The US left is finding its bearings after a 30-year period of stagnation. With this resurgence comes the possibility of building proletarian mass organizations. Although needed and desired by leftists, we don’t yet have an exact formula for how mass communist organization will take shape. Experimentation is necessary.

The purpose of Communist Caucus is to develop and nourish communist practices that are appropriate to our concrete situations. We want to see new communist organizers and militants experiment with organization, to immerse themselves in the struggles around them, and advance the historical mission of our class. Doing this is not easy, which is why we have decided on the following requirements for membership:

1. You must join with at least two other people, so three people in total. 

Our aim is to build bases of power in as many places as possible. We do not want to become an online caucus, merely concerned with advancing discourse and winning organizational esteem. Since every chapter of Communist Caucus should focus on organizing projects that are relevant to the conditions in their local area, you’ll likely need at least three people to start. These three will act as core organizers who are willing to dedicate themselves to making organizing projects operational.

2. You must have read and found agreement with the caucus statement.

3. You must have a particular organizing project in mind. 

This project is the activity that binds together a local chapter of Communist Caucus. Starting a project includes an assessment of your surroundings, an inquiry of those with whom you’d like to organize, and a rough plan for how to proceed. Many present socialist formations have disfigured themselves in order to survive 30 years of counter-revolution. Some have degenerated into disturbing factory-like operations that produce social movement managers. Others simply generate ideologues who engage in debate with other leftists. In distinction, we want to create healthy and productive organizations that are outwardly oriented to the broader class. Here are some guidelines:

Mass Organization

Our projects will never begin as mass organizations, but they must aim at growing by organizing the unorganized. This requires us to get beyond activist networking, and to start speaking with and organizing people who do not identify as part of the left.

Politics of the Everyday

Projects must allow working class people to organize around and directly intervene against agents of capital. This means organizing in a manner that allows working class people to protect themselves in the short-term, and eventually launch anti-systemic attacks in the medium to long-term.

Build Power, Not Access Power

Our organizational structures should help build power rather than access power. The ability for today’s working class to intervene outside of official politics has atrophied during the long neoliberal period. What the working class needs is independence in a holistic sense. This means that an electoral campaign lies outside of the purview. Similarly, mutual aid programs cannot be the main activity of the project.

Inquiry

We may subject what we know to analysis, but we cannot assume to know the basic details of people’s lives. Thus we want inquiry to become an ongoing tool that is used for building organizations and advancing politics.

Examples

Possible ideas for a project could include: a tenant union; worker committees within a workplace; high schoolers against cops; retail workers collective; transit riders union; a workers union based on an area (e.g. downtown) rather than a shop; homeless encampment defense; university student organizations; immigrant defence leagues; workplace organizing initiatives; etc. Here are some real-life examples of projects: Tenant and Neighborhood Councils (TANC), Anchor Steam Union Drive, New River Valley Target workers organizing, Tenant and Housing Association of Worcester (THAW), Tech Workers Coalition, LA Tenants Union, Philly Socialist Dignity Project.

Wondering where to get started? See Strategic Approaches for 2020 for a more detailed look at strategic approaches to communist organizing.

4. What to Expect Once You Join

Each chapter will take on different experiments with communist organizing. The benefit of organizing together is that we can all learn from each other’s successes and failures. Out of this practical activity, we will develop theoretical approaches regarding the most effective ways to relate to and nourish class struggle. Communist Caucus is thus organized on the basis of practical unity as opposed to ideological unity. Although we may come from different radical left perspectives, we all are engaged in building some sort of independent institution for working class power. Our task is to build infrastructure for struggle and provide avenues for present and future comrades to articulate their intuitive anger and militancy. We expect to have monthly calls where at least one member of each chapter participates. If we have enough interest, we can perhaps start a newsletter for all CC members. In addition to affiliation with DSA, we are members of the Marxist Center. In one year, an annual Communist Caucus convergence will be held where we can revisit the wider trajectory of the caucus and make changes together.

5. Recommended: read a few class-struggle autobiographies together! 

Many of us are new to communist organizing and some of us are new to the left altogether. All of us have lived the last few decades without an organized left and few first-hand examples of working class people intervening collectively against the manifestations of capital in their everyday lives. With this in mind, we’ve assembled a list of mostly memoirs written by people doing just that. These texts are short, accessible, and teach us that the conditions in which we live are subject to change at any moment–if we decide to change them.

Sound Good? Apply here:

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