation, organizations should aim to have learners bounce ideas off of each other, getting feedback and reinforcement in their growth from learners of greater, lesser, and equal experience.[24] The co-intentional model of education is built on the aim to have both teachers and students function as subjects in the discourse of education, whereas the education of oppressors only works when the students are reduced to the status of objects to be acted upon by their teachers. Rather than attempting to fill our potential comrades with our own revolutionary fervor, we must aim to fuel the growth of their own communist passion. 

I have been fortunate to work with a selection of quite knowledgeable individuals in the last several years, and this education through collective learning and experience has only bolstered my belief that communist education, the creation of a critical consciousness, should be a common experience, rather than an enclosed one. Change the world, one reading group at a time. Whether or not my educational policy ideas come to match reality is of less consequence to me than whether people internalize the need for real self-criticism, not only of our individual selves, but of our factions, our organizations, and our shared assumptions.  We must cease our self-destructive patterns, both in thought and in action, and we must work to build new education models which allow us to obtain the fruits of critical consciousness. Only then can we eradicate our hazardous communist cultures. 

Notes

  1. Marxist Unity Group, "MUG Cadre School Curriculum," March 2023.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Bread and Roses, "Socialist Politics: A Reading List."
  4. Vivek Chibber, “Rescuing Class From the Cultural Turn,” Catalyst. (Volume 1. No. 1), Spring 2017.
  5. Chibber, "Rescuing Class."
  6. Chibber.
  7. Ibid.
  8. Ibid.
  9. David Roediger, Class, Race, and Marxism, (London: Verso, 2019).
  10. Sean Alderson, “A Class of All Oppressed Classes,” Negation Magazine, September 2023.
  11. Bread and Roses, "Reading List."
  12. Meagan Day, “Why Socialists Should Fight for Structural Reforms,” Socialist Forum, Fall 2018.
  13. Day, "Why Socialists Should Fight for Structural Reforms."
  14. Cam W, “The Premise of Organization,” Negation Magazine, December 2022.
  15. Cam W, "The Premise of Organization."
  16. Bread and Roses, "Reading List."
  17. Red Star Caucus, "Red Start."
  18. Alderson, “A Class of All Oppressed Classes.”
  19. Megan Brenan, “Gender Disparities in Views of Women's Equality PersistGallup, October 15, 2021.
  20. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 4th Edition, (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018), 35.
  21. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 37.
  22. In February of 2024, an article, “Cuba: Between Imperialism and Socialism”, was released by Reform and Revolution, a Trotskyist caucus within the DSA. The aforementioned article was critical of the “non-answers” provided by state representatives to questions asked by delegation members, and it also had criticisms for the itinerary of the delegation’s visit, as it failed to include interactions with “independent, critical, or alternative leftist voices”. Two months later, Red Star members released an article, Cuban Links: No Tolerance For Disorganizing Chauvinism, decrying the “disorganizing chauvinism” exhibited by those who had elected to skip a meeting with the Cuban president in order to have dialogue with critics of the Cuban government. They specifically attack the fact that “Maria in particular met with anti-government opposition groups while on delegation, which when taken together with the fact of her skipping the meeting with the comrade President suggests a goal of undermining the Cuban socialist state, not defending it against U.S. imperialism.” Both of these articles paint rather one-dimensional pictures of a multifaceted incident within the organization, illustrating rather irreconcilable views on how American communists ought to engage with “Actually Existing Socialism”. While this could easily be dismissed as another example in the infinite history of Trotskyists and Stalinists bickering, I believe that this dispute is far more consequential than simple internet vitriol.
  23. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed,66.
  24. Freire, 72.