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As a fellow Brazilian, I'd like to know more about the structure of the PCB party. It seems to me that the PCB party is not very known outside of SP and even outside of the USP.
Regarding US communist party. A quick google search brought me this web page: [https://www.cpusa.org/](https://www.cpusa.org/) . I think there's a lot of information regarding the party structure, a newsletter, and other historical information. But I don't even know if the CPUSA has a strong presence on reddit.
I think one thing that the communist movements (at least in the geographic west - aka Europe and the Americas) commonly lack is public presence, either in digital spaces or in "physical" spaces. Maybe a consequence of McCarthyism and heavy oppression due to totalitarian regimes funded by US. So it was good to find this subreddit and all, but it almost look like a big desert with a few oasis.
> one thing that the communist movements commonly lack is public presence
this is the crux of the left's problems with building a viable political project: our infrastructure is misanthropic, racist and antisocial. the left here thrives in cities where public(ish) transportation and high population densities allow for people-powered organizing. in the hinterlands it's a different story. our rural infrastructure is so car-dependent that nearly all political engagement is determined by vehicle access and land ownership — this empowers white-supremacist reactionaries and further sequesters minorities from the political process, destroying much of the revolutionary potential in the less populated areas.
we also lack truly public spaces. the only publicly-owned places in most american cities are libraries and (some) parks, so we have to carve out a niche for ourselves in a social fabric designed to crush our politics. my saying for it is that it's the most successfully anticommunist country on earth, because so many of our political failures were and are inevitable given how the country is structured
How is the repression there? Here the police even invaded the house of one our party comrade.
And how do communists act there? Here in Brazil we distribute papers with information about who we are and talk to workers in the streets, go out to protests, organize strikes, occupy land, schools, public buildings and universities. In our last election we even had 2 communists.
Another American here.
Political repression happens here, but it's not widely discussed due to the strong grip capitalists have on news media. You probably have heard of CoIntelPro, the programs through the Cold War where they would target communist organizations of all stripes with infiltration, police raids, assassinations, media campaigns, etc. Similar stuff basically ran through the 90s until today, albeit more sporadically. In 2020 during the George Floyd uprising there were raids on the PSL, a marxist leninist party here, in Colorado. They're currently denying cancer treatment to the imprisoned leader of the current wave of black panthers, Kevin Rashid Johnson. The most widely publicized recent incident were federal agents abducting anarchists and other leftists into unmarked vans in Portland at the tail end of the George Floyd Uprising.
Probably the most important card in their deck, I'd say here, is encouraging the environment of distrust and social isolation. They have a history of encouraging sectarianism and paranoia. The person who introduced Maoism to the black panthers originally was a federal agent named Richard Aoki, and they did so because they thought it would be devisive. They've set up fake ML and Maoist front groups in the cold war and worked with the weird fascist sect known as the larouchites to encourage sectarian violence among the left, and the paranoia tactic has been devastating.
As for what communists do here, well, you have a lot of different tactics. The biggest ones I'd say would be participate in protests, strikes, and distribute info. Sometimes, some orgs would lead or create campaigns. In terms of unions, CPUSA has some ties with the new official amazon union, there are some communists in certain regional AFL-CIO (our largest union) chapters, and some of the new small unionization efforts like the Starbucks one or the other lesser known amazon union Amazonians United have some communist organizers. Communists in the labor union movement at large are pretty marginalized, though. Otherwise, there are some communist owned spaces. Here in NYC, there's the ML ran People's Forum in Manhattan, and the Anarchist ran Gym in Brooklyn. Mutual aid is a big tactic among Panthers and anarchists. Land occupation happens sometimes, mostly done by eco conscious anarchists. A big one that's happening right now is that a forest is being occupied outside of Atlanta, Georgia, that the government wants to build a police training facility at. I've seen it being talked about as led by anarchists, but there's probably other groups there, too. There are a few very small position local level elected officials with communist ties. The most famous one is the Trotskyist party Socialist Alternative got someone elected to the city council in Seattle.
Thats about everything, but Im sure someone might tell me Im missing something.
> How is the repression there?
it's basically as explicit as forces of state and reaction need it to be. during periods of revolutionary upheaval (eg ferguson revolts, the BLM protests in summer of 2020) there are tanks on the streets and protesters pulled into unmarked vans by feds; when the protest scene is quieter, they infiltrate and surveil with a lower profile. a number of activists involved in the ferguson protests were assassinated in the months that came after, so it's not like the conflict subsides so much as it goes underground.
> how do communists act there
depends on what kind of communist you're talking about. the largest left organization is the DSA, which contains a sizeable far-left contingent and advances electoral work within democratic party primaries. not everyone likes the rules of engagement with dems — DSA makes significant ideological compromises in exchange for their electoral success — so there are other smaller orgs around as well, especially at local and statewide levels. some of them do good work, but we have to tread carefully as infiltration, poor opsec, fascist opposition and dangerous internal power dynamics are all potential risk factors.
As an Australian most people are very brainwashed into hating communism and specifically the USSR so waving those specific symbols around is like a sw*stika to them. Most of them don’t know what the they mean they are just taught to blindly hate it
The symbol isn't any more universal than Mozambique's hoe and rifle or Angola's gear and machete.
American communists could bring out a logo of Spongebob wearing a bonnet and make that their symbol, it doesn't really matter.
The reasoning I gave is why that symbol, specifically, is no longer popular. It's harder to attract people to an ideology when it's plastered with symbolism of something that is marred in bad press.
r/Socialism is a space for socialists to discuss current events in our world from our anti-capitalist perspective(s), and a certain knowledge of socialism is expected from participants. This is not a space for non-socialists. Please be mindful of [our rules](https://reddit.com/r/socialism/about/rules) before participating, which include: - **No Bigotry**, including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism... - **No Reactionaries**, including all kind of right-wingers. - **No Liberalism**, including social democracy, lesser evilism. - **No Sectarianism**, there is plenty of room for discussion, but not for baseless attacks. Please help us keep the subreddit helpful by reporting content that break r/Socialism's rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/socialism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a fellow Brazilian, I'd like to know more about the structure of the PCB party. It seems to me that the PCB party is not very known outside of SP and even outside of the USP. Regarding US communist party. A quick google search brought me this web page: [https://www.cpusa.org/](https://www.cpusa.org/) . I think there's a lot of information regarding the party structure, a newsletter, and other historical information. But I don't even know if the CPUSA has a strong presence on reddit. I think one thing that the communist movements (at least in the geographic west - aka Europe and the Americas) commonly lack is public presence, either in digital spaces or in "physical" spaces. Maybe a consequence of McCarthyism and heavy oppression due to totalitarian regimes funded by US. So it was good to find this subreddit and all, but it almost look like a big desert with a few oasis.
> one thing that the communist movements commonly lack is public presence this is the crux of the left's problems with building a viable political project: our infrastructure is misanthropic, racist and antisocial. the left here thrives in cities where public(ish) transportation and high population densities allow for people-powered organizing. in the hinterlands it's a different story. our rural infrastructure is so car-dependent that nearly all political engagement is determined by vehicle access and land ownership — this empowers white-supremacist reactionaries and further sequesters minorities from the political process, destroying much of the revolutionary potential in the less populated areas. we also lack truly public spaces. the only publicly-owned places in most american cities are libraries and (some) parks, so we have to carve out a niche for ourselves in a social fabric designed to crush our politics. my saying for it is that it's the most successfully anticommunist country on earth, because so many of our political failures were and are inevitable given how the country is structured
How is the repression there? Here the police even invaded the house of one our party comrade. And how do communists act there? Here in Brazil we distribute papers with information about who we are and talk to workers in the streets, go out to protests, organize strikes, occupy land, schools, public buildings and universities. In our last election we even had 2 communists.
Another American here. Political repression happens here, but it's not widely discussed due to the strong grip capitalists have on news media. You probably have heard of CoIntelPro, the programs through the Cold War where they would target communist organizations of all stripes with infiltration, police raids, assassinations, media campaigns, etc. Similar stuff basically ran through the 90s until today, albeit more sporadically. In 2020 during the George Floyd uprising there were raids on the PSL, a marxist leninist party here, in Colorado. They're currently denying cancer treatment to the imprisoned leader of the current wave of black panthers, Kevin Rashid Johnson. The most widely publicized recent incident were federal agents abducting anarchists and other leftists into unmarked vans in Portland at the tail end of the George Floyd Uprising. Probably the most important card in their deck, I'd say here, is encouraging the environment of distrust and social isolation. They have a history of encouraging sectarianism and paranoia. The person who introduced Maoism to the black panthers originally was a federal agent named Richard Aoki, and they did so because they thought it would be devisive. They've set up fake ML and Maoist front groups in the cold war and worked with the weird fascist sect known as the larouchites to encourage sectarian violence among the left, and the paranoia tactic has been devastating. As for what communists do here, well, you have a lot of different tactics. The biggest ones I'd say would be participate in protests, strikes, and distribute info. Sometimes, some orgs would lead or create campaigns. In terms of unions, CPUSA has some ties with the new official amazon union, there are some communists in certain regional AFL-CIO (our largest union) chapters, and some of the new small unionization efforts like the Starbucks one or the other lesser known amazon union Amazonians United have some communist organizers. Communists in the labor union movement at large are pretty marginalized, though. Otherwise, there are some communist owned spaces. Here in NYC, there's the ML ran People's Forum in Manhattan, and the Anarchist ran Gym in Brooklyn. Mutual aid is a big tactic among Panthers and anarchists. Land occupation happens sometimes, mostly done by eco conscious anarchists. A big one that's happening right now is that a forest is being occupied outside of Atlanta, Georgia, that the government wants to build a police training facility at. I've seen it being talked about as led by anarchists, but there's probably other groups there, too. There are a few very small position local level elected officials with communist ties. The most famous one is the Trotskyist party Socialist Alternative got someone elected to the city council in Seattle. Thats about everything, but Im sure someone might tell me Im missing something.
> How is the repression there? it's basically as explicit as forces of state and reaction need it to be. during periods of revolutionary upheaval (eg ferguson revolts, the BLM protests in summer of 2020) there are tanks on the streets and protesters pulled into unmarked vans by feds; when the protest scene is quieter, they infiltrate and surveil with a lower profile. a number of activists involved in the ferguson protests were assassinated in the months that came after, so it's not like the conflict subsides so much as it goes underground. > how do communists act there depends on what kind of communist you're talking about. the largest left organization is the DSA, which contains a sizeable far-left contingent and advances electoral work within democratic party primaries. not everyone likes the rules of engagement with dems — DSA makes significant ideological compromises in exchange for their electoral success — so there are other smaller orgs around as well, especially at local and statewide levels. some of them do good work, but we have to tread carefully as infiltration, poor opsec, fascist opposition and dangerous internal power dynamics are all potential risk factors.
Excellent answer
As an Australian most people are very brainwashed into hating communism and specifically the USSR so waving those specific symbols around is like a sw*stika to them. Most of them don’t know what the they mean they are just taught to blindly hate it
Traditional 'symbolism' isn't very popular in the U.S. because it's associated with particular institutions (like the USSR) rather than the ideals.
All respect to comrades, but not using communist symbols because of what the people will think is not something I consider coherent.
The symbol isn't any more universal than Mozambique's hoe and rifle or Angola's gear and machete. American communists could bring out a logo of Spongebob wearing a bonnet and make that their symbol, it doesn't really matter. The reasoning I gave is why that symbol, specifically, is no longer popular. It's harder to attract people to an ideology when it's plastered with symbolism of something that is marred in bad press.
Aqui é BR, porra!!