Student Unit Resignation Letter

In light of recent events, the Student Unit has unanimously voted to leave FRSO. We are leaving not for a lack of education in the science of Communism, but because we were taught all too well, and we have grown disillusioned with the Center and its liberalism. Though we would have once liked to stand alongside the District’s leadership to mend the Center’s contradictions, the rot that is the Center’s fear of responsibility has made its way from the roots to the branches. Leadership’s treatment of our comrades concerning their inquiries, as well as the lockstep actions of our District Committee, has been unacceptable. These people that so many of us had respected and admired, now acting like children and the authoritarian tyrants anti-communists paint us to be is nothing short of surreal. We ask the Center: how many more Districts must collapse for you to grow a spine? How many more dedicated and noble organizers must leave until you see this as more than just sunk cost?

The situation with Dan served as the beginning of the end. Syd’s reduction of [redacted] and [redacted]’s case to a problem of “gossip”, and your refusal to hold Dan accountable after running out on his self-criticism for it, seriously showed us where your priorities lie. Your tolerance and slow action against chauvinists and abusers within your ranks are representative of a greater trend of liberalism and cowardice for the sake of protecting those who you view as assets. The intimidation and threats faced by our comrades, first by Tom Burke threatening expulsions if we did not “struggle with” Dan, then by questioning of loyalty upon their inquiries into the organization’s misdeeds in Gainesville was the tipping point.

Say that the accusations against Ponder were fake. Say that we really should struggle with Dan. The blowback from the Center alone is reason enough to leave. We cannot be expected to call these people our comrades when they themselves refuse to treat us with the respect and compassion the title requires. This organization is profoundly dysfunctional. Truly beautiful and effective actions have taken place in FRSO’s name, but these were made possible by the masses, only occasionally held back by our liberal and out-of-touch leadership and their lackeys.

The Student Unit chose to leave in this way to avoid heated confrontation. What frustration and contempt you must feel towards us is reciprocated tenfold. We refuse to “struggle with” you on this because you have made it all too clear that the phrase in question is simply an analogue for falling in line lest we risk expulsion. We rebuke accusations of liberalism for the sole reason that there was never an environment for proper criticism to begin with.

We are not turning away from the struggle. We are leaving with the intention of throwing ourselves even further into the revolutionary cause. We see FRSO for what its leadership has shaped it to be. We, as Communists, are supposed to be the blade that cuts through the wool pulled over the masses’ eyes. Any skeletons that might be in our closets must be displayed to the world, as ugly as they may be. How serious can a revolutionary organization truly be when all its enemies need to do to dismantle it is to tell the truth?