EDIT: The original article I posted kinda sucked. I'll keep it here for posterity if people want to read it, but I'll replace it with a link @RedWizard posted with original resignation letter and the PSL internal response. If you want to read just the resignation letter with the PSL criticisms without any preamble, it is here.
EDIT 2: Here is the leaked PSL internal response.
Comment by @chana in the general thread: (Sorry to copy your comment here but it's the only comment I've seen so far on this and it's a good way to start off the discussion, along with summer discussion questions I'll add below)
Comment text
Notable resignation and letter from PSL Central Committee member and related fomenting split in Brooklyn over PSL being run as a bureaucratic clique (which many will already be aware of from speaking with various PSL members trying to do more than participate in protests). PSL is good at specific local levels despite the national level dysfunction, and the vast majority of its membership good comrades. But the criticisms certainly ring true to me and are reasonable to cite as existential flaws. There is a bit of clown nonsense from the top on a regular basis (like the call for a general strike, cited in the resignation letter, lmao that is baby liberal idealism stuff).
If you're currently unorganized don't let this stop you from joining, it is more important to be active and learn locally from any non-abusive left space than to do nothing organized.
Discussion Questions:
- There's a lot of PSL fans or members here so what do you think? Like overall on this news?
- Do the complaints have merit, or not? Do some do, and some don't? Which ones? -- If so, what does this mean for the left in the US? What are the solutions and what is the path from here? -- If not, why don't you think so? And what does it mean for the left in terms of factionalism and splitting?
- Do you still recommend the PSL as an organization to join? What about the DSA? Join the Democratic Party? FRSO?
Lenin himself stressed that three things are necessary for a communist movement to seize authority. Mass disillusionment with established authority, a situation where established authority can no longer exert itself, and a pre-existing communist organization with the structural capacity to commit revolutionary actions. My read on that, plus the historical circumstances, is that it's assumed that communism is a pseudo-criminal movement. Lenin and similar theorists were writing in circumstances like exile, prison cells, threats of police stalking them, etc. And I truly believe the history of every successful communist party (bolsheviks, 26th of July, etc) is also the history of organizations openly willing to commit violence, theft, or whatever else is necessary.
This isn't me judging them from a moral angle. Absolutely not. They did what was necessary at the time and eventually seized victory, so they should be lauded for their efforts. They managed to walk the tightrope of surviving against state suppression through criminal organizing, yet also managed to keep their intellectual foundations.
What I mean to say is that organizations in the capitalist west like PSL are in a really rough spot. There really isn't a successful playbook on what to do if you're not a semi-criminal organization that openly commits violence. I'm also not advocating that PSL needs to start throwing molotov cocktails. I don't know what to advocate for honestly. I don't know what is to be done because I don't know of any precedent that could give any clues.
I wouldn't say "openly commits violence" is a necessary component at relatively early stages of the process. There needs to be a legal and an illegal side, and a weak organization openly committing violence cannot have a legal side.
All revolutionary action will inevitably be criminalized. That is the reality of endeavoring to overthrow the status quo.
Yeah but I don't know if PSL or any other party in America is prepared for that. I do really admire how PSL does have countermeasures against cop and fed infiltration though. I don't know how effective they are, but the time I've spent organizing with PSL at least told me they are aware of it
They 100% are not. I had some experience with them recently and its really not very effective. Atleast in my area. I think we should be network building at this stage. Getting local socialists to actually know eachother personally. At this point it's mainly people who show up to a protest then go home. That's no different than what liberals do. They just carry different signs.