Left Inside/Outside Project
The Left Inside/Outside Project first announced itself in a letter, titled “The Left We Want to Build: Breaking Out of the Margins,” published on the FRSO-aligned website Organizing Upgrade on June 9, 2017.[2]
The letter laid out a bold plan by America’s leading communist groups to massively expand their collective influence both inside and outside the Democratic Party. In the wake of “the ascent of authoritarian white nationalism to the White House and the GOP’s headlock on 25 state governments and Congress,” the letter called for “building a left trend—an alignment of organizations and individuals—based on strategic unity.”
Further: “We believe that … only determined, long-term, energetic efforts to break out of the margins based on a common view of how to engage in our electoral system, while also building mass protest, offer a chance to make the left a force in U.S. politics and, eventually, a contender for power.”
The letter went on to propose better coordination among America’s largest Marxist organizations, to increase infiltration of the Democratic Party, and to further pressure it from without, through mass protest action:
“The fight against the far right is strongest when it is energized by an inspiring vision for economic and social justice. Campaigns for openly socialist candidates and progressive challenges to neoliberal Democrats must all be part of the political mix. And the opportunities for broadening the reach of progressive and left forces will be greatest when they both struggle within and work in tandem with the larger anti-Trump or anti-right front.”
The letter described this proposed communist–socialist alliance as a “left trend.”
“All of the organizations and networks we belong to have important strengths, but also very real limitations in terms of size, demographics, or geographic or sectoral concentration. None of them, in their current form, are capable of playing the strategic role we believe the left must play in the next period. A left trend might have that potential—the ability to reach far beyond the existing left to create a force that can move us from defense to offense.”
The letter was signed “In unity and struggle” by key leaders of America’s most powerful Marxist organizations, CPUSA, FRSO, DSA, and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS).[3]
Marxist insurrection
- See also: 2020 Marxist insurrection and George Floyd
On Tuesday June 30 2020 project issued an update: {{quotebox|We're at a crossroads. Social movements on the left and the right are on the move, in the midst of a global pandemic, an unrelenting economic crisis, the threat of ecological collapse, and growing attention to the institutional brutalities committed against Black people. The Trump administration is steering the U.S. towards a precipice, doubling down on white supremacy and the aggressive protection of capital. The left, with all of its gains over the past several years, is wrestling with how to orient to the 2020 electoral races in general and the Biden candidacy in particular.
Join the Left Inside/Outside Project and Organizing Upgrade in a discussion with radical electoral organizers Sendolo Diaminah of The Carolina Federation, Kristian Hernandez of Democratic Socialists of America, and Sochie Nnaemeka of Working Families Party to take stock of the rapidly shifting political terrain and how it should inform the left's electoral strategy.
Co-sponsored by CCDS, CPUSA, LeftRoots, Liberation Road, and the People's Advocacy Institute.
