2023 Year End Update
Published on December 20, 2023 by spencer phillip
2023 LRB Summation
Hello! And welcome to our year in review <3 We are excited to share our 2023 reflections and summation with you; Little Read Books has accomplished so much this year and we are all really excited to be in a strong position moving forward to do even more in 2024. The organization Little Read Books is today would be nearly unrecognizable to historic members. Beginning as not much more than a small number of people with a group chat and a lot of ideas on how to have a positive impact in our community, we’ve grown into an robust organization with coherent and defined goals, sustainable structures that encourage collective responsibility for our work, and a continuing space for reflections and healthy debates about our past, present, and future. Though many of the changes that have helped us get to where we are seem obvious in hindsight, it was truly only through continuous experimentation with a scientific socialist lens that we arrived at where we are today. We hope by sharing these experiments, failures, and successes here that we might save the reader some trouble in similar situations with their own organizing.
Before we get into the lessons though, here are some of the events we organized in 2023!
-”Where to Begin?” (1901) Discussion
-Sewing & Mending Skillshare
-”Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement” (2016) Discussion
-”National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (1989) Screening
-Palestine Protest Sign-Making
-”Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes From the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense” (2014)
-Eviction Defense Skillshare
-”Principles of Communism” (1847) Discussion
-”The UPS Struggle and the Tasks of Marxists in the Labor Movement” (2023) Discussion
-”Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism: A Primer” (1981) Discussion
-”The Host” (2006) Screening
-Block Stop City Solidarity Event
-Prisoner Solidarity Letter Writings
-”Salvador Allende” (2004) Screening
-Zine Making Workshop
-”Looking Back to Face Forward: The Role of Summation in the Revolutionary Process” (2021) Discussion
-”Why Socialism?” (1949) Discussion
-”Activist Study” (2020) Discussion
“They Say They Will” (1987) Screening
-”Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier” (1991) Screening
-”Decay: On Fascism and Breakdown (2020) Screening
-”Red Ant Dream” (2013) Screening
-”Caliban and the Witch” (2004) Discussion
-”Riotsville, USA” (2022) Screening
-”Transgender Marxism” (2021) Discussion
-”Pride” (2014) Screening
-”Gaza Fights For Freedom” (2019) Screening
-”The Wobblies” (1979) Screening
-”Imperialism” (1917) Discussion
-”The Weapon of Theory” (1966) Discussion
-”La Chinoise” (1967) Screening
-”All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” (2023) Screening
-”Four Main Issues to be Discussed in the International Communist Movement” (2010) Discussion
-”Women’s Liberation and the New Politics” Discussion (1969)
-”WR: Mysteries of the Organism” (1971) Screening
-”An Indigenous People’s History of the United States” (2014)
-”Constructive Criticism: A Handbook” (1976) Discussion
-”King Corn” (2007) Screening
+much more!
Anyway:
An immediate challenge that was on all our minds moving into 2023 was the question of how we could make LRB more accessible in a way that could attract and retain people from all sorts of backgrounds. After pivoting away from our original model of handing out food and books at the capitol, we quickly realized that the people that were now interested in organizing with us were…different. That is to say, less likely to be a woman and more likely to have already read the classic Marxist texts and have some very strong thoughts about them. The result of this demographic change manifested immediately in all spheres of LRB. Whether it was our monthly planning meetings, film screenings, reading discussions, or whatever else, the result was an environment that appeared to only be welcoming to a certain type of person, with anyone not fitting that mold feeling alienated and not excited to learn about revolutionary socialism.
So we set out to identify the areas we could collectively improve and become something more than a group that just collected socialists that had self-radicalized via podcasts or memepages. Throughout the process there were a number of ideas at every stage on how to proceed, but here are the highlights of what worked best:
- We began electing administrative roles on a recurring basis every 4 months. The previous system involved our organizers signing up for tasks at our monthly meeting, which generally worked well and fostered collective responsibility, but didn’t really allow long-term planning and was inefficient in a number of ways. Some elected role examples include Programming Head, Conflict Mediator, General Secretary, and Outreach Coordinator.
- We changed our meeting structure to follow the form of a brief presentation on socialist theory, followed by collective reflections on the previous month’s programming, and ending with creating working groups for agenda items. The previous format (50% planning and 50% agenda items addressed collectively) generally resulted in a couple people dominating conversations (we asked them to stop but it didn’t really help), and was generally inefficient; it’s difficult for ten people to come to a concrete consensus on just about anything.
- We implemented “constructive criticism” (based on Vikki Legion’s 1976 book “Constructive Criticism: A Handbook) as a conflict mediation strategy. Organizers now challenge each other to use the general template “You have done W, which made me feel X, and had Y concrete effect on our organizing. Please do Z instead”. Since its implementation, constructive criticism has been used successfully a number of times to resolve conflicts or tensions.
- We added more structure to our discussion groups and events towards the goal of greater inclusivity. Discussions historically included all attendees getting in a large circle and popcorning back and forth, with the conversation following organically from any points being made. The main problem was that this format was dominated by a couple people with strong opinions, which greatly decreased the ability of others from feeling comfortable taking part in the dialog. It was also prone to straying infinitely far away from the reading topic. By designating two leaders for each discussion who are responsible for bringing brief summaries of the readings and discussion questions, we’ve been able to create a situation where participation is much more even, and everyone leaves discussions with a lot more. It also has helped to create an environment where it is okay to attend and participate if you didn’t have time to read the discussion text.
- We increased our emphasis on collaborations and community building. As mentioned, posting flyers on social media and around town about a Leftist reading group was only really attracting a certain type of person. While not necessarily a bad thing, we want to bring as many people as possible into revolutionary socialist politics. By collaborating with existing organizations and holding events that aren’t just reading theory, we’ve been able to expand our network to all sorts of people that can come into our space with their ideas and experiences and contribute meaningfully in a way that moves our politics to a better place.
All of these changes have culminated in an environment where our organizers and event participants are very excited for the future - it felt like for a long time that LRB was on the brink of collapse and there were a million things we needed to get in order before we could coast. Now we’re happy to be able to just sit back and see what happens for a bit.
What’s in store for our future? Lots! We’re excited for a couple new projects including a monthly mutual aid cooking/distro, a Spanish speaking group that will meet biweekly, and study groups that meet over the course of a long period of time. We’ll also continuously work on improving our current projects to make them have as much impact in the community as possible.
Thank you for reading <3
-The LRB Crew