On agitprop, organizations, and mass struggles under the leadership of the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries
By OCR Leadership
August 2023
To accumulate the subjective forces for revolution—the organized forces in society consciously struggling for revolution—the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (OCR) must initiate and lead a wide variety of vehicles for carrying out agitation and propaganda and developing concentric circles of organization and waves of mass struggle under our leadership. Our Manifesto gives a basic vision of this process, and our work of summation of the history of the communist movement in the US (published as The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today in kites #8) has further enriched our understanding of the various components of the subjective forces for revolution. In this document, we explain and categorize these forms more systematically, if abstractly.
At present, while the OCR publishes documents on its website (ocrev.org) and in the journal kites, we do not carry out open political work under our own name or have spokespeople or public members. Our decision not to develop those crucial tools at this time was made due to our small size and for legal reasons. We rely on a variety of forms to carry out open political work among the masses and implement the strategic thinking in our Manifesto, and OCR members have no problem openly promoting our politics among the masses. Some people, whether naively or nefariously, may choose to publicly speculate about whether certain organizational forms are led by the OCR and whether certain individuals are OCR members. The best response to such irresponsible and McCarthyist speculation is the old saying those who know don’t say, and those who say don’t know.1
The Party
To make revolution and build a socialist society, a communist vanguard party, based on the principles of democratic centralism, is necessary to lead the entire process. The main purpose of the OCR is to build such a Party, by recruiting and training a critical mass of dedicated and disciplined communist cadre and developing a Party Programme with a class analysis of US society, a strategy for revolution in the US, and concrete policies to be implemented after the revolutionary seizure of power and with the onset of the socialist transition to communism. The requisite cadre and Programme that signal the foundation of a Party can only be built through developing deep ties among the masses, most especially the lower and deeper sections of the proletariat, and through leadership of the class struggle. A Party must also have a strategic division of labor that can implement the different spheres of political work that are part of a strategy for revolution, and enough geographic spread to be a national force.
In all our political work today, OCR members must keep in mind that our principal task is to build the Party, with the recruitment and training of communist cadre an ongoing and vital thread through all our work. In short, if we’re not recruiting new OCR members through our political work, then we need to assess what we’re doing wrong while recognizing the real challenges of this task. We would certainly embrace the prospect of other revolutionary organizations emerging in the US and contributing to the process of building a communist vanguard party, but we do not at present see any such organizations, so we must take this exceptionally serious responsibility upon ourselves. Up until the formation of a communist vanguard party, the OCR must increasingly play the role of a vanguard force within the context of our quantitative and qualitative limitations.
Forms of revolutionary organization around the OCR
Under the leadership of the OCR (and the future vanguard party), some forms of public organization should be created that take, as their basis of unity, the need for revolution and follow the leadership of the OCR, while their broader membership is not yet fully consolidated around the communist world outlook and fully committed to democratic centralist functioning. These openly revolutionary organizations allow advanced masses to directly and consciously work towards revolution and propagate revolutionary politics while giving them room to decide whether to commit their whole life to the revolution and to figure out if they fully agree with, and get trained in, the communist world outlook. Historically, communist youth organizations have been the main type of this organizational form in the US, with the Communist Party’s Young Communist League of the 1920s up to 1935 and the Revolutionary Communist Party’s Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade from 1978 to 2007 as the prime examples. Fusing the rebellious spirit and energy of youth with communist leadership is a crucial means to create a militant, revolutionary force on the frontlines of the class struggle.
In addition to communist youth organization, another likely form of openly revolutionary organization would be revolutionary organizations rooted in specific proletarian neighborhoods. Such forms could play a crucial role in developing revolutionary authority among the proletariat, leading the class struggle, propagating revolutionary ideology, and (secondarily) finding collective solutions to some of the day-to-day problems of the masses. As a reference point but in very different circumstances, we can think of the role of village and neighborhood revolutionary committees created as organs of red political power in mostly rural areas during the protracted people’s wars in India, Nepal, Peru, and the Philippines. The two crucial differences with our circumstances are that (1) the military strategy of protracted people’s war, with which local revolutionary authority was backed up by a revolutionary army, is not applicable to our conditions, and (2) neighborhood revolutionary committees in the US would principally be established among the urban proletariat rather than in peasant villages.
Finally, where there are a few workers with a revolutionary consciousness, they could be organized into revolutionary worker organizations at particular (large) workplaces, based among specific occupations or sectors of workers,2 or bringing together the most advanced from across different workplaces and/or occupations. These types of organizations would be different from unions in that their members are not the broad mass or workers but the most advanced, ideologically and politically, and they are bound together based on revolutionary consciousness rather than just a common class antagonism with the enemy.
Activist organizations
In the US, hearing the word “activist” makes us roll our eyes or vomit, as it usually conjures up nonprofit-sector careerists or moronic Leftists, both of whom are divorced from the masses. Here, we use “activist” in the dictionary definition sense of someone actively involved in political organizing efforts, and “activist organizations” to describe organizations of activists that the OCR initiated and/or leads. The role of these organizations is to bind together at first small numbers of the advanced to carry out agitation and organize mass struggle. OCR-led activist organizations are generally focused around a specific political question, or a set of interrelated political questions, and/or geared towards organizing and leading specific sections of the advanced and/or broader layers of the masses. Their basis of unity is not the Manifesto and Membership Constitution of the OCR, but a political analysis, purpose, and commitment level that contributes to the OCR’s overall strategy but does not require full agreement with it. OCR-led activist organizations play an important role in harnessing the energy of the advanced who want to commit to fighting against the crimes of the system and stand with the masses and in training the advanced as agitators and mass leaders. Members of activist organizations who, through their practical experience and their study of communist literature, come to agree with the OCR’s ideology and politics should be recruited into the OCR. For those who do not make this leap, the OCR should continue to welcome their participation in the class struggle and forge a close working relationship with them, including welcoming them as leaders within OCR-led activist organizations.
Mass organizations
An OCR-led mass organization is, simply put, an organization of the masses under the leadership of OCR. They should be created among specific sections of the proletariat who are bound together by the neighborhood they live in, the type of work they do, their place of employment, or a common class antagonism they have with the enemy. While it will take an advanced core among the masses to create a mass organization, they should be able to take in more intermediate masses as well, and have a relatively low bar for participation and a low level of political unity with the OCR necessary to join. Their main forms of activity should generally revolve around the common class antagonism that binds them together, specifically waging class struggle around that common antagonism, although OCR members should bring other political questions and activity into the political life and culture of a mass organization without making those dividing lines. OCR members should approach building mass organizations as starting points for conducting political work among the proletariat (and not the only starting point), and work to develop the class-consciousness of the masses in them and recruit the best of them into the OCR itself.
Mass organizations we build now will likely be relatively small in size, though should have enough numbers and broad partisanship to merit the moniker mass organization. Bringing forward leaders from the masses and recruiting some of them into the OCR is key to the viability of sustaining a mass organization and developing the subjective forces for revolution (though to be clear, leaders of OCR-led mass organizations do not need to be OCR members and can have substantial disagreements with our politics so long as those differences are not antagonistic). Our strategic priority in building mass organizations must be among the proletariat, though down the road we could imagine building mass organizations among strategic sections of the petty-bourgeoisie.
Discussion circles and study groups
To develop class-consciousness and partisanship to the OCR, discussion circles centered on the study of OCR documents, the journal kites, and key works of communist theory should be created along three lines: (1) Public study groups, usually centered around college campuses or politicized neighborhoods, which can draw in people interested in learning about communist politics. (2) By-invite study groups drawing in members of OCR-led organizations and other contacts. (3) OCR-led circles for advanced contacts who are best served by such an organizational form and can be developed as organized ties, partisan to the OCR and carrying out tasks under our leadership. This last form often makes sense for contacts who, owing to their life conditions and pursuits, do not fit well into existing OCR-led organizations but have a real commitment to revolutionary change. OCR-led circles might consist of a few masses at a particular workplace or in a particular neighborhood, or they might bring together a few revolutionary-minded activists, artists, intellectuals, teachers, or other petty-bourgeois professionals under the OCR’s leadership.
There may be some overlap between these different forms of discussion circles, and each form should aim at moving the people in it towards active involvement in carrying out the OCR’s strategy for revolution, whether that’s by taking up initial forays of social investigation in the case of #1, moving towards recruitment into the OCR in the case of #2, or developing as firm supporters of, or recruits into, the OCR in the case of #3. In all cases, we should oppose book worship and aimless discussion, drawing the people in our discussion circles into actively confronting the challenges of making revolution, thinking about their own role in the revolutionary process, and taking up concrete tasks. Where there are existing study groups taking up Marxism and radical politics, we should work to turn them into OCR-led study groups.
United front efforts
The communist conception of the united front is an alliance of class forces under the leadership of the revolutionary proletariat, not a coalition of Leftist organizations. OCR-led united front efforts should aim for considerable breadth, involving, for example, progressive religious forces, petty-bourgeois professionals, low-level government officials who have some desire to stand with the people, prominent individuals (athletes, actors, well-known cultural figures, etc.), community leaders, and friendly organizations. United front efforts are most fruitful around specific political junctures that draw various class forces into motion against the dominant political program of the bourgeoisie, though the united front approach of cultivating allies for the revolutionary proletariat among all the popular classes should be a thread through all our political work. Except where opportunities are too good to pass up, devoting our attention to united front efforts before we have built up a firm base among the proletariat is not advisable, as it will pull our focus, and ultimately our politics, towards the petty-bourgeoisie and its class outlook.
Stationary and mobile forces
In order to sink deep roots among the proletariat, build a mass base for a communist vanguard party, and recruit advanced proletarians, the OCR must identify specific sections of the masses to focus our political work on, devoting leadership and cadre to that task over an extended period of time. There are no shortcuts to making advances among the masses; it takes time to get to know the masses, prove ourselves to them, and overcome the challenges of bringing them forward as a revolutionary force. For that reason, most of the cadre we recruit should be assigned to carry out persistent and consistent political work among specific sections of the proletariat, in the process developing long-term plans for how to make advances in that work.
However, we would be remiss if we ignored crises that break out in society and concentrations of injustice and oppression that bring the masses into motion against the system. These scenarios present opportunities for mobilizing, or getting to the head of, militant mass struggle, quickly developing large numbers of initial ties among the masses, and fighting the enemy side by side with advanced elements, even as consolidating organizational gains from these opportunities will still take time and persistent work.
As a small organization, the OCR will have to make careful judgments about when to throw our forces into a crisis and when to keep our forces focused on their ongoing, patient work among specific sections of the proletariat. Over time, we need to develop stationary forces tied to specific proletarian neighborhoods, workplaces, and ongoing class antagonisms and mobile forces capable of seizing on crises that break out in society, without a brick wall separating the two. Stationary forces should be overall principal, but we may at times need to concentrate forces to make a breakthrough in one particular area (geographically or politically).
Exposure, agitation, and propaganda
Running through all our work should be agitation that lays bare the capitalist-imperialist system behind all the injustices in society and calls the masses to action, and propaganda that more deeply explains the workings of the capitalist-imperialist system to the masses. In addition, we should be inspiring the masses with a vision of the communist world we are striving for and drawing them into discussion and study of the contradictions of the socialist transition to communism and the challenges of making revolution. Distributing and discussing OCR documents, especially our Manifesto, and the journal kites should be an ongoing thread through all our work, and we should develop punctuation points for this, especially around revolutionary holidays. OCR-led organizations must also develop their own forms of agitation and propaganda based on their specific political tasks.
Communist revolution relies on the conscious initiative of the masses, and that conscious initiative cannot be developed without compelling agitation and thought-provoking propaganda that draws the masses into the process of figuring out how to meet the challenges of making revolution. On street corners and in writing, OCR members should develop their skill at exposure and agitation, using the OCR’s Drawing Blood: A Guide to Communist Agitation as a point of departure. OCR members must also become engaging propagandists, able to give presentations and write articles that dig into a political question in all its contradictions and complexities. We must consistently raise the general level of our cadres while also developing experts on particular questions and in particular spheres of political work. Through their interactions with us, the masses should be moved by the bite and concreteness of our exposure, the sophistication and depth of our explanations, and the seriousness and boldness of our strategic vision.
“This shit’s chess, it ain’t checkers”
A pernicious problem among communists has been that of tactics eating up strategy, often manifest as tunnel vision that cannot see beyond the particular spheres of political work that individual comrades are engaged in. Historically, this tunnel vision has taken communist parties around the world, and especially in the imperialist countries, down the paths of economism and movementism. Economism consigns the work of communists to the economic struggles and immediate economic interests of the masses, giving up on revolution and class-consciousness in the process. Movementism is when communists focus on building mass resistance movements against the present bourgeois order but lose sight of the goal of overthrowing the bourgeois order through mass armed revolution.
In opposition to tactics eating up strategy, what we need is revolutionary strategic vision, looking at the full scope of the challenges before us and seeing the ways to advance the revolution amid all the very real obstacles. If we are only responding to the immediate problems before us, we will never be able to solve those problems, let alone think beyond them. Like a great chess player, communists need to be thinking many moves ahead, looking at the whole board, seeing a path to victory, moving individual pieces towards that end, and forcing our enemy to make missteps in the process that cost them dearly.
All of our efforts, from our agitation and propaganda to the various organizations we create and lead—all these pieces on the board—must be part of a coherent strategy for revolution. We must consciously steer all our efforts towards revolutionary objectives, or it will be easy to bow to spontaneity, to take the easier path, to settle for immediate gratification, and to lose sight of what this is all for. All roads must lead to revolution.
1We should also educate people about how such public speculation, intentionally or not, feeds into bourgeois state repression of communists, with “red tagging” of individuals and organizations often initiated by Leftists and carried to repressive and murderous ends by the bourgeois state. In the US, the most famous victim of red tagging was Paul Robeson, the great actor, singer, and orator who, in the 1940s, was the most well-known American in the world after Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In the 1950s, accusations that Robeson was a member of the Communist Party led to restrictions on his travel (his passport was revoked) and to the ruin of his professional career; he was subsequently written out of the history books. In the Philippines today, activists who are red tagged have been outright assassinated by the police and military. For this reason, anyone engaged in red tagging should be considered no better than a snitch. Sendero Luminoso had excellent methods for dealing with such people…
2Here we have in mind the fact that some proletarian jobs, such as home health aides or app-based delivery workers, do not concentrate workers together in a single location, and some sections of workers are defined by commonalities other than just the type of work they do (for example, immigrant proletarians in global cities).
Revolutionary Initiative 