Post text from reddit /r/socialism thread:
PSL's Top Propagandist Resigns, Publishes Tell-All Letter — geese magazine.
What does this tell us about PSL? What should disillusioned PSL members do?
“A dramatic resignation letter from one of the PSL’s top leaders accuses the organization of secrecy, factionalism, and bureaucratic decay. The controversy has reignited questions about the future of America’s socialist micro-parties.”
“The letter is long, wide-ranging, and damning. The letter is a confession as much as an indictment. Smolarek states his role as a leader in the PSL included perpetrating, covering up, or merely ignoring abuses. He describes a pseudo-democratic structure whose only purpose is to conceal an unelected Becker family clique capable of overriding every decision made by members. He documents a culture of compulsory applause and outright worship of the leadership. He alleges that bylaw changes for the organization were pushed through in secret because the leadership was afraid to face a vote. He reveals that the party’s core political documents were not the product of the combined knowledge of the organization, as members were led to believe, but were one person’s random thoughts and scribbles. He notes that they are increasingly drafted by A.I. chatbots, which he jokes has actually improved their quality.”
“Why was a group of petty tyrants with no interest in organizing the American people granted the standing of a serious tendency on the left? Because the micro-party left that platformed it, recommended it, and treated it as a peer is playing the same game. It recruits from the same few thousand radicals and measures itself, like the PSL, by its reputation on the left rather than its reach among the people. As marginal as the PSL is, among the microparties, respecting the PSL as a leading rival is the only serious position.”
"Smolarek has no intention of re-treading the same ground with the same line and re-cannibalizing the same old radical milieu, as Brian Becker and Gloria La Riva did when building PSL
He is calling for a fundamental course correction. He and his supporters recognize that the PSL is a dying effort not merely because of its decrepit leadership but because of its political orientation. Smolarek, however, was himself a chief author of that orientation, which leaves important questions: What will he keep, what will he add, and what will he abandon? To succeed, he and his people will have to do more than discard the WWP/PSL playbook; they will have to build a politics that actually constitutes the masses as a historical agent. What the letter has on offer is a critique of the PSL, but it is not yet that new politics. It is only a re-invocation of the basic Communist ideas that the PSL long ago threw away.
Smolarek and his supporters depart the PSL with substantial political goals and substantial baggage. Whether they will be able to free themselves from this baggage and reorient themselves towards the struggle for communism in America will be answered the only place such questions are: in practice, among the people the PSL had long given up on."
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?
- What to do if you want to organize in the US now? Join the DSA? Join the Democratic Party? FRSO?
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, it is here.
Honestly with things like this I think it is important to distinguish between what you read on the Internet and what you see IRL. In my experience and the experience of many others I know across the country, none of these things ring true. PSL and the various local or topic-focused mass orgs that are downstream punch way beyond their weight and frankly beyond most mass orgs, with less members, all while imbuing real class consciousness among a variety of social strata. You’ll find everybody from well-paid doctors to deeply exploited immigrants, to students and retired grandparents.
Also his vague arguments seem to amount to economism or trade unionism, the kind of stuff that’s easily disputed in “what is to be done”. He also complains about his reformist attitudes needing to be hidden because they would be snuffed by zombies who are subservient to a few individuals. No, our leaders are leaders, they have agency, the puppet master trope is the silliest of them all. His reformist thought would be snuffed because he is coming up against a unified party of leninists who have gone through shared lessons in struggle and study together and arrive at similar conclusions because of that. If you have the correct idea then it should be able to prove itself in the battle of ideas and win, which he didn’t, and they have not.
Sad to see it come from someone close to the center but there is plenty examples of this kind of thing in history and among successful parties / revolutions, and PSL is conscious of that and structured to mitigate the harm of wreckers like this. It’s fresh news now for chronically-online leftists but will probably fade into the dustbin of history and have little effect on the ground.
First impressions are that this is a magnification of PSL’s issues for careerist ends, rather than a genuine need to split. This doesn’t change PSL’s current position as the best Statesian org of its size, and if they are active in your area and you do not have local circumstances pointing you towards another org, you should probably join either as a full member or action network member.
What to do if you want to organize in the US now? Join the DSA? Join the Democratic Party? FRSO?
This begs the question of PSL being discredited. They have not been.
the answer is really, log the fuck out and organize. even DSA is better than sitting online arguing. I promise, the real world is very much not the same as the internet. to be clear, i still recommend PSL however.
what’s with the slop “summary”?
Of the new post link? Or in my post itself?
EDIT: I finally read the post link itself. I assumed it was just the two letters itself, but nope there is a pretty “slop” summary at the top. Godamnit, can’t I just find one simple link with both letters and no commentary?
this collapsed quote is slop
PSL’s Top Propagandist Resigns, Publishes Tell-All Letter — geese magazine.
Pretty dogwater smear piece, should’ve just posted the actual letter and the response.
You’re so right and sorry about that. I’ve updated my post link with a new one that should contain both the letter and the response.
PSL CC Leaked Response, copied from the Google drive link so y’all don’t have to click on that
Whatever you think of the PSL, you have to admit this is true:
As this factional campaign erupted, the PSL is under the highest level of state scrutiny in its 22-year history, with leading Trump administration officials vowing to “dismantle” the organization, and the right-wing media sniffing around us at every turn. To conduct a political struggle in this way — first through concealment and factionalism, then through the mass circulation of angry, vindictive letters — is a gift to our real enemies, the capitalist state, which seeks to infiltrate all leading progressive organizations, identify contradictions and exploit them
This I wholesale agree with, with my own personal sentiment that traitors should be [redacted] exactly as the kind and merciful Lenin showed us in history.
And my take on the situation after reading this: He has some legitimate grievances that could have been handled internally, but primarily he’s sensationalizing and lying to give more legitimacy to his wrecker behavior. He’s refusing to engage in the democratic processes which exist then decrying the party as undemocratic, specifically because his position is counterrevolutionary and he knew he’d be voted down if him and his faction presented it. Opportunist tailist shit. The PSL remains the strongest force of revolutionary change in the US and the most viable vanguard party; Walter has burnt his credibility and only weakened the movement with this charade.
What about his complaints that they would change bylaws and stuff to prevent him from bringing it up for debate? His letter was so godamn long it’s hard for me to remember it all with perfect clarity, but wasn’t his complaint essentially that the proper channels weren’t working because the leadership was secretly working to shut him down by making up rules or having secret meetings without him, that kind of stuff?
He is omitting that the congress elected to create the bylaw committee, that he was a part of it, and that he participated but refused to put forward his real position and refused to offer open criticism. (ostensibly because he would be marginalized, which seems moot now that he marginalized himself)
edit: it also wasn’t to preclude discussion, or his opinions. it was because the bylaw process was getting unwieldy as the party grew, as any member can put forward a change in language
Ah. Sounds like a lot of it came down to him having separate opinions on political strategy of the party and not saying it out loud because he knew he was being out voted anyway. At least, he did that long enough to build up a separate faction that did believe in this other political strategy, one I’m still not completely sure what the difference is (since PSL does do base building and community organizing as well - I guess it’s just a matter of priorities?).
It’s kind of annoying, but I guess if you can’t handle Democratic Centralism, that’s what you need to do. Splitting is a time honored tradition in leftist orgs, after all. I just wish it wouldn’t be so messy.
He should’ve just focused on building his new org comprised of former leadership of the PSL Brooklyn branch along with other PSL Brooklyn cadre that tagged along and let that org’s praxis do the talking. Honestly, the letter comes off as an ad for his own org. “This org sucks. Anyways go join my new org that I promise won’t suck like this org that sucks.”
Biggest complaint here is that PSL let this goober in in the first place
they didn’t even let me in :(
If anyone has the PSL’s response, which is supposedly floating around, I’d love to see it.
EDIT: I’ve updated my original post link with a new one that should contain both the original letter and the response. Sorry for the dogshit article analyzing the letter I posted originally.
It says it’s not to be shared but of course was immediately.
gotta say “please post this everywhere” to get people not to
Reminds me of tiny left groups that write up all their crimes and then say, “please don’t tell anyone”.
Thanks!
But godamn, why do all these documents have to be so long?
It kind of speaks to the seriousness on some level that they are both so disorganized lol. I don’t mind length at all if it is organized thoughts with clear presentation but hoo boy look at these…
American Railway Union (1893) > Social Democracy of America (1897) > Social Democratic Party of America (1898) > Socialist Party of America (1901) > Socialist Workers Party (1938) > Workers World Party (1959) > Party for Socialism and Liberation (2004)
another split to the pileTwo communists walk into a bar. Soon after, three parties are born.
EmoPhillips.mp4
Y’know I’d like for one of these orgs to get big enough so shit like this doesn’t matter to people. A disgruntled party leader or prominent member leaving for a mix of inter-personal shit and the party not going his way isn’t anything outstanding, like at all, but since leftists online for as radical as they claim to be are actually really squeemish about joining an organization they’ll dig up every single complain about an org before considering asking on reddit if they should join.
Like imagine if a top democrat or republican left the party, no one would give a shit, you’d still have to join them to get something done, but since the actual organized radical left in many countries is so marginal the orgs don’t have enough gravitational pull on their own for these infighting and bombastic denouncements not to matter.
PSL is now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to employ software developers to build an A.I.-powered secret police system with the objective of spying on members of every PSL branch in the country
Come the fuck on. “North korean defector” tier shit
This is the only part of the letter that I could find a reference to this “secret police system”:
Currently the NOD is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars employing highly skilled software developers to create an AI-powered app to compile comprehensive reports from all areas of the Party for the top leadership circle without having to deal with time-consuming personal engagement with branch leaders. This app will be used to ensure compliance with national directives and surface openings like Minneapolis for the national leadership to opportunistically claim credit for. The National Liaisons system – initially developed to be a network of support that surfaced the needs of the branches and facilitated the development of schools, trainings, resources, and consultation, is today overseen by the leaders of the National Organization Department with an almost singular purpose of ensuring compliance with national directives. There have been no schools, trainings, educational materials, or organizer-to-organizer exchanges developed by the NOD in now over a year. Forums for the engagement of leaders beyond the top leadership circle like the Party Organizer and the National Council have rapidly degraded into just more echo chambers for Brian and Ben Becker and sites to enforce the
into just more echo chambers for Brian and Ben Becker and sites to enforce the latest agitational initiative.
They were building a
?
I should’ve made the letter my OP post link probably instead of using the article I found on reddit, the worst place on the internet. My bad.
I just wasn’t sure if I can make a Google doc my OP post link, but I can see if I can change it now.
Can just discard the whole thing flatly ridiculous 1984 baiting
I recommend ignoring the article and just skipping to the letter and response.
Reading the letter now, did the article just make that up and hope nobody would notice? 😭
Pretty sure yeah. They do that quite a lot.
Yeah this claim from the article has nothing to do with the resignation letter, which is much more reasonable (though I have no association with PSL and cannot say how large or non-existent these problems are–I am only discussing the content of the letter itself in a sort of vaccuum)
deleted by creator
I should’ve made the letter my OP post link probably instead of using the article I found on reddit, the worst place on the internet. My bad.
I just wasn’t sure if I can make a Google doc my OP post link, but I can see if I can.
where is the response?
Also would love to read the response if it already exists.
It’s another Google Doc. Note that it says it isn’t to be reshared anywhere but was immediately leaked. https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTpCO1itqmzDPE3h_4tt1nrp4Gqp0h7PZV03PjCZmqEIeJzDk1HmLbKHZ9TzifS5Oe9mCO4h_7QbW0Q/pub
Only interesting part of the letter:
I am leaving alongside the leadership of the Brooklyn District to take the next step in the formation of a viable socialist movement in this country. While we will leave smaller in number than if we remained in the PSL, we are confident that in the long run, cultivating a healthy seed is a better choice than continuing to tend to a dying tree. We will engage respectfully with the members of the PSL who remain, understanding that it is hard to grasp the true nature of this organization without the proximity we have had.
So a branch of the PSL has split from PSL. There will be PSL cadre that will follow the leadership of the Brooklyn branch into the new org.
Maybe it’s a mark of progress when your party starts producing prominent splits because it seems to always happen
Like even PSL formed from a split of a split of a split
It’s a sign of a party incapable of having convincing enough debates and discussions. There are correct answers to many questions and otherwise are correct strategies to find the correct answers (testing one while enforcing centralism and going to another position if it is shown to be unsuccessful). When parties split, it’s because the debate didn’t convince them of the new position/strategy enough to even want to test it out (or the party dysfunctionally refuses to self-crit after a strategy fails and so the faction assumes that decisions are absolute)
I think a large portion of this comes down to the weird self-referential bullshit that communists do now–every debate is a literary debate about what Lenin etc said (not testable) instead of a debate about strategies where Lenin etc can be utilized to communicate the position more clearly. I genuinely dont give a fuck if a quote supports my argument or not, and I’m tired of being forced into that debate, and I see it lead to factions often. Debate the concrete, decide on the concrete, and let older theory stand as a communication tool after a decision about what current theory and strategy is used.
Sorry, I’m not really ranting to you specifically, but I needed to say this which had been pissing me off recently
Alright so I read the whole letter. All the leadership shit can be dismissed, leaders concealing their views because they’re unpopular and might result in them losing their power is not a solveable problem, it’s going to happen in every organisation until the end of time. You are not going to get an organisation with a leadership that does not actively try to keep their popularity and leadership, it doesn’t exist, the dynamic that matters is that even with the leadership secretly opposing projects those projects are still going ahead because the leadership can’t air their unpopular views and properly shut them down. That’s all a non-issue really, just a matter of efficiency being harmed because leaders are fucking around and projects are battling sabotage, harming their success. Alright fine. Whatever.
The more important part of this entire thing basically boils down to the difference between build the party or build the base.
In the UK, I’ve watched for a very long time now as the communist parties pursue a goal of building the base. Some of them with some degree of successes.
The issue however is that all the parties pursuing this have reactionary policies on cultural issues. CPB, CPGB, CPGB-ML, all of them are transphobic terf fuckheads to some degree. The argument the leadership of PSL makes “it makes the members more conservative” is accurate in my experience.
The problem this creates is that the reactionary lines that these parties have become dealbreakers for new members. You will never get me to join a party with the positions they have, you will never get anyone who knows lgbt people (and cares about them) to join those parties either. They know the parties have lines that throw the people they care about under a bus.
The organisers of the working class are all radicals, the vast majority of which are the most progressive people on all issues, particularly the culture war ones. If you create party policy that turns away radicals, you have no fucking organisers. From my perspective, I prefer PSLs approach and think it’s more effective. Solving the issue of the distance between the party and the working class should come once the radicals themselves have been gathered, you can’t do shit without organising them and you can’t organise them without party lines that are attractive to them. Growing while maintaining enough central power to re-orient later and unleash all the organisers in one single task seems like the better method, at least from what I have seen.
The steps as I see them are:
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Organise the radicals of the country into one party.
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Orient the radicals into mass organising and agitation. They get to keep their progressive views and a party line that is appealing to them, but they put their efforts towards mass organising.
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Keep enough central authority within the party so you can set ALL these radicals onto one single task together all at the same time. This enables a small number of people to do very big things with an outsized impact. My belief is that if you set all of them onto the same task of mass organising simultaneously, around one issue or thing, you’ll get better results than distributed groups all doing their own separate things on separate issues. Easier said than done though.
I thought about it some more, and this whole letter is just an ad for his new org that he’s forming with former PSL Brooklyn cadre. It’s just some dude who disagrees with the leadership and direction of an org and decides to form his own org with a core comprised of the org branch that he was a part of. The target audience of the letter is current members of his old org who he’s trying to poach to his new org.
There’s a self-aggrandizing element to this as well because usually when splits like this happen, the letter of grievances against the old org, if it is actually publicly circulated, is penned by and on behalf of the collective membership of the new org.
The question has to be asked, as well, at what point in the history of Marxist-Leninist parties, were those parties simply “micro-parties” comprised and focused on courting “radicals”. I feel like this would have described the burgeoning party in Cuba and even the Bolsheviks at some point in both of their histories. Even the CPCs “mass line” concept is one that very likely came after a dedicated cadre of “radicles” had been formed (just a guess, my knowledge of this history is lacking). The attached article is nothing by cynical dribble, and from what I can tell through skimming this letter, it appears there is very little substance on what exactly is the plan for “what comes next”. Also, it should be worth mentioning that ideological struggle within the party is what comes with building the party, isn’t it? Marxist-Leninist history is awash of internal party conflict, one that builds until there is a clear political, and strategic path that separates one internal group from the other. I don’t really see that here? Just a kind of vague gesture towards “mass work”. No mention of what this new venture will look like structurally, and how that restructuring isolates this new formation from the kinds of issues being alleged here. Also, considering this was directed internally I feel like it says even little. If I was a PSL member who received this, what am I supposed to think coming out of this?
Anyway, apparently, the Central Committee within the PSL responded, and you can read that here: https://clarion.unity-struggle-unity.org/2026-06-16-the-psl-letters/#%3A~%3Atext=Response+from+the+Central+Committee
I do not know how Clarion/USU gained access to this internal letter. I couldn’t independently find it anywhere. So take it for what it is. I wrote the above before I even read it.
I also think you should be able to do both, build your party and do base building, using something like the PSL has been doing ironically enough - create or help kickstart sister organizations, like Code Pink, ANSWER, etc that are more focused. My local PSL has started some great organizations that have been helping fight ICE and working with other orgs and the community to do so. The fact that they’ve done a good job on this front imo makes it weird to me that the leadership is being accused of sabotaging other base building projects.
You are not going to get an organisation with a leadership that does not actively try to keep their popularity and leadership, it doesn’t exist, the dynamic that matters is that even with the leadership secretly opposing projects those projects are still going ahead because the leadership can’t air their unpopular views and properly shut them down
I wish this was the mainstream understanding of how a party should be
It’s such an obvious dynamic too. They might not want a project to go ahead but if they can’t openly oppose it due to unpopularity of opposing it then in order to keep their leadership role the project will go ahead. Right?
As long as you have that occurring and not genuine success at secretly shutting things down then there isn’t a huge problem, it’s just annoying fucking around. I’m not really an alien to internal organisation sabotage so like, all this really does is reduce efficiency of projects and leaders because they’re fighting instead of cooperating. That’s fine though, eventually one side or the other demonstrates they’re correct.
Not that it especially indicts the PSL or anything, but it does seem like a problem because they can still work privately to get other leaders on their side and basically do a coup.
Great response.
I wonder if a lot of the issues about top-down control could perhaps stem from trying to keep the ML and non-reactionary character of the party as it goes through a period of rapid growth, which I understand it’s been doing since this latest Trump administration. The strength of the PSL, over let’s say the DSA, is its Dem Cent unity, but keeping that line between the national org and the more influential bigger local branches may be difficult in a huge country like the US.
I can’t vouch for the resignation letter aside from the fact that I’ve heard most of its criticisms from existing and former PSL members. But I can say that attempting top-down control and alienation to hold a line would mean having a very unhealthy internal structure, itself an existential risk. This kind of thing has to be maintained via educated cadres and internal struggle and resolution by membership. The party is strong through its membership not despite it. If you run an org, education is always the best strategy unless there is a seriously dangerous individual or internal microsect that has to be removed, and even that has to be done semi-openly (internally).
Of course, internal leadership structures exist so that you don’t have to mass deliberate every single thing. But the circle has to be completed with that educated membership when they elect them (not implying anything about PSL just describing a successful method of struggle and unity).
I mostly agree but I think there are a couple possible issues stemming from the material conditions of the places these struggles are happening that make implementing all that more difficult in practice. Like @Awoo mentioned as the situation in the UK, the membership is being recruited in the imperial core. It takes a long time to undo a lifetime of propaganda from growing up in the West, but people want to participate before going through all that educational process, which btw I agree should be long and detailed.
You could solve this by recruiting extremely slowly I suppose. But at the same time, growing the party should be a priority to have any semblance of influence and money, and candidates should be able to participate in the struggle while the party learns theirs views and helps educate them while they do the work. The vanguard should be small, but not too small. The ML and anarchist left is virtually nonexistent in the US, democratic socialists are finally getting some numbers but are still really small. The left need to be bigger than that.
There’s some contradictions there I can see that have to be delicately handled. Democracy is 100% important to any real socialist project or party, but you run the risk of being tailist and making another transphobic communist organization, or a DSA-like org where everyone surrenders to electoralism, or doesn’t have a strong consistent line on imperialism. All possibilities I can see if you completely surrender to the membership before it’s ready.
That’s why my ears were kind of piqued by the author’s criticism of education coming from the top down, from national down to branches. I don’t trust every communist in the US, there are racist white ones, transphobic cis ones, sexist men commies and nationalist ones as well (CPA), and sometimes it’s subtle and not obvious, so I can understand being wary and wanting to know for sure what every branch is teaching their members. On the other hand, if the national branch isn’t providing those additional education resources being asked for, or being overly critical of honesty helpful educational resources being provided on a local level at the branch level, those are viable criticisms, but definitely fixable ones.
To be clear, overall I agree that these things need to be enforced from a membership level and shouldn’t require the leadership to have the right line for the membership to have the right line. But also, I could see how balancing the contradictions of organizing in the imperial core leading to some missteps, or even correct decisions that look like missteps to others. It’s hard to tell, which makes it hard for me to judge.
PSL already has a pretty lengthy recruitment process and groups like FRSO have separate general membership vs cadre membership tiers. I think an extended education and onboarding makes sense for becoming a full member with internal voting rights and so on. But it’s also one of those things where the specifics really matter, there are many ways to subvert basically any structure, again not picking on PSL or FRSO it happens in so many orgs that they declare “I am demcent!” and then it is just 3 people in charge for a decade and little development of other members ever happens so the org is full of underdeveloped members that can’t (and shouldn’t) make decisions and higher ups that feel like they either have to do everything or let the project fail. And that without even touching on potential issues of questionable ethics or decisions. So on one hand I think it is possible to build a committed communist org in the imperial core (hey PSL is arguably basically that) but also possible to overlook serious structural issues, so it ends up de facto as if you don’t have one. I know of orgs that spend seriously 80% of their time dealing with internal issues.
Re: participation I think that is where the front group / provisional membership model makes sense. New members can take action but can’t represent the org or make big decisions to overrule cadre members in the party. But that’s a tricky balance because there is a very real tendency to not run those fronts particularly well and use them too cynically as a feeder for membership, leaving aside doing actions well, working in coalition, having a strong standing in community. Again not specifically a PSL thing. Trots are most guilty of this in my opinion. But the core idea is still fine: bring people into your orbit with organizing projects but don’t let them control branded party stuff until they are full members.
All of this is really a balance. Just doing party building or just doing base building makes no sense, you can do both. It is just a question of how you split your resources, and honestly sometimes you have more resources than you’d think if you just let people work on what they have passion for. Not practical to always do, that is disorganization, but too often people decide that only one direction is good and correct and as we all know, these parties are all so very small and that is their main challenge.
I personally don’t know enough about PSL’s education pipeline to comment on it. I have met full PSL members with wildly different levels of political education but none that are like DSA socdems or anything like that.
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lmao this is straight ass my dude
