I Met Another Communist on the Street and 30 Minutes Later, He Was an RCA Member

I was at a May Day Palestine rally, selling copies of The Communist and talking to people about the fight for worldwide intifada.

I had already sold several copies, made contacts, and had some great conversations, when I encountered a comrade who really stood out that day.

“Are you a communist?” I had asked a handful of people walking through the crowd.

“Yeah,” one of them replied, filing past me and seemingly in a rush.

“Do you have time to talk?”

He paused for a moment, “I guess.”

“How did you become a communist?”

He said didn’t even know where to begin, summarizing that “everything” over the past few years pushed him to this viewpoint. He’s a young worker from Brooklyn, and witnessing the US-backed genocide against the Palestinians seemed to have been the final straw for him.

I said he’s one of millions of people who feel the exact same way, and we talked about the many radicalizing events for our generation that have occurred since 2008.

I asked, “What do you think US politics will be like over the next five or ten years?”

“I feel like there’s always moments when something could happen, but then … nothing happens …”

“Yeah, there’s been mass movements, but without class-struggle leadership, they eventually dissipate or end in defeat. The way we see it, we need to build that kind of organization, a communist party, in advance.”

We talked more about the recent mass movements and the revival of the class struggle in the US. I then asked, “Have you read anything about Marxism before?” He replied that he had read the Communist Manifesto in college, and we talked a bit about that.

“Have you ever read anything about the Russian Revolution?”

“I haven’t. Should I?”

“Yes, you definitely should. What Marx described in the Manifesto—the working class taking power—has happened before. We can study it and learn the lessons and replicate it in our time.”

We talked more about the Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik Party, and I showed him the paper and explained that we’re building the modern iteration of that party in the United States.

After all this discussion, I asked him: “Do you want to join the Party and help build a communist cell?”

He replied, “Yes, definitely.”

He said that he’s been wanting to join a communist organization for months, and it’s time to actually act on that.

I said that’s fantastic, and explained that he’ll be responsible for training himself in Marxism, finding and organizing other communists, and helping to train them. I told him he should feel empowered as a member to take real ownership over the Party, and take whatever initiatives he can think of to help build it.

I took out my phone and we read through the main points in the RCA New Members’ packet PDF. He signed up for communist dues of one day’s wages right on the spot.

Then we discussed the immediate plans for his membership. I asked questions like:

How can you help build the Party?

Do you know any other communists?

Do you know anyone else who would be interested in this?

Where can you build a new cell?

It turned out that some of the clients at his girlfriend’s workplace are interested in left-wing ideas. A great place to get started. I gave him his member-copy of The Communist, and a few more copies to help build a cell.

He had to get back to work, since he was on his lunch break. So we set a date for the next week to meet up for coffee to discuss the paper, talk about how his cell-building work was going so far, and to make a plan for him to attend another nearby cell meeting in the meantime, so he can see how the meetings work.

All of this goes to show the burning desire that millions of people feel to finally do something about the state of the world. This country truly is ripe for a new heyday for communist politics.