Hey, is anyone familiar with Revolutionary Communists of America? (https://communistusa.org/) It is separate than Revolutionary Communist USA which was confusing to me. Anyway they are organizing more and I’m sure if you live in a bigger city you have seen their posters or seen them organizing.
A while back I saw them organizing in my areas. I went to three meetings as well as a small demonstration in my city. The last time I went they discussed joining the party and that they asked for a days wage. Although I had already mentioned my disability in passing I felt a little embarrassed and decided to text my contact later about it. A days wage for me is about 5 dollars as I make about 200 dollars a month in gig work in addition to my state disability benefits. I told them I was happy to pay that much and continue coming to the meetings and join the party but that I wanted to be clear upfront that my disability would restrict my participation in some of the more public facing things, agitation, etc.
My contact who had been texting me weekly about these meetings for a few months completely ghosted me after texting them about this. While I felt bad about it it’s not exactly shocking as I know well enough now that I can and will encounter ableism in all sorts of communities which seem like I shouldn’t.
After doing some research it looks like they do have a history of some organizational stuff that doesn’t sound great like sexual abuse claims in the Canadian branch. What is weird to me is that they don’t seem to have a way to contact anyone centrally if issues like this come up. Maybe this is by design?
I am not interested in joining this group anymore but I felt like I wanted to let the party know that this is what goes on in the local cells. Or maybe just put this out to the internet in case anyone encounters something similar. Anyone had any similar experiences with these guys? I didn’t notice any red flags until this happened.
Occasionally you can find Trotskyists with plenty of good takes, and being postsectarian I tend to be reluctant to chalk up misbehavior and awful opinions to ‘ultraleftism’, but it might be true that Trotsky’s politics tend to attract a lot of theory noobs because he showed that there were lefty alternatives to one particular communist politician deeply reviled in the West. To newcomers, Trotsky offers the appeal of communism without the stigma of being–dramatic pause–‘pro-Stalin’. Of course, there are good reasons why trying to avoid that stigma is a waste of time, but it’s only natural that anybody whose brain has been ruined by capitalist education is unlikely to immediately notice them.