AubsTalk

Izdihar Talk

tags: personal communism

Yesterday, I attended a meeting hosted by a revolutionary socialist organization about the 1917 October revolution in Russia, and the lessons we can take from the lengthy process leading up to and following it for our own efforts in effecting revolutionary motion in the U.S. The featured speaker, who took most of the lecture time, was the one and only Lady Izdihar.

She is able to weave a historical narrative with such vivacity, with such humanity. She told of the work of several revolutionaries, and their respective roles in the revolutionary effort. She described concretely the ways in which they managed to muster the support of the people during a time of grave imperialist crises.

Along with talks by cadre of the org before and after, describing their org's positions and actions to make these sorts of connections with people, I was struck by just how human and interpersonal revolutionary movements must be. Yes, they must be deeply theoretically grounded, observing and considering the material realities they find themselves in, but without the peopled investment it cannot amount to a hill of beans.

Compare this to my current org. Not only is it terribly theoretically grounded, citing Lenin's support of participation in bourgeois parliaments as a justification for openly supporting the Democratic party, fully believing—nay, championing—the immaterial and insincere rhetorical devices they employ during election season, but it also does not engage with the masses, especially not the working class. Their program focuses almost entirely on building idealist coalitions with literally anyone who will let us stand beside them, meekly shouting empty slogans with no meat to back it.

I've journaled extensively on my issues with my party, especially on their effective rejection of the national question for oppressed peoples, and (relatedly) their citation of American Jews' thoughts on the Palestinian question as a justification for the canard of a two-state solution. They also have a curious understanding of fascism, not as a mode of political economy during capitalist crisis, but almost exclusively as an Eco-ian social phenomenon of totalitarian domination. Their support for the existing political "democratic" systems of the Statesian empire (needing only reforms and constitutional amendments you see) betrays the reality of the centuries-long abusive structures they have been constructed in dialectical tandem with. The change they fight for is piecemeal, reformist, and not at all what the middle and lower working class is desperate for. Their understanding is Western, academic, and detached from the world we find ourselves in.

I've been in the party for 20 months now, and we have done no public work, no internal educational work, no meaningful discipline building, and no real meetings besides horrendously irrelevant monthly Zoom meetings where almost nothing is actually communicated.

The excuses are innumerable. No one has time. They are all busy. It's good, actually, that nobody is able to come to the meetings, because that means that they are out doing 'the work'. I've tried reaching out to National to arrange a call about my concerns both with the party and the local club specifically, but have received no response. My only conclusion is that they are not a serious organization.

I have felt swells of belonging with this new org, the one that hosted the Izdihar talk. I have two concerns, sadly...

  1. I have worked overnight shifts for 6 years now. It ruins my ability to participate in day activities.
  2. Even if I worked a full-time day shift, it would interfere my ability to participate in many day activities.

Which leads me to ask two questions of myself:

  1. How serious am I about working in a communist movement?
  2. How much of a sacrifice am I willing to make?

I want to believe that my primary goal in life now, the thing which I crave most, is to be in some small way part of a real, meaningful communist organization, and to learn the skills necessary (both intellectual and interpersonal) to help in whatever ways I can. I study and learn for the former every day. The latter? I feel lost.

I've started to work out 2-3 times a week. It feels exhilirating, getting a disgusting sweat on. I hope it will help build my energy and resilience, as well as my general health and fitness. These will be needed if I want to be able to devote myself more fully to the cause. The world around us is in the long and tortuous process of collapse, in large part because of the society I call home. I need to build myself into someone who can be there, who can deliver, who can connect.

There is one of those meetings with my soon-to-be former party today. I will probably raise a point or two of contention during the meeting. I need to find out how to actually withdraw, and put in my application for the new org. I am scared, and I am uncertain. But I can't lay dormant and intellectually minded, when without practice, the movement is nothing.