The one doing the most work locally near you.
What is your criteria for best?
Just go join one that has a presence near you enough to actually participate and see if it fits you.
It’s even worth it to join an org like DSA where you can try and further radicalize liberals by organizing with them.
The girl reading this
None of the parties in the U$ are going to be the one that “wins” the revolution, but they all have people and do organizing work that will contribute to it.
I think they’re all kind of bad, but as long as a person is making sure to educate and protect themselves, it should be a positive to organize with one like CPUSA, PSL, or FRSO.
I’m not american but in my opinion the PSL seems to be doing the most, at least from my vantage point, despite their huge amount of flaws
The one you can actually join.
If you’re in a large city, and have choices, my recommendation is FRSO. They are not a party, but kind of function as one. It will make more sense when you read about them and talk to a member. You can DM me and I can give you more information if you’re interested.
It is true, what diegeticscream said about not one party winning the revolution at the end of it. It’s going to be the masses, first and foremost, and many parties will likely come together or spar when the time comes. Just due to the nature of the US’s consciousness, or lack thereof, there will not be a dominant workers party here in the US for a long time. Longer than we have to carry out a revolution before a total fascist descent and climate change destroys everything. So it’s going to be mass organizations that veer more radical under leadership of communists who work with the people, not an explicit communist party. At least, that’s what I’ve picked up in my 6 months of organizing. I might revise that as time goes on.
My answer still remains the one you can actually join. Just get off your cheeks, every little thing counts. Even a conversation. Sure, it’s not material the way we think of it, but those words are creating some kind of thought process in another’s head, which may lead them to venture and learn more and become a great communist one day. That’s how we all got here, no? Didn’t just wake up as a tankie. Qualitative changes only come after many many quantitative ones. Those quantitative ones have to be built by us. So do SOMETHING and do not get discouraged when you’re months in and haven’t changed much. The one you can actually join and participate in is the best party for you.
That’s not to say there isn’t a “best” ML organization in the US, and for that my answer is also unchanged, I say FRSO.
there will not be a dominant workers party here in the US for a long time. Longer than we have to carry out a revolution before a total fascist descent and climate change destroys everything.
Are you saying that we are all going to die before the revolution happens?
No, not at all.
What I am saying is that because of the US’s unique anti-communist characteristics, development and so on, there likely will not be a “usual” vanguard party in the Leninist sense like in past revolutions. We probably just won’t have the numbers that the Bolsheviks did (in time) just because class consciousness is so backwards right now and it takes a lot of work to fix that. So instead of organizing around an explicit “communist party” only, we should be spending our time collaborating with other communists (in an organization) through building mass organizations that everyone can get behind, things that all communists support, but supporting it doesn’t make you a communist necessarily. More specific things rather than just “join if you’re a commie” y’know? Anti-war organizations, tenants’ unions, regular unions, or just an anti-hate org that does a little of everything within your community.
I’m probably doing a bad job of explaining. The point is to get as many people as possible involved - through mass organization because people who aren’t communists won’t just wake up one day and get into a vanguard party - which will inevitably funnel them into more radical and communist-sympathied beliefs. If you’re organizing with a communist around an issue you believe in, and they’re doing most of the work, and dedicated, you’ll eventually realize “holy shit these guys are for the people” and become more interested.
This also doesn’t mean that we want to just make sister organizations that are fronts for the org, they need to be grass-root authentic. In theory a communist doing most of the work who founded the organization could be removed from said org by everyone if they started acting against the people’s interests. We just understand the importance of having communist/advanced political presence in mass organizations which will inevitably lead to further class consciousness.
Hope that made some sense. I am not a doomer at all.
Edit: This is not to say FRSO won’t necessarily become a party some day when the contradictions and public support become so sharp and great. But right now it’s not, because that’s not going to get support fast enough in our opinion.
