Provisional Communist Party USA

[Babeufist]

I am looking for information about the Gino Parente's Provisional Communist Party. Are they still active? What is their ideology? Any website?

[RedAnarchist]

Have you read the Wikipedia page on the PCP?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_USA_(Provisional)

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Parente's groups, NATLFED, the "Eastern Service Worker's Union" and the "Provisional Communist Party"seem to be manipulative, highly secretive cult-like organisations. Public Eye has some articles on them.

http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v04n3-4/Cadre_or_Cult_1.html

I've been approached by their organizers. I've been (by people who've gone to them) told that their introductory meetings for new members are grueling day long affairs. This is a cult, designed to manipulate its members.

[Babeufist]

Yes. But there is nothing about the Parente's ideology. And I know also the article "Cadre or Cult" by Jeff Whitnack from the Public Eye website. But I can't understand why the PE hates PCP.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

But I can't understand why the PE hates PCP.
If that article is accurate, PCP is a cult.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Its always good to get other opinions. The term "cult" has been used too much both within the left and as a description of the the radical left.Any group someone doesn't like is a "cult". The right says all left organisations are "cults".

Having said this, some organisations actually are cults or may come very close to this. Marlene Dixon's group was a cult. Gerry Healey's organisations were cult like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlene_Dixon

http://www.amazon.com/Bounded-Choice-Believers-Charismatic-Cults/dp/0520240189/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_cult

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Healy

If an organisation is super secretive, feels the need to hide its identity, has a massive personality cult around a single leader and has very intense indoctrination sessions for new members, I'd get a little worried.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The Provisional Communist Party is a total cult bro. Gino was just another small time hustler who saw his meal ticket in manipulating a bunch of gullible followers through ideology. He's buried where I went to school (a little fun trivia for ya).

One time my mom brought home a Nat-Fed calender some of their activists gave her. I was impressed by the level of rhetoric in it, so I googled the group to find out more, only to find out that it was a front for a wacky cult. Bummer.

[eric922]

As someone who is interested in cults and has studied various religious ones, especially the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate, I have to say I'm glad I've found this thread. I normally think of cults in the religious sense and whenever I've heard people use it here in reference to groups like Bob Avakain's Revolutionary Communist Party, I thought they were just joking, but seems they are serious. Though, I shouldn't be too surprised in the end Jim Jone's cult abandoned most of its religious trappings in favor of some twisted form of leftism.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

As someone who is interested in cults and has studied various religious ones, especially the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate, I have to say I'm glad I've found this thread. I normally think of cults in the religious sense and whenever I've heard people use it here in reference to groups like Bob Avakain's Revolutionary Communist Party, I thought they were just joking, but seems they are serious. Though, I shouldn't be too surprised in the end Jim Jone's cult abandoned most of its religious trappings in favor of some twisted form of leftism.

Not really on topic but the LaRouche group is my favorite political cult. They started off as a Trot group in the 60s and 70s, but over the years transformed into some kind of Fascist outift. Complete with rabid antisemitism and irrational conspiracy theories. I beleive they were the ones who started the whole 'death panel' thing during the healthcare reform nonsense as well.

[Rusty Shackleford]

PCP runs operations that are basically like charities, which are not bad because with the WFWA they do provide damn cheap groceries to immigrant laborers and so on. But, aside from that, they do no political agitation, nothing. just food.


A communist cult that acts like an a-political Catholic Church :lol:

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Are there any political parties that practice criticism self-criticism without turning into cults?

[GoddessCleoLover]

Crit/selfcrit is usually the mechanism by which groups such as the various LaRouche groups and the RCPUSA control their members. IMO it is a highly pernicious practice that has been used in places like the Stalinist Soviet Union and Maoist China to reinforce the cult of the Glorious Leader. I would never get involved with any group that utilizes crit/self-crit.

[eric922]

Not really on topic but the LaRouche group is my favorite political cult. They started off as a Trot group in the 60s and 70s, but over the years transformed into some kind of Fascist outift. Complete with rabid antisemitism and irrational conspiracy theories. I beleive they were the ones who started the whole 'death panel' thing during the healthcare reform nonsense as well.
No offense meant to Trotskyists, because as my lean says I do sympathize with them, but damn it seems like a lot of Trotskyists fall into right-wing politics for some reason. Didn't a lot of Trotskyists in 40s,end up becoming leaders of the neo-con movement? Do other leftist groups have this problem?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

No offense meant to Trotskyists, because as my lean says I do sympathize with them, but damn it seems like a lot of Trotskyists fall into right-wing politics for some reason. Didn't a lot of Trotskyists in 40s,end up becoming leaders of the neo-con movement? Do other leftist groups have this problem?

Some Trotskyist groups have a habit of associating with liberals who end up in the ranks when they shouldn't, which may explain why they seem to produce so many traitors. Or they may produce the same amount as any other faction and theirs just tend to be more successful on the right and become more high profile I don't know.

However I don't think LaRouche's problem was his ideology, he's just crazy and manipulative. Even when his group was in their 'revolutionary' phase it was still all about LaRouche, not class struggle. He envisioned himself as the noble member of the Bourgeoisie who would finally tip the scales in favor of the working class and become a world hero for it. When the New Left began to break down he just needed to find another route to secure followers and began a slow slide to the right.

[Sasha]

As someone who is interested in cults and has studied various religious ones, especially the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate, I have to say I'm glad I've found this thread. I normally think of cults in the religious sense and whenever I've heard people use it here in reference to groups like Bob Avakain's Revolutionary Communist Party, I thought they were just joking, but seems they are serious. Though, I shouldn't be too surprised in the end Jim Jone's cult abandoned most of its religious trappings in favor of some twisted form of leftism.

one of the several maoist splinters here in the Netherlands degenerated into a cult too, complete with communes, "free" sex and no contact with no member family and friends.
Although the best bit was how their anti-imp analysis led them to support the NATO as a western European safeguard against Russian an US imperialism...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Unity_Movement_of_the_Netherlands_(Marxi st%E2%80%93Leninist)

[gorillafuck]

Perente was a con artist. and I mean that in the literal sense. he was actually someone who made money off of cons. the provisional communist party was a con that he orchestrated. Gino Perente was not even his real name.

it's not a cult like the RCP, where it's a political party that just has a cult of personality. Bob Avakian has always been a real Maoist and was involved in the new left of the 60's, civil rights movement, and left politics from early on. he just became the focus of the RCP because of the ideological stuff he wrote and writes and they fixated on that. the PCP is really clever. Gino Perente, a professional con artist, actually adopted the name of Gino Perente, got a grasp of stalinist politics, and started an organization (which he even made up a fake international for involving Cuba and Latin American socialist groups) as a con.

[Babeufist]

The Lenin's Bolshevik party was "highly secretive" too. I am afraid anybody can say this was "cult-like organisations". Aren't you too much individualistic?
Many years ago in "The Greening Of America" book by Charles Reich a read about the psychological difference between ascetic Old Left and hedonistic New Left. Maybe the PCP represents the psychological type of the Old Left?

[Babeufist]

Perente was a con artist
Excuse me - what means "con"? My English is very poor.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Excuse me - what means "con"? My English is very poor.
Con artist is short for "confidence game artist" ... it's like a professional thief, but they tend to get involved on a personal level to get larger sums of money. They use trust to exploit and steal. Think Bernie Madoff.