Parker McQueeney and Donald Parkinson report back and give suggestions for moving forward after having attended the 2018 Marxist Center conference, where multiple local socialist organizations aimed to unify into a national organization.

On the final weekend of November 2018, communists from every corner of the continental United States shuffled their way into the James Berger lecture hall of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs to take part in what was more of a congress than a conference, the second such of Marxist Center. Built on top of the old Cragmor coal mines, the lecture hall in the famously conservative city (even back in the days of the 1903 Colorado Labor Wars, when the Springs were home to many of the mine owners) was, that weekend, adorned with red flags flanking the stage and draping the walls.

Delegates representing 24 local organizations (some, like the Pacific Northwest’s Communist Labor Party, have multiple chapters) were augmented by multiple organizations attending as observers, as well as dozens of individuals not associated with any group. This was perhaps the first time dozens of disparate socialist groups in the US combined to form a national organization since at least the New Communist Movement of the 1970s and the formation of the CP(ML) from the October League; but more importantly, this is the first group formed in this way across ideological boundaries, developing its line through democratic deliberation rather than inherited positions, in at least a century.

What unites all the groups in Marxist Center is not adherence to a particular ideological school of Marxism, but a commitment to a general strategy of base-building. Base-building, simply put, is organizing the working class into institutions that are vehicles of collective struggle. This can mean challenging the rule of capitalists through industrial or tenants’ unions, or it can include things like mutual aid associations and cooperatives. Essentially, the aim of base-building is to build a ‘dual power’ to the capitalist state, creating a workers’ society of mass organizations that are independent of any capitalist political party. Some call this strategy dual power, while others insist on more precise usage of the word dual power that describes a situation where the working class has formed a parallel sovereignty to the capitalist state. Either way, by focusing on unity over a basic strategy instead of ideology, Marxist Center groups look to carve out space outside the dual leftist traditions of protest culture and sectarianism.

The Cultural Merger Formula

The first night of the conference saw the largest turnout, bolstered by UCCS students eager to take part in the Sorry to Bother You screening and the Q&A with filmmaker Boots Riley. In his talk, Riley emphasized the importance of a hands-on approach to class struggle. Echoing Ellen Wood’s seminal book Retreat from Class, Riley told audience members that “except through rhetoric, the Left has left behind class struggle,” that organizing should take place primarily at work, where people spend the majority of their waking time, and that for the left, struggle has become an extracurricular activity. His talk illuminated aspects of the film, especially his conception of what could be called the ‘cultural merger formula.’ The classical Marxist ‘merger formula’ was Kautsky’s, and later Lenin’s, idea that Marx’s thought, and the Social Democratic movement generally, marked the “aggregation of various, often apparently contrasting domains into a higher unity,” that of natural with social sciences, English political economy with French materialism and German idealism, theory with praxis, and most directly, the socialist movement with the working class. Sorry to Bother You presents this aggregation not with socialism and the workers’ movement, which as anyone knows is all but dead in the United States. Rather, it is between class struggle, social justice movements, and what Riley called spectacle, as symbolized by Tessa Thompson’s character Detroit, a sculptor and performance artist as well as a protest militant of the Left Eye Movement, which seems to be loosely based on the Occupy-era anarchist protest scene. That Riley would conceive of a ‘cultural merger formula’ makes sense considering his background in organizations that draw their heritage from the New Left rainbow coalition. Commenting on the Occupy movement, Riley mentioned its fetish for decentralization and its failure to congeal into a class-independent entity was, in part, a response to a dry and dogmatic application of professional revolutionism. His initial reaction to Occupy was “what the fuck is this shit?” because of its lack of a clear independent class vision, though he also remarked that he saw people not get involved for this reason, which he views as a mistake. Perhaps a contemporary analogue to this is France’s gilets jaunes. Riley isn’t wrong to point out that the Left in recent years has been over-reliant on what he calls spectacle, though at the MC conference, he was preaching to the choir.

Riley reiterated the notion that you can get 50,000 people in the street to protest a war in Iraq or Vietnam, but without a militant labor movement shutting shit down, it won’t get anywhere. Perhaps coincidentally, there seemed to be a tactical and practical theoretical unity between Riley’s talk and the strategy of the overwhelming majority of base-builders in attendance. Namely, this involved the desire for direct proletarian organizing. Riley mentioned that before the longshoreman’s union was formed, the unskilled dockworkers were seen as essentially unorganizable; by the mid-20th century, they were one of the most radical and militant unions in the US. For Riley, the entire working class today can be seen as occupying the position of the unorganized dockworkers. This was an important message for an audience who were themselves pushing against today’s “common sense” that the working class is unorganizable today and is no longer a subject of social change through its own self-organizing activity.

One important topic that was conspicuously absent in Riley’s revolutionary strategy was the question of the role of the party. This ambiguity would generally carry over through the whole weekend—Marxist Center delegates and observers seemed to have a healthy skepticism of the history of endless microsects declaring themselves ‘the party,’ though rather than debate the question in person, the can was kicked down the road for later consideration. This carried over into the debate on the Points of Unity the next afternoon.

Building an Organization: The Points of Unity Debate

Scheduled for two hours in the morning, the discussion concerning the organization’s Points of Unity (POU) took three times the length it was allotted. This is something that the organizers should have perhaps foreseen, but an even larger issue was the lack of any democratic procedures on how to count votes, who could actually vote, who could add to the discussion and debate, etc. For example, one organization officially recognized at the conference was DSA Refoundation, which only a few weeks prior had seen its leadership unanimously decide to dissolve the national caucus over personal drama. However, most (former) Refoundation members in attendance were uninformed they counted as voting delegates until Sunday, after the points of unity debate had been completed. It was a messy process, to say the least.

Eventually, a general process was decided upon, and after it was clear the debate would take up much more time than planned, it was decided that only delegates would be able to contribute to discussion. One major political disagreement that recurred was whether or not the POU should be simplified to a more basic reading level. A minority of delegates considered the language to be elitist and inaccessible to the working class; the majority faction countered with the argument that a POU was not a document for propaganda or educational purposes, but an internal standard of political consensus. Most of the other debate surrounded specific wording and the subsequent political implications. Going forward, Marxist Center will have to clarify the unique role of a POU document as distinct from a program.

Towards the end of the afternoon, a workable POU had been drafted by a room of around 200 communists. The document was unanimously accepted the next morning after a small group of dogmatic Marxist-Leninists from the hosting organization, surrounding the circle of the Proles of the Round Table podcast, walked out of the meeting in protest. During the debates, the “CSS Seven” were loudly booing and chastising contributors to such an extent that leadership had to ask them several times to curtail their behavior. They seemed to be unaware that democratic centralism should, in fact, be democratic in practice, that not every line on the POU would reflect Xi Jinping Thought, and that everyone at the conference would have to compromise. Later that night, they took to social media to attempt to discredit MC. Some of their concerns were legitimate (like the lack of a voting process), but they also attempted to weaponize the identities of trans women and people of color (none of whom actually agreed with the CSS Seven) to discredit two of the event organizers. These complaints were all made in a bad-faith manner via online trolling. These seven people were of course not the only ones disappointed in some way by the POU, but in any democratic process, compromises must be made: not every individual is bound to get their way. It is significant that the document was accepted unanimously. What matters is not that a perfect document that adequately reflects all of the revolutionary politics we hold true to was produced (such a thing may not even be possible), but that a Points of Unity document was agreed upon democratically by delegates from all attending groups—it gives Marxist Center legitimacy. Democracy means that everyone has a say, not that everyone will get their way. For this reason, one can say that the drafting and voting on the POU was a success, albeit a rocky one.

Also voted on were the requirements for groups wishing to affiliate with Marxist Center. These conditions must be met by the respective groups, who may then vote internally to affiliate. A delegate council will be elected from the groups that have affiliated, and it will act as a sort of proto-central committee for running the organization between conferences. There are plans to eventually allow for members-at-large (those who are not members of organizations affiliated to the Marxist Center but wish to be involved in the organization as a whole), who will be represented by one delegate on the council. This is a good idea, because it encourages members who are at-large to organize and do actual political work on the ground. It is required that to even be an at-large member one must be involved in some kind of organizing. While this part of the conference might have seemed politically benign after the Points of Unity debate, this very issue is actually what caused the initial split in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks! The Bolsheviks required members of the party to be active in a party organization, whereas the Mensheviks allowed those who weren’t politically active to be members on paper. This move on the part of Marxist Center is more likely inspired (wisely so) by the fact that despite its relatively large numbers on paper, most DSA members aren’t actually active in any kind of organizing. A political organization needs to build actual community and trust amongst its members rather than merely be an atomized group of individuals. These limitations on membership may be seen as contrary to the idea of a mass party, but are really intelligent political measures that will promote the growth of the organization into something that is actually rooted in the lives of working people.

One significant political debate that occurred during this portion of the conference was about language in which, as a section under the affiliation requirements document ended up reading, “Preference in the election of delegates will be given to people representing a marginalized community”. While the desire to counteract a seemingly hegemonic white majority is correct, this is vague language, inappropriately calling for preferential voting based on identity, and doesn’t offer a specific policy of affirmative action. How does a national organization give preference in elections when delegates are elected by the rank-and-file? A better solution would be to form three caucuses; a women’s caucus, an LGBTQ caucus, and a people of color caucus, and give each a seat on the delegate council (after the conference two of these caucuses actually formed: the POC caucus and a women and femme caucus, though this leaves out gay and trans men, as well as non-binary people). This way, disproportionate representation that favors the interests of marginalized people can be ensured without language that merely suggests that people vote for delegates based on someone’s identity.

After the business of voting on the Points of Unity and affiliation requirements, the most important proceedings were workshops. These were all very informative, covering issues of cooperatives, internal organization norms and culture, tenant organizing, and workplace organizing. Comrades who were experienced organizers shared examples of their successes, engaging in a genuine dialogue on tactical issues of working-class organizing that is all too rare in the US. What was impressive about the Marxist Center conference was how non-academic and proletarian it was, both in terms of composition and content. Issues of theory were discussed in the halls, but the valuable time that was available couldn’t be squandered on the typical seminars on the correct reading of Althusser or the tributary mode of production. This isn’t to say that such a culture of education shouldn’t be developed, as we must form intellectual institutions autonomous from academia, but the tasks at hand require that we get organized first, and this was rightly considered a priority.

The Debate Never Ends

Almost immediately after the conference, the Points of Unity sparked online debate. The first criticisms that were published came from a group that had neither delegates nor observers at the conference, the Austin Revolutionary Organizing Committee (AROC). AROC’s critiques of the Points of Unity essentially boil down to the concern that Marxist Center has not dedicated itself to becoming a Marxist-Leninist-style vanguard party. Of course there is more to AROC’s critique, but their argument amounts to:

Mao’s Mass Line is a more effective organizing technique than base-building

The need for a party is not clearly called for in the Points of Unity

The language of “dictatorship of the proletariat” is not included in the Points of Unity

There is a lack of a clear position on Actually Existing Socialism

Adequate measures have not been taken to prevent liberal degeneration into reformist NGOism

Acceptance of ideological plurality has meant that anarchists and “Kautsky revivalists” will be involved, which will poison the organization’s politics if they become influential enough.

These criticisms were not particularly well received, as it came across as a small Marxist-Leninist organization lecturing a group with branches around the country that aims to escape past dogmatism on how they don’t properly conform to the Marxist-Leninist vision of party building.

AROC’s criticisms were met with an entry from the Left Wind blog titled Let the Parties Hit the Floor. The response contains some salient points and others that create more confusion than necessary. While correctly pointing out that it would be premature to declare Marxist Center “the party,” the article seems at best skeptical towards any long term strategy that orients Marxist Center to building a revolutionary party. To cite the article:



“Why is “revolution” any less precise than “the party” or “the dictatorship of the proletariat”? Furthermore, many or even most so-called revolutionary “parties” in the U.S. are embedded in precisely this protest culture and ambulance chasing, not even to mention the reformist communist parties such as the PCI and PCF. How would becoming yet another group trying to become The Party avoid this pitfall? The correlation between AROC’s “party-building” strategy and successfully avoiding reformism/protest culture is left as an exercise for the reader.”

In essence, this is the claim that because past attempts at building mass revolutionary parties have failed, an attempt to build a mass party today will follow the same path. What Let the Parties Hit the Floor does not answer is what an alternative revolutionary strategy could look like. If party building is inevitably a road towards reformism, then what form of organization is preferable? The idea seems to be that through spontaneous organizing and struggle an alternative form to the party will develop, yet why we should we expect that this alternative will ever arise? Instead of understanding why past political parties have failed and applying these lessons while trying to form a mass party, the hope is that a whim of history will provide us with a new form that transcends past ones. Using a common understanding of what constitutes a party, is Marxist Center not essentially in the process of building a revolutionary party anyway, even if it’s not a party in name?

Between AROC and Left Wind, we must find a golden mean, so to speak. AROC’s call for fidelity to dogmatic Marxism-Leninism should be rejected: an organization like Marxist Center must develop its own tendency of Marxism for the 21st century in the course of struggle and debate rather than copy dead traditions that have a track record of bureaucratic inflexibility. It is far more important that Marxist Center develops an actual base in the working class and shares a common commitment to revolutionary socialist politics against reformism. The details may not all be worked out yet, but there is no reason to expect them to be. At the same time, leaving the future development of an organization to the imagination alone can mean a lack of organizational cohesion and direction. While the party that AROC suggests isn’t the party we should aim for, the trajectory of Marxist Center as an organization cannot be left hanging in the air.

The path that Marxist Center takes will not be decided by a single organization or theorist; it will have to be worked out through free political debate between its militants. Rather than expecting perfection from Marxist Center immediately upon its first foundation congress, we should understand that our aim is to develop politics for the 21st century that fits in the modern terrain of capitalism. To effectively do this, we must remain open-minded while simultaneously developing a long term strategy for overthrowing capitalism and constructing a proletarian counter-sovereignty to the bourgeois state. While actors like AROC don’t offer us the answers they claim to have, the questions raised around party building and a political program should be discussed and debated, not seen as mere distractions from bread-and-butter organizing.

If members of Marxist Center decide there is a need for a party, the question of what kind of party remains. A party is simply an organization of political actors organized around a certain strategy and vision for change: a program. It is essential that Marxist Center does not become another micro-sect that clings to a certain theoretical vision of Marxism with a priori shibboleths that define the group’s politics, whether Marxist-Leninist, Trotskyist, left-communist, etc. The organization must be internally democratic and oriented towards building working class political power independent from the bourgeois parties. Without this, any debates over the correct political line, while potentially useful intellectual exercises, will be effectively pointless. In this sense, Marxist Center is going in the right direction, emphasizing a strategy of base building and a commitment to revolutionary socialism and democracy.

Another debate spurred by the Points of Unity was on the question of the state, particularly language around the state. One point of unity is that we must “demand and organize democratic worker control over the means of production and state,” while another argues against administering capitalism, even when holding political office. These aspects of the POU were perhaps the most controversial and led to the group Unity and Struggle choosing not to affiliate, as they saw these points as being “pro-state,” while the group defines itself as an anti-state communist collective [CORRECTION: While Unity and Struggle disagree with the point about the state in the POU, they still intend to affiliate]. Yet what exactly do these planks of the POU entail?

“Democratic control over the state” could mean seizing the bourgeois state apparatus and using it for communist ends, against the advice given by Marx in Civil War In France. This interpretation of the plank contradicts the point that argues against administering the capitalist state. While the important point regarding the “smashing” of the bourgeois state may be missing, it’s an unfair assessment to assume that this is calling for wielding the readymade state apparatus. A better interpretation of this plank sees it calling for both:

a) fighting for increased democracy within the bourgeois state, thus giving the proletariat more political freedom to organize a mass base in society

b) a revolutionary state established after a revolutionary break that would be democratically controlled by the masses of workers.

While the wording regarding the state in the POU may need clarification, there is no reason to think that this represents a step away from revolutionary Marxism. Inserting the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” in the POU wouldn’t necessarily clarify this either, as the meaning of this phrase varies wildly depending on one’s tendency. For some, it can mean “all power to the workers’ councils,” while for others it can mean the rule of the vanguard party.

Another issue not tackled in the Points of Unity, as pointed out by AROC’s critique, is that of Actually Existing Socialism (AES). By not taking up a line that defends or rejects the examples of AES throughout history, AROC sees Marxist Center as lacking theoretical clarity on its historical tasks. Point taken, but what’s the big deal? We do not need to all have the same opinion on the Cold War to work together in a common organization at this point. For the socialist projects of the 20th century, the ultimate verdict still remains as to what their role in the grand schema of history truly will turn out to be. It is important that Marxist Center does not enforce a stance that condemns all the revolutions to irrelevance. This can amount to a concession to all the talking points of mid-century anti-communism while promising some ideal with no critical relation to these historical experiences whatsoever. Marxist Center must also have the freedom to be openly critical of AES from the standpoint of fighting for communism. It is more important that we find unity on programmatic points of political relevance rather than theoretical interpretations of whether the USSR was ‘state-capitalist’, ‘lower-stage communism’, or a “non-mode of production.” When it comes to unified political positions, what matters is that we emphasize democracy, transparency, and accountability that will act against the bureaucratic degeneration that is at the core of most principled critiques of past and existing socialist regimes. Where these arguments do come to prominence is on the issue of strategy: do we aim for national roads to socialism, or for world revolution? This is a question of long term strategy, one that seems too distant to have any practical effect at this juncture. Yet at some point, these more difficult questions of long term strategy will need to be confronted.

Groups like Unity and Struggle who are skeptical of the Points of Unity, yet are generally for a revolutionary socialist project of building independent working-class institutions, should put aside theoretical differences over the question of the state. While the language around the state in the Points of Unity may raise more questions than it answers, it is not incompatible with revolutionary socialism as it stands. In order to engage in this project of attempted unity, Marxist Center will have to make compromises with other groups on ideological questions. This is the case for any mass organization. Internal democracy is of the highest priority, and drafting constitutional and foundational documents that are living, subject to a developed and thoroughly democratic process, is essential to a culture of internal democracy. This way, organizations like Unity and Struggle can join Marxist Center and argue for their perspective within the organization, and even form a faction representing their position on the state. There is loud fanfare about anarchist influence in Marxist Center, a boogeyman that is largely overblown and is not a legitimate reason to double down on the sort of ideological rigidity that AROC calls for. A minority of anarchists will not be a threat to the organizational cohesion of Marxist Center as long as it maintains democratic norms and accountable leadership through a balanced centralism. In the end, the majority rules, and the majority of delegates from Marxist Center affiliates did not vote for anti-state language in the POU. Adequately clarifying the issue of state and revolution will not be settled in a unity document, but rather through open discussion and debate in relation to our concrete tactical and strategic struggles.

Moving Forward

Moving forward, Marxist Center will have to develop unity on a political level, not just on the strategic level of base-building for revolution. This does not mean any sect should impose its views on Marxist Center as a whole, but that there should be open and democratic process of determining the future direction of the organization, guided by accountable and thoughtful leaders. The importance of leadership is another thing that was evident at the Marxist Center conference, even if it was hardly discussed. In the future, the task of training leaders who have actual influence in proletarian communities is key to Marxist Center’s success.

But what does success look like? Our suggestion is that Marxist Center should orient itself towards building a revolutionary mass party. This could happen by Marxist Center aiming to become such a party itself, acting as a locus of unity for independent communist groups while militants ditch the world dinosaur sects, and becoming an organization that trains future cadre who can provide leadership for a mass party. The process of what this would look like and how it would work is, of course, undecided—but to formulate a course of action, a destination must be set. We should not aim to copy some other revolutionary organization of the past, like the early SPD, the Bolsheviks, Mao’s CCP, the Black Panthers, or the parties of the New Communist Movement; but past successes and failure of party building must be plugged into our strategic considerations.

While some in Marxist Center object to the idea of party building, the only alternative suggested is existing as a network of autonomous groups in a loose federation, acting as ‘catalyzers’ in struggles. The idea of building a party that will lead revolution is rejected in favor of a ‘hands off’ approach that fosters the creativity of spontaneous mass movements. Advocacy for this approach can be found in groups such as Unity and Struggle, DSA Communist Caucus, and Organization for a Free Society, who seem to represent the anti-state communist line of thought. Organization for a Free Society sums up the activity of their ideal of communist political organization in their pamphlet Communism From Below as “supporting and strengthening informal practices” which are “elements of a communist alternative that emerge informally through everyday practices of mutual aid and collective refusal, especially within contexts of hardship, crisis, disaster, etc.” Unity and Struggle argue for “minority organizations of militants” such as “rank-and-file workplace committees, networks of tenant leaders, study circles or media platforms” which “carry over the experiences of past movements and provide the nuclei to coordinate future ones.” While these organizations do not hold identical positions, the common idea seems to be that a communist minority engages in struggles as they arise, guiding them through some form of education or agitation. The hope is that through these movements becoming powerful under the influence of a militant minority, the movement will lead to a rupture with capitalism.

By hoping that in a revolutionary moment the working class will be able to form its own sovereignty and figure out the problems of organizing a revolutionary change, this approach leaves too much to chance. It is also contradictory: it is fine with forming minority organizations that try to influence popular struggles from within but sees the idea of building a revolutionary mass party that wins the working class to socialism as elitist because it brings consciousness to the masses from without. This vulgar teleological approach leaves vital questions of politics to existing political authorities or the arbitrary influence of revolutionary minorities. Because of this alone, the strategy has little capacity for revolutionary success: it gambles on the ability of the militant minority to pull off a putsch against the constitutional order. It is far more democratic that a majority of politically active workers are first won over to communism through the activity of a mass party-movement than that a minority organization attempt to exert some kind of ‘invisible dictatorship’ over a mass movement that somehow guides it in the correct direction without becoming ‘official leaders.’

To use a military metaphor, we must first build our army and then go into battle, once we are strong enough to win. Those who argue for the militant minority strategy seem to think that we should form small guerilla units that will wait for the battle to begin, and then try to influence the army (i.e. the working class) from within. Put simply, in terms of winning a revolution, the former makes more sense than the latter. But it also makes sense in terms of working-class self-emancipation: we want the working class to consciously self-organize around communist politics and build a party that they genuinely control, not have their spontaneous energies be channeled by a vanguard of theoretically advanced communist wizards.

Socialist movements should not simply become front groups for sects nor tail spontaneous social movements but should build their own power. It is more important for communists to win than for the movements of our time be pure of partisan political influence, fully autonomous from outside influences, in order to preserve some kind of ‘revolutionary authenticity’ that is lost when contact with high politics is made. The class struggle is a political struggle, one where communists must win hegemony in the labor movement to transform it into a force capable of leading to the mutual ruin of all contending classes. Hoping that a small minority with the right ideas will simply push struggles in the right direction in a way that challenges the power of the capitalist state won’t cut it. We must construct a powerful working class sovereignty capable of seizing power from capitalism before a revolutionary moment can happen. And to construct this sovereignty is to form a mass party organized around a program to overthrow the capitalist state, form a workers’ republic/dictatorship of the proletariat, and begin the construction of socialism.

Marxist Center, moving forward as a collective of organizations oriented around base-building and political independence, cannot shirk questions of political line, program, and strategy. There is an understandable fear of tackling these questions head-on; are they even relevant if we don’t have a mass base? Will it signal the beginning of sectarian fragmentations as disagreements drive organizers apart? Either way, as the organization grows, divisive political questions will come to the fore and will challenge the unity of the organization. There is no ideal road to revolution, no certain path we can take that will avoid the risks and pitfalls of either reformism or sectarianism. To move forward is to make wagers on which strategy will be a success for building socialism, and no matter how guided these wagers are by clear-headed analysis, there is still an element of risk. To organize the working class for revolution we will have to make many wagers and take many risks. The creation of Marxist Center represents a potentially historic juncture in the US left; as Boots Riley said at the beginning of the conference, “if we play our cards right, we CAN win.” Marxist Center could be the vehicle for that victory, but it must continue the precedent it has set for internal democracy, and it must continue its base-building in the working class. To quote the great revolutionary Leon Trotsky:



And what if we don’t succeed?