Provisional Communist Party
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The Provisional Communist Party is a Communist political party in the United States founded by Gino Perente. The party includes much of the leadership of the National Labor Federation (NATLFED) and functions to direct the strategy of the NATLFED entities through secret deliberations.
The party, also referred to as the Formation by its small core of members, is clandestine and its exact origins and extent are obscure. There are no party publications, no conventions or leadership elections. During Perente’s lifetime he exercised full control over the party, communicating directly with members through long orations held at his Carroll Street office in Brooklyn, or through audiotapes of those speeches sent out to members running the various NATLFED entities. (Tourish and Wohlforth, 2000)
Party members do not openly acknowledge its existence. Members of the party are full-time volunteers in NATLFED entities.
[edit] Membership and history
Membership in the party is by invitation, and invitation comes to volunteers in NATLFED entities as a revelation of the existence of the party, an explanation of the party's goals and strategy, and a brief "history" of the party, called the "genesis." This story is a disorganized narrative which includes fictitious claims that the party was part of a secret International including the Communist Party of Cuba, the Sandinistas and revolutionaries in Chile and El Salvador, and that members of the Weather Underground were among its founders.[1]
Klehr reports that members of the party live communally and spend all their time working for NATLFED entities – such as the Eastern Service Workers Association and the Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals, among others. NATLFED entities pose as social welfare and advocacy organizations in order to collect resources to perpetuate the Provisional Communist Party, NATLFED, and the particular entity itself. NATLFED and its various entities have been described as a cult by former members, newspapers and community organizations.[2] [3]
Perente died in 1995 and Margaret Ribar is reported to have become the leader of the Provisional Communist Party.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Klehr, Harvey Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today Transaction Books. 1990. ISBN 0-88738-875-2
- Tourish, Dennis and Tim Wohlforth, On the Edge: Political Cults on the Right and Left, M.E. Sharpe, 2000. ISBN 0765606399
