Discussing Structure
In July of 2022, the New York Young Communist League, with new elections for the organization’s leadership body looming, had an extended discussion which began with a discussion over the structure of this leadership body but quickly evolved into a discussion about the nature of the NY-YCL’s activity, organization, membership, internal democracy, etc. Members were encouraged to contribute written pieces to the debate to allow for asynchronous discussion and thought-out remarks. At the conclusion of a designated period of writing, reading, and discussion, the YCL arranged a special meeting open to the general body at which a proposal was reached by consensus and subsequently implemented.
First is presented the notes of the General Meeting that spawned this discussion, followed by the posts and various written out responses. Not included in this page are the informal replies, reactions, and discussions about each piece, which occurred in the YCL Slack.
The result of the discussion and voted-upon constitutional material can be found here.
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NY YCL General Meeting Minutes: 7/17/2022
Proposals concerning coordinating committee and elections:
Original Proposal (Proposal A):
Specify whether the coordinating committee elections are open for 7 or 10 elected positions + 8 subcommittee point people [the YCL has a variety of subcommittees, such as Anti-Imperialism, Culture, Education, Onboarding, etc., which each have a designated point person]. The subcommittee point people along with any youth leaders will be appointed by general election.
Proposal B:
Coordinating committee will be made of 11 people all directly up for election, and specialized positions (e.g. co-chairs, archivist, etc.) selected by the 11 after the general election. To compensate for this change, we will delay elections for a week to allow for self-nominations, and elections will be open for a week instead of a month.
Proposal C:
Coordinating committee will be composed only of specialized positions and subcommittee point people.
Result:
No majority (Proposal A: 10; Proposal B: 11; Proposal C: 11). Vote on proposals postponed to a special organizational meeting on August 7. Proposals will be elaborated in writing on Slack. Open discussions encouraged on Slack, Zoom, in-person.
Proposed agenda for the special organizational meeting:
Relationship of the subcommittees to the coordinating committee
Future of NY YCL
Formal structure of the NY YCL and voting procedure
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[Deleted].
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(Nothing put forth is my final positioning or a proposal - this is an ongoing discussion and these are some thoughts)
I will quote Comrade Turner and give my two cents afterwards.
“In response to a point made by C— regarding how the CP New York Exec doesn't include all heads of clubs or leaders of state-wide committees: yes, that may be true but doesn't necessarily mean that is the best way to go about things. Further, the YCL organizational structure is separate from the Party and doesn't need to conform to how the NY district is organized.”
While it is true that the way the party as a whole organizes itself may not be the best way to organize ourselves, I am sure that there is some reason to it — the party has had over 100 years to deliberate how to organize its branches and committees. We in the YCL currently are not operating off of any historical precedent, and are essentially running in the dark. I am much more apprehensive about coming up with a new organizational structure that lacks historical precedence as opposed to a model that has existed and been used within most Marxist-Leninist parties to-date. Regardless, as scientific socialists we have to remember that everything we do should also be considered an experiment in determining the best way to go about our work, thus if we feel it is not working and the bureaucratization Comrade Turner spoke of becomes a reality, we should not feel any apprehension about coming back to this discussion and addressing that.
“In response to a point made by P— regarding how the YCL organizationally doesn't mainly revolve around the subcommittee structure: I would say that is the case in large part due to collaborative work done with the Party. The YCL being the youth wing of the Party means that although it is organizationally separate it still engages in broader Party work, which of course goes beyond the YCL subcommittee structure.”
Nothing in this statement is incorrect, however I could use this same statement to argue that comprising the CC of primarily subcommittee heads is inadequate in encompassing the full spectrum of work that the YCL is engaged in. Also, in the case that more subcommittees are created (they will), more members need to be added to the CC, inflating it even more. Under the original proposal, nearly everyone in that room on July 17 would be a member of the CC, making the distinction between a general meeting and a coordinating committee meeting essentially non-existent, especially as more subcommittees are created.
“General response regarding [Proposal B—to limit the Coordinating Committee to 11 people directly elected]: I actually don't understand how limiting the number of people on the coordinating committee makes it more democratic or efficient. If we agree that the subcommittees represent central areas of work of the YCL, why should their elected point people not be immediately involved in discussions about the general direction of the subcommittees and the YCL as a whole? Creating a position on the coordinating committee for liasoning with the subcommittee point people just creates extra and unnecessary work. In general, not sure why having more people on the coordinating committee detracts from its democratic legitimacy or efficacy. Having more people will only help with the carrying out of tasks and give more people a direct sense of responsibility for the organization. Also, people often have to take time off for personal or other matters, so having more people will ensure that the work continues to get done. Further–this was a point Ani made–although there are still not too many people active, there are hundreds of people who have signed up for the YCL and we should expect and strive over the course of this year to get many more.”
The argument was never that less people make the CC more democratic or more efficient. The argument was that voting for every member of the CC as a whole body makes the CC more democratic, and that it is inefficient having a CC the size of the average general meeting (which comprises mostly of would-be CC members) when we are at the same time holding general meetings. Under the original proposal you may as well turn the general meetings into a decision making body equivalent to the CC and forget about creating a separate body all together.
Under [Proposal B], the CC would necessarily include the point people of subcommittees relevant to the discussion. Since the agenda for the next CC meeting would be created within a few days following any given meeting, it would give any subcommittee point person at least a week and a half notice to prepare for the meeting. There would be no need for cumbersome liasoning.
I disagree that having more people on the CC will help with carrying out tasks; if anything, what would help with carrying out tasks is the creation of deputy-point person roles within each subcommittee in order to lower the workload on the point people — strengthening the organs that actually carry out the tasks. These deputy point people can also fill in for the point person when they are unable to carry out their work for whatever reason. As for fostering a sense of responsibility, creating deputy point person roles would give the same amount of comrades a job that – in a more direct sense – help with carrying out the concrete tasks of the organization. There are comrades heading up subcommittees of 30 to 40 people by themselves; assisting them is what would actually help in carrying out tasks, not giving them more tasks to deal with by themselves.
Lastly, as for the point Comrade Ani made: Sure, there are many people who have joined the YCL and in the future we will surely have many more. However, we shouldn't base our decision making structure on numbers that don't materialize in front of us. Our organizational structure should be based on the amount of people that actually show up and participate. We are free to adjust in the future, but what we do now should be determined by current conditions and not speculated future conditions.
“I think the elected subcommittee heads should be actively involved with the coordinating committee. All of the point people who are some of the most actively involved in the YCL should be included in discussions of general orientation of the YCL and areas of work, rather than being informed of coordinating committee decisions through an intermediary. The formal structure of the YCL would then include subcommittee heads in collaboration with activists elected on the basis of their merits, who would bring ideas to the coordinating committee outside the areas of work of the subcommittees.”
While I agree that subcommittee heads should be involved with the coordinating committee, I do not think they should necessarily compose the coordinating committee. Reason being is that the purpose of the point person role is to head the subcommittee, to elevate its collective action, to investigate with the members on any problem or change in conditions that need to be acted upon, and unify the subcommittees membership – quite loaded tasks. The coordinating committee is not responsible for fleshing out every single detail of every single plan in every subcommittee, that is the task of the subcommittees and it is also why they should not be one in the same. If subcommittee work is carried out effectively there is much more work to be done on the subcommittee level than the coordinating committee level.
I am not opposed to subcommittee point people running for positions on the CC, but I am opposed to composing the CC of subcommittee point people for no reason other than that they are subcommittee point people. It throws more work onto the same people who are already the “most actively involved,” which will likely detract in some fashion from their work. I cannot imagine that giving them more work to do will somehow aid in carrying out tasks. Along with that, comprising the CC of subcommittee point people will only monopolize jobs and responsibility among fewer members, giving less people a sense of responsibility in the YCL.
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Regarding democracy and efficiency, our proposal (‘Proposal B’) aims at actually creating practicality out of the coordinating committee. The original proposal (‘Proposal A’) would have 18 people on the coordinating committee when only 20 attended our last general meeting. Most general meetings are attended by less than 18 people. If the suggested biweekly meeting time for the CC is accommodated under the original proposal, it would essentially lead to the equivalent of a general meeting three times a month (The 2 ‘CC’ meetings and the 1 general meeting all being attended by the same people). This would render our meeting structure to be entirely superfluous. If our primary decision making body is to become relevant within the organization, we must make distinctions from the makeup of the general body. The current proposal fails to do so. We may as well just convert our general meetings into decision making entities, rather than having such inefficient superfluity. If we recognize that the reason for the reconstituting of the CC and our extensive labor in an attempt to do so is because of its former irrelevance as a significant and necessary entity, we must avoid structural issues that will lead this reconstitution to the same fate.
Further, as far as the ‘liaison’ for subcommittees is concerned, I addressed this in the original meeting. There would be no bureaucratic liaison in this sense under our proposal. We simply proposed that subcommittee point people be called to coordinating committee meetings when relevant. This produces a direct line of communication without disrupting the democratic decision making process of the central body. Ultimately, subcommittee point people are supposed to guide their subcommittee, there is nothing inherent to the role that should necessitate an automatic seat in the central body other than the democratic decision to deem them so.
More than anything, the meeting on Sunday illuminated a confused understanding of how the subcommittees relate to the CC and vice versa, this will be clarified in our final proposal. A more detailed and in depth written proposal will be written in the coming days that will hopefully clarify some misunderstandings, as well as incorporate a lot of the productive inputs people were making at Sunday’s meeting.
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Thoughts on the reorganizing of the CC
There has been much discussion regarding issues relating to the CC. I’m overall happy that we are finally having a more in depth discussion and working towards reorganizing this structure to promote more activity. But while some proposals I think are great, there are some which I find a bit concerning and may unknowingly lead to problems in the future. In a general sense I am supportive of Proposal B presented by Japhy and Jafari. I also think some aspects of Cameron S’s Proposal C is a good idea. Overall a decrease in CC size will stand to benefit our org. On the Contrary I see no benefit of increasing the size of the CC through the inclusion of subcommittee point people.
As it stands right now the organizing work subcommittees have been taking up is a compensation to the lack of work being done by the coordinating committee. This in turn (through many peoples observations) has led to a dichotomization of our organizational work as each subcommittee has become its own lane of activism.
Furthermore the inclusion of subcommittee point people would be undemocratic as point people are only voted on by the active subcommittee members. I believe it was an idea by comrade Ben who stated that the solution in response would be to make the elections of point people open to everyone outside of the subcommittees. Although at this point of time there is a lot of crossover between subcommittee members, I am concerned for the precedent this would set for the future as now included in the voting process are people who are not involved or understand the specific subcommittee operations.
Reduction of CC size I believe will lead to more centralized and organized efforts. But I believe that this will only lead to such results when coupled with how we define the subcommittees and their relationship to the CC. I think that addressing this is addressing the heart of the situation: A lack of defining roles.
A semi-proposal expanding on Proposal B
There must exist a hierarchical chain with checks and balances based on the general organizing efforts and campaigns being conducted. This hierarchy will ensure a smooth flow of processes, people don’t become spread thin, roles are clearly defined, and communication is streamlined.
At the center of this hierarchy is the coordinating committee. This committee gives guidance on YCL efforts, campaigns, and other general organizing activities. Keeping this body smaller with 11 members as per proposal B will ensure a proportionate amount to the size of our cadre preventing the CC from having an unintended majority in all decision making processes and leaving out the remaining members.
The CC should, through these campaigns and organizing goals then instruct and be in tight communication fleshing out all important and specific details with the subcommittee point people who will inform on the feasibility of the plans, carry out and coordinate these more specific branches of activity. The remaining cadre along with all other point people and CC members will then carry out the groundwork for our projects.
[Image not included].
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Japhy and I made proposal B for a few reasons. My reasons are:
We have a current active membership. Leadership coordination should reflect the size of that membership, not numbers on paper. Making the committee large when we already have a small active membership base eradicates the need for a committee.
The subcommittee rules are incredibly lax at the moment. Anyone could start one, and there are no formal rules for when one goes defunct. There is no formal process at the moment for a democratic election for a subcommittee point person. Automatically giving a coordinating committee position under these lax rules makes the committee possibly less democratic.
Our work goes beyond subcommittees - we have core activities that people participate in. The most active people in those activities should be given a chance to run and represent themselves.
This makes the voting pool larger - currently the debate is between size 7 or size 10 for the voting pool. Proposal B would make it size 11.
Making the subcommittee a fixed size is good for simplicity and clarity. Instead of the size depending on the number of subcommittees, which could vary greatly, our number is set on 11 for now to avoid confusion.
I would also like to formalize a report structure between the subcommittee point people and the coordinating committee. I propose that the subcommittee point people have to show up monthly to a coordinating committee meeting - to give reports and discuss future committee work.
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Not a “junior Party”
The YCL should be a little more open than the Party and its character as a movement and social organization should be more prominent than its internal structures. Trying to become more structured than the Party itself I think is moving in the wrong direction. Thinking of the YCL as a way to test organizational models that the Party or other YCLs or organizations could draw on I think is a misunderstanding of the YCL as a type of "junior Party" or "Party of youth." The role of the YCL is to build a big, broad and militant movement of young people with a vibrant cultural life.
On subcommittees and clubs
I think the automatic inclusion of subcommittee heads into the CC confuses subcommittees (or working groups) with clubs.
Clubs have their basis in concrete communities (eg. neighborhoods, workplaces, campuses, etc), and decide what issues to work on based on the issues faced by those communities. I think that's how we should build our YCL.
There will certainly be overlap with Party clubs, and that’s okay. The point of the YCL is for young people, in the Party and outside the Party, to have their own space in which to develop an approach to organizing young people that fits the times.
We created subcommittees as a way to gather people together because we began developing in the context of the pandemic and most of our meetings have been online, but in the long term I think we need to develop mainly on the basis of building roots in specific communities where young people are concentrated and face special problems created by capitalism, by monopoly power, by the fascist danger.
I think it's a mistake to think of the subcommittees as the organizational basis of the YCL. It's also not even currently its main basis. Much of its work (eg tabling, going to or organizing protests, recruitment, relationship and coalition building — for example around housing struggles in Brooklyn) has been taking place outside of and independent from the subcommittees.
I think the automatic inclusion of subcommittee chairs into the CC will provide more impetus for the multiplication of subcommittees than for developing close ties to specific communities of struggle.
I also don't agree with splitting the YCL into a number of single issue subgroups, which I think is what we're doing if we conceive of the subcommittees as the organizational basis of the YCL. It seems to me to mimic the current division of our movements into various single issue organizations.
It seems to me that in DSA, there has also developed a concept of working groups as constituting a basic foundation of the organization, side by side with branches (their version of clubs, but too big). I think we should study whether this has helped to strengthen the functioning and unity of their branches before implementing this policy for ourselves.
Council Communism?
I think the proposal is also unconsciously borrowing from syndicalism. The idea that the chair of each local collective should automatically be included in more centralized bodies comes from syndicalist (utopian) models, not from any experience in the Communist movement.
I understand that people are trying to figure out the relationship between the subcommittees and the CC, but I think this structure creates more problems than it solves.
Some people will find it hard to maintain their roles both as subcommittee chairs and as members of the CC and will find the need to prioritize one over the other, with the result that one will suffer.
Thinking of each member of the CC as responsible to deal only with specific issues narrows our organization and doesn't allow for enough flexibility.
People’s movements develop unevenly with different issues coming into forefront at different times. There may be times the CC needs to help concentrate the efforts of the YCL on specific tasks, and to focus on a specific development or question rather than trying to keep an even focus on every aspect of the movement. Not every issue will at all times have equal significance to the development of a mass youth movement. There may be many times when the entire CC or a significant part of it needs to concentrate its efforts in a specific direction. We shouldn’t lock people in the CC into rigid roles or movement silos. Roles should change based on the needs of the moment.
There is too much overlap and complexity in the general movement for the YCL to have a specialized committee to deal with every possible area of struggle, and there may even be flareups in the movement that don't correspond to any specific subcommittee in formation. For example, we don't have a gun violence subcommittee, and yet at various points this has emerged as one of the sharpest issues among young people.
The role of individual people in movements also change. What happens if someone on the basis of their active involvement in the environmental movement becomes chair of an environmental subcommittee and therefore a position on the CC, but some months later has become more active in the housing movement? Are they still on the CC? Are they still chair of the environmental subcommittee?
What happens if a subcommittee is dissolved, or a new one forms? Should someone be automatically added to the YCL leadership body simply on the basis of proposing the formation of a new subcommittee that is accepted? Is this person necessarily someone that absolutely must be added to the CC, compared to every other person in the YCL, no matter their other contributions?
How big should the CC be?
Regarding numbers of people, the larger a collective, the more representative it may be, but the harder it will be to schedule meetings and to reach a quorum. If the CC is too large it will likely either not meet very frequently, or at least not with sufficient quorum to arrive at any decisions, undermining its ability to actually lead and coordinate the work of the YCL, or it will find the need to elect a smaller body to meet in between its own meetings in order to carry out decisions.
What is democratic?
I don't see any reason why a subcommittee chair should be exempted from an election by the wider YCL to the CC.
Speaking hypothetically, would the chair of a nominally active subcommittee of three people necessarily be making a bigger contribution to the YCL than a member who comes out to every action and tabling event, or who is recruiting large numbers of people, or who is creating the basis of a new club, but who chairs no subcommittee?
Or would the chair of a small subcommittee that meets infrequently with few people be making the same contribution as the chair of a subcommittee involving large numbers of people that through their work have made a major impact in the broader movements?
I think it's a mistake to assume every subcommittee will have equal significance to the needs and work of the YCL and the general movement at any particular moment, or that a subcommittee chair is necessarily making a bigger contribution than someone else who is not a subcommittee chair. Not every subcommittee will even necessarily accept the general political outlook of the YCL and the Party. The Party’s own experience does not support the idea that every subcommittee (or commission) will automatically make a positive contribution to its development.
I think the general membership of the YCL should have a say about whether or not a specific individual, subcommittee chair or not, should be represented in its general leadership body.
Relationship between the subcommittees and the YCL
I think the subcommittees bear closest resemblance to commissions in the Party. I think the purpose of the subcommittees should be to help the CC develop its thinking and approach to specific issues, but ultimately should receive direction from and be accountable to the CC as the YCL’s elected leadership, so that the YCL as a whole can determine what we need the subcommittees to do, and determine what specialized subcommittees are needed. Subcommittees shouldn't run the YCL, the YCL should run the subcommittees. We are not a coalition of siloed issues.
Naturally, the CC should consult the subcommittees on issues they are working on. If an item on a CC agenda involves the work of a specific subcommittee, why would the CC not invite that subcommittee chair to present on that issue and participate in the discussion?
On the other hand, it makes no sense to clutter every CC meeting or every general meeting of the YCL with a report back from every single subcommittee, regardless of whether or not there has even been any major development in that area! Will constructing a CC out of the subcommittee chairs help cut back on agenda item clutter? Not only do I think it will not cut back on the clutter, but such a CC will probably also tend to ignore other developments taking place in the YCL and general movement that don’t happen to have any special relevance to the subcommittees currently in place.
“They are trying to dissolve our subcommittees!"
I very much disagree with the notion that not including subcommittee chairs in the CC amounts to dissolving them. Since this would be a new policy not currently in place, how would not implementing a brand new policy be the same as dissolving something we have already had for some time? It involves no change. This is not a reasonable argument.
We are not having a debate about whether or not subcommittee heads can be elected to the CC. We are having a debate about whether or not they should be automatically added to the YCL’s central leadership body without any input or election by the wider YCL.
I think the charge that not accepting this novel approach to organization that no one has ever used before amounts to “dissolving the subcommittees” is a bad faith argument, as if those who disagree with implementing this policy are promoting some sort of liquidationism.
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Considerations and Clarifications
As the central leadership body of the New York Young Communist League, the Coordinating Committee (CC) should be a thoroughly democratic structure. Not only must the decision-making process of the CC be as democratic as possible, but the reconstitution of the CC itself must be executed in a democratic fashion. Under the original proposal made regarding the CC, also known as ‘Proposal A’, the CC would inevitably become a defunct entity, subsequently leading to the creation of this proposal.
18 people is too many. Although this contradiction brings about several issues, first and foremost it makes redundant our general meeting, the primary medium for the general body’s engagement with the league and its day-to-day practices. CC meetings would simply become general meetings with a handful of people excluded, alienating them arbitrarily. We would have 3 meetings per month (2 CC meetings and 1 general meeting), which would quickly become superfluous and laborious, rendering the CC once again an inefficient and impractical entity. The original point of reconstituting the CC is to prevent this redundancy from taking place, yet we are embedding this very same redundancy within the structure of the new CC! Under Proposal A we will inevitably be doomed to begin this process again, which should not be the goal of our central planning, especially in such a crucial time for our organization.
Subcommittee elections are not yet thoroughly democratic. A common rebuttal to our proposal was that subcommittee heads are elected and are therefore subject to a similarly democratic process. Such is not the case. Most subcommittees are just starting out and have scarce members attending meetings, somewhat obscuring such democracy. For example, I (Japhy) was initially elected as the point person of the Mutual Aid Subcommittee, I was the only one that volunteered out of 5 people in the total meeting. Without opposition, I became the subcommittee point person. I later gave the point person position to Comrade Jacob, who did not have to participate in any election. This is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it was necessary because I was unable to carry out my original plan for the subcommittee and Jacob’s fulfillment of the position meant that it could actually carry on in its reformation. The point is that this process is not democratic enough for it to constitute automatic spots on the CC without a more direct and general election.
Subcommittee point people don’t need a central body. What is ultimately being forgotten throughout this process is the original purpose of the subcommittees. The subcommittees are supposed to carry out the work of their given field. There is no inherent need for all subcommittee point people to have a private leadership group, such would confuse and distort the roles of the subcommittees and their point people. The differing subcommittees scarcely collaborate and are supposed to be concentrated on their work rather than that of any other given subcommittee. When collaboration and communication is necessary, there is already the medium of the general meeting for subcommittee reports which should serve this purpose adequately. The reconstitution of the CC in a form that would be inextricably linked to the subcommittee point people as in Proposal A and C would only serve to create a bureaucracy divorced from the general body. As Comrade Scottie insightfully noted:
“The purpose of the point person role is to head the subcommittee, to elevate its collective action, to investigate with the members on any problem or change in conditions that need to be acted upon, and unify the subcommittees membership – quite loaded tasks. The coordinating committee is not responsible for fleshing out every single detail of every single plan in every subcommittee, that is the task of the subcommittees and it is also why they should not be one in the same. If subcommittee work is carried out effectively there is much more work to be done on the subcommittee level than the coordinating committee level.”
The subcommittees were never supposed to be the primary generative structure within our organization. We must remember first and foremost that the subcommittees were a way to have structured working groups, which has no doubt been a success. However, the opposing proposals seek to fundamentally alter the character of the subcommittees from working groups into an overly formalized link to the CC. It will make the relationship between the subcommittees and CC primary, relegating our general body to an alienated level. No longer will our general meetings and general membership be the diverse, creative, and generative aspect of our organization. Rather, a small bureaucracy will be created between subcommittee point people and the CC, commanding the general body unilaterally. As a rapidly growing organization, our goal must be to engage and embrace the ideas of incoming members (as well as more seasoned ones) within the context of our general meeting; such cannot be achieved with Proposal A or C [both of which include Subcommittee Point people in the Coordinating Committee].
The Proposal
The election of the Coordinating Committee (CC) member should be carried out as follows. There will be 11 spots in the CC, each chosen by the democratic will of the entire body of the New York YCL. Participating potential electees will self-nominate for the election; subsequently, each participating voter will fill out a ballot voting 11 people to make up the CC. The 11 participating potential electees with the most votes will become the CC.
Among themselves, the CC will elect 2 Co-Chairs, a Secretary, Treasurer, and an Archivist. Each participating CC member will vote for people for each of the 4 positions, and the most voted will become so. The CC shall meet once every 2 weeks.
This CC format is new for us, and will therefore be subject to a 12-month probationary period ending precisely 12 months after the incoming CC is inducted, after which the general body can decide whether it is functional or needs to be changed, and action can be executed accordingly.
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Don't know if I'll be able to make the meeting today. I think that the structure doesn't much matter and that this has become a way over determined debate that has not really addressed any of the main tasks confronting us.
I think the things we have to consider are how we set political priorities, how we grow (especially how we organize upstate), how we set benchmarks of growth and engagement, and how to not fall into self confirming group think.
I think these are slightly harder questions to solve than is being discussed here. I think one task we could all engage in is to study the actually existing movements in NYC/NY state in order to think about how we plan to relate to them.
My main concern is without some structured way to have that conversation, we won't be able to break out of our current process which amounts to, “I see there's a demo happening online, seems cool. Should we go to it? Yeah I guess”.
Many YCLs around the world have departments and commissions and in fact do structure themselves as junior parties, for good reason, it's a great way to train people for the issues, structures, movement familiarity which they will need as party members. Once again, without any benchmarks, requirements, any language about job description, I think we will unintentionally and unnecessarily disorganize ourselves.
It's not really an argument about democracy. Last time we met I proposed an amendment that, should structure a) stand, the heads of subcommittees would be voted on by the general body. This seems to take care of much of the concern about democracy.
So then we’re down to size. Well, NYC is a city of 8 million people and then there's the rest of the state.
Should we gear ourselves to have the capacity to organize and put to work the now 168 people who are dues paying members?
Or should we say, “seems like only a few people show up, let's make our organizing committee smaller?” Again, this is a weird argument to me. It's blaming the people who signed up for not getting more involved. That's kinda backwards of how to organize. Maybe we’re not doing all we can to motivate and engage our membership. And so to intentionally demobilize ourselves even further seems like a downward spiral of a move.
I think it's good to experiment with structure. That's why I have no strong feelings about this vote in particular. If we choose option b) and it decreases our capacity (which I suspect it will) that will become clear to all and we can vote to change it.
If we chose option b) and it revitalizes us and makes us stronger, then that too will become apparent. So that's why I say, I don't care too much about this vote, but I do care about developing a serious, well organized YCL with the capacity to take on organizational tasks bigger than just showing up to rallies organized by other people, and generally tailing the NY activist scene. I think option a), with the addition of general election for subcommittee heads, will accomplish this goal and set us on a path of growth and political development in all the main areas of work that confront us. I think option b) will decrease our capacity. But I trust us all to be able to evaluate what ever choice we make, and if it's not working, to change it.
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Hey everyone,
I think our priorities should be as follows:
Establish a structure that allows the CC to be subject to OC majority, i.e. public CC meeting agendas & notes/minutes, OC’s ability to petition something onto the CC’s agenda, OC’s ability to vote to dissolve an inactive CC, OC and CC’s ability to amend the structure during the 1 year “probationary period” (subject to OC majority vote), etc
Determine priorities for the organization as a whole and thus CC. There has been much talk about using the CC to organize coordinated, ongoing YCL-wide campaigns along the lines of the Fulton Houses campaign; we should determine if this is the best use of our time and resources. Priorities for internal cadre development should also be decided, essentially deciding how to best guide education and onboarding to foster an active, educated, and ever-growing cadre. Any other issues that concern the entire OC should be clarified and, if applicable, voted on.
Use the ability to amend the structure to further formalize and develop the relationship between the CC and Subcommittees. This has been central to the discussions thus far and is not adequately addressed by Proposal B, but should not be reason to delay the vote further. Discussion regarding subcommittees should be ongoing and formalized as we iron out our YCL-wide priorities, as outlined in point 2, and thus be amended to the newly formed structure.
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First:
Cam S discusses the relationship between the CC and the “OC” (the general body of the YCL), arguing that the former must be subordinated to the latter. He puts forward a few proposals, such as public CC meeting notes (something the previous CC also passed), the ability of the OC to dissolve a dysfunctional CC, etc., which can be summed up as the OC being the essentially superior body. I agree with this wholeheartedly. The general body is the “engine,” the fundamentally generative and driving force of the organization, and the CC is the “coolant” that ensures teh engine is able to function smoothly and with minimal interruption. The CC cannot be the generative and driving force of the organization. This overemphasizes the “centralism” of our organizational maxim, “democratic centralism,” and leads to the CC being a “commanding” body over the membership. There will always be more and less experienced cadre in our organization, but, particularly at our current stage, where our organization is small, without an approach that encourages active participation and values the thoughts of these “less experienced” cadre, we will lose our capacity to expand and act as a mass organization (rather than an isolated and bureaucratic left-sect–a popular model in the US today). Of course, there will always be a strata of the organization that serves to guide and educate the general body, particularly new members, and that makes decisions where time-/situation-sensitive. But this task can only be identified with the CC in a limited sense, and must be the distributed role of the entire active, experienced section of the cadre, which will necessarily be vastly larger than the CC can/should ever be. Again, I reiterate that this is particularly crucial at our stage of development as we grow and navigate the difficulty of becoming a mass organization.
Additionally brought up by Cameron S and frequently brought up in previous discussions is the idea of formulating priorities for the organization, particularly campaigns (which I tentatively define as: concentrated and semi-planned work in specific geographic areas over an extended period of time, which would involve a multitude of tactics depending on the immediate need). The classic example of this in our own organization is our work at Fulton Houses NYCHA complex, which began as tabling, evolved into PPE distribution, which evolved into mutual aid, tenant organizing, block parties, demonstrations, and voter registration, and which culminated in our participation in an progressive Democrat electoral campaign endorsed by the Fulton Houses tenant union and a freezing of the privatization of the complex. During this period, a variety of alternate tactics and ideas were discussed and employed and dropped depending on our capacity/their feasibility, such as newsletters, etc. Insofar as the discussion comes up of coalition building or left unity, it should be noted that the successive development of our work there led to other organizations, from DSA to WWP to PSL to progressive housing organizations and Democratic electoral campaigns, to participate in our work and even request assistance or support from our organization (requests which, due to capacity problems, we almost universally had to decline). Our organizational structure, although existent on paper, was even at that time extremely limited–the fundamental thrust of the organizing came from rank-and-file committing to working in a single area for an extended period of time and discussing and planning work on that basis. To me, this is the logical next step for our organization, which can only happen nevertheless very hesitantly and ineffectively. We need to experiment, discuss, abandon campaigns and restart them, etc., we need to learn how to act as the organic representatives of a section of the working class. Ben correctly criticizes the idea of “tailing the NY activist scene” and “attending protests that we don’t organize.” But there are two responses to this state of affairs: either we can choose to try and attempt to organize our own protests or lead the activist scene, which is, in my opinion, the mistake of our analogous left-sect organizations, or we can attempt to construct a base in the working class through the campaign model, cleaving closer to the better parts of the DSA model of organizing–of which we should especially highlight the value of electoral campaigns, which I think the former path precludes. (In this sense, as well, I’m wary of abstract criticism of protests: we should delineate between mass protests, where millions of workers are fighting various struggles against capitalism, and where we should attempt to play as significant and leading a role as possible, and activist protests, which center around specific issues and tend to be attended solely by other organizations and activists).
We should also be prepared to fail under either structural proposal. No organizational form or commitment to work will resolve our subjective levels of underdevelopment, which can only be overcome through time, growth, and development. Luxemburg writes that the revolution “can be prepared only by a series of “defeats”.” In the same sense, our organization can (and will!) only grow by repeated failure, organizationally, ideologically, in our work, etc.
Second:
In my view, Proposal A has the following flaws:
It hampers our organizational flexibility. Subcommittees are not the content of our organizing, but a form in which we organize our work. The content of our organizing is the activity of the general body, which largely exceeds the subcommittees as they currently stand, and which can only be limitedly represented by subcommittees. We should feel free to form and destroy any form of organizing depending on what our needs are, and solidifying subcommittees in the CC limits the tendency to do that. The Student Organizing subcommittee, for example, shouldn’t force itself to meet over the summer when they have no work to do to maintain a “slot” in the CC, and neither should an active, ongoing specific campaign feel the need to organize itself generally through the subcommittee form.
In the same vein, it, by validating one form of organizational work, ovemphasizes that style of work. The large sum of our “expertise,” whether in housing or otherwise, was derived from active members of various campaigns who, in some cases, consolidated in subcommittees. By hinging the organization on the campaign form and the general body, that expertise can actually be consistently and active promoted through activity, rather than attempting to create and consolidate active members through subcommittee work, which is often (although not always) not the best way to do so.
It constricts our leadership body and pushes it towards being an “organizing” body that “decides what we do.” An earlier objection was raised that the CC shouldn’t be “ordering around” the activists–this is 100% true, and is why we need to emphasize that the CC is subordinate to the general body (and consequently, in practice, subordinate to the forms in which the general body organizes its work–like subcommittees or campaigns). No matter what form we choose, there will always be a section of active membership “outside” the CC, a section that is rarely just the people who are organizing meetings for subcommittees–this section needs to be given a distinct place and appreciation in the organization, which can only happen through a subordinate and “non-organizing” CC (versus a superior and “organizing” general body).
Proposal B:
Reflects the organization abstractly as a whole, and so selects both organizers, subcommittee heads, and active members, and forms a general leadership on that basis that is thus able to accurately reflect the general body.
Is small enough to consist of an effective leadership body on one hand, and to necessitate going “outside” the CC, ie. the general body, for organizing initiative. Because it doesn’t represent the entire active section of the YCL, it structurally needs to turn to the general body to function. This is particularly important when we compare this structure to other organizations where the executive body commands the general body.
These are the main reasons I think Proposal B is preferable.