FRSO, WWP, and PSL — Which should I join?

# FRSO, WWP, and PSL — Which should I join? **tl;dr**: *FRSO understands class consciousness to be raised through practice, and emphasizes building working class power through mass orgs and union building first and foremost; WWP does work in mass orgs and has a strong focus on the national question + queer liberation; PSL produces and distributes a lot of educational materials, and while they also participate in mass orgs, prioritize party-building.* Lots of people are getting interested in joining a revolutionary socialist organization or party, but don't have a good overview of the difference between the major ones: Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), Workers World Party (WWP), and Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). Hopefully this will help give a cursory overview, but nothing can replace reading through each of their own documents and participating in their on-the-ground work. ## POLITICS & HISTORY FRSO emphasizes on-the-ground labor, racial justice, and lgbt organizing and meeting people where they're at as long as they have shared class interests through these struggles. They take this tactful approach to movement building in recognition that the material grounds for higher class unity and consciousness aren't always aligned with who is politically in step with Marxism-Leninism already. While PSL is also involved with mass orgs, there's still a clear difference in priority and approach. FRSO has a pretty rich history, as you can get a glimpse of from the "A Brief History" section of their unity statement, and they formed through the merging of many groups over time. WWP split from Socialist Workers Party (SWP), a Trotskyist party which was anti-revolutionary on the matters of the Chinese Revolution and aspects of the USSR. Today they have a strong focus on the national question and queer liberation. WWP was founded by Sam Marcy with a group that supported the gains of actually existing socialism, but Trotsky is still on the official reading lists of WWP and PSL. In particular, they both hold on to the concept of the "transitional program". PSL clearly embodies those Trotskyist roots and are mostly centered on prioritizing recruiting and party-building, and so in much of their work they often step with their communist foot first and wave the proverbial red flag proudly. They will always try to have a contingent at protests to bring in more potential members, they organize regular community forums, they distribute newspapers and sell magazines, and these sorts of outreach activities tend to take precedent over other types of organizing. - FRSO: http://frso.org/program/ - WWP: https://www.workers.org/wwp/our-program/ - PSL: http://liberationschool.org/program-of-the-party-for-socialism-and-liberation/ ## ORGANIZATION PSL is large and organized while WWP and FRSO are still recovering from their respective splits and don't have the same infrastructure in terms of managing members and finances/resources. FRSO refers to itself as a pre-party in recognition that no organization or party currently unites the most advanced section of the working class, while PSL considers itself to be that party. PSL sometimes runs candidates for public office not to win but to raise consciousness of the party, expose corruption, etc. I'm not sure if the FRSO actually runs their own candidates, but at the very least, according to the 5th Congress Main Political Report from 2007, "Since 1985, the FRSO has taken a position on elections, sometimes working to build movements with an electoral expression, and other times supporting a vote against a reactionary candidate." FRSO and PSL both seem to have ties to other revolutionary organizations and parties around the world, and in the cities where they're both are active they work together and even do joint study groups. Both publish their own news which all members should keep up with to stay informed on current events and to stay in line with the orgs. - Fight Back! News: http://www.fightbacknews.org - Workers World News: https://www.workers.org/news/ - Liberation News: https://www.liberationnews.org ## MEMBERSHIP & DUES FRSO membership isn't really offered until you get involved with them. PSL has a concrete membership candidacy period which is by default six months where you complete one of thirteen classes every two weeks, and stay active with local struggles and party work. The classes themselves involve reading party literature on a variety of things. While they do not use the actual ML texts, the materials are useful for their broader accessibility and incorporation of contemporary issues. Although I believe the exact syllabus is supposed to be internal, the individual articles all seem to be web searchable because they're published under a shared category on the liberation school website. FRSO is still vastly under-resourced and are just starting to recover from the split in the 90's when the left communists aka anti-revolutionary left refoundationists took all the money and tried to take the name as well. They still lack a convenient electronic way to process payments due to repression and basically no longer really exist as a organization legally (in the sense of being a legal entity, not in being a law-abiding entity). FRSO does ask that dues be paid to Fight Back news, but the enforcement of this seems lax. PSL requires regular dues to one's local branch, plus contribution an annual national fund drive. I'm not sure what the local dues work out to, but for the national drive members are encouraged to contribute as much of your *disposable* income as possible—that's anything after basic living expenses and personal needs—and, as a convenient metric, one-weeks pay is (unofficially?) suggested as a guideline, which keep in mind would be saved over the course of an entire year.