Charles F, Queens, NY
On the Greyhound back to NYC, the final verse of “The Internationale” rang in my ears. The day before, I had heard over 450 comrades holding hundreds of red flags singing it after marching through the streets of Philadelphia.
I attended my first branch meeting on April 25 and officially joined the party soon after. I found out about the Congress and told Wesley, the comrade who recruited me to the party, that while it sounded great, I probably couldn’t to make it due to the cost. He replied, “We’re going to get you there.” The branch covered my registration fee and I roomed with four other comrades, who subsidized my share of the bill.
I thought I had been serious and committed to the task at hand before this Congress, but I was proven wrong. The sheer volume, political level, and steadfastness of comrades astonished me. I teared up as comrade Antonio spoke about “What Kind Of Party Are The RCA Building?” I’m here to tell you it’s a damn solid party.
I talked to comrades from Phoenix, Seattle, Dallas-Fort Worth, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Columbia, Montreal, Chicago, New Haven, and Philadelphia.
All of them were excited that I was there. This attitude pervaded through the entire party. No one was pulling rank on me because of how new and inexperienced I am. On the contrary, comrade John Peterson lit up when I told him my story. When I said that since I’d joined the party, I felt happiness and optimism for the first time in years, he hugged me.
Comrade Fred Weston shared that when he was in the lift (this prompted some comrades in the room to correct him to elevator, to which he replied “Let’s not lower the level”), a comrade said “I’m lucky to be in the lift with Fred Weston!” Fred responded, “Well, maybe I’m the lucky one.”
There are three major ideas I took away. One was delivered by comrade Austin from Chicago: “You by yourself are not an event.” It is far too easy to fall into the trap of individualism, and consequently to feel like we can’t do anything because we’re just one person swimming against a sea of oppression, injustice, and exploitation. Luckily, comrades, we are not by ourselves, but surrounded by honest, hardworking communists already in the party, by the advanced layer committed to our goal but not yet organized with us—like I was just two months ago—and by the largest working class in the history of humanity!
The second was a metaphor from comrade Laura shared by comrade Antonio, which compared capitalism to a wall that many are punching with their bare fists. Understandably, they’re meeting with little success. Meanwhile, we as a Bolshevik party are building a battering ram. This requires stepping away from the wall, and will draw sharp criticisms that we aren’t actively trying to destroy the wall this very second. But when we complete it, shoulder it together with the whole working class, and charge, that wall will turn to rubble.
The third, also from comrade Antonio, concerns this very paper, The Communist. There has been much hand-waving at “the Trots and their papers,” just as there was hand-waving in Lenin’s time. But Lenin didn’t emphasize the importance of revolutionary press because he loved newspapers so much. Rather, the press was “a benchmark, a proxy, a stand-in for political strength.” The ability to print and distribute a newspaper on a regular basis was a sign of the party’s ability to communicate Marxist ideas. The paper serves not only as information, but as ammunition with which to arm the workers.
Comrade Antonio spoke of Steve Bannon and his War Room show, and how he was using it to shape public opinion.“We need to outdo them,” he declared. Indeed, we do. But if there’s one party which can, it’s the Revolutionary Communists of America.