On Sunday June 21, 26 people attended the online founding meeting of the Boston Revolutionary Socialists.
The modest founding of the Boston Revolutionary Socialists comes at a moment of mass protest, upheaval and crisis across the United States and the world. Massachusetts has seen mass protests against racism and the disastrous effects of the pandemic.
Among the local activists on the call included those organizing to defund the police, those resisting the growth of far-right street movements, and those seeking new vehicles for politics. Discussion was pretty free-wheeling, touching on people’s experiences in the new protest movement and their past experiences organizing as socialists.
One attendee raised an essential question about how the BRS will center the experiences of people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ comrades. BRS members who were previously members of the now-defunct International Socialist Organization (ISO) reflected honestly about the failures and limitations of that organization’s approach to members from oppressed identities. BRS members committed to learning from past organizations’ mistakes, including by creating deliberate space for caucuses for different identities.
Another question came up regarding the BRS’s relation to other socialist and social movement groups. The BRS allows dual membership in other socialist organizations. It also believes in collaboration and eventual regroupment among revolutionary socialists. In the meanwhile, as it works with other groups, it never wants to hide its political positions.
In this spirit of collaboration, the BRS reached out to several other socialist groups, inviting them to send observers to the founding meeting. Members of Socialist Resurgence, Socialist Alternative, and local members of the Labor Cause Party of Brazil all offered comradely greetings.
With the BRS’s official founding, we invite anyone who agrees with our Points of Unity to get in touch and start working alongside other socialists in Eastern Massachusetts.
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