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the Lake Quonnipaug Conference

I have been asked by multiple comrades to comment on the Lake Quonnipaug Conference.

The goal of the conference is to bring together Marxist organizations in North America into a federation that can eventually constitute a legitimate all-empire communist party. (1/25) I should also point out that the program of the proposed org (again, I won't go into detail until it's made public) is exactly correct in its assessment of the tasks ahead of us. The conference isn't wrong, it's just 2-5 years early. Out of respect for their security, I will not share details that have not been publicly shared, such as location, scheduling, program, orgs in attendance, etc. I will only be commenting on the broad scope, form, and mission of the conference. (2/25) First, I'll come right out with two assertions:

1) I do not think the conference in its specific form is a productive venture and am not optimistic about it bearing fruit in the long term.

2) I still encourage attendance by those for whom it does not present hardship. (3/25) I have many reasons for my skepticism, but a lot of it boils down to the problem of organizational development across the movement as a whole. The constitution of a federation of local communist organizations requires those organizations to actually... exist. (4/25) To be perfectly blunt, they don't. Not in the form they need to be. There are many small groups I'm aware of -- and many more besides -- that are absolutely on the right track. Principled Marxists, committed to revolution, self-aware of their current and future role, etc. (5/25) But let's be clear: you and your 6 study buddies meeting once a week to discuss the next section of Blood in My Eye are not a Communist Organization. Even if you also do a bit of food distribution. Rather, you are the core cell of what could become such an organization. (6/25) Many of these groups recognize this, and are actively struggling to develop themselves into what they know they need to be. They are trying to figure out how to recruit new members, how to educate themselves, how to serve and empower their communities, etc. (7/25) The key here is that the utmost priority for these groups has to be reproduction of communists. This can only be done through a carefully calibrated, mutually-reinforcing circuit of mass work and political education. The nature of such a circuit is highly context-dependent (8/25) The mass work directly ties the org into the community, materially empowers the working class, gives members practical experience in providing necessary services, and crucially, pulls an expanding number of nascent radicals into the orbit of the organization. (9/25) Political education draws the most advanced among those supporters into the org proper, develops the theoretical understanding of existing members, clarifies the immediate and long-term political mission of the org, and expands the labor capacity of the movement. (10/25) That expanded capacity feeds directly back into the mass work, which feeds back into the development, and so on. The organization simultaneously grows in size, skill, influence, radicalism, and professionalism. Its horizons begin to expand exponentially. (11/25) This process takes both deliberate, yet ambitious planning, as well as time and consistency. The careful work of building out a durable apparatus for reliably reproducing communists cannot be supplanted by sheer force of will and declaring "We are now a communist party!" (12/25) Relevant to the topic of the conference, which aims to create an organization of organizations, this beginning stage of consolidating into a reproductive cell requires 100% of an organization's efforts. ALL labor must be invested into the work of expanding labor capacity. (13/25) Being folded into an existing structure, already equipped with the infrastructure for efficiently developing these local orgs into cadre formations, would be a boon to this effort. Helping to build that structure -- crafting the infrastructure from scratch -- is not. (14/25) Properly building the infrastructure of a pre-party formation is a massive undertaking. It can only be accomplished by highly developed, organizationally experienced Marxists. We may have individually well-read Marxists, but the organizational expertise is not there. (15/25) Taking on this task at this stage is like asking college freshmen to build a research lab from scratch, when none of us have even worked in an existing lab. We may have passion, and we may read the advice of our distant forebears, but we have no experience to draw on. (16/25) That's not to say a conference in and of itself is a bad idea. Collaboration among equals in inexperience is critical at this stage of development, if we ever want to progress to the next. The goal right now is cross-pollination, mutually empowering local orgs to develop. (17/25) A conference of this sort would not be aimed at federating non-existent advanced orgs, but on developing a program for transforming nascent orgs into advanced ones. This would necessitate a much different format from the one adopted by the present conference. (18/25) It would be virtual, to allow attendance by all interested parties. An in-person conference filters out those who can't afford to travel, either for organizational reasons (insufficient resources and/or labor) or individual ones (taking time off work or caretaking). (19/25) I do want to point out that this conference is hybrid. It hasn't exactly been advertised that way, but having a virtual component definitely helps those who couldn't otherwise attend. It would have a set curriculum and series of discussions, educating Marxists on the necessary steps for forming/developing their orgs. The topics could include:

  • How to gather together an organizing committee to begin the formation of an org. (20/25) - How to conduct social investigation to determine the immediate mass work priorities of the new org

  • A collaborative workshop on setting bylaws and organizational structure for all Marxist orgs

  • How to establish and run internal educational programs. (21/25) - A set of standard operating procedures for orgs to follow and maintain security, stability, and ease of sustaining operating capacity

  • How to document and report the experiences of the org for dissemination among other locals. (22/25) - How to set an ambitious but realistic 5 year plan for the development of the org

  • Establishing shared benchmarks of development for individual orgs and measures of when the movement has developed enough to be able to transition to party formation (23/25) - A schedule for future cross-organizational meetings to update shared procedures and report on progress toward the benchmarks, as well as brainstorm on overcoming setbacks.

These and other topics could be spread across multiple meetings depending on the orgs' capacity. (24/25) All told, the conference itself is not a waste of time. But the prospect of a fruitful federation being built from it is woefully naïve.

I hope the attendees come away from it with a better understanding of how much farther we must develop before we can move into the next stage.