These are the notes I took while reading the Letters Walter’s Letter Walter opens his with a few paragraphs talking about he has been dishearted in the past working at the party’s center. That tracks as he has a significant amount of writing that was published on Liberation News. The latest publication of his work there was published over a year ago. After that he begins complaining about Brian and Ben Becker and how much respect they seem to have from his fellow members. It kinda sounds like he’s jealous of Brian and Ben Becker.

He than explains that the Branch Organizing Conference was the last straw for him. He claims that Brian established a central committee in an unsuccessful attempt to change the bylaws to make it easier to become a member. That could be a good thing as it could help grow the party. There is the unsubstantiated claim about how the leadership is against base building and mass organizing. He complains for quite a while about the leadership attempting to inspire hope and enthusiasm. He also makes the claim that a young union member gave a speech about how it was more important to distribute party literature than unionize and that speech was written by party leadership. That sounds suspicious to me, possible, and not great. Even the speech was written by leadership, it doesn’t really show that the party is anti-worker.

He goes on to accuse the leadership of attempting to dissuade openly, than secretly base building projects. He also accused the leadership of sabotaging 2 community centers. It isn’t really clear if the leadership really opposed base building as whole or just some part the way they were building there. Then he complains about not being allowed to speak at a leadership retreat where others read speeches from their phones. Seems like a pretty common for speakers to keep their speeches on their phones, it’s a little off putting but everyone has to start somewhere.

After that he complains that his loyalty was questioned, considering this letter, that makes alot of sense. Clearly the leadership didn’t agree with the way he wanted to do base building. Considering that not all base building is ethical, that really doesn’t prove much. Then he goes on to complain about the treatment of one of his allies in the base building thing. He goes on and on claiming the leadership will pretend to support base building and mass organizing, but behind closed do nothing but sabotage it. He mentions an unpublished document where he claims they were explicit about being against mass organizing and base building called turning to the working class. That document is not included.

After that he seems to be disparaging the PSL’s efforts to make their views known. From what I’ve read of Marx and Lenin, that seems to generally speaking be the first step. Then he starts talking about the use of AI chatbots. While I disagree with their use, it is a kinda minor point, also frequently people are accused of using them even when they don’t.

The next claim is possibly the most absurd, he claims that the US was closest to a socialist revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That’s would be when cointelpro was targeting the black panthers. When CIA was killing all visible socialist leaders. The capitalists had complete control over the narrative. That was the height of US imperialism, historically socialist revolution would have a hard time forming at the height of empire in it’s core.

He than goes on to claim that PSL developed a surveillance app disguised as organizing network. That sounds like a baseless conspiracy theory that the CIA came up with.

Contradicting his earlier statement that the PSL members just talk about their ideas, he describes the liberation center he set up in Philadelphia. He explains that the liberation center is rooted in the neighborhood and runs various events to help working class people. After that he complains that are also used for PSL promotion. Completely ignoring that party promotion is necessary to building the revolution.

In the section called why reforming the organization is impossible he complains about the gossip culture while saying all of these horrible things about leadership. He talks about how they one thing and do another, while he describes his own duplicity.

After that in the section called why this can’t wait he seems to be blaming the PSL for Trump.

The Response from the Central Committee The response starts off with a request to avoid republishing. Clearly that response was not respected.

The psl is claims that the cohert leaving is has subscribe to reactionary doomerism, against their own revolutionary optimism. Considering how much Walter complained about the peppiness of the Branch Organizing Conference, I’d say that sounds pretty honest.

The PSL than points out there are many NGOs and Unions doing exactly what he want the PSL and while many of them do good work, that is not the role has set out to play. The PSLs mission is to bring class consciousness to the masses so that they can form their own unions. To insist on leading the unionization efforts takes control away from the workers.

The PSL also points out that Walter did not have these discussions with the leadership, this can also be verified by his own words at the start of his letter. He claims that he could not bring these issues to the leadership for fear of being pushed out.

Walter was trying to do a hostile take over the Brooklyn office in secret, rather than doing any sort of organizing among the working class. All of his accusations are starting to look like confessions.

According to the PSL he resigned when he did because there was about to be a debate, where he would have been caught. That would have lost Walters all sympathy and stunted his ability to recruit other members from the PSL.

It also seems clear from the PSL’s response that Walter’s claim that women were constantly being complained about behind closed refers primarily to his own faction, not the leadership of the PSL.

It sounds like the faction led by Walter is actively attempting to recruit PSL members around the country. It sounds like the PSL is completely done with Walters but is work is still up on Liberation News.

The PSL response actually goes through many of Walters exact points and shows how they are either obviously false by logical contradiction, straight up lies, or mischaracterizations.

After the rebuttal the PSL response brings up all of the ways they are responding to his few valid criticisms.

Walter’s letter is not well reason and seems to be more about his distaste for Brian Becker to a point delusion. The few instances he describes as leading him to his conclusion are dripping with emotional language and most are completely refuted by the PSL.

This person withdrew from the PSL a day before the PSL claims to have received Walters resignation. This person makes the claim that the PSL leadership doesn’t represent the common comrade. There is a repeated claim that there is no transparency, however they give a single example of situation where the PSL failed to be transparent. They just make vague claims of corruption. The PSL response detailed ways in which members can comment on any decision that is taken on by the central committee.

There is also a disturbingly inaccurate summarization of the PSL’s response to Walter’s letter. This line in particular bothers me:

There is only a superficial acknowledgement of “organizational issues,” while the purpose and intent of the criticisms are shifted to personal grievances and a “misunderstanding” of the party line. This shift away from the central thesis of Walter’s arguments, which are overwhelmingly and demonstrably not about a petty personal grievance or a misunderstanding of PSL’s “political line,” is manipulative and dishonest.

Walter named numerous other people in the organization personally, that means he made it personal. The PSL pointed out that he had plenty of opportunities to voice his complaints, but that his complaints were kinda baseless. That’s not making it personal.

In the next paragraph the author complains about the PSL’s participation in bourgeois elections. Lenin wrote about that in “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder. My understanding is that participation in bourgeois elections is occasionally appropriate for the revolutionary, just to show that it doesn’t work.

The author claims that there has been a mobilization of PSL on social media, but I’ve seen nothing on any of their official sites. It’s possible some members have or maybe she referring to things said here. Walter didn’t really name pattern of structural rot, unless it’s his own. What he did was publicly make a bunch of unsubstantiated accusations and not only quit but took as people with him as he could, all while refusing to debate. That is sabotage, sabotage is done in secret, and he was working in secret to bring people to his seemingly counter revolutionary party. He created a factionalism within the party that planned to exploit by publicly calling it out when he left.

The next part is really good because the author admits to never becoming a full member.

I did not finish the candidacy classes necessary to become a “full” member, and this was deliberate

The author claims that it was because the material was full of both theoretical and historical errors.

The author brings up the general strike thing that Walter mentioned in his letter. The PSL’s response to it was rather telling, here’s their response.

No matter that a general strike did actually take place. No matter that the Jan 30 shutdown actually advanced the living struggle of the masses and pushed back the Trump administration’s invasion.

The author alleges that the PSL suffers from commandism and that the leadership is disconnected from the working class. Based on their response to the letter, they disagree. Based on my interactions with the PSL I would have to disagree.

This letter appears to be encouraging a split from the PSL, that sounds like encouraging a sectarian split. However the paragraph where the author mentions the Bay Area Socialist, they state that sectarian splits are a great way to stop a revolutionary party from growing. That looks like a pretty major contradiction to me.

The author claims that the PSL contains working class energy rather than organizing it. That’s like when the reactionaries try to discourage marching claiming that it doesn’t do anything. It takes effort to become a revolutionary, it takes time, it takes study. To successfully have a revolution we need the working class to understand that they have the power to change the system. We’re not there yet. The more we march, and engage in fully legal forms of revolution building the more successful our revolution will be and the faster we will achieve it.

On to the actual letter which is much more well written than the preamble. I’ll start with the Lenin quote at the end of this section.

“Those who have the slightest acquaintance with the actual state of our movement cannot but see that the wide spread of Marxism was accompanied by a certain lowering of the theoretical level. Quite a number of people with very little, and even a total lack of theoretical training joined the movement because of its practical significance and its practical successes… Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity.“

Candidates for membership of the PSL start off learning the theory as practiced by the PSL. So all members have at least some theory. I don’t know what the classes are like and the PSL could really use a book club. As noted in their response to Walter’s letter, the leadership doesn’t seem to have the bandwidth for that. The material circumstances of many members would make it nearly impossible to read all of the theory and engage in the actual work of building a revolutionary party.

Here’s a Marx quote to counter

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.

I’m still learning alot of the theory and the historical circumstances that have brought about successful revolutions, but it take a long time. Guiding principles can be picked up much more quickly though. The PSL I know tries it’s best to communicate to the working that their low wages are because of the oppression caused by various forms of chauvinism and oppression of the global south.

About the Propaganda Complaint

Attention, therefore, must be devoted principally to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries; it is not at all our task to descend to the level of the ‘working masses’ as the Economists wish to do, or to the level of the ‘average worker’… You, gentlemen, who are so much concerned about the ‘average worker’, as a matter of fact, rather insult the workers by your desire to talk down to them when discussing working-class politics and working-class organisation. Talk about serious things in a serious manner; leave pedagogics to the pedagogues, and not to politicians and organisers!”

I’m really not sure that I understand the author’s issue with the propaganda, the only examples the author mentions are statements that arose organically out to the masses. Without additional examples of the type of propaganda they are complaining about it’s really hard to know if there’s any weight to this argument. Also there was slight logical falicity that I can’t help but point out even though it’s likely just a typo.

In fact, not all billionaires are capitalists, plenty of capitalists are millionaires or small business owners.

Pretty sure they meant not all capitalist are billionaires, but that’s not what’s written. It is true that wealth and class are not the same thing. Though without a concrete example of the propaganda they are talking about, it’s not really a great point. Most of the propaganda I’ve seen is more about stating facts. Every rally I’ve been to hosted by the PSL had a variety of speakers not just party members.

Failure to Convert Spontaneity into Action

The Lenin wrote the letter author quotes was written just before the successful revolution in Moscow if I’m not mistaken. Class conciseness is growing but it is far from ready for that. There is also the complaint that party drops longer term projects for shorter term projects, that would hold a whole lot more weight if the author included an example of that. They claim that PSL should make demands at protests, but it seems to me that they do. They demand that US stop attacking Iran at that protest. The party should always be ready to respond and support a strike, but they are stretched thin.

Participation in Bourgeois Elections

The campaigns aren’t really about winning as much as raising awareness that there is a socialist party. In that regard they are effective. The PSL should also be working towards setting up more mutual aid networks, and other survival stuff. This still seems like strategic difference to me.

The author concludes that the only acceptable option is to leave the party that they never became a full member of because the PSL failed their purity test.

The author accuses the PSL of lacking theory, simplistic propaganda, failure to control spontaneity, and electorialism. I can’t judge the first point because no examples of the poor theory was presented, no specifics were given about the poor propaganda but I could at least browse their social media and didn’t see anything, the spontaneity thing seems like being a little over eager, and the last point is a difference in strategy. It’s clear that author is really leaving because they don’t feel like they are being heard. I would consider that an issue for their branch. They mentioned being able to have 6-10 people helping them with support from party leadership when they aren’t even a full member.