Biggest Revolutionary Part?

What is the largest revolutionary party in America?

Also, can you name them?

He said revolutionary party :P

The largest revolutionary socialist group is probably the International Socialist Organization. The Socialist Party is about the same size, but still not consistently revolutionary (though in most practise I'd say we're a revolutionary party.)

I'm sure in total members the CPUSA is bigger than either the ISO or SP-USA, but calling them revolutionary is a rather severe stretch of the term, IMNSHO.

Zeus is quite right here. The CPUSA tails after the bourgeois Democratic Party: to the point where they've tempered any criticism of the war policies of the imperialist Obama administration. They are a reformist party, not revolutionary.

The International Socialist Organization is probably the largest group calling itself revolutionary in the US. In my experience, they are mostly a /propaganda/ group and not involved in too much mass organizing. The ISO calls itself Trotskyist, but does not teach its members about the United Front tactic, the Transitional Program or Permanent Revolution. Perhaps better to call them Trotskyish.

The old SWP, which abandoned Trotskyism in the early 80s has shrunk to less than 150 members. The only thing keeping them alive is the money they have from Pathfinder and from bequests from dead ex-members.

Several smaller groups exist on the revolutionary left: Socialist Action, Socialist Organizer, Workers International League and Socialist Alternative.
Of the anti-revisionist (Maoist) groups only Freedom Road-fightback seems to have much life in it.

He said revolutionary party :P

The largest revolutionary socialist group is probably the International Socialist Organization. The Socialist Party is about the same size, but still not consistently revolutionary (though in most practise I'd say we're a revolutionary party.)

I'm sure in total members the CPUSA is bigger than either the ISO or SP-USA, but calling them revolutionary is a rather severe stretch of the term, IMNSHO.

Further on this, I was thinking about the use of the term party. None of the existing formations on the revolutionary left really qualify as "parties" in the sense that they are mass-based organizations with deep roots in the class.

What these organizations are is the organized expression of political /tendencies/ or currents. A revolutionary party is necessary, IMO, but one in this country does not exist. The revolutionary party of the future will be formed out of the cadres who are in these tendencies and from layers of radicalizing workers.

I wish that the PSL were the biggest organization, but presently they seem to be a bit small. They do, however, seem to be the most rapidly growing in my experience.

I think all of the revolutionary- and non-revolutionary - socialist groups are growing in this period. The system is in crisis and its contradictions laid bare for all to see. Young people are looking for ideas and alternatives.

I'm not hostile to the PSL. My organization (Socialist Action) called for a vote for their presidential campaign last year. I do have a question for you- my sense is that the PSL operates from an understanding of democratic centralism that is very top-down. I've been in rigidly centralist groups before and think it's potentially damaging to the party and its cadres. What is your sense of democratic functioning in the PSL?

I wish that the PSL were the biggest organization, but presently they seem to be a bit small. They do, however, seem to be the most rapidly growing in my experience.

I'm not hostile to the PSL. My organization (Socialist Action) called for a vote for their presidential campaign last year.

Didn't Socialist Action give at least some sort of endorsement to basically all the socialist presidential campaigns running last year?

Further on this, I was thinking about the use of the term party. None of the existing formations on the revolutionary left really qualify as "parties" in the sense that they are mass-based organizations with deep roots in the class.

What these organizations are is the organized expression of political /tendencies/ or currents. A revolutionary party is necessary, IMO, but one in this country does not exist. The revolutionary party of the future will be formed out of the cadres who are in these tendencies and from layers of radicalizing workers.

Agreed. Most of the groups that call themselves parties these days are mainly parties in the sense that they run candidates (as my organisation, the Socialist Party USA does), but no group that exists today. Furthermore, there's no group that I could argue for as being a nucleus or precursor for a future revolutionary party. Amino acids that may eventually form the nucleus, perhaps, but that's painfully extending the metaphor.

The question then, I think, is what to do under these conditions? I'd argue that one of the best courses of action is to try to keep an open dialogue among different organisations, try to find common areas of agreement where joint work can be done, and attempt to be honest and frank about political differences. Also, while no one would blame you for trying to recruit people to your own specific organisation (because we want to see them grow, dammit), the more important point is to get more people involved and active as revolutionary socialists.

Didn't Socialist Action give at least some sort of endorsement to basically all the socialist presidential campaigns running last year?

Yes they did, to their credit. That's solidarity.

Correct, we called for a vote for socialist candidates; with particular critical support to the PSL, SPUSA and the SWP. It's been our practice, at times, to support explicitly socialist candidates. http://www.socialistaction.org/mackler25.htm

In the most recent elections, we ran a comrade for city council in Minneapolis. A few years back we ran Jeff Mackler for US Senate from California as a write-in.

IMO, the building of revolutionary nuclei (you can quibble about the term) is important. As Cannon said at one time, you don't wait for the flood to build a boat. We need to be building organizations now, it's something that won't wait for a revolutionary crisis. Organizations must be patiently and consciously built. Cadres must be trained and tested now.

Does this mean that we see Socialist Action as the Party? Hardly, we understand that building a party is a process, that there will be splits and regroupments in this process. Before the 2008 election, we held a forum in Philly. The main speakers were Eugene Puryear from the PSL and Jeff Mackler from SA. The other speakers were a representative of the Workers International League (supporting the Green/McKinney campaign) and Socialist Alternative (supporting the Nader campaign) No one from the SP locally responded to our invite.

The discussion was comradely and informative. Despite some sharp tactical and strategic differences in approach, the speakers were all respectful of each other's views. In his closing remarks, Jeff noted the tone of the debate. He said that we all are coming from a common recognition that we are opponents of this system and that he is "confident that all of the best fighters from all of these organizations will be in the revolutionary party of the future." This is somehtign that has stuck with me. It's long been my conviction that my enemies are on Wall Street not on the left. Something to live by.

IMO, this thinking is something that influences SA's approach to the United Front in the antiwar movement. We seek to build the broadest possible antiwar movement through networks like the National Assembly - which we call a United-Front-type coalition. (This because there are no mass workers parties, hence no basis for a true united front)
When we helped initiate the National Assembly, we reached out to other socialist groups (Socialist Organizer, SPUSA, ISO, Solidarity, WIL, Socialist Alternative, etc) as well as groups to our right. I think that through a process of joint activity and discussion some of the differences between these tendencies could be clarified. I will take patience. It's easy enough to say; "why can't all the socialists just get together?" But, without some high-level programmatic agreement a unity-for-unity's sake would fall apart.

Of course, within the NA there are bourgeois or petty bourgeois forces, but we contend with these forces politically and don't hide or liquidate our program. Sectarians stay on the sidelines and preach, but can't get their hands dirty in real organizing.

Didn't Socialist Action give at least some sort of endorsement to basically all the socialist presidential campaigns running last year?


Agreed. Most of the groups that call themselves parties these days are mainly parties in the sense that they run candidates (as my organisation, the Socialist Party USA does), but no group that exists today. Furthermore, there's no group that I could argue for as being a nucleus or precursor for a future revolutionary party. Amino acids that may eventually form the nucleus, perhaps, but that's painfully extending the metaphor.

The question then, I think, is what to do under these conditions? I'd argue that one of the best courses of action is to try to keep an open dialogue among different organisations, try to find common areas of agreement where joint work can be done, and attempt to be honest and frank about political differences. Also, while no one would blame you for trying to recruit people to your own specific organisation (because we want to see them grow, dammit), the more important point is to get more people involved and active as revolutionary socialists.

The old SWP, which abandoned Trotskyism in the early 80s has shrunk to less than 150 members. The only thing keeping them alive is the money they have from Pathfinder and from bequests from dead ex-members.

Thats weird because I remember at least a few thousand being at there last convention. not great but many more than 150

a "few thousand?" really? You would think the Militant would advertize this.
From a report on the 2006 convention: "The three-day event drew 425 people—about 30 more than last year’s convention. Nearly 40 were attending their first national SWP convention or conference—up from 25 last year." http://www.themilitant.com/2006/7025/702550.html

Of course, you have to realize that some of these are contacts and active supporters, not party members.

Thats weird because I remember at least a few thousand being at there last convention. not great but many more than 150

"Some 375 workers and youth gathered here June 18-20 at the 2009 Socialist Education and Active Workers Conference."
http://www.themilitant.com/2009/7326/732650.html

Facts, it seems are stubborn things. Comrade, if you remember a few thousand people at any recent SWP event, you need to alert the editors of the Militant.

Thats weird because I remember at least a few thousand being at there last convention. not great but many more than 150

The ISO is more a liberal organization that calls themselves Marxist then anything else. Their actually afraid to call themselves communists, organize exclusively around naive college students(almost never around actual workers), refuse to support any existing socialist states, even Cuba(because their 'state capitalist'), and devote half of their energy to hawking their shitty newspaper, which is like a mini New York Times with a paragraph of psuedo-socialist agitation tacked on the back. If their the largest socialist group in the US, were in trouble.

I know from personal experiance that what comrade Barry is saying is true

I think we shouldent bother with the CPUSA or SPUSA,I think that the best thing to do is to support the Zapatistas or the PFLP in Palestine...then we could start our own revolutionary faction including Anarcho-Syndicalists/Anarcho communists,socialist and SOME communists as Maoists and Stalinists are better off dead.

Then we would have some extra support in our revolution from Palestine and Mexico

I've been thinking about hooking up with the PSL, but I'm not 100% certain. I'm not sure about its size, but I know it's growing steadily.

I'm a distributor of Revolution, the newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA myself. As to whether they're the "largest" party out there calling themselves revolutionary and communist, I'm not totally sure, but they must certainly be close for all the reasons redwinter pointed out.

I prefer the RCP to other American communist parties for lots of reasons, not least of which being because it's an active party that actually has a theory. All the other "communist" and "socialist" parties out there in this country really seem to be greatly lacking in one or the other of those two areas (activity or level of theoretical development and seriousness). Since the PSL has been brought up lately, I'd point out that they may be an active party, but to me it seems they're active in a more activist sense. They don't seem to have a coherent theory motivating their activities, that is. Just sort of an odd combination of various aspects of Trotskyism, eclecticism, and "tankie" 'tude.

uh imho the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA is more influential than any of the groups listed from looking at the events it has hosted (Cornel West and Carl Dix, the symposia on the Cultural Revolution, the various speaking tours, protest/resistance movements it participates in and sometimes leads), looking at the 10 revolution books stores around the country that hold sometimes several meetings weekly, its newspaper/website, the relative prominence of their leader Bob Avakian much farther than just their supporters (ie Howard Zinn and Slavoj Zizek writing a blurb/foreward for his books, unjustly attacked by name in the Boston Globe -- and can anyone even name a leader from any of these other groups? what have they written?), their numerous appearances on mainstream media (recently major anti-communist attacks in big college student newspapers and from prominent intellectuals against Raymond Lotta's speaking tour, as well as getting on Fox News a bunch of times, sponsoring Engage statement ad in the NY Times -- and don't forget about WCW's several ads in the NY Times and one in USA Today) and the revolutionary nature of everything they've been doing in projecting Avakian's reconception of communist revolution for the 21st century. They are not trying to get popular by tailing reformism, revisionism or spontaneity like some of the other aforementioned groups and haven't been endorsing or praising Obama, Chávez or the DPRK.

The problem is that they have completely abandoned Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. They haven't mentioned Marx in any of their newspapers in years let alone Lenin or Mao. At this point they just worship Avakian and push him as the most innovative and cutting edge revolutionary out there. I find the whole idea of the leader of an American communist party living in exile in France for the past 30 years to be just plain stupid. And the sort of secretive cult-like way that the party conducts itself is just laughable. It's a shame really because his earlier work on Maoism was great and when they were involved with the RIM and supporting the PPW's they were genuinely Maoist. Now all we have is the FRSO's (one abandoned Stalin and the other supports every country that still waves a red flag) and Kasama, which is so small and unorganized at this point that unless you're in one of the cities where it has a collective affiliation you're kind of isolated and skrewed.

As far as size, the CPUSA reported 2000 members last year. The SPUSA reported 1000. I've been hearing things about the PSL this past year but I have no idea about their actual numbers. They have no representatives in my city. Most socialist and communist parties in the U.S. today seem to be under 1000 members. As pointed out earlier, the CPUSA has turned to merely supporting the Democratic Party and reformism. The SPUSA is social-democratic but I guess we can say that at least they put out their own candidates and they're doing something. They're active at least. I don't know much about the Trotskyist parties here. I've only come into contact with the Spartacist Youth League and I just went to one of their teach-ins on Marxism 101. I was unimpressed by how they obsessively push their newspaper. Most American communist parties seem to have just resorted to that. The RCP has their bookstores. The rest are desperately vying for newspaper subscriptions even though it seems so simple that if you want funding, online advertising is the way to go.