Join Us

Firebrand holds national public meetings every other month on Zoom. Our member organizations are involved in local activism in Boston, Denver, and Seattle and hold public meetings weekly on Zoom. We also have at-large members and fellow travellers around and outside the country.

If you have a burning desire to understand and change this deeply unjust and crisis-ridden society, if you are deeply motivated to fight for a better world — we want to work with you! Come to a meeting or contact us for more info.

Our Public Meetings

Out of the Voting Booth, Into the Streets: Revolutionaries & Electoral Politics

Wednesday, Oct 11, 2023
8pm ET (7pm C / 6pm M / 5pm P)
on Zoom at: bit.ly/firebrandzoom

Can progressive social change be advanced via the political parties of the capitalist class? Should we support left Democrats, like the Squad? What can we learn from the history of the socialist movement’s various approaches to voting and electoral politics?

Featured Speaker
James Radek (he/him) is a founding member of the Denver Communists, Firebrand, and the Revolutionary Socialist Network.

Recommended Material

“Marxists & Elections” by Paul D’Amato
“Elections aren’t a path to socialism” by Daniel Taylor
“Revolutionary parliamentarism? Lenin, the Bolsheviks, and the electoral arena” by Todd Chretien
“The Ballot or The Streets or Both? From Marx and Engels to Lenin and the October Revolution” by Alex Snowdon

Toward a Revolutionary Party: Our Short- & Long-Term Tasks

Wednesday, Aug 16, 2023

Marx and Engels wrote that communism is the real movement to abolish the present order of things, but the present order of things—capitalism—has the day-to-day advantage over us and uses it, forcing its ideas on working people at work, through all forms of media, and in every part of our daily lives.

To organize against capitalism, communists need to have a strategy for projecting our ideas. We also need an approach to making our ideas the basis for organized work and building organizations suited to pursuing and developing our politics.

How should communists seek to project our ideas into the world? What obstacles do we face? And which of the many approaches to anticapitalist organization provides the best path forward to defeating capitalism’s project of exploitation and oppression?

Join Firebrand for a presentation and discussion of communist perspectives and strategies for building a revolutionary party.

Featured Speaker
Mark J. is a communist organizer, writer, and educator in eastern Kansas. He is a founding member of Firebrand.

Recommended Material

“Communist Perspectives for Firebrand — Part One: A World in Crisis” by E. Reed
What Is To Be Done? by V.I. Lenin, Ch. 1, Section D: Engels On the Importance of the Theoretical Struggle
From Little Things Big Things Grow by Mick Armstrong, Section 1: Introduction and Section 2: The nature and tasks of a socialist propaganda group

The Fraud of Stalinism: Recovering Communism from the Tankies

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

In recent years, many on the Left have turned away from social-democratic reformism (great!) and toward Marxism-Leninism (not so great). Many are seeking revolutionary, anti-imperialist politics against milquetoast, social-democratic, pro-US military liberalism.

However, history reveals that, far from a force for revolution, Marxist-Leninists (aka Stalinists, “tankies,” and the like) have held back working-class revolutions and liberation struggles – including in the Global South. In truth, Marxism-Leninism is neither Marxist nor Leninist.

Join communists from across the US to uncover the history and put forward a revolutionary alternative to both social-democratic reformism and Stalinism.

Featured Speakers
Doug Greene is an independent communist historian from the Boston area. He has written a biography of the communist insurgent Louis Auguste Blanqui and a takedown of DSA founder Michael Harrington. His new book, Stalinism and The Dialectics of Saturn, examines debates about Stalinism.

E. Reed is a founding member of the Boston Revolutionary Socialists and Firebrand. His articles have appeared in the International Socialist Review, Red Flag Boston, and Firebrand.red.

Recommended Material

“Stalinism and Bolshevism” by Leon Trotsky
“Thirty Years After the Russian Revolution” by Victor Serge
A People’s History of the World by Chris Harman, pp 560-570, “Through the Looking Glass” to “The Cuban Revolution” Epub / Mobi / PDF

Understanding Imperialism

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Russia’s war on Ukraine is symptomatic of the world situation. We have decisively entered a new period of inter-imperial rivalry and conflict. At the same time, the question of imperialism and international struggle has divided the Left.

Concretely, on the one hand, many sympathize with Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion but have fallen into the trap of supporting US and NATO arms and intervention. On the other hand, some on the Left endorse Putin’s claims that Russia has a legitimate right to invade and see the US as the sole enemy of liberation and socialism.

We reject this false choice. We say neither Washington nor Moscow. No to US/NATO arms, no to Russia’s invasion. The main enemy is at home.

Join us to study the Marxist understanding of modern imperialism and discuss the world situation today. We will start with brief presentations, followed by open discussion.

Recommended Material