What's the best way to organize?

I’m looking for specific suggestions of what I can do to find a group that I can join for the purpose of building a real revolution inside the USA. I’m trying and finding it very difficult. The closest was PSL but honestly my local branch seems kind of limp. That and I’m not academically inclined enough to get through Capital.

Stop.

What youre saying would make a lot of sense if we were in the middle of a domestic war or complete social breakdown. That’s when you can successfully revolt. We are not in either of those situations so you can’t just jump to the group that’s gonna do the revolution and be a part of it.

Since you can’t storm the bastille, the next best thing would be to prepare for it, but that requires having some conception of what “it” is and that requires doing the work of reading and theorizing, which you said you won’t do.

So stop.

If you feel crazy and just want to be doing something, there’s a ton of anarchist groups out there that you can put infinite personal energy into for questionable gain.

You might also be a fed or an unknowing asset. This is a public website and what you are saying is public.

Revolution does not spontaneously become organized, organization needs to happen prior to revolution to turn crisis into a struggle against the system.

I agree, and believe the op is either unable or unwilling (by their own description) to do that work of organizing.

Which isn’t an insult. It sucks and is hard and feels bad. Who would want to do that?

Coming to this thread because it’s a lot of what I was trying to say with the hypothetical, and you seem to agree with it here. Do you literally think it’s impossible to organize without reading Capital? If I can manage to read this one book (with no help from others), then everything will be explained and I’ll be able to organize effectively?

From your perspective it’s an arbitrary and meaningless roadblock, but from the perspective of groups you’re trying to get involved with it’s a fundamental cornerstone to developing an understanding you share with the group.

That is necessary for the group because of a bunch of reasons, they might be interested in making sure you grasp the idea of not wasting energy on the lumpen or upholding the mass line for example. They might need to make sure their members can stand up to the most basic scrutiny possible before turning them loose on the public. They might gain critical understanding about you as a person that helps them trust you or at least not view you as an infiltrator. Heck, they might just see you as a comrade worth developing.

That’s why I suggested multiple times that you stop trying to join communist groups. Anarchists and electoralists will gladly put you to work to accomplish their ends regardless of your understanding.

1. Based on other things you’ve said, a better reaction would be to offer resources that can help me understand some of the deeper concepts. That would show you have a real movement you’re working with and a real interest in helping people. Otherwise it just seems like your motivation comes from a mindset of superiority.

2. This is the first time you’ve said that the “Stop.” was specifically about joining Communist orgs.

3. The mention of joining an anarchist or electoralist org doesn’t actually answer the question I had. Obviously electoralism is inherently not revolutionary. And I know that anarchists exist, the question was about how to find people I can organize with.

4. Those are 2 funny things (lumpen and mass line) to bring up in this conversation. Given that the person who pioneered the latter disagreed (to a degree) with the former and also likely didn’t read Capital before leading a successful revolution. Also one of the most powerful leftist movements in the USA actually organized around the lumpen (Black Panthers).

You’re unwilling to engage with a foundational communist text that has infinity translations into every language in common parlance, readily available audiobooks, prerecorded reading groups in every format imaginable and actual real time reading groups on the instance you’re posting this thread in.

What resource can I possibly offer you when you self describe yourself as unwilling to avail yourself of those around you?

I get it, reading a bunch of old stuff sucks but you’re talking about getting into groups that are trying their god damnedest to not hand the gospel down to you from a pulpit but to help you learn it for yourself. At some point if you wanna be a deacon you gotta crack the good book, right?

You’re making me reiterate the first point from my previous comment. Why would you assume I know about all those resources? You could’ve just said, “I think Capital is a very important read, especially for explicitly Communist groups. Here’s some resources that could help you get through it.” And then it wouldn’t have turned into an argument. The way you currently talk about this stuff is damaging to your movement. You’re making a lot of bad faith assumptions about who I am and what I think, and using those assumptions to tell me to fuck off. That was my main contention in the first place, you’re never going to build anything useful if you can’t meaningfully engage with stupid people. What you’re doing now is anti-organizing.

If you wanted to buy a chiefs knife what would you do?

Ideally, I’d talk to a chef I respect for recommendations of what makes a good knife or good sources to get one.

Okay, so now you can’t say I’m making an assumption that you didn’t even try because you just told me directly you would seek out guidance and information if you wanted to do something.

Apologies for the leading question but from the way the conversation was going it sounded like you were gonna try and claim I shouldn’t expect you to do any web searches or anything when you seem perfectly capable so I felt the need to get it all in writing. Because I’m not engaging with you in bad faith, as you claimed, I’m engaging with you on and in your terms.

It’s, again - in clear opposition to your accusation that I’m “anti-organizing”, fine if you don’t want to do the homework. As I have stated many times before, you can find an anarchist or electoralist group that will put you to work. That is fine.

Just because I seek out real world guidance or do web searches doesn’t mean I successfully find the information that will actually help me. Especially given our current material conditions with regards to everyone’s struggle to maintain a decent standard of living and the continual enshittification of the internet including the search engines. So I tried seeking out guidance here and the main thing you had to say about that was “Stop.” And then told me to go organize with someone else.

What are you doing to help your movement grow?

If you wanted to do the homework you wouldn’t be arguing with me about it, you would be actively seeking out ways to understand instead.

You dont, and that’s okay. Anarchist and electoralist groups will take your willingness to act gladly.

Wrong, and you’re still not hearing what I’m saying. I never actually expressed an unwillingness to read Capital. I’ve tried and failed multiple times. I may try again with some of the ideas that you brought up here actually, even though you brought them up as an attack on me rather than trying to be helpful (at least that’s how it appeared). What I’m saying, and what I meant when I said “anti-organizing”, is that the way you’ve handled this conversation will only make your movement more insular and out of touch.

The third time you’re making me ask a version of this question. What are you doing to make your movement into something the masses will actually agree to follow?

I do not want to talk with you about anything I do in my life or about theory or about history.

I want you to go away from communist movements and instead focus your energy into anarchist or electoralist groups who will have a lower barrier to entry and give you something to do.

You are behaving like an adventurist, wrecker or infiltrator. This is not an accusation, simply a statement intended to express my perception of your behavior.

I don’t think you’re an infiltrator or wrecker, I think you don’t realize how you sound when you start a thread on a public Marxist Leninist platform and ask “what do I do to build a real revolution in America”.

This is less of an ML community than you make it out to be (despite the .ml). There are a great many members of this instance that are not even leftists let alone Leninists. The actual comm I posted this question on is the largest ask community on the platform and the 7th largest comm overall. I was never explicitly looking for Communist organizing. I mentioned one org and my first complaint was about their actions (or lack thereof), not anything to do with ideology. I think you should be able to answer my question without doxxing yourself if that’s the concern, because I don’t need the details. I might even be satisfied with something like “there are some outreach programs that involve education on theory that we invite our local community into” because at least that’d be something. Instead I literally get “go away”.

I came here asking for advice without preaching any kind of message. You’ve had so many opportunities to give me small pieces of information that could put me on a path to becoming a better ally to your cause, instead you choose to push me away. I ask the question about how you’re building community because all I’ve seen here is you trying to lock it down so only the privileged few can remain. That is anti-coalitional and the opposite of organizing (anti-organizing).

Honestly, I hope you’re a fed, because otherwise the modern ML movement is going absolutely nowhere.

I want you to understand that I don’t think you’re malicious, I just think you come across as way too eager and didn’t want to explicitly say that most communist organizations try to avoid that because they don’t want the heat it tends to bring.

I didn’t want to say that to you because people don’t generally take it well.

“Go be anarchist” isn’t an insult.