They have seen a meteoric rise in recent years. Their sister/front organisations like ANSWER, Codepink, People’s Forum, BTnews have all become household names. When I look at protests in the U.S., it seems so many of them are organised directly, or indirectly, by them. In comparison, organisations like the CPUSA or the DSA are lacking behind.
How and why?
I think it’s premature to take a victory lap so soon. We shit on the CPUSA for being sheepdogs for the Democrats and rightfully so, but the CPUSA overall has faced more state repression in its entire history than the PSL. It’s through that state repression (on top of a not particularly good political line) that the CPUSA was reduced to a shadow of its former self worthy of mockery. That’s something to keep in mind.
I believe the PSL has undergone enough quantitative changes that it’s on the cusp of a qualitative change, and once that qualitative change happens, the bourgeois state will also change COIN tactics to accommodate that next qualitative stage. COIN texts point to the early moments of each new qualitative stage as weakness that the state apparatus can exploit to ultimately liquidate insurgents. It’s like how a moth is at its weakest and most vulnerable when it just emerges from its cocoon. The next test will be whether the PSL can pass the trial by fire after undergoing that qualitative change.