You all may find this helpful. It is an anonymous open letter regarding the 2026 crisis within the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). It analyzes the party’s structural failures, the handling of the Marissa Sanchez case, and the rise of bureaucratic centralism. it is useful to anyone attempting to reform PSL or building something better. Please share this. https://vililith.substack.com/p/unity-without-struggle-a-structural
this is disheartening, involving myself with a local branch and then learning our national org is like this…
I would encourage you to reach out to your unit or branch leadership to say you want to talk and share your concerns with them
I was gonna but my contact is away until the 20th…
God I need to get my depression treated. And then I need to get into this damn party
The Iron Rule of Bureaucracy strikes again. In a country as large as the United States, why have so much centralization? It’s my anarchism showing, but wouldn’t the PSL members be better served, or at least more resilient, with a more confederated approach that is more grounded in each chapter’s locality? Why should a scandal in the Philadelphia group bring down such distant groups like Anchorage? I do think this much centralization prevents the PSL from gaining a foothold outside of major population centers because the chapters don’t have enough room to maneuver and buried in paperwork.
I honestly feel bad for the rank-and-file :PSL: comrades. It takes so much work organizing locally, on top of the bullshit paperwork from HQ, and then shit like this happens.
The PSL had roughly 4,000 members in 2025. … Prior to 2016, the U.S. left existed in a period of defensive struggle, not offensive. There was no mass base to be accountable to. So the Party became accountable only to itself, keeping alive the embers of socialism until the working class is ready.
I had more written, but this made me feel like I was kicking a dog. But this dog’s leadership sexually assaulted a comrade, so I will say to the leadership that those numbers, after two major
campaigns, is pathetic. If this were 2005, during the War on Terror and deep inside Capitalist Realism, I could understand those numbers. Those numbers in 2025 are completely unjustifiable. Leadership should step down in shame.The 2026 CC report explicitly connects Marissa’s essay to “the hidden hand of state forces,” to COINTELPRO, to NSPM-7.
With leadership like this who needs :fedposting: :porky-happy:
Didn’t the ISO claim around that many members at their plateau, during the Bush & early Obama years? I think historically a lot of US orgs have topped out around that size for whatever reason. Hopefully a coincidence and not a pattern.
Its a pattern explained in the document.
I don’t think any vanguard party in the US has ever cracked 5K.
CPUSA hit 85000 in 1942, before McCarthyism kicked in
Still reading through this, but it looks AI generated to me. Full of ABC: not X, but Y and the like. That and it’s from an anonymous not even 1 day old account
To remain anonymous, the author may have written the article and then ran it through AI to remove any tells that might indicate who they are.
Could just be all AI, but I’m gonna try reading past that to see if there are any actually valid points
It takes a fairly large sample size to break anonymity, and sending the text to a comrade to rephrase it is an easy way to stay reasonably secure in that respect.
Yes. AI was used to remove voice and tone.
Like the writing equivalent of kirkifying for anonymity.
lol, fuck that
I do have to note there is a lot of that structure; it stuck out like a sore thumb to me as well
Hell yes
Bureaucratic centralism? That’s a bullshit trotzkist term. I’m not USian and don’t know much about PSL, but this AI article from this new account and new substack smells like a targeted attempt at splitting and weakening (typical trotzkist tactic, very compatible leftism), not like genuine and honest engagement.
Edit: I might be wrong, like I said I don’t no enough about PSL. Apparently there were multiple scandals? It’s just the vibe I’m getting here is weird. Feel free to disregard.
PSL was originally a split from a Trotskyist group, so I wouldn’t necessarily read too much into the choice of jargon, unless someone who knows a lot more specifics wants to weigh in.
PSL split from Workers World Party which is officially Marxist Leninist. WWP split from the Trotskyist group Socialist Workers Party. WWP was Trotskyist at first but their leader was Sam Marcy who’s whole shtick was supporting AES contrary to Trotskyist orthodoxy. Eventually they just became ML. IDK when but I’d imagine it was before 2004. IDK why PSL actually split from WWP, but it wasn’t to become ML.
They split from a Trotskyist group and their official position is that China isn’t socialist, so my guess is they still got some Trot juice flowing through their veins
That’s definitely not their position on China.
Granted their party’s position is more nuanced than my initial comment made it out to be. They still say China, post Mao, became revisionist.
PSL stands in critical support of China but they hold that it has undergone a Revisionist turn, alleging that Deng Xiaoping took the PRC down a ‘Capitalist Road’.[7] Repeating the unsourced myth that Mao denounced Deng as a Capitalist Roader. Despite this, they support China’s socialist development and are sympathetic to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.[8]
PSL further stated that there was a new Capitalist Class grown within the PRC which collaborates even as it struggles with Imperialism. In 2023, Brian Becker reconfirmed PSL’s 2007 stance of China.[9]
Here they call the CPC leadership, including Deng, ‘capitalist roaders’ 10 times.
There’s some other documents of theirs linked in the References page that don’t read great but at the same time they’ll whip out something like this,
People outside of China, especially those who hope to build a socialist future for their own people, who yearn for a world of justice, equality, and peace, should join in supporting the efforts being made to find a path to “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” We should be critical when necessary, recognizing and acknowledging the problems and the mistakes which may be made as China advances, “crossing the river by feeling the rocks.” But we should support China’s project of socialist development, support the leadership of the Party and its work to control and redress the abuses and errors which arise, support the hopes and the hard work of the Chinese people. Most importantly we need to defend China against the aggression of American-led imperialism, the rising tide of a new Cold War, the unremitting demonization of China.”
So perhaps I was in error to say, “their official position is that China isn’t socialist” as their position is obviously more nuanced or internally divided.
I’d go even further and say their position has evolved significantly since 2007. I forget the name of the book they publish on the topic but its incredibly clear about China as an AES state.
I don’t think anyone could reasonably disagree that there is a capitalist class in China that seeks to collaborate with the US or that the CPC has made mistakes which we can learn from. That’s not disputing that China is socialist, that’s just a read on history and the current situation.
Happy to be wrong here but I don’t see it if I am.
WWP is an ML party. But the Trot juice you’re referring to is called Marcyism.
Articles related to the sexual assault cover up and September Exodus are linked in the substack.
yeah same boat
I’d like to know more about the internal drama and be more privy to that stuff in general, because i more or less feel the same way.
I think the thing to take away here is that you should just go and talk to people in the PSL in your area if you want to know more, because they are probably there, and stop circling the drain of paranoia by evaluating rumors against hearsay. Which is most of the stuff online anyway. PSL members aren’t going to be online batting for the party as a rule, because things online don’t really matter and this would be a profound waste of membership’s time.
If you only listen to what exists on the internet, you will never feel good about it because you are depriving yourself of the actual experience of the thing and relying solely on the mimicry provided by social media.
One can evaluate something in perpetuity without ever really knowing it. But this just leads to the exact paralysis which prevents people from activating themselves. And this just serves the existing paradigm.
Curious to get some opinions: what, if anything, should non-members be doing about all of this?
I think it’s reasonable to discuss informally in our own orgs & communities, to hopefully learn some lessons from it. Would the same apply to more open discussions (posting, articles, letters, or whatever) assuming it’s done in a productive way? Is it best to let former/current PSL folks figure it out without added noise/pressure? Or is maintaining some amount of pressure useful?
What about for non-members working in coalitions and whatnot? Wait and see how things develop? At what point do they go on the “avoid as much as possible” list? I don’t think they’ve reached that point yet, but that’s the direction currently. Are we obliged to let them know publicly before things reach that point?
Edit: It really seems like their leadership is in serious denial. There are certain other orgs, who every new leftist is warned about by other organizers of other tendencies. It becomes the thing everyone knows about, the org everyone is warned about. And those orgs stop growing, turn inward, and become cult-like. It’s how a lot of orgs end. And their leadership thinks they’re preventing it, by repeating the exact steps that cause it.
The members of the PSL are siloed into units and branches that can’t communicate with each other. The purpose of this open letter is to circulate outside the party in organizations, group chats, internet forums, and social media then make its way to members all across the USA. Despite all its imperfections, a reformed PSL would benefit the movement and the class. Outside pressure and information dissemination would be helpful
also, how did you use AI for anonymity? was it changing your writing style around enough to be unrecognizable? I haven’t really seen that done before
I’m interested in there being merit in reform instead of seeking a different party, what led you to go with that?
“REAL democratic centralism hasn’t been tried all these sex abuse Orgs are doing CRONY democratic centralism”
Literally anything other than a critique of hierarchy I guess.
You are cordially invited to hold the L
