Article 1. Mission Statement of LA MAS:
Springing from the wave of popular action and mass uprisings that emerged in the summer of 2020, our cadres were initially formed around mutual-aid survival programs for the unhoused and working poor as a response to the myriad of existing crises that were exacerbated by the global COVID-19 pandemic. The failure at every level of government to protect our city’s most vulnerable residents and the violence of the state towards the masses following the protests demanding justice for the murder of George Floyd by the police, only proved the necessity for organized resistance. This necessity has united our cadres in developing a new formation dedicated to building regional power.
(The merger between our two predecessor groups, the Revolutionary Action Party (RAP) and The Forgotten Jades, has generated the formation of our newly consolidated cadre.)
The Los Angeles Movement for Advancing Socialism (LA MAS) is a revolutionary communist collective promoting the transformation of society: the complete dismantling of white supremacy, settler-colonialism, anti-Blackness, patriarchy, and capitalism. We seek to upend the exploitative relations that oppress colonized and racialized peoples, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, undocumented, unhoused, disabled, women, lumpen and working-class communities.
We are anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and anti-fascist; committed to the global liberation of all subjugated peoples from systems of domination and to advancing communism by revolutionary means. We are endeavoring towards the unification of humankind by eliminating all forms of class divisions—the end of capitalism is necessary for the emancipation of all communities. As revolutionary communists we adhere to Scientific Socialism guiding our political line. We embrace the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Vanguard Formations, and the Mass Line.
Our work at this stage is advancing to include a series of projects around the heart of Los Angeles that engage active struggles alongside the unhoused and working poor that go beyond mutual aid by focusing on building genuine community ties through social investigation and class analysis (SICA) in order to generate political campaigns which agitate, educate, serve, train, and develop these communities in becoming leading organizers in the struggle for their own liberation. We intend to build regional power made up of movement organizers, community bases among the masses, people’s campaign teams, and program crews, all in coordination with LA MAS.
We believe that the aforementioned colonized proletariat and street communities can overcome state and capitalists forces only through disciplined and organized campaigns which cultivate the people’s critical consciousness to liberate themselves and the land. The current imperialist state stands as the central political power base of the capitalist dictatorship, asserting settler dominance over the land, properties, finances, and the means of production by way of dispossession and exploitation of the working class and colonized masses. This small but dominant class makes their living extracting super-profits from everything the proletariat does to survive; the debt, expenses, dispossession, and labor of the masses keep these exploiters rich while the state defends them for it via their laws, policies and security apparatus, aka the pigs. This same exploitative class extends their dictatorship beyond their borders through military and financial interventions into third world resource nations, imposing global capitalist relations of production. Leaving the Global South dispossessed from their resources and economy, these Western capitalists have ushered the neo-colonial era of imperialism. They are the principal exploiting class, existing as globalized market monopolies who extract resources and use heavily exploited labor from colonized nations in order to maintain their class supremacy and the empires they rule. Chief among them, the United States of America is the behemoth buttressing the global capitalist order—this super-exploitive exchange of capital and resources is used to provide the relatively decadent living conditions in first world countries and sustain the advantageous military power to repress rebellious nations on the periphery.
In standing against the survival, joy, and growth of the working and poor people of the world, these capitalists have become the irredeemable enemies of humanity. They have led the march of white supremacy, settler-colonialism, and Western hegemony. Still, their power over us derives from their class activity just as our power already lies within that of our own. As the revolutionary class, the colonized proletariat and dispossessed poor know that the status quo is a lie—the material realities we face negate the false narratives that we are taught to see in the world. We can see that capitalism is a monstrous force that dehumanizes the oppressed for the sake of an oppressor who believes humanity needs to be consuming itself in order to survive and grow. This belief runs the risk of destroying our planet’s ecosystem and the human race if we do not take revolutionary action.
Our only option left to humanize humanity and stop our suffering is to emancipate ourselves from class exploitation, the dynamic of the oppressor and oppressed. Despite there being many distractions to cope with under capitalism and to try to make the best of life, there is no escaping this morbid reality with either general asceticism or specific hedonism, and especially not by embracing it to become an exploiter; neither changes anything. Instead we are lead to take on a materialist and dialectical outlook of the world for what it is, and what it could be, through an organic practical process of change and growth—to realize: the status quo can only be resolved through a complete transformation of the power dynamics, with the oppressed being in political power repressing the oppressors from returning and preventing us from shaping our own destiny to collectively decide what needs to be made, met, and molded for society to be better, without the interest of capital and profit as a guiding factor. We must actively grow beyond capitalism and never return to being victims of it as we are right now. The class war has since long been underway, only through active struggle can the masses turn the tide in the fight for our emancipation.
The current stage of this struggle in the City of Los Angeles has necessitated a reevaluation of our cadres’ organizing approach after nearly two years of regular direct-action initiatives ranging from mutual aid for the unhoused and working poor, tenant defense activism, protests, and building relationships with dispossessed communities. These efforts could be analyzed under several different lenses but the most relevant are the trends related to base-building and the flurry of hands-on oriented organizing that swelled in the age of COVID and the following uprisings throughout the summer of 2020. Many established leftist organizations saw their memberships surge and numerous other local mutual aid groups were birthed across the country including in our own backyard of Southern California. Even within this relative short amount of time, internal contradictions have already erupted throughout these formations resulting in various splits and rifts in the radical organizing spaces active in the Los Angeles area. In some cases, these divisions could have been avoided if more principled mediation of non-antagonistic contradictions were practiced, however, recurring themes of chauvinism of every variety kept resurfacing as the catalyst cited for many of these breakages.
Our own inceptive cadres are such a response to combat the social-chauvinism largely present within leftist politics in our region, and frankly, a staple applying to the wider American left. The prevalence of reactionary currents amongst our radical movements can be in part attributed to nature of residing within the heart of the empire, where the most vulgar social relations are the norm and the individual reigns supreme. Like many who have broken away from DSA, PSL, CPUSA, and others, our cadres originally enjoyed the increased autonomy that going independent offered. This greater freedom to direct organizing in ways that resonated with our revolutionary values as colonized proletarians was instrumental in directly engaging community struggles and more accurately identifying revolutionary agents. Nevertheless, the sporing of smaller local action groups has surfaced new challenges. Capacity and burnout are consistent issues accompanying the greater autonomy that upstart collectives offer, causing projects to stagnate and run the risk of never advancing beyond crisis response. In LA County alone, dozens of survival aid and activist groups have emerged since the start of COVID and George Floyd uprisings; surely a boom to political consciousness not seen since the Occupy movement and yet it is hard to pinpoint any significant victories for the so-called radical left. It is these challenges which have united our cadres in now merging our efforts to transform politics in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Movement for Advancing Socialism (LA MAS) is a pre-party formation dedicated to building a revolutionary communist base suited to our regional historical-material conditions. We recognize that the varying conditions across the country, despite the best homogenizing efforts of the state, pose unique trials for communists all over the US when it comes to forming the “vanguard party” at this historical stage in the protracted struggle for revolution. Traditional efforts to build the Communist Party in the United States are premature at this juncture, regardless of proclamations made by the existing socialist “parties” without a political base: there is no Vanguard Party in America. The socialist movement in this country is lacking any hegemony; it is fractured and discordant. Marxism in the US is a contested field with a wide array of tendencies and practices, yet we are still not any closer to identifying the specific revolutionary theory for our terrain and era. The truth is that the available tactics and strategies for waging revolution in the heart of the settler-colonial-empire are far too under-theorized to squabble over the purity of political lines which do not resonate with the masses. Correct political lines are not handed down, but struggled through. This is why our cadres have consolidated in elevating Scientific Socialism as an active and vibrant method of analysis and practice, which has conventionally been referred to as Marxism, in order to clarify our organizational approach, reject dogmatism, and signal the experimental nature of undertaking the materialist dialectic. Our political program will be tailored to the conditions present and developing in the City of Los Angeles. We invite principled like-minded collectives and individuals to join us in this venture.
The direction of LA MAS at this outset is informed in part by the preceding groundwork our cadres have engaged in that resulted in recognizing the need for a newly united cadre with clear revolutionary objectives. Our analyses have led us to intervene in our own neighborhoods where we can have the greatest impact by directly honing our solutions to areas we have personally conducted social class analysis and investigation by forming actual human ties to dispossessed community members. By uniting together, we have been able to extend the reach of our efforts into mass work and plant some of the seeds that we must labor to cultivate into a healthy socialist movement throughout Los Angeles. At some point, it is likely necessity will unite regional revolutionary movements if communist hegemony can be demonstrated through significantly recognizable contributions to Scientific Socialism by way of theoretical and concrete advancements that can successfully confront state and capitalist forces within the imperial core. Until that moment nears, the work of MAS will be concentrated in building regional power with the revolutionary masses in order to prepare a communist base equipped with the tools and capacity to advance a socialist movement in Los Angeles and potentially beyond. The road to socialism requires the vision and fortitude to persist in spite of losses and retreats. Promoting humility, self-criticism, and active struggle, LA MAS cadre are committed to correcting contradictions that present themselves in our efforts while pressing onwards.
The long march towards overthrowing the status quo begins with the road to self-transformation, from shifting the ego-identity to the communal self—a process of change we as comrades of this cadre are dedicated to embark on together. Only then can we be sensitive to the human experience and understand the revolutionary masses. We will learn from their criticisms along with our own self-criticisms to build an effective base of knowledge and a mature disposition to become capable of leading the struggle. Together we will find strength in solace and solidarity leading to action. Failure will no longer be a stifling force, but a moment along the protracted struggle that yields change and growth.
LA MAS is a body of people working together for a common goal, proletarian revolution.
A better world is possible! Action in the real world is the only way to push forward the transformation of society. Bourgeoise politics are where revolutions go to die. Revolutionary change demands revolutionary action.
“We have the conviction that we are the masses. And that the masses, over time, will win.” — Evo Morales
All Power to the People !
About Us
For any inquires about LA MAS, message us through our social media channels or email us, contact us if you want to become an associate of the crew!
LOS ANGELES MOVEMENT for ADVANCING SOCIALISM (LA MAS) 