Freedom Road Socialist Organization

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a Marxist–Leninist organization in the United States. FRSO formed in 1985 amid the collapse of the Maoist-oriented New Communist movement that emerged in the 1970s. The FRSO's component groups believed that ultraleftism was the US New Communist movement's main error. Merging under the FRSO banner, these groups hoped to consolidate the movement's remnants in a single organization and move beyond the sectarianism that marked the previous decades.^{[citation needed]}

Membership

FRSO has two levels of membership. "General" members pay dues annually and must attend one online seminar per year. "Cadre" members must adhere to Leninist organizational norms.^[2]

In December 2020, FRSO claimed "over 500" general members.^[3] In March 2021, FRSO claimed almost 1000 members and "hundreds" of cadre.^[1]

Publications

FRSO's main publication is the website and monthly paper Fight Back! News and its Spanish section Lucha y Resiste.^[4] From 1985 to the mid-1990s, FRSO continued the Proletarian Unity League's Forward Motion.^{[citation needed]} For a short period after 1993, FRSO continued the Socialist Organizing Network's Moving Forward.^{[citation needed]}

Ideology

The FRSO is a Marxist-Leninist and democratic centralist organization inspired by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, William Z. Foster, Mother Bloor, and Harry Haywood.^[5]

In labor, FRSO advocates a strategy of the building of a "militant minority" within the unions and opposing "collaborating union officials".^[6]

In elections, FRSO encourages members to tactically vote against the "most reactionary" candidate, usually Republicans.^[7]

FRSO recognizes China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam as socialist countries.^[5] FRSO "positively evaluates" Albania, the Soviet Union, and the Warsaw Pact countries, but argues they "gave up on Marxism".^[5] FRSO also supports the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and Nicolas Maduro as "leading the masses of people in building a new society".^[8] FRSO participates in the annual International Communist Seminar.^[9] FRSO is Anti-Zionist.^[10]

History

Origins

In 1985, the Proletarian Unity League and the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters merged to create FRSO. In 1986, FRSO fused with the Organization for Revolutionary Unity. In 1988, FRSO absorbed the Amílcar Cabral-Paul Robeson Collective.^[11]

In 1993, FRSO merged with the Socialist Organizing Network (SON) and adopted the placeholder name "Freedom Road Socialist Organization / Socialist Organizing Network" (FRSO/SON). The SON was formed by former members of the League of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS), which had dissolved in the late 1980s.^[11] The 1994 FRSO Congress, which formalized the merger, was called the "First Congress of FRSO/SON". However, no new name emerged, and FRSO/SON reverted back to FRSO afterwards.^{[citation needed]}

1999 split

In response to Tiananmen Square and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, FRSO began to develop two distinct positions on socialist countries. The "Left Refoundation" group, aligned with democratic socialism, argued that these events resulted from a deep crisis of Marxism. The other group, aligned with Marxism-Leninism, argued that these events resulted from revisionism rather than failures within Marxism.^[11] These divisions grew during the 1990s. In 1998, the Left Refoundation group wrote an internal document, "Theses on Left Refoundation", and requested an organization-wide discussion.^[12] The FRSO National Executive Committee (NEC) unanimously rejected this discussion.^[13] In 1999, the Left Refoundation group received a second hearing, at which the NEC and FRSO as a whole split in two.^[14]

Both factions claimed the name "Freedom Road Socialist Organization". In 2006, the Left Refoundation group renamed itself to "FRSO/OSCL", combining the English and Spanish acronym. In 2019, the Left Refoundation group renamed itself to Liberation Road.^[15]

FBI raid

On September 24, 2010, over 70 FBI agents raided homes of antiwar activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The FBI claimed to be searching for evidence of "material support of terrorism".^[16] FRSO formed the "Committee to Stop FBI Repression" and claimed that FBI agents left behind documents indicating that the raids were aimed at people suspected of FRSO membership, due to FRSO's Anti-War Committee (AWC), which politically supported the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).^[17] FRSO further claimed that the FBI had placed informants inside its organization.^[18]

On February 26, 2014, a federal judge unsealed the extensive documents the FBI collected during its nearly three-year surveillance of the FRSO.^[19]

Congresses

FRSO has held post-split organizational Congresses in 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022:

• 2001: Third Congress: Two years after the 1999 split, FRSO delegates adopted a new version of the main Unity Statement, which explicitly identified Marxism–Leninism as the organization's political ideology. Previous iterations of the FRSO Unity Statement had not mentioned Marxism–Leninism by name, owing to the ideological divisions within the organization at the time.^{[citation needed]}
• 2004: Fourth Congress: FRSO produced a new unity statement laying out its line the national question in the U.S. In a statement released after the congress, the organization called this statement "a concluding step in placing our organization on a Marxist–Leninist basis", in contrast to the social-democratic-leaning ideologies embraced by the Left Refoundation group.^[20]
• 2007: Fifth Congress:
  • Unlike most communist organizations, the FRSO had historically not had a political program. FRSO adopted the first part of its organizational program, titled "Class in the U.S. and Our Strategy for Revolution", which outlines the various classes in the United States and the FRSO's general strategy for revolution. This document was released after the congress with the intention of integrating it into the final FRSO program upon its completion.^[21]
  • The Fifth Congress also adopted and released "The Movement Against the War in Iraq: A New Period and Our Tasks", a document covering FRSO's approach to the antiwar movement under the George W. Bush administration and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.^[22]
• 2010: Sixth Congress: Took place before the FBI raids that year. It produced a statement from the organization, a main political report, and seven resolutions on different areas of struggle, including the immigrant rights movement.^[23] A statement released after the Congress emphasized both unprecedented growth in membership and its developing work in the U.S. labor movement, the student movement and the movements of oppressed nationalities.^[24]
• 2014: Seventh Congress: FRSO called this Congress "in and of itself a victory" given that it came "four years after the FBI raids and grand jury subpoenas charging activists, including members of the FRSO, with material support for terrorism."^[25] At the congress, delegates approved three reports outlining the FRSO's line on the domestic political situation in the U.S., the international situation and the economy.^[26] The same statement summed up the congress as "a great success, in terms of defining current conditions, our growing capacity to lead and influence people's movements, deepening our understanding of Marxism-Leninism, and recruiting to and building the FRSO."^[27]
• 2018: Eighth Congress: FRSO approved three resolutions on the domestic political, international and economic situation, which "provide a basis for understanding basic conditions, the forces in motion in society, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the movements for social change and revolution." Sixteen months into Donald Trump's presidency, the FRSO saw the period as "very dynamic and fluid", marked by "major attacks and widespread, large-scale fightbacks...As communists, we must lead campaigns that attempt to win all that can be won. Fortune favors the brave and bold."^[28]
• 2022: Ninth Congress: FRSO adopted resolutions on Party Building and the formation of African American and Chicano commissions, as well as resolutions on Palestine and Ukraine. It adopted a Main Political Report, and FRSO also adopted new sections to its Program.^[29]

See also

• American Left
• History of the socialist movement in the United States
• New Communist Movement
• Democratic Socialists of America
• Communist Party USA

References

External links

• Freedom Road Socialist Organization (majority group, also called Freedom Road - Fight Back!)
• Liberation Road (minority split, also named Freedom Road Socialist Organization from 1999 to 2019)
• Freedom Road Socialist Organization at the Marxists Internet Archive (MIA) Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism Online (EROL)