Thinking of joining the Socialist Party USA

[d3crypt]

Before i join i want to know if they are an active party. Also are there actual revolutionaries there or just social democrats?

[The Idler]

If you're a libertarian Marxist forget the SPUSA.

[d3crypt]

If you're a libertarian Marxist forget the SPUSA.

Is there any parties for libertarian marxists? It seems to me its all reformist, marxist-leninist, or trotskyist.

[The Douche]

SP USA is not worth any time, certainly not if you are a revolutionary and a communist.

[KurtFF8]

Before i join i want to know if they are an active party. Also are there actual revolutionaries there or just social democrats?

It depends on what you're looking for and what you mean by "active" or "actual revolutionaries."

Every user will come with their own baggage/their own interpretations of those terms, especially users who are part of another group that is "hostile" or against certain aspects of the SPUSA.

So perhaps you should make it a bit more clear what you're looking for and make your own tendency a bit more known.

[d3crypt]

Well i have concluded that the spusa sucks. Any good parties in the US that are active around LA?

[Red Banana]

It depends on where you are. I'm sure in some parts of the country there is at least some acivity (Memphis for example), but absolutely none where I live. I don't know whether you mean Los Angeles or Louisiana, but if it's the former there might be some since it's a large city.

Over all it's a pretty dead party, not to mention the fact that it's rather ostensibly riddled with social democrats. Not that there aren't any revolutionaries, there is the the Revolutionary Unity group, but that's even less active than the party.

When I joined I thought it might be a way for me to get in touch with other revolutionaries in my area, but really all that happens is after they process your dues they'll send you one issue of The Socialist in the mail the first month (they're supposed to give you one every month, but they don't), your party card, etc. after that its nothing, no contact with anyone whatsoever. Biggest waste of $9 ever.

So in summation, it's a shit party.

Edit: "Party" isn't the best way to describe it actually.

[Sotionov]

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

[d3crypt]

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

Is this party still active?

[Karlorax]

I am surprised they still exist.

[Sotionov]

Is this party still active?
I am from Eastern Europe, so I really don't know, try and contact them.

[Vostok17]

Well i have concluded that the spusa sucks. Any good parties in the US that are active around LA?

What made you decide so quickly not to join the SPUSA?

[Q]

Join whatever group in your local area. Stay critical, ask questions, develop yourself. If said group can no longer offer you anything to develop further and it becomes a burden, then leave.

[d3crypt]

What groups are there in Los Angeles?

[Karlorax]

I always get the sense that groups like the SPUSA or IWW are mostly on a nostalgia kick. It just seems like they are stuck in the past.

[Comrade Jacob]

How about CP-USA? Pfffffft, hahaha, sorry about that. :lol:, I have look into libertarian socialist parties in the USA and I'm sorry to tell you that I didn't find any results other that the one you are talking about and that's unfortunate because they are revisionist.

[Human Liberation Front]

I wouldn't bother. If Eugene Debs were somehow still alive, maybe, but today they are weak and declawed.

[The Idler]

If "revisionism" is to have any meaning, Bernstein and Lenin were the first revisionists.

[sixdollarchampagne]

I always get the sense that groups like the SPUSA or IWW are mostly on a nostalgia kick. It just seems like they are stuck in the past.

I was a member of the IWW when I lived in New England, for some years, and my experience leads me to believe the Wobs are sincere, pro-worker activists, who want to organize non-union workers, and who are generally anarcho-syndicalists, which is not a bad stance, in my opinion (and a few of us were socialists).

If there were an active IWW membership branch in my town now, I would rejoin in a second. Any leftist could do a lot worse than being in the IWW, I think.

[Os Cangaceiros]

What groups are there in Los Angeles?

The Worker's Solidarity Alliance (WSA) is based out of LA, IIRC. The WSA used to be the American section of the IWA, but was expelled for some reason. It is anarchist-oriented organization, I'm not sure what they're involved in.

It's a small group, though, think they only have 50 or so members.

[d3crypt]

The Worker's Solidarity Alliance (WSA) is based out of LA, IIRC. The WSA used to be the American section of the IWA, but was expelled for some reason. It is anarchist-oriented organization, I'm not sure what they're involved in.

It's a small group, though, think they only have 50 or so members.

50 in Los Angeles or in the whole organization?

[TooManyQuestions]

I was in Cali when someone asked me to join Peace and Freedom. I don't remember what they were about but I think it was leftist. You might want to Google it.

[NeonTrotski]

Ive worked with the SP before. They were mostly well meaning kids but they lacked any real theory and were very inexperienced with very little discipline and no militancy.
Other SP chapters may be different. There seems to be no continuity between chapters. A lot of kids go SP or ISO or whatever and later are recruited by or join more serious groups when they learn more and have more experience "in the field" so to speak.
Or they just become jaded to the whole thing and quit. But if you truly care about improving things then you will be dedicated and diligent and find your group.
Revolution aint easy

[Red Flag Rising]

Ah, you want to take up with the Socialist Party. Are you also planning to take up skim milk?

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

If "revisionism" is to have any meaning, Bernstein and Lenin were the first revisionists.

Interesting considering that the SPGB denies the need for a transitional phase or reform class struggle while advocating the seizure of power through parilament. Which leads to some intresting conclusions which would logically follow such a stance, such as:
1) that the working class can seize the bourgeois state and transition to socialism without the dictatorship of the proletariat, thus negating the Marxist doctrine of class struggle. A trade mark of Kruschevite revisionism
2) that the bourgeois state can be seized by the working class. A trademark of bernsteinite revisionism.
And my favorite:
3) that implies that if the spgb wins an election, that there will be socialism in one country. either that or they think they can win in every single election at once. Which would show that they do not grasp dialetical materialism thus placing them in the Bernstein camp


(excuse the spelling mistakes and capitalization. I did not suddenly become an ultra left. I am onadevice without a spell check and I am dslexiz)

[The Idler]

Nice try but read this.

Critique has recently published the translation of an article by Ernest Mandel, in which he develops his now familiar theme that, in the course of social evolution, there intervenes – and must intervene – between capitalism and socialism a transitional “society” with its own social base, relations of production, etc. This is a point of view worth discussing but, despite the Marxist terminology in which it is expressed, it is in fact not a view held by Marx himself. As the present article will try to demonstrate, Marx did indeed speak of a “political transition period” between capitalism and socialism but never of a “transitional society”.
What, then, did Marx mean when he spoke of this “transition period”? Contrary to what is generally supposed (largely as a result of decades of Stalinist and Trotskyist propaganda), for Marx this period was not that between the establishment of the common ownership of the means of production and the time when the principle “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” could be implemented. Rather it is the period during which the working class would be using state power to bring the means of production into common ownership. In other words, the transition period is a political form between the capture of political power by the working class within capitalist society and the eventual establishment of socialism, a period during which the working class has replaced the capitalist class as the ruling class, i.e. as the controller of state power. The end of this transition period is the establishment of a classless society based on the common ownership and democratic control by the whole of society of the means of production, with the consequent disappearance of the coercive state, of the system of working for wages, of the production of goods for sale on a market with a view to profit, indeed, of buying and selling, money and the market altogether.
That for Marx the “transition period” was the period after the capture of political power by the working class and before the actual establishment of the common ownership of the means of production is clear both from his early and his later writings. ...




The Myth of The Transitional Society - World Socialist Movement (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/myth-transitional-society)

[The Feral Underclass]

There is a libertarian Marxist group in LA called Palmtree Proles. (http://ptproles.org/) EDIT: Their blog hasn't been updated since 2011, which is a shame.

This website (http://www.laanarchist.org/guide/?p=107) hasn't been updated since 21st June 2011, but all the links (except the one listed for Palmtree Proles -- but that link is above) are still functioning.

If I were you, I would check out some of these collectives, which may just act as educational and social spaces with some activity, but also consider joining the IWW -- especially if you have a job.

[The Feral Underclass]

This (http://thepublicschool.org/la) is also still active and doing stuff, so you could perhaps email someone from this site and see if they know what the scores is. Also, if there is an LA anarchist book fair this year you will most likely be able to find some sympathetic stalls there.

[d3crypt]

This (http://thepublicschool.org/la) is also still active and doing stuff, so you could perhaps email someone from this site and see if they know what the scores is. Also, if there is an LA anarchist book fair this year you will most likely be able to find some sympathetic stalls there.

Can i have more info on that book fair?

[The Feral Underclass]

I just did a cursory google search. I think the best thing for you to do is contact someone from that Public School and ask them for information, as well as other collectives in that list, just to feel them out.

I do think it will be worth you joining the IWW though, if the general branch is active of course.

[Vostok17]

As far as the Socialist Party USA goes, they do enter candidates in elections for public office. This is mainly for exposure of their policies, of course. However, isn't there value in, at least, having a socialist oriented party on a ballot regardless of whether you agree with the SPUSA's approach to socialism?

[Le Socialiste]

I would like to reiterate that it is essential that you approach any group or organization from a critical standpoint. Ask questions, engage the local membership, attend meetings, group studies, or actions with people from different orgs. Even if the dominant viewpoint(s) of a particular group differs from your own, see whether your own conclusions are welcome or not. You'll find that some people aren't terribly adamant about the predominating 'lines' of their organization, and if there's a space for your views I'd encourage you to consider sticking around. Some organizations no longer maintain that you must believe this or that, provided you support the key concepts of 'revolution from below' or other such things. If an organization is flexible on certain questions while maintaining a clear line on other issues, you might find yourself thriving more from a practical and theoretical standpoint than you would joining a group that doesn't encourage such an atmosphere.

[sixdollarchampagne]

The Worker's Solidarity Alliance (WSA) is based out of LA, IIRC. The WSA used to be the American section of the IWA, but was expelled for some reason. It is anarchist-oriented organization, I'm not sure what they're involved in.

It's a small group, though, think they only have 50 or so members.

I wrote to the WSA recently, trying to find out if there were any WSA supporters near where I live; I offered to send them some money, in support of their efforts, since I admire anarchists, as sincere people, but they never responded.

[MarxSchmarx]

There is a libertarian Marxist group in LA called Palmtree Proles. (http://ptproles.org/) EDIT: Their blog hasn't been updated since 2011, which is a shame.

This website (http://www.laanarchist.org/guide/?p=107) hasn't been updated since 21st June 2011, but all the links (except the one listed for Palmtree Proles -- but that link is above) are still functioning.

If I were you, I would check out some of these collectives, which may just act as educational and social spaces with some activity, but also consider joining the IWW -- especially if you have a job.

Just a quick follow-up. I have not heard good things about the Los Angeles IWW. I have met a few former members, and more than one has commented on the branch's internecine politics and a lot of pettyness. This was a few years ago so things might have changed. We actually have a few revlefters from this branch I believe, so they might have more up to date info on what it is like today.

What I don't know is if it's better or worse than other orgs in the area. There are certainly some awful groups there but some groups are perhaps less prone to the silliness that come with small groups. Their politics might be unacceptable, but the PSL is pretty large in LA and has from what I understand a pretty committed member base and, at the basic membership level, appears to be a reasonably well run organization.

[SonofRage]

I was a member of the Socialist Party USA for several years, was Chairman of the NYC local, and a leader of an anti-authoritarian tendency (the Direct Action Tendency). While there were and probably still are good revolutionaries in the organization, in the end it is weighed down by its least common denominator pinko politics and authoritarianism. The so-called libertarian socialist National Secretary, whom I really like as a person, made moves to try and control our tendency by drafting a motion to make all tendencies register for recognition by the party leadership.

I also find a high degree of internal sectarianism, with different factions not trusting each other or having honest debates with each other.

I briefly considered rejoining last year, but in talking to the National Secretary, as welcoming as he tried to be, and looking over old e-mail from when I left, remembered what a waste of time the SPUSA is.

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