Unity & Struggle
A small anti-state communist organization building shared practice and theory for liberation.
This article was originally written in 2015 after the initial Black Lives Matter protest movement had died down. It has not been updated to include a discussion of the current wave of protests and riots. However, there are some insights in this piece that have a bearing on this moment and we believe that this
Unity and Struggle has been an organization for a long time, with some membership roots dating all the way back to the Love & Rage Federation of the 1990s. We have taken many turns and shifted our form of organization many times over the years. Along the way, we have met many other groupings who
Suddenly, each day feels like a week. Cities and states declare states of emergency, schools and restaurants shut down, the stock market crashes; and this is just the beginning. Every morning we wake up and check the news. The country is trying to “flatten the curve” of the outbreak, but this effort is cut with
We are happy to announce that Unity and Struggle has affiliated with the Marxist Center, a network of revolutionary socialist groups and individuals around the United States! Marxist Center members come from a range of political backgrounds and experiences, but are united by a commitment to revolutionary socialism, non-dogmatic debate, and building fighting organizations in
Racism is widely recognized as a cornerstone of global capitalism, yet it’s sometimes seen as an accidental byproduct of capital, or alternately, a distinct system altogether. To better understand how race and capital create each other, and reflecting on our post-Black Lives Matter organizing experiences, we are embarking on a study that seeks to understand
Two of our members, Enzo and Eve, were interviewed on the communist cinematic analysis Podcast, Hammer & Camera, based on their article, “Black on Both Sides: Grappling with BLM in Movies” Check out the Podcast below!
On April 18, 2019, organizers to the left of the nonprofits, unions and politicians came together to discuss Sam Stein’s new book, Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State (2019: Verso Press). This was the culmination of a city-wide study group that took place in five locations across four boroughs. The audio of this
Five years since the movement for black lives kicked off, all of us are reflecting on our collective history and arriving at partial conclusions. Some of these conclusions take the form of film, hip hop, poetry, literature, murals and visual art. We believe popular culture is a reflection of the material conditions around (and within) us––a form of theory making and a method for understanding our world. 2018 gave us several films that echoed BLM, by making explicit its contradictions and tendencies. At the risk of oversimplifying, we can divide the best of these films into two categories: liberal and revolutionary. Each mirrors a material tendency that emerged within BLM.
After many years of spontaneous protest, many of us share an awareness for the need of durable organizations that can involve millions of people in social transformation. A new generation of organizers is looking to “community organizing” models for answers. But can this playbook be remade to serve revolutionary goals?
For the past year and a half, our group has held in person and online discussions to hammer out the principles that unite us. Now our Principles of Unity are finally online! Check them out, and please send us critiques and feedback. They’re a living document, and so will be updated as our experience and
