On investigation and exposure of enemies versus “snitching”

Note: this post was originally the conclusion to our “PSA” post giving updates on cult activity, but several readers recommended we pull it into its own post.

Some thoughts, for our activist readers, on investigation and exposure of enemies versus “snitching”

In an attempt to suppress criticism and exposure of the rampant abuse by the CR-CPUSA, its few remaining supporters in the US and its supporters internationally in the International Communist League (ICL) started a campaign of labeling survivors as “snitches” and “feds,” a common tactic employed by shady “leftist” organizations (see also ISO, PSL, and IMT’s handling of allegations) to save their skin by covering up abuse and slandering victims. They will certainly take issue with this update on the cult’s activity, claiming we’re doing “snitch work” by investigating concerns and sharing our findings, so we just wanted to counter some of their logical fallacies.

For starters, the information presented here was very simple for us to discover – to be blunt, their security practices are not doing them any good. If the state had interest in this group of people, they would have found out all of these things and more long before us. Every single person we’ve named has been previously identified by the state through arrests or through their slow transition from liberal activism to radical activism. None of us have been contacted by any state agent and we have zero interest in collaborating with our oppressors. 

We also want to point out, the ICL and others parroting its “snitch” rhetoric never had an issue with the CR-CPUSA doxxing individuals they believed posed a threat to the masses. And ironically, more than once they went on a campaign of harassment based on mere rumor, against people who turned out to be innocent and had their lives wrecked by the slander, whereas we are publishing about people whose abusive behavior dozens of former members have publicly testified to, and many more have privately corroborated with us (not to mention, these are our own abusers as well). For better or worse, we don’t expect to see any state repression or repercussions against these abusers based on the information we’ve shared publicly, but hope this information can help others steer clear of those who seek to take advantage of people and sabotage their organizing work. 

While in the cult, we ourselves have been harassed and assaulted by police, and we all witnessed police using extreme violence against our comrades. They tried to murder Jared in cold blood in front of the Capitol of Texas because they wrongly believed he might be attempting to vandalize a poster. There is no justification for that. We (the editors of this website) do not believe anything would be achieved by imprisoning any of the current members – reform cannot take place in the prison system. We also do not believe the state actually cares about imprisoning leftists who are leading young activists down a path to early burnout and nihilism. Whether or not Jared is himself a fed, it is in the state’s interests to allow him to continue recruiting, as his track record proves he is incredibly efficient at demobilizing young people who might otherwise pose a threat to the status quo. 

Since the cult’s supporters have often tried to make political justifications for why we are “wrong” to expose abuse, some people may expect us to make replies through the same political lens. We will not be doing this. Our condemnation of the cult is unrelated to them claiming to be communist or Maoist, and we do not take issue with them specifically through a Marxist perspective – we’re not claiming to be “better communists.” Additionally, we will not be engaging in political debates over the validity of the cult’s ideology. These longstanding patterns of manipulation and abuse at the hands of the leading clique were not carried out in the service of their supposed Marxism and cannot be justified by it. Jared’s recent editorial addressing us avoids speaking on these because they are the actual nails in the coffin of his credibility. 

It is absolutely right for victims of abuse to speak out, and any person who claims to be fighting for liberation should always be found on the side of those harmed by this exploitative and violent system, including by its (unwitting or not) allies in toxic “revolutionary” organizations. In our view, the real fed work is shielding and nurturing abusers and other flaws in an organization, who will continue to fester in it until the whole thing crumbles along these fault lines. The real “liquidating” is tolerating things like sexism, transphobia, homophobia, coercion, assault, emotional manipulation, etc. until scores of formerly enthusiastic and dedicated organizers are broken down, demoralized, or slandered for their opposition to reaction. This is literally working on the side of the oppressor– looking back, the CR-CPUSA essentially worked as an organized mechanism to draw in activists, eliminate the best, and promote and strengthen the worst. Not coincidentally in our opinion, in a venn diagram of the CR-CPUSA’s most skilled organizers, its women members, and those whose lives and activism were most derailed by the organization, the circles overlap almost entirely. This is a lesson that should have been learned already, through the collapse of decades and decades of leftist organizations in the US who made similar mistakes. But learning takes time and the movement in the US is still taking its baby steps. But the key lesson, is that the CR-CPUSA didn’t collapse because it was publicly exposed, or because it was infiltrated. It collapsed because it so thoroughly harmed and misused its entire membership, treating us worse than any capitalist boss we’ve ever had, that it pushed the vast majority of us to eventually fight back and quit.