My dear comrades, I am brought back to you before the next article is completed due only to a most disgusting breach of not merely comradery, but as well of personal safety and privacy. The next article will hopefully be out by a month from now, but this simply cannot wait.
A while back, my friend who was a member of the Party of Communists USA, upon expulsion on the old silly charge of 'disrupting Party unity with un-Marxist thought' (which the tiniest of vanguard parties seem to love using for every little view not in absolute lockstep mirror-agreement with the even tinier 'Party Leadership'), asked me to aßemble an article from what could be called parallel-dictation or proxy-dictation. I wrote the article in my own words, but strictly containing his ideas obtained by our conversation. The article was titled 'The Downfall of the Party of Communists USA', and can be read here.
Unlike that one, this article is entirely my endeavour. I implied my neutrality in that article, which was indeed true, but it was also to prevent any kind of personal corruption of what was, after all, my friend's article. This article will not be neutral, as one could probably already figure, yet not merely because of the subject of it, for neither do I share my friend's support for vanguardism. I have come to both renounce and distrust vanguardism (at least as it manifests in American Marxism-Leninism). As opposed to my still-vanguardist friend, I am an explicitly anti-vanguard Marxist-Leninist; thus in summary I will likely demonstrate of a negative disposition to start with. Worry not, thoug! This subject, the occurrence to be discußed, will prove well-founded my distaste for the 'Party of Communists' USA and like '[cults] of the new type'.
What, then, has come to paß to stimulate a newly impaßioned position for me? The factional civil war detailed in our article has just spilled out into a hostile split. Hostile, due to the volatile reaction by the bureaucratic careerists of the PCUSA, I should say. I always knew that the PCUSA never really practised a sincere comradery, ever treating it as an annoying bucket list item to be croßed off, but their lack of common decency, the utter disrespect shown for the dignity of former Party members, it truly shocked me to see such virulent retribution from the so-proclaimed 'Vanguard of the Proletariat', betraying the stately officiality one might expect of the title.
Here is what transpired, as far as I have gathered. The People's School for Marxist-Leninist Studies broke away from the Party of Communists USA (having been said party's educational institution), renaming themselves the American Council of Bolsheviks. No theoretical disputes have yet arisen publicly to my knowledge, every grievance I have seen so far relating to mis-conduct in or by the Party. Suffice it to say that 'mis-conduct' is so prevalent in the PCUSA, that it might as well be regarded as the implicit Party line, or the Party Rules with which to interpret the Party Line. The Party of Communists USA, since its inception, has been wracked with allegations and controversies stemming from mis-deeds or shady actions. A founding member of the Party, Peter Korman, has been an exhaustive voice for detailing the earliest transgreßions, especially of the Party leadership (a link to his exposition here).
I never had high hopes or loving dedication for the PCUSA, as my friend did. I told him after I had finished writing out his article that, from our discußion, the PCUSA sounded like just another failing Leftist club, or perhaps even a cult, whose vanguard variety ever seems to fall into similar disintegration. Long ago I recognised the problems that inevitably follow small, centralised political groups, and most powerfully in those of the United States.
Now that the National Office Faction has effectively taken over the PCUSA, directing it towards a vicious and wholly uncomradely policy of hostility against party members who disagree with the faction or who leave the Party (akin to how religious fundamentalist cults treat their 'apostates'), I would advise that everyone stay back from the PCUSA for the time being, until the fog has fully cleared around the matter.
As for the People's School Faction's reforming into the American Council of Bolsheviks, I am reluctant to lend or rend judgement upon. Everything that I really know about the internal workings of the PCUSA and its various factions is due to the insight of my friend. Though he thought the People's School leadership to be the most sincere in both ideal and dealing, and though I have sympathy for the vulgar hatred and indecency which has befallen them, I do not feel I can render a materially satisfactory or analytically useful analysis of so new a party, having no ties myself to its predeceßor.
This will be the last article on the Party of Communists, with the exception of the over-due re-examination of Comrade Dankey Kang's Farewell to the PCUSA video (outdated article we did on it here). The delay, unfortunately, is on the part of my friend, so he may have to hand it over to me if time does not become available for him soon.
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