For the People: North American Federation

Points of Unity

  1. We are anti-capitalist organizations. The current system of capitalism perpetuates class society, which gives rise to many types of exploitation and inequality. We believe that a new system is in order.

  1. We are firmly committed to combating food and housing insecurity in our regions. We support the work of those who have developed networks to ensure that the most vulnerable victims of capitalism do not freeze or starve.

  1. We maintain and expand community gardens to address the fact that vast swathes of our communities are food deserts, and to foster small-scale socialized and self-sustaining models of food production, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community. Likewise, we develop food distribution programs to foster socialized and self-sustaining models of food distribution.

 

  1. We establish tenant organization and protection programs to defend working-class people in our communities from landlords and to weaken the power of private property.

Through these and other initiatives, FTP organizations function as organs of political power for the proletariat, and contribute to the long-term project of building class consciousness.

  1. We are organizations that follow the mass line. Our leadership ultimately comes from the people. We are not condescending saviors come to save the people from themselves. We unite with and organize the people to save themselves from their exploiters, because we are of the people and for the people.

  1. We are organizations rooted in the concrete experiences and practices that arose from the experiences of revolutionary experiments in China, the USSR, and in the US, the Black Panther Party. We also are inspired by currently existing movements for liberation in India, the Philippines, Greece, Mexico, and Turkey. A revolutionary movement that wins is able to synthesize and process the experiences of all people who have sought liberation and develop a strategy for their own area. We hold political education classes and discuss how to apply our knowledge to our work. We also sum up everything we do to develop ourselves and divorce ourselves from bad styles of work.

  1. We are proletarian internationalist organizations. We seek unity and principled relationships with all revolutionary forces around the world and within the United States that have a record of solid work, principled relationships, and real commitment to the revolution. We seek unity first, struggle later. We are not interested in vacuous ideological debates and quarrels over ideology before establishing working relationships. We unite with the people of Palestine in their struggle against colonialism. We unite with the Filipino people against bureaucrat capitalism fomented by the US and the fascist regime. We unite with the people of India against land theft and neocolonialism. We unite with the people of Africa, Latin America, and all other regions who are beset by imperialism. We defend and present the case of all who are oppressed and suffering around the world with words, deeds, and education of the masses of our areas.

  1. We are fundamentally anti-settler-colonial organizations. This means that we believe that the states settled/developed by Europeans outside of Europe are illegitimate. This includes Canada, Australia, and the USA. Our internationalist approach extends to the many unrecognized or oppressed nations within the USA, and we recognize their right to self-determination.

  1. We are anti-racist organizations, and we are anti-white supremacist organizations. White supremacy is the major threat to the development of a fighting left in the United States. We relentlessly combat and destroy vestiges of white supremacist thinking within ourselves and within others. We also actively struggle against and seek the destruction of white supremacist organizations and institutions. This includes the police and the prison system.
  2. We are working class feminist organizations, as women were the first dispossessed and exploited class. We combat all forms of male chauvinism within our organizations and in our communities.

  1. We are organizations dedicated to the revolutionary liberation of LGBT people, the class of people in contradiction with the hetero-patriarchal system of gender and sexuality. We encourage the development of queer membership and prioritize queer people in our self defense curriculum and strategy.
  2. We are organizations dedicated to learning, practicing, and teaching both armed and unarmed self defense. We encourage FTP members to be familiar with defending themselves and others, the operation and handling of firearms and other weapons, along with hand-to-hand combat.

Signed:

FTP-Atlantic City, NJ

FTP-Bloomington, IN

FTP-Omaha, NE

FTP-Pueblo, CO

FTP-St. Louis, MO