This is all very unfortunate and deeply affecting toward all members. If you've never been through a split in a group, it is incredibly stressful and demoralizing. People who did nothing wrong are being forced to take sides. I know that there have been claims that PSL has covered up assaults and have a rigid and sectarian internal structure that is self preservationist rather than deliberative and building toward a mass character. I can't really confirm the SA allegations but I have some experience with PSL members being a little too inside baseball wrt their mass work. But I have also worked closely with PSL comrades in a wide range of struggles, I have seen the same activists consistently showing up and organizing in the streets for years in my city. Their org isn't perfect perhaps but many of the people in it are fighting like hell, and now I'm sure they are going through some shit.

PSL internals are being shared outside the internal of the org in a way I have never seen before. There are literal fascists cheering on the demise of the org. Try not to take the bait, don't drink the tea, just let this factionalism sort itself out based on the conditions set by years of organizing. Now is the time to extend a hand, invite members to things, help people create or find a new political home, whether that means transforming the org, liquidating into other groups or forming new ones. Don't stand alongside the fascists in cheering on the destruction of authentic, if imperfect, worker organization. Its time to step up as comrades, not give in to turning a legitimate internal crisis into petty drama.

I have faith that nearly all PSL comrades do not condone or tolerate SA, I do not condone or tolerate it either. But let them figure it out for themselves and don't contribute to toxicity. PSL is made up of real people, good comrades, who are going through some shit and most of them had nothing to do with this situation that a few leaders created. I've seen splits form and take shape a few different ways, and its always ugly. Try to be human and scientific about it.

Well, they clearly generated too much heat, either through their own incompetence (most likely) or through cointelpro operations (less likely but still possible). Either way, they need to purge the top brass, and get back the leadership that they lost and pursue massive internal reforms to the parties leadership committees. Likely an undoable task at this point.

That said, this is extremely unfortunate, as local PSL leadership here in the Midwest are among the only organizations that actually have a good understanding of what is going on and understand what is actually at stake here with the ICE raids and continued surveillance, with strong theory and organizational education standards.

However, this is clearly a repeated issue within demcent organizations, and theory needs to be developed on how to counter this in a way that does not compromise the other goals of the organizational method. It seems as though policies around abuse and democratic discussion have to be the concrete center point for such organizations to work.

If anyone is curious how a culture of abuse, retaliation, and dominance could arise like this, the comments here are a pretty good demonstration.

For the sake of argument, not specifically weighing in on the truth of whatever the PSL is going though...

If the feds successfully smear one leader with a scandal, they win a minor victory. If the leadership circle closes ranks and moves to protect the smeared leader, the feds win a big victory by bringing all of them into question.

Anyone who is willing to take a bullet should also be willing to take a fall regardless of the truth. Any cadre based party should have a pool of replacement leaders ready to step up.

https://truthout.org/articles/why-misogynists-make-great-informants/

Splitting is dogshit and so are the central committee. Has anyone considered forcibly removing them? Would they call the cops to remove you if you just barred them from all areas?

I think of Stalin regularly. He did shit like this and it was based.

This sucks so fucking bad. Mindblowingly dissapointing. I had a lot of hope for the PSL, am I wrong for thinking its looking pretty cooked?

So a small number of members decide to leave the party because they have a political disagreement, and they spin that into a narrative that there is no democratic centralism in the branch? And then explicitly call for everyone to leave and dissolve the branch. And they specifically mention that they are doing this in coordination with the anti PSL faction, which does actually exist as mentioned in this post, a faction which is more focused on destroying the PSL than building anything in its place. A faction which developed alongside a coordinated, dedicated effort within the US federal government to attack PSL through the courts and through other means of overt state repression.

Understand that the state is paying lots of people to strategize on how to destroy PSL as their full time jobs (and other left wing movements). Do you suppose they are just idly collecting paychecks?

This letter is, according to itself, written and published specifically to destroy PSL, and we have people in this very thread taking everything it says at face value. It's so very easy in retrospect to recognize the work of repressive state actions in dismantling communist organizations. But it takes a higher degree of seriousness to recognize it while it's in progress. The leaders in PSL, whom you are so quick to dismiss as ineffective, corrupt, and needing to be replaced — every single one of them is currently facing the threat of state repression head on. We all understand how serious and pervasive of a threat that is.

It's so much easier to destroy something than it is to build something, and all I see in these threads and posts are calls to destroy. But there are hardly any suggestions on what they could have done better, or what needs to come next.

I encourage all of you to approach this, and everything, with the level of seriousness and discipline that is actually required in being a communist.

If the mood on hexbear is anything to go by it feels to me like the last 10 years of work is about to disappear.