EDIT: The original article I posted kinda sucked. I’ll keep it here for posterity if people want to read it, but I’ll replace it with a link @RedWizard posted with original resignation letter and the PSL internal response. If you want to read just the resignation letter with the PSL criticisms without any preamble, it is here.

EDIT 2: Here is the leaked PSL internal response.

Comment by @chana in the general thread: (Sorry to copy your comment here but it’s the only comment I’ve seen so far on this and it’s a good way to start off the discussion, along with summer discussion questions I’ll add below)

Comment text

Notable resignation and letter from PSL Central Committee member and related fomenting split in Brooklyn over PSL being run as a bureaucratic clique (which many will already be aware of from speaking with various PSL members trying to do more than participate in protests). PSL is good at specific local levels despite the national level dysfunction, and the vast majority of its membership good comrades. But the criticisms certainly ring true to me and are reasonable to cite as existential flaws. There is a bit of clown nonsense from the top on a regular basis (like the call for a general strike, cited in the resignation letter, lmao that is baby liberal idealism stuff).

If you’re currently unorganized don’t let this stop you from joining, it is more important to be active and learn locally from any non-abusive left space than to do nothing organized.

Discussion Questions:

  • There’s a lot of PSL fans or members here so what do you think? Like overall on this news?
  • Do the complaints have merit, or not? Do some do, and some don’t? Which ones? – If so, what does this mean for the left in the US? What are the solutions and what is the path from here? – If not, why don’t you think so? And what does it mean for the left in terms of factionalism and splitting?
  • Do you still recommend the PSL as an organization to join? What about the DSA? Join the Democratic Party? FRSO?
  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    5 days ago

    There are arguments for supporting a kingdom of Hawaii against US colonialism, obviously, but to describe having a kingdom anywhere as an “end goal” is not defensible.

    Eh, that seems to be what Hawaiian separatists want and whatever path towards Hawaiian republicanism should be decided by Hawaiians. Obviously, I don’t think monarchies should exist anywhere.

    But moreover, I think there are problems with appealing to “national sovereignty” not just on a basis for anticolonialism but as an end goal. I think this is a nationalist distortion of Marxism and we should be considering how to go beyond the model of atomized nation states, as the USSR tried and failed to.

    I mean, I envision the Indigenous nations of Canada and the US eventually forming a continental federation. But I think most people would think that a Communist Party of (non-Spanish speaking) North America would be silly right now.

    • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      5 days ago

      Eh, that seems to be what Hawaiian separatists want and whatever path towards Hawaiian republicanism should be decided by Hawaiians. Obviously, I don’t think monarchies should exist anywhere.

      Clearly the end of minoritarian ruling classes like monarchies, and therefore the establishment of socialism, are not the basic thing that you are reasoning from, hence me saying nationalist distortion. We can talk about how making sure monarchies don’t exist anywhere should be accomplished in a stable, durable way, but what you said explicitly, directly cast having a monarchy as an acceptable end goal. Alliances of convenience with domestic nationalists for anti-colonial purposes can often make sense (see the CPC working with the KMT to remove Japanese colonizers), but we can’t let that distort into letting nationalist movements override socialism.

      I mean, I envision the Indigenous nations of Canada and the US eventually forming a continental federation. But I think most people would think that a Communist Party of (non-Spanish speaking) North America would be silly right now.

      I keep repeating “end goal,” but it seems to only register selectively. Communists in the US have little reason to be in a comintern because a comintern does not functionally exist and the US only has micro-parties that don’t really have business spearheading the foundation of one because they are too busy splitting, but that’s a very historically specific reason and conditions will change.

      • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        5 days ago

        but what you said explicitly, directly cast having a monarchy as an acceptable end goal

        The end goal is a stateless classless society. I’m not sure why you think I want a monarchy as an end goal since a monarchy is a type of class society. I mean, I also think Hawaii should be part of a socialist Oceania federation and that federation should eventually link up with a socialist Asian federation to form some Asian-Oceania federation that federation should link up with a unified Africa to form an Afro-Asian-Oceania federation and so on until there’s just a world federation of all the world’s peoples living under communism.

        I keep repeating “end goal,” but it seems to only register selectively.

        I honestly don’t know what you mean by “end goal” then. With regards to Hawaii, step 1 would be independence from the US, step 2 would be being a member of an Oceania federation, step 3 would be the Oceania federation being a member of a greater Asian federation, and so on. The abolition of a potential Hawaiian monarchy would probably occur by step 2 since the only states in Oceania with a monarch as head of state are essentially Commonwealth countries and I don’t imagine a decolonized Australia or New Zealand having the King of England as head of state. It then becomes a “if you want to join the club, get rid of your king.”

        Edit: Oh I see the confusion. Poor choice of wording on my part lmao. I’ve changed the wording to better express what I was trying to say.

        • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          5 days ago

          Edit: Oh I see the confusion. Poor choice of wording on my part lmao

          Got it, sorry if I jumped on you too much, I just see a lot of people who actually do say what the initial wording looked like to me. I basically agree with everything you said here.