Progressive Labor Party

[Rugged Collectivist]

I've recently become interested in this group. Based on my very shallow research they seem like an okay bunch, but as with all groups there are problems. For instance, I find the articles on their website a little bombastic. Don't get me wrong, It's fine to make emotional appeals, and I think comparisons can be made between the klan and the police, but saying shit like "kkkops" just makes you look like a jackass.

Their politics are weird as well. I don't think it would be entirely unreasonable to describe them as "Anarcho-Stalinists" as they've been described as MLs, with Maoist roots and they apparently have a favorable view of Stalin to this day. But they reject electoralism entirely and they call for the immediate transition to communism from capitalism.

Don't take all this criticism to mean I'm hostile. I'm fascinated more than anything and frankly I find some of their positions extremely admirable.

If anyone is/was a member, has interacted with them, or just generally knows anything about them, please share your info/experiences here. There seems to be very little information about them even on the internet.

[Rugged Collectivist]

No one? They must be smaller than I thought.

[Stalinist Speaker]

well i don't know that much about this party, but i usually recommend that you don't join small parties, they does seem alright tho, but as far as i have understood PSL is the best party to join in the US, but i'm not sure since i'm not from the US.

[VivalaCuarta]

PLP campaigned for Obama, and called him a "fascist" at the same time. I guess "communists" want workers to vote for "fascists."

[Stalinist Speaker]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressive-labor-party-t146624/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressive-labor-party-t141560/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressive-labor-party-t76347/index.html

you might want to check these threads, they probably have more info than i can give you.

[Stalinist Speaker]

PLP campaigned for Obama, and called him a "fascist" at the same time. I guess "communists" want workers to vote for "fascists."

source?

[Rugged Collectivist]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressive-labor-party-t146624/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressive-labor-party-t141560/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressive-labor-party-t76347/index.html

you might want to check these threads, they probably have more info than i can give you.

Thanks!

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Yeah, as I understand it, the PLP peaked sometime in the late 60s. Their is a book written about their decline here (http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/1960-1970/5retreats/), on the MIA.

[Red Shaker]

PLP has a page on Wikipedia which explains a lot about their history and activity. The central point of their line is that socialism as developed in the Soviet Union, China, Viet Nam etc does not lead to communism but rather back to capitalism. They insist on winning masses of workers to abolishing the wage system as a necessary first step in building communism. They also see fighting racism as a strategic issue necessary to unit the working class in the fight for communist revolution. I do not think many people familiar with PL use this site.

[Red Shaker]

With reference to the Obama comment, I think you are confusing the Progressive Labor Party, with the Facebook group Progressive Labor Party, the Professional Left which is generally a pro Obama group.

[goalkeeper]

When I hear stuff from them about the need to immediately work toward abolition of wage-labour (as opposed to 100 year old stuff about 'transitions') I sort of like them. But then when I am reminded that Grover Furr and his brand of Soviet history is associated with them (he may be a member even?) all sympathy goes out the window.

[Radio Spartacus]

Though briefly tempting at first glance, the PLP has some pretty absurd stances. Take for example their bizarre and non-marxist definition of socialism as the system that existed in the Soviet Union. I don't really see how you can view the mode of production as anything other than capitalist in the SU. They also suffer a bit from the great man view of history, trying to reconcile people like Stalin.

They have a lot of talk about crafting a new movement, distanced from the tactics of and informed by the mistakes of the old 20th century one...but it's all talk. Like all modern parties I'm familiar with, they're dwelling on the past.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Trashed off topic posts about the Soviet Union. If you want to argue about state-capitalism, please go here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-ussr-state-t182553/index.html).

That said, if anyone understands, and can shed some light on the PLP's understanding of the SU, that would be relevant.

[Radio Spartacus]

Trashed off topic posts about the Soviet Union. If you want to argue about state-capitalism, please go here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-ussr-state-t182553/index.html).

That said, if anyone understands, and can shed some light on the PLP's understanding of the SU, that would be relevant.

A lot of their stance on the SU (and Stalin, now that I think about it) is implied in the document Dark Night Shall Have its End which is available in PDF form on their website. I'd obviously give a skewed interpretation, so anyone interested ought to just check out Dark Night for themselves because it's fairly short.

That's their most recent official party document as far as I know, and the one most useful in understanding the current line. I know some of their earlier stuff has been retracted, though the most recent Road to Revolution also seems current. Like I said, the theory isn't well thought out, but don't just take my word for it. Besides, some of the rhetoric in Dark Night is admittedly on point.

[Red Shaker]

Dark Night Shall Have Its End is an effort to address the negative effects the failures of the Russian and Chinese Revolutions have had on the international communist movement. The capitalists of the world point to these revolutions to demonstrate communism is impossible. PL is saying we can learn from these experiences and do better in the future.

[Pawn Power]

PLP campaigned for Obama, and called him a "fascist" at the same time. I guess "communists" want workers to vote for "fascists."

Campaigned for Obama? That surely never happened.

---

They are a legacy party of the 60's. Many committed people still involved and with a diverse membership. The bombastic language in their paper Challenge is certainly off putting and not really representative of the real nuanced lives of the people involved. The need to adapt and become more creative to have more impact in the real world.

[blake 3:17]

I know people who were in the PLP in the 70s... My impression is that they are an irrelevant sect (if that).

[Red Shaker]

If you read Challenge the newspaper of the PLP you will see that a large part of the paper is used to report on struggles that the party is involved in and how they are trying to advance communist ideas in those fights. I find this useful. They also try to evaluate other struggles they are not involved in both to publicize them and to learn from them.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The PLP does seem to be a very interesting political formation with a very interesting take on majoritarian class politics and the level of commitment needed.

(Something which, say, even the World Socialist Movement has trouble with.)

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Maybe this has been said before..

The PLP believes in an immediate transition to full communism, with no intermediate "socialist stage" They believe that what went wrong with the SU, Eastern Bloc states, etc was that the leadership of these states became too hung up on "socialism" which they see as a dead end.

The PLP see themselves as the vehicle though which the working class will build communism. That is their organisation will literally become worker's councils and other means of working class rule. They are an odd mixture of anarchist libertarianism and their own authoritarianism.

They were sort of Maoist, stemming from a Maoist split in the CPUSA ion the early 1960s.They were and are "broad church" Maoists, more following the Chinese Revolution rather than Mao himself.

They had some sort of ideological crisis in the 1980s I believe when they revamped their theory (or got weirder, take your pick).Their website is interesting to read.

There is a story that Boots Riley either is in or was in the PLP.

Someone from the PLP told me that they encourage their kids to become officers in the US military, in order to create a communist leadership that has military training.

[Homo Songun]

I think the PLP is an example of an organization that has taken their ideology to the furthest "logical" conclusions. If you want to know more about them you have to read their "Road to Revolution" III-IV documents.

The most relevant feature of PLP at the present time is that they are strictly against nationalism and national divisions. Thus, the PLP has members in Mexico, Pakistan and so on. Mind you, these aren't even (de jure) Trot style "sections"; one world, one class, one party. My personal suspicion is that this can never work; even for an organization as anti-nationalist as they are, issues of chauvinism are bound to crop up under such as set-up.

The other thing that flows from this is a very strong emphasis on fighting racism. They are well known for their physical protests of fascists, KKK, etc.

This emphasis also led to absurd bullshit, back during the Vietnam war they ended up denouncing the Vietnamese for nationalistic tendencies, lol.

Also, I think it is a mistake to consider the PLP to have ever been Maoist, they were more like a branch of the anti-revisionist Old Left. By the time "Maoist" was a thing they had long since denounced Mao and the CPC.

[Red Shaker]

Road to Revolution IV which was adopted by PL in the early 1980's explains why a mass base for communism must be built if a workers' revolution is to be sustained. Socialism which preserves the wage system does not lead to communism as Marx and Lenin thought. Winning the working class to abolishing the wage system is a key element of building a revolutionary movement.

On the question of the military, since the Viet Nam war PL has encouraged some of its young members to join the military and organize against imperialist war and racism. Rank and file soldiers have to be won to revolution if it is to be successful. PL does not encourage them to become officers. At the end of WWII when the US imperialist were considering sending troops into China to defeat the revolutionary movement, communist soldiers in the Philippines organized massive "Bring the Troops Home" marches to thwart this effort. Soldiers, airmen and sailors are for the most part workers who can b e won to communist ideas. It is hard work, but it can be done.

[Homo Songun]

Red Shaker, so what is the deal with "International Communist Workers Party Red Flag" ?

[Die Neue Zeit]

The PLP see themselves as the vehicle though which the working class will build communism. That is their organisation will literally become worker's councils and other means of working class rule. They are an odd mixture of anarchist libertarianism and their own authoritarianism.

What's wrong with that? Their position is that as much of the working class as possible should become party members. That's more reliable and promotes greater class movement than either the WSM's electoralism or the hyper-activist culture on the left.

[Per Levy]

Socialism which preserves the wage system does not lead to communism as Marx and Lenin thought.

please tell me where marx said anything about socialism still has a wage system? the only thing that would come close to that claim is that marx thought that the dictatorship of the proletariat would still have capitalist features, but for marx the dotp isnt socialism/communism at all.

[Red Shaker]

PLP and the CPC were fraternal parties until the early 70's when China after having crushed the Cultural Revolution invited Nixon and Kissinger to China. PLP broke with Mao and the CPC at that point.

[Red Shaker]

PLP and the ICWP have a similar line but the ICWP believes you can build a revolutionary movement primarily by agitating for communism. PLP emphasizes working in mass organizations and building a base for communism. The organizers of the ICWP left PL over this issue.