Communism
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The critiques on Becker end up in dead ends, whether it be on PSL being a "Becker party" or this that somehow always gets brought up despite it always being debunked.
Becker has been a member and has held a role in national leadership for a while, that's really all there is. He isn't some overarching leader consolidating power, and it seems anti-PSL rhetoric just ends up getting pointed to him from other communist tendencies. It's like saying Lenin or Stalin had some iron-rule over the party and everyone had to listen to them.
I'll admit that I was confused about this when I first got in contact with the party, but the reasoning is sound. Outwardly we don't present ourselves as communists or MLs, which I touched on above, for the reason that doing so in the US at this time would pretty much end PSL becoming in touch with the masses. Communism has been the US boogeyman for over a century at this point, not going mask off was a decision made by the party specifically in order to be more approachable. Outside of the internet, it really isn't a good idea to approach strangers by shoving Lenin in their face.
I don't have the exact quote, but Lenin did say to judge a party not by its slogans and names but by its actions. And even if you're not in the party, reading the more in-depth analysis and party-line statements on Liberation School and even the usually shorter articles on Liberation News will show we keep to a strictly ML line. Internally we view ourselves entirely as ML and party discussions etc. show that, although every once in a while we'll let it slip in an article or something that yes, we are Leninists :smirking face:
"In order to understand the real significance of parties one must examine, not their labels, but their class character and the historical conditions of each separate country."
—- Lenin, "The Labor Government in Australia"
Ah okay, thanks for the reply. Also, does PSL accept applications from people who don't live in large cities?
They do! Applications right now may be quite slow depending on your nearest branch's resources and/or priorities - huge influx of interest due to BLM and the pandemic - but it all depends. If there's no branch in your city or nearby, you can apply as an at-large member and the party will support you in creating a new branch. As far as I know, the focus then will be on recruitment.
So definitely try and get in contact with your closest branch, and if it isn't difficult, attending different PSL demos (online or off) will always help as the party will get to know you better.