Very good Points of Unity from a NYC organisation (http://redleague.org):

Communism is a classless society where the state, money and markets have been abolished and production is collectively organized. Communism is not merely an economy where production is collectively planned and owned–whether by the state or directly by workers–but one in which exchange-value itself has been abolished, along with divisions of race, nation, and gender, and in which production is centered around use-value. This condition will not be achieved solely through “building the new society in the shell of the old” nor instantly by working class revolution, but will entail a historical transition. Communism can only be achieved through the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and its self-emancipation. The proletariat consists of all those dispossessed of the means of production, who must survive by selling their labor power. This social class, actively constituted as a revolutionary subject, is the only possible historical agent of communism. Capitalism depends on both waged and unwaged labor. A central aspect of marxist theory is that not every individual worker, nor workers as a whole are automatically imbued with class consciousness, let alone revolutionary consciousness; in some cases groups of workers and sections of the working class can work in direct opposition to revolutionary struggle. For example, cops, despite selling labor-power, are paid traitors to the working class, defenders of capital and private property, and are not part of the revolutionary potential of the proletariat. In other cases, scabs and hate strikes work actively against working class and revolutionary politics. We are internationalists. The proletariat is global, and so communism must be too. We oppose all forms of imperialism and refuse to side with our own nation-states in worldwide conflicts. In situations of imperialist war the only sensible position to take is revolutionary defeatism: to pursue transforming imperialist war into a revolutionary civil war against world capitalism. We reject “socialism in one country” or any other national road to socialism. Revolution must be international in scope or nothing. Thus, we call for open borders, and end to deportation and immigrant detention. We reject all forms of nationalism as revolutionary politics; nevertheless we distinguish between different forms of nationalism. While white nationalism and ethnic chauvinism are opposed to revolutionary working class politics, oppressed nationalisms often develop from the experience of oppression through practical responses to it, becoming a roadblock to revolutionary politics only as it counterpoises analysis of oppression with analysis of exploitation. As Communists, we are opposed to all forms of racism, national chauvinism, and ethnic or religious sectarianism. As communists, we recognize that racism deeply shapes and informs capitalist society and imperialism. Race is a complex global system for organizing labor markets, state violence and social reproduction which structures material inequalities–both in terms of wealth, as well as health and well-being– within the working class. The material effects of race will not simply be abolished by bringing capitalism to an end, while racism and division within the working class–particularly nationalism and antiblackness–must be challenged, if not overcome to achieve a viable revolutionary class consciousness. As communists we support struggle and reform which tend to increase equality and solidarity within the working class, disrupt racist violence, and which tends to decrease divisions along lines of race, citizenship, ethnicity and religion. In practice, we support antiracist demands that are articulated by proponents of national liberation. However, we are critical of national liberation when it is posed as the primary goal or alternative to the development of a proletarian revolution. As Communists, we call for the abolition of gendered relations of power and the family. Historically, Marxists and other revolutionaries have recognized the centrality of the family to the reproduction of the capitalist social order and its role as a site of oppression within it. While capitalism has fundamentally transformed older forms of gendered/sexed hierarchy, we recognize that gender/sex remain fundamental to capitalist relations of production and reproduction and that gender operates as an organizing principle of violence against and within the working class. We support struggle and reform which tends to overcome these divisions and destructive ideologies–(trans)misogyny, homophobia, and natalism–and which tend to decrease gendered violence and inequality within the working class. At the same time we oppose feminist ideologies rooted in essentialist biological models of the relationship between sex and gender, as well as dominant feminist politics which seek primarily to develop women’s equal representation in the ruling elite, upholding the success of women CEOs and politicians as signs of progress and the end-in-itself of feminism. Communist society has not yet been achieved by any historical revolution. We reject that the USSR and its various offshoots such as the People’s Republic of China and Cuba are examples of socialist societies or functioning proletarian dictatorships which serve as models for us to use. While no functioning communist society has existed we point to the Paris Commune, the early days of the Russian Revolution, the German revolution, the Shanghai Commune and aspects of the Spanish Civil War as historical moments where the proletariat grappled with the task of forming a new society. Communism will require seizure and transformation of state power via a dictatorship of the proletariat. As communists we aim for the abolition of the state but cannot deny that any collective project of changing the world means grappling with political power. This doesn’t mean participating in elections aiming to capture the bourgeois state and utilize it to proletarian ends, but rather developing an alternative to bourgeois politics. Ultimately the proletariat must form its own political institutions independent from other classes and develop the capacity to smash the bourgeois state, take power as a class and abolish capitalist relations. Such institutions must be genuinely controlled by and accountable to the masses of revolutionary workers. The proletariat cannot legitimately come to power through a conspiratorial putsch or coup, nor can it come into power through alliances with elements of the bourgeoisie. We uphold the right to debate and form factions within communist organizations. Communist and workers organizations should strive for transparent accountable functioning. We uphold the right to open debate, factions and accountable collective decision-making within revolutionary organizations, especially our own. This means opposing bureaucratic centralism and working against the development of unaccountable caste-like layers of leadership. However we also recognize that democratic forms as such do not have an inherently communist content and that democracy, when meaning the sharing of power between antagonistic classes, is to be rejected. We are for working class political independence. On this basis we reject united fronts with bourgeois political parties and other cross class alliances. We reject united fronts with all bourgeois parties, including those belonging to the left-wing of capital. Throughout history various factions of the left have served not to advance the class struggle towards communism but to stifle it. This entails recognizing that our enemies aren’t limited to outright reactionaries but also those who defend capitalism under a veneer of anti-bourgeois radicalism. While strategic work with the rank and file of certain organizations may be necessary and beneficial, actual political alliances with reformist or reactionary groups can only mean sacrificing our political independence. We support independent revolutionary organizing among workers in all workplaces and outside of them, with the aim of developing revolutionary class consciousness against class enemies; bosses, bourgeois politicians and officials, union bureaucrats, and non-governmental organizational leadership. We believe strategies based on seizing power in such institutions rooted in electoralism or factionalism are misguided and doomed to fail. Because of the historical role of unions as “schools of socialism” we must be clear in rejecting a strategy of union entryism which aims to capture and gain control of the existing unions, instead working to develop the power of workers themselves, autonomous from the control of union bureaucracies. Again and again the union bureaucracy has proven to be a conservative force that stifles the development of workers’ struggle, acting as a roadblock in the fight for communism. We do not discourage workers from joining unions to defend their basic economic needs, but recognize that the class struggle must go beyond the limits of unionism.

8:53 pm • 20 October 2015 • 14 notes