Although it is a generally accepted principle that specialization is an adaptation or elaboration of a generalized form, practical experience has shown us that this is not the case when it comes to the current formation of local, primary, organizations within the U.S.-Canadian capitalist block. To be clearer, organizers who reach class-consciousness and begin their work at the local level tend to first start with one-sided work; if and when their organization deepens its roots and labor availability, it may then progress to many-sided work. In essence, the formation of a single-purpose organization seems to generally precede the formation of a mature Marxist-Leninist cell.
The cause for this is obscure; it may be the prevalence of petit-bourgeois individualism within the U.S.-Canadian block, it may be some cultural element, it may be the historical presence of the anarchist tendency. Whatever it is, the fact stands that most Marxist organizations that form on the local level form with a single, one-sided project in mind. The feeling of accomplishment that comes with engaging in a single, narrowly-defined, materially satisfying course of action is certainly a good way to keep people involved. Although it doesn’t have the same long-term viability as the creation of a cadre-development program, one-sided action-oriented organizations can harness the creative energy of advanced workers and channel them into the beneficial long-term strategies of party-building that can have a lasting effect on revolutionary consciousness. We shouldn’t deride or diminish the accomplishments of these primary organizations, either: they are the germ-seed of the revolution in the West.
It’s my intention to lay out a general taxonomy for these organizations and to reiterate some cautions and strategies that we have discussed in other Unity– Struggle–Unity works.
In essence, these organizations spring up when individuals who have a moderate to advanced degree of class-consciousness feel a burning need to “do something” to mitigate the excesses of capital, to help provide some kind of relief for the working masses, or simply to make a meaningful material contribution to the advent of the capital-r Revolution. Capitalist-imperialism is an advanced stage of decay, particularly when taking into account the ecological catastrophes on our very doorstep, and desperation in the imperial centers among the advanced workers is very high. There are few suitable outlets for revolutionary organizing available: no vanguard, few principled organizations, a sea of corruption, decay, and opportunism confronting the revolutionary at every turn.
These organizations commonly take one of the following forms:
- Survival logistics.
- Mobilization/protest.
- Political education.
- Social investigation.
The survival-logistics organization is the most common form of primary organization that USU has seen on the ground. These are usually modeled on the Black Panther Party survival programs and aim to provide an essential service or services that the enemy state is neglecting to an oppressed population.
Survival-logistics work can take many forms. We can further subdivide the kinds of survival-logistics organizations into:
- Food aid programs.
- Shelter programs.
- Clothing programs.
- Ancillary programs.
- Copwatch.
- Community self-defense.*
The nature of the work of the first four types of programs is purely a form of holding pattern, designed to keep the masses from slipping into deep misery while the contradictions of capitalism sharpen. Because of this, organizations running them (that is, running a single-sided program of types 1A-1D) are always in danger of sliding into the performance of simple “red” charity in which they are accomplishing only what a bourgeois charity or bourgeois state social worker would accomplish.
1A) Food aid programs. This is the most common of the types of survival-logistics programs run by Marxists in the U.S. and consists of free food distributions. It is generally a good way to immediately get in touch with the lowest strata of the working classes and food insecure workers.
1B) Shelter programs. These are programs that require a high degree of logistical overhead and may even require capital: assisting the unhoused with shelter, whether this is the navigation of a shelter-system, physical space to house them, or providing tents/repairs/etc. at an existing encampment.
1C) Clothing programs. These are the most liberal-bourgeois of the survival-logistics programs, which make free clothing available to the lowest strata of the working masses. Unlike a food aid or shelter program, clothing programs have much less opportunity to interact with the people attending them.
1D) Ancillary programs. These include showers, warming centers, etc. Any other purely survival and logistics program that seeks to attend to a basic need falls into this category.
In order for organizations running programs 1A – 1D to continue to engage in Marxist work, it is necessary to add some element. This can be the establishment of a type 3 or 4 corollary program (political education or social investigation), or even the most rudimentary of political education programs, such as carrying Marxist-Leninist literature and offering it for distribution and discussion.
Program type 1E, Copwatch, is similar in terms of necessary labor to program types 1A and 1C but has the added benefit of being directly tied to the self-organization of the working classes. Copwatch programs are inherently tied to class-consciousness and need no further element of political education or social investigation to make them “Marxist work.”
Lastly, program type 1D, Community self-defense, is the most ambitious of the logistics programs. It envisions the organizing of the nationally oppressed communities into defense committees to protect them from the imperial police or other fascist forces; these self-defense organizations deal with conflict internally to the community, perform copwatch duties, and protect the working class and nationally oppressed from fascistic violence. We have seen this kind of violence erupting in the United Kingdom on a scale not seen before in our lifetimes, and therefore the need for self-defense is increasing. However, it would be politically foolish to attempt to run a community self-defense program without at least some aspect of political development.
In every instance of the type 1 organization, then, we can see that political education is a necessary element. It is the presence of some form of consciousness raising — whether that is through directed study or through practical experience — that differentiates a survival-logistics organization from pure charity.
The second broad category is the mobilization or protest organization. These are organizations that exist to mobilize the masses for immediate protests on political and economic issues. Palestinian defense committees, Black Lives Matter, etc. are forms of the protest organization. Generally, these organizations come in a few different types of their own:
- Mobilization.
- Logistics and support.
- Political education.
2A) Mobilization. These organizations plan marches and rallies, get the word out, and direct those rallies and marches. They usually serve as the sinews between other local organizations by bringing contributions together from each. This is the most common type of protest organization, and one of the most common types of local organization period. Pre-Marxist consciousness produces these organizations spontaneously to the point where there is very little need for advanced workers to found mobilization organizations.
2B) Logistics and support. These organizations are brought into marches, protests, encampments, etc., to provide either one or several support and logistics services. This may be medical services, water and shelter services, security (march marshals, etc.) or any other necessity for the protest. This is an important area for Communists, because this is the flesh and blood of organization and can help spur further organization in any circles that have contact with them. As they are engaged in protest work, the practical experience of the protest and interactions there is more than enough to make up a political education component.
2C) Political education. On the other hand, there are organizations with the sole purpose of providing political education at protests. Red libraries, red schoolhouses, etc., that are integrated with encampments and protests are among the most important spaces for Communists to lead.
Under the broad taxonomy of category 3 we have the political education organization proper, which is generally a type of cadre-building organization. This is the archetypical Marxist-Leninist organization, and is covered in detail in our publication The Study Group.
This leaves category 4, the social investigation organization. This is the least effective of the broad organizations because its activity is usually completely detached from Marxist organizing needs and generally manifests as tailism in any given community. These are organizations of whatever size that spend most of their work conducting social investigations among the proletarian and sub-proletarian masses. They generally then pick a fight that they see as necessary to the raising of consciousness in their area — a political fight — and pursue it in an effort to improve the lives of the masses as well as to recruit them into the organization. These generally wind up looking very similar to grassroots political organizing campaigns, for instance, to fight gentrification or increase school budgets. If a type four investigation begins to take political grant money, its transformation into such an organization is all but inevitable.
One Side to Many Sides
It should be apparent that the theme of political education and development runs throughout every organizational type here. For the type 1 and type 4 organizations, adding a type 3 aspect is the easiest method of developing into a multi-sided organization. Type 2 organizations are microcosms of the entire organizational methodology, and thus repeat in miniature the issues with types 1 and 4 but contain elements of type 3 as well which can be used to mitigate those issues. A type 3 political education organization should grow in any of the other three directions, once development has reached a basic minimum among its membership. Again, I would refer the reader to The Study Group on that question.
Once an organization has a primary practical side and a theoretical side, it can more fully integrate itself as a Marxist-Leninist cell. This requires the studious application of organizational techniques (for instance, those we outlined in the articles Organize and What Is Organizing?) and the adoption of standing rules, relationships, and meetings within the organization. As this is solidified, the organization should develop and elaborate subsidiary organs, a treasury, and so forth. In this way, primary organizations can develop from one to many sides, from simple, tightly-focused orgs, that can efficiently direct labor and energy against a single problem created by the contradictions of capitalism, into a complete cell with many sides, capable of creating new organs to deal with new problems whenever it is necessary to do so. These multi-sided cells can then link together into loosely-organized regional leagues (such as that we proposed in the Towards a New York City League of Workers and Students) which will help coordinate efforts between them until such a time as the foundation of a revolutionary Communist party in the imperial core.
