FRSO Logo from frso.org.

FRSO logo from freedomroad.org .

As many of the Maoist-oriented groups formed in the United States New Communist Movement of the 1970s were shrinking or collapsing, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization was formed in 1985 to try to solidify some of these groups into a single organization that would have some longevity. Image File history File linksMetadata Frsologo. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Frsologo. ... Image File history File links FRSO-OSCL_logo. ... Image File history File links FRSO-OSCL_logo. ... Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought (Chinese: 毛澤東思想, pinyin: Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), also called Marxism-Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), is a variant of communism derived from the teachings of Mao Zedong (1893&#8211... The New Communist Movement (NCM) was a communist political movement of the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The component groups of the FRSO saw ultraleftism as the main error of the New Communist Movement and attempted to reverse what they saw as that movement's excessive divisiveness and sectarianism. FRSO was founded by a merger of two organizations - the Proletarian Unity League and the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters in 1985, and then a subsequent fusing with the Organization for Revolutionary Unity in 1986. Freedom Road later absorbed other groups too, including the Amílcar Cabral-Paul Robeson Collective in 1988 and the Socialist Organizing Network in 1994. This article discusses liberalism as a major political ideology as it developed and stands currently. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Sectarian violence. ... The Proletarian Unity League was formed in Boston in 1975 by SDS members who has been associated with the RYM II faction. ... Revolutionary Workers Headquarters (RWH) was a U.S. Marxist-Leninist organization that formed out of a split from the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) in 1977. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Organization for Revolutionary Unity (ORU) was an anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist organization in the United States. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Amílcar Cabral Amílcar Lopes Cabral (1924–January 20, 1973) was an African agronomic engineer, writer and nationalist. ... Paul Robeson USPS Black Heritage stamp of Paul Robeson. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Socialist Organizing Network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ...

Freedom Road supports self-determination, up to and including independence, for African Americans in the Black Belt Region of the U.S. South and Chicanos in the U.S. Southwest. Much of the theory regarding this comes from the African American Communist Harry Haywood, as laid out in resolutions at the Comintern in 1928 and 1930. Freedom Road's position on the national question is a defining feature of its politics. Self-determination is a principle in international law that a people ought to be able to determine their own governmental forms and structure free from outside influence. ... African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ... The Black Belt Region in the U.S. refers to the social and demographic crescent of 623 southern counties that contain a higher than average percentages of African American residents. ... A Chicano is a person of Mexican descent born in the United States. ... The Southwest region of the United States is drier than the adjoining Midwest in weather; the population is less dense and, with strong Spanish-American and Native American components, more ethnically varied than neighboring areas. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... Harry Haywood (1898-1978) was a leading African American member of both the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), known for his significant theoretical contributions to the Marxist national question while serving as a delegate to the Comintern. ... The Comintern (Russian: Коммунистический Интернационал, Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional – Communist International, also known as the Third International) was an international Communist organization founded in March 1919, in the midst of the war communism period (1918-1921), by Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), which intended to fight by all available means, including... 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link is to a full 1930 calendar). ... Nationalism is an ideology that creates and sustains a nation as a concept of a common identity for groups of humans. ...

In 1999, FRSO split into two competing organizations, each retaining the organization's name. Each of these groups considers itself to be the only legitimate Freedom Road Socialist Organization. 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

The 1980s

In the 1980s, members of Freedom Road worked to build the Rainbow Coalition, and supported both of Jesse Jackson's campaigns for the presidency of the United States (1984 and 1988). FRSO also worked on the successful campaign to get African-American progressive Harold Washington elected as mayor of Chicago in 1983 and reelected in 1987. (work on the 1984 Jackson campaign and the 1983 Washington campaign were done by FRSO's predecessor organizations, since FRSO wasn't formed until 1985). The Rainbow Coalition refers to at least three groups. ... Jesse Louis Jackson (born October 8, 1941) is an American politician, civil rights activist, and Baptist minister. ... This article is about the year 1984. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was a lawyer, legislator and the first African American Mayor of Chicago, Illinois serving from 1983 until his death in 1987. ... This article is about Illinois largest city. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In the 1980s FRSO also played an important role in the U.S. student movement. Particularly FRSO played a role in leading the Progressive Student Network (PSN), a national, multi-issue, progressive student activist organization. The Progressive Student Network (PSN) was a national, multi-issue, progressive college student activist organization in the United States. ...

From the 1980s through the mid-1990s, Freedom Road published a magazine called Forward Motion, which previously had been published by the Proletarian Unity League, one of FRSO's predecessor organizations.

1989-1991

FRSO played a role in the anti-war movement that emerged in 1990 in opposition to the Gulf War. FRSO also helped build the reproductive rights / abortion rights movement in this period, including the massive 1989 demonstration in Washington DC. Anti war protest in Melbourne, Australia, 2003 Anti_war is a name that is widely adopted by any social movement or person that seeks to end or oppose a future or current war. ... This article is about the year. ... For other uses, see Iraq war (disambiguation). ... Reproductive rights (also Procreative liberty) refers to human rights in areas of sexual reproduction, including the rights to reproduce (such as opposition to forced sterilization) as well as rights not to reproduce (such as support for access to birth control and abortion), the right to privacy, medical coverage, right to... The morality and legality of abortion are controversial topics. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Flag Seal Nickname: DC, The District Motto: Justitia Omnibus (Justice for All) Location Location of Washington, D.C., with regard to the surrounding states of Maryland and Virginia. ...

In response to the fall of Eastern European governments, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, two distinct positions began to emerge within Freedom Road on how to assess the socialist countries. One position saw the events of 1989-1991 as indicative of a deep crisis in Marxism that required rethinking of basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism. The other position continued to assess the experience of socialist countries as essentially positive, and saw their defeats as the result of revisionism, not as a crisis of Marxism itself. This side continued to identify itself as Marxist-Leninist. This internal division solidified throughout the 1990s until the organization split in 1999. The Unknown Rebel - This famous photograph, taken by photographer Jeff Widener, depicts a lone protester whose actions halted a column of advancing tanks until he was pulled into the crowd. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Marxism refers to the philosophy and social theory based on Karl Marxs work on one hand, and to the political practice based on Marxist theory on the other hand (namely, parts of the First International during Marxs time, communist parties and later states). ... Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is a branch of Marxism (and it has been the dominant branch of Marxism in the world since the 1920s). ... Marxism refers to the philosophy and social theory based on Karl Marxs work on one hand, and to the political practice based on Marxist theory on the other hand (namely, parts of the First International during Marxs time, communist parties and later states). ... Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is a branch of Marxism (and it has been the dominant branch of Marxism in the world since the 1920s). ...

The 1990s

In 1994 the Socialist Organizing Network (SON) merged into FRSO. SON was formed out of the disollution of the League of Revolutionary Struggle in the late 1980s, and included those who had been in LRS that still considered themselves Marxists (most of the LRS leadership had rejected Marxism when they decided to disband the LRS). Socialist Organizing Network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The League of Revolutionary Struggle (Marxist-Leninist) was a communist organization in the United States. ...

The merger between FRSO and SON technically marked the creation of a new organization, as at the time it was seen as a merger of two equal organizations into something new, rather than SON being incorporated in FRSO. Therefore for a brief time the merged organization was called "Freedom Road / Socialist Organizing Network", including both organizations' names, with the possibility existing that the merged organization would adopt an entirely new name. A new name never came to fruition, so the name reverted back to "Freedom Road Socialist Organization". But the 1994 FRSO Congress, at which the FRSO/SON merger was formalized, was referred to as the First Congress of FRSO/SON.

Socialist Organizing Network's publication Moving Forward was published by FRSO for a short period after the merger.

FRSO continued to sporadically publish Forward Motion during the 1990s.

In 1998, FRSO's Chicago District and Minnesota / Madison District began to publish a Midwest regional newspaper called Fight Back!.

The 1999 Split

In 1999, FRSO split into two groups, each retaining the organization's name. For a time after the split the two identically-named groups were identified by their respective publication's name — Freedom Road Magazine (which was started by the left refoundationist group shortly after the split) and Fight Back! Newspaper (hence "Freedom Road Socialist Organization [Freedom Road]" and "Freedom Road Socialist Organization [Fight Back!]"). The parenthetical terms are not used by either group to describe itself - both groups consider themselves to be the only legitimate Freedom Road Socialist Organization. 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

For the remainder of this article, the two groups will be identified by their website address in order to remain objective, as neither group accepts any of the parenthetical qualifications of their name. So Freedom Road Socialist Organization [Freedom Road] is now referred to as FRSO (freedomroad.org), and Freedom Road Socialist Organization [Fight Back] is now referred to as FRSO (frso.org).

The two groups split principally over the proposal by a section of FRSO's membership in 1999 that FRSO adopt a Left Refoundation strategy. The Left Refoundation strategy was advocated by those who saw Marxism as in deep crisis. The aim of the statement and strategy was to further elaborate a response to the "crisis of socialism". It called for the construction of "a new type of political party" to unite with advanced sections of the masses, stressing collaboration across the left over strict adherence to Marxism-Leninism. The FRSO (freedomroad.org) group were the proponents of the Left Refoundation statement and strategy while the FRSO (frso.org) group rejected it, characterizing it as an abandonment of Marxism-Leninism.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization - the 'freedomroad.org' group

Freedom Road (freedomroad.org) continues to uphold the line FRSO adopted in 1991 (prior to the split) encapsulated by its organizational document, "On the Crisis of Socialism", that claims that there is a deep crisis in Marxism. The document stressed an interpretation of Marxism-Leninism as a scientific ideology of socialist revolution rather than as an orthodoxy or dogma. The document restated FRSO's support of the dictatorship of the proletariat while clarifying its line against the interpretation of this concept as a "massive repressive state apparatus over and above the people." This interpretation, the group argues, has lead to a counter-revolutionary tendencies taking hold in the Soviet bloc states and in China after capitalist restoration. According to an article in its magazine ("Toward a Critical Reassessment of Maoism") this is a problem it also sees in "Stalinian Marxism" or Stalinism. The "Crisis of Socialism" statement has an overall negative assessment of the socialist countries in the 20th century. Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is a branch of Marxism (and it has been the dominant branch of Marxism in the world since the 1920s). ... For the scientific journal named Science, see Science (journal). ... The word orthodoxy, from the Greek ortho (right, correct) and doxa (thought, teaching, glorification), is typically used to refer to the correct theological or doctrinal observance of religion, as determined by some overseeing body. ... Dogma (the plural is either dogmata or dogmas) is belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization to be authoritative and not to be disputed or doubted. ... The dictatorship of the proletariat is a term employed by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program that refers to a transition period between capitalist and communist society in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. The term refers to a... During the Cold War, the Eastern Bloc (or Soviet Bloc) comprised the following Central and Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Albania (until the early 1960s, see below), the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia. ... Joseph Stalin. ...

FRSO (freedomroad.org) continues to uphold FRSO's pre-split line supporting full self-determination for the Black and Chicano/a nations in the South's Black Belt Region and Southwest (Aztlan) respectively. Its theoretical materials stress the "intersections" of these struggles, with each other and with the struggles of feminism, LGBT liberation, and the labor movement; that is, oppressors and forms of oppression and goals that they hold in common. FRSO (freedomroad.org) argues that such "intersections" highlight the necessity of building a united front of the movements of the multi-national working class and those of oppressed communities and nationalities, toward the aim of revolution. It has summed up this line as "Organizing All the Oppressed To End All Our Oppressions." Aztl n is the Aztec/Mexica place of origin in Northern Mexico — perhaps in the area of the present-day southwestern US states or perhaps an island in part of the modern Mexican state of Nayarit. ... Feminism is a collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies largely motivated by or concerned with the liberation of women. ... LGBT (or GLBT) is an abbreviation used as a collective term to refer to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people. ... The labor movement (or labour movement) is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and political governments. ...

FRSO (freedomroad.org) Post-Split Congresses

FRSO (freedomroad.org) held organizational Congresses in 2000 and in 2003. The 2003 Congress produced the document FRSO/OSCL's Strategy for a New Historical Period. This document states that, "The main task of socialists in this period is to win a significant minority of the US population to oppose the program of planetary military control, or empire, which Bush and company are implementing. We must win a subset of this significant minority to be fully anti-imperialist. Anti-empire and then anti-imperialist practice — both of which include opposition to white supremacy within the US — is the key link for building a socialist movement in the US." 1

In 2006, FRSO (freedomroad.org) began to officially call itself "Freedom Road Socialist Organization / Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad", using both the English and Spanish names together. In an abbreviated manner the group refers to itself to as "FRSO/OSCL" or "Freedom Road/El Camino".

FRSO (freedomroad.org) Publications

FRSO (freedomroad.org) began publishing Freedom Road Magazine in 2001. They ceased publication of it in 2003 after publishing three issues. At that time they declared they would focus more on web-based publications and flyers and pamphlets. They have not published a regular newspaper or magazine since 2003.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization - the 'frso.org' group

The Freedom Road group that publishes Fight Back! Newspaper is associated with the website frso.org. FRSO (frso.org) continues to explicitly uphold Marxism-Leninism and is organized according to democratic centralism and upholds an anti-revisionist line. FRSO (frso.org) actively maintains friendly relations with many Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations around the world. Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party. ... In the Marxist-Leninist communist movement, an anti-revisionist is one who favors a stricter interpretation of the ideology in accordance with the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. ...

FRSO (frso.org) continues to uphold FRSO's pre-split line on the African-American and Chicano national questions, supporting self-determination for the African-American nation in the Black Belt South and the Chicano nation in the Southwest.

FRSO (frso.org) bases itself on the strategy of forming a strategic alliance between the oppressed nationalities and the multi-national working class. FRSO intends to build toward the creation of a single, multinational, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Communist party in the U.S. In modern usage, a communist party is a political party which promotes communism, the sociopolitical ideology based on Marxism. ...

Unlike the Left Refoundationist group, FRSO (frso.org) continues to uphold Josef Stalin as one of the "principal theorists" of Marxism-Leninism, along with Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong. FRSO (frso.org) recognizes Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and China to be socialist countries. It is also close to the Workers Party of Belgium (WPB) and a participant in the WPB's annual International Communist Seminar -- one of two U.S.-based groups to attend in 2006, along with Workers World Party. They support national liberation movements such as those led by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Communist Party of the Philippines, and the FARC-EP. FRSO's solidarity with the national liberation movements in Colombia and Palestine have been a defining feature of the organization in the period since the split in FRSO. (Russian, in full: Ио́сиф Виссарио́нович Ста́лин [Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin]; December 18 [O.S. December 6] 1878[1] – March 5, 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-1953... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818, Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883, London) was a German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Frederich Engels (November 28, 1820, Wuppertal – August 5, 1895, London), a 19th-century German political philosopher, developed communist theory alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto (1848). ... Lenin redirects here. ... Mao redirects here. ... The term socialist state (or socialist republic, or workers state) can carry one of several different (but related) meanings: Strictly speaking, any real or hypothetical state organized along the principles of socialism may be called a socialist state. ... The Workers Party of Belgium (WPB), Partij van de Arbeid van België (PVDA) (in Dutch) or Parti du Travail de Belgique (PTB) (in French) is a Belgian communist party. ... Workers World Party (WWP) is a communist party in the United States founded in 1959 by Sam Marcy. ... Wars of national liberation were those conflicts fought by indigenous military groups against an imperial power in an attempt to remove that powers influence. ... The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) (Arabic الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين - al-jabhah al-sha`biyyah li-tahrīr filastīn) is a Marxist-Leninist, nationalist Palestinian political and military organization, founded in 1967. ... The New Peoples Army, or NPA, is a communist-based revolutionary group in the Philippines, formed in December 1969. ... The FARC-EPs flag The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – Peoples Army, or FARC-EP) is Colombias oldest and largest guerrilla/terroristgroup, established in 1964-1966 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party. ...

FRSO (frso.org) Post-Split Congresses

FRSO (frso.org) held organizational Congresses in 2001 and 2004. At the 2001 Congress, FRSO (frso.org) adopted a new version of their main Unity Statement, since the pre-split version did not explicitly mention Marxist-Leninism. At the 2004 Congress, FRSO (frso.org) produced a new statement on the National Questions in the U.S., which they said, "represents a concluding step in placing our organization on a Marxist-Leninist basis."2

According to their website, "The members of Freedom Road are very active in movements fighting for justice, particularly in labor, oppressed nationality, anti-war and anti-imperialist, and student movements."3

FRSO (frso.org) Publications

FRSO (frso.org) publishes Fight Back Newspaper, which as of 2006 is published 5 times yearly, and includes a Spanish-language section called Lucha y Resiste.

FRSO (frso.org) has also published various pamphlets and flyers.

External links

Freedom Road Socialist Organization (frso.org)

• Freedom Road Socialist Organization - Home page.
• Public Statement on the Future of FRSO, June 1999 - Views and analysis of 1999 split.
• Unity Statement of Freedom Road Socialist Organization - Statement on organization's line. Dated 2001
• Statement on National Oppression, National Liberation, and Socialist Revolution - Line statement on the national question, from 2004 (post-split).
• Freedom Road Socialist Organization: 20 Years of Struggle - Summation of organization's activities.
• Fight Back Newspaper

Freedom Road Socialist Organization (freedomroad.org)

• Freedom Road Socialist Organization - Home page.
• "Freedom Road Socialist Organization Loses Two Districts in Split" - Views and analysis of 1999 split.
• Freedom Road Magazine - Articles from (now defunct) magazine.
• Unity Statement on National Oppression, National Liberation and Socialist Revolution -Line statement on the national question, from 1991 (pre-split).
• "Meeting the Challenge of Crisis and Opportunity: Left Refoundation and Party Building" - Analysis and statement of views by organization's Party Building Commission. Dated 1 January 2000.
• "The Crisis within the Left: Theory, Program, Organization" - Analysis and statement of views. Dated 31 December 2004.