Ramneet Manrai, New York, NY
The RCA is taking off in Brooklyn. In September 2024, we had 17 comrades. By December, we more than doubled our ranks with 21 recruits. This puts us at 38 active party members—and about half joined with dues of over $100 a month!
This explosive growth isn’t based on secret formulas or shortcuts, but on the basic principles of Bolshevik party building. When recruiting every new comrade, we clearly define what RCA membership means. As they become active Party members, we place a heavy emphasis on consistency—consistent outward-facing work, helping to recruit new members, and political education. These aspects of party building are not separate, but work in conjunction with one another.
First of all, we politicize the importance of recruitment and public activity at all our communist cell meetings. Each cell holds thorough political discussions on articles from The Communist, which fills comrades with enthusiasm for Marxist ideas and organizing.
We also make a point to start every paper sale and postering session with a discussion on the latest issue—pulling facts, figures, and arguments that will help our conversations during outreach activities.
We also follow all outward political work with a thorough debrief, allowing comrades to share anecdotes and draw out lessons. Whenever we find common themes or questions coming up during our public activity, we discuss them at the next cell meeting.
In particular, comrades have found great success at a local park in Bushwick. Here again, consistency has been key: we try to table there every week to build a regular presence. One Brooklyn cell secretary highlighted that, no matter the weather or time of day, we always find people eager to engage in political conversations and buy literature, potential recruits itching to attend a cell meeting, and even new comrades who join on the spot!
But recruitment is only part of the picture. We have also developed a strong layer of communist cadres capable of integrating new recruits into the Party.
After the Founding Congress of the RCA last summer, we focused on the most promising comrades in the Brooklyn cells, discussing the fundamentals of Marxism in one-on-one meetings. Our efforts to educate new leaders significantly increased the political sharpness of all the comrades in Brooklyn.
At the end of September, we held a successful day school on Ted Grant’s The Menace of Fascism with participation from over 20 comrades. Last month, we hosted a day school on Colossus: The Rise and Decline of US Imperialism with over 60 comrades. More importantly, the discussions at the most recent school were on a much higher political level, showing that we are building not only in quantity, but also in quality.
Building in Brooklyn has been incredibly rewarding. We are in a period of political storm and stress. All that was solid is melting into air, but the situation has never been more ripe for organizing the revolutionary party!
Developing the nucleus of our Party is an urgent task, but we cannot take shortcuts. Through consistency, audacity, and patience, we will soon reach 1,000 organized communists in the US. And as Trotsky said, “The jump from 1,000 to 10,000 is much easier than the jump from 40 to 1,000.”