By Comrade Abel

“The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigor and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed on you. The world belongs to you. China’s future belongs to you.”¹

Q: Can you briefly tell us what the Issaquah (ISSA-KWAH) Students League (ISL) is?
A: The ISL is a revolutionary mass org of primarily High School students based out of Issaquah, Washington (a Seattle suburb). We are a chapter of a larger nation-wide organization.
Editors Note: The Revolutionary Student Union (RSU), the RSU is not affiliated with any pre-existing organization and was only recently formulated. It’s worth mentioning that the ISL predates the establishment of the RSU.

Q: How did ISL start out?
A: The origins of the ISL began in 2020-2021, when several attempts were made at initiating student outreach/organizing. At this time we were inspired to make a chapter of Revolutionary Student News, this idea came from a time where some of the founders of ISL and other soon-to be ISL members were working with Tribune of the People. ISL began in earnest during the Spring of 2023, the ISL was initially intended to be a socialist club at our High school but instead formed into the revolutionary mass organization that is today. It is important to note that the majority of the founding group of ISL were (and still are) members of the Puget Sound Revolutionary Study Group (PSRSG), a chapter of the nationwide Revolutionary Study Groups (RSG). Many ISL members have also become members of the PSRSG, we regularly collaborate and hold joint events with the PSRSG.

Follow Up: You mention that the idea for ISL started out as a “socialist club” which seems like a distinctly different kind of beast than a revolutionary mass organization, how did the one become the other?
A: Absolutely. It was forged through two-line struggle. A comrade claimed that we should start explicitly as a club but Comrade W objected along with a few others. Together we laid out the plan for the first meeting of ISL. We took the aesthetic of the club and the political line of the mass organization and created the new organization. We chose the form of a mass organization over a club for a few reasons. In a school club you can’t expand members beyond students at that one particular school, moreover the particular school administration (admin) would exercise all-round control over funding and regulate the student discourse via the teacher administrators. We also believe a club encourages students to leave their activism after they graduate, and it is much harder to collaborate with outside of school organizations while being a school club. ISL being outside of the school is easier to organize because you have a larger pool to work with and fewer limitations on what you can do with that membership, other student based mass organizations such as RSF-University of North Carolina at Charlotte agree with us on this as well.
Abel: In my student organizing experience there was a huge problem with this school club mentality. Liberal Elements within the organization would constantly shy from directly confronting the school admin when the whole purpose the student organization that we were nominally trying to build was confronting the admin and extracting concessions. However because of the form we adopted at the time we failed to make those changes. We would have been wise to follow this advice.

Q: What are some peculiarities of organizing in a place like Issaquah?
A: Issaquah is a blue bubble where people claim to be politically conscious, however, almost everyone here is economically privileged and wealthy. 

Follow Up: What are the demographics of Issaquah?
A: Issaquah is generally a quite wealthy PB community made up of up of mostly White people and Asians. All leadership except one member come from PB backgrounds, people here pretended to care especially during 2020 but really they are just apathetic liberals. So Issaquah has lot of apathetic liberals but at the same time a lot of revolutionary minded youth.

Follow up: How did your experience of 2020 effect your thinking about everything?
A: For some of us in leadership 2020 was when it became clear that capitalism was the central problem, but the average Issaquah activist just reacted to the situation. They were agitated temporarily but left the movement and returned to their regular lives. So much of the liberal activism in Issaquah was performative in nature and then that activism just stopped one day and people left the movement. 

Follow up: What do you think about that?
A: It was devastating to witness, their was so much solidarity in that moment, we thought those people would really be interested in ISL but it really is made up of people that either have their own experiences of oppression or were already prepared to receive revolutionary alternatives. Many attendees we have suffered burn out trying to change things from within the school. Specifically, during 2020 some of the leadership were in a different organization working with the school administration to eliminate barriers for oppressed people, but the administration wasn’t actually trying change anything. It felt performative in the sense that we were only allowed to make surface level changes.
We have also spoken to people in school district admin who are well intentioned but even they admit that school districts take a good 3-5 business years to do anything. We wish we were Maoists and that ISL had existed during 2020. There was a general sense of opportunism and no sense of leadership or direction, ISL could’ve helped transform this energy into something long lasting.

Q: What problems did the students of Issaquah face that led them to organizing?
A: To be Frank, there are not a huge amount of economic sites of struggle in Issaquah. Students usually don’t face too many local issues. We occasionally do have publicized incidents of racism that cause an outrage within the community, but no real substantive change comes from it.

Follow Up: So you can’t center economics in your approach in the same way one could in a poorer area then?
A: No, Issaquah is a commuter town. There is no real permanent work located inside Issaquah besides Costco HQ.

Follow Up: you said most of the parents are PB, is that mostly commuter town small businesses?
A: Yes, and salary workers for larger businesses like Costco which is headquartered in Issaquah. Most people here are PB and that’s what many people here assume to be the default everywhere.

Q: How receptive was the rest of the student body to ISL’s politics?
A: It varies, a small group of three individuals, who are anti-communists, are actively removing our posters.  Many at our school are confused about what the ISL is. The mixed reactions have been both positive and negative. The ISL intrigued many advanced students, including some who would join the leadership. However, many in the school like to refer to it as a “commie club.” The majority of people fall into the neutral to slightly negative category, with not enough interest to care. For instance, people asked attendees if they were going to the “commie club,” and there’s a perception that we may come across as naive to some people’s eyes.

Q: How do you attract and retain members?
A: We initially attracted all of our members by word of mouth- telling friends- and using Instagram to promote the org. We did a quite smart strategy of just following anyone we could find from our school. Most people did not follow back but quite a few saw the page due to this and became interested. Later on during this school year we began a large postering campaign, which was effective as we got two people from postering. Our advice for postering would be to target key areas (we targeted the community center near our school and places youth/students frequent) and make sure you put QR CODES on your posters! It makes them 10x more accessible, but we’d recommend putting them on the middle of your poster so they’re harder to simply cut off. We try to retain attendees by building a sense of community at the meetings, at the same time we try to avoid cliquish behavior that could keep people from contributing. We started splitting up the leadership to go around to different parts of the meeting to talk to non-core members. Attendees of ISL say they stay for the long haul because they see we are actually advocating real solutions to the problems society faces and we actually do things to combat these issues. Many appreciate the fact that we don’t just jump heads first into action and we actually study, discuss, and do activism simultaneously. Students love the fact that we don’t just do performative activism, we have given students revolutionary optimism, some thought capitalism would never be defeated until joining ISL and engaging in political work, through practice we reignited peoples’ aspiration for revolution.

Follow up: When you say you target key areas how do you determine that?
A: Places we postered were polls near our school, and near areas were youth frequent like the community center and skatepark.

Q: What has attracted so many students to radical politics?
A: Many students in our area have become completely disillusioned with electoral politics and the capitalist system’s ability to reform itself. Many of our members were former liberals/social democrats who became radicalized due to the capitalist system’s deepening crisis and the impossibility of reform. Participating in real political work has given the organization pretty broad appeal to students that are advanced and intermediate. 

Q: Is ISL an explicitly Maoist students organization?
A: No, the ISL is not an explicitly Maoist organization however it is an organization formed and led by Maoists. It is our view that mass organizations should be organized by Maoists, and guided by Maoist Principles.

Q: Are your fellow students interested in Maoism?
A: Yes. We have about 20+ consistent attendees and more than half of them are into Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM). MLM as an acronym has even become a sort of inside joke for the Maoists and learning Maoists within our organization. We have also watched/read things related to Maoism such as the documentary: “People of the Shining Path” and “Why Maoism” by Tjen Folket, along with participating in this years martyrs month for the Philippine & Indian Revolutions, educating the students about ongoing Protracted People’s Wars (PPWs) being waged around the world. We even had a comrade take extreme initiative by beginning to read MLM basic course by CPI (Maoist).

Q: How can students in High school’s and college’s across the country start building their own students organizations?
A: We’d suggest getting a core group together at first to act as the leadership. Then, you should find a venue to regularly host your organization’s meetings. Next, make a social media account and follow everybody you can that goes to the schools you are targeting, if there are other activist organizations in your area you should follow their followers. You should also use word of mouth and especially poster for the organization in the lead up to the meeting, you should contact as many people as possible beforehand. For example, our comrades in Bellevue turned into receptionists; calling everybody they thought might be interested in their first meeting attending, which yielded great results.

Q: What does an ISL meeting look like?
A: We divide the meetings into 2 hours: The first being required, and the second being optional. During the first hour we cover the meeting topic that was posted on social media, we usually present the topic and do a group reading then discussion about it. We’d really recommend if you ever have a group of people for a meeting, sit them in a CIRCLE! (There’s a reason concentric construction is so important!). Circles are a more comfortable shape to share comments in and make it easier for the speaker. We have everyone talk to their neighbor one on one before coming back together where we then go around in the circle asking people to share their thoughts/ideas on what was discussed. We also like to spread out our most advanced members (especially those in leadership). You don’t wanna have the most advanced people be in their own clique not spreading their political line around. You want them talking with the other attendees at the meeting. We use the 2nd optional hour as time for more advanced political discussion OR arts & crafts (such as propaganda making). Most people that aren’t schedule bound stay for the 2nd hour.

Q: What type of outreach does the ISL do?
A: We have reached out to numerous different organizations such as Anakbayan, Puget Sound Tenants Union (our local tenants union), Progressive Student Union (SDS chapter at UW-Seattle). We also have essentially taken over a pre-existing club at one of the high schools in our area and transformed this club into a pipeline leading to ISL. Having an official school club working in tandem with us at the school is a great compliment to our work, because we can attract more people, and more easily collaborate with school clubs. We also table at school events and poster inside of our school (outside organizations technically aren’t allowed to do this, but teachers love us so we can.) 

Q: What kinds of political education does ISL conduct?
A: We primarily focus on the basics of political education for our attendees. Provided here is a list of EVERY text the ISL has read and every topic we have covered since our founding in April 2023. In our political education we really want to hammer in the fact that organizing does not end after school and that the worker-student alliance is the goal we are working towards. We have read articles detailing the problem with the capitalist school system, problems with past student organizing (such as student power). We have covered the following list of topics (somewhat in chronological order). What is Capitalism? What is Socialism? Base & Superstructure, The 3 Instruments for Revolution, The purpose of the state (dictatorship of one class over the other), Beginner Dialectical Materialism, International People’s Wars (briefly), Life under socialism (mostly in Mao’s China), Scientific Socialism and what is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism?

Q: Can anyone join ISL?
A: Yes, as long as the candidate is a student/youth within our area of operations. Same goes for any other RSU chapter. We’d only refuse devout reactionaries, chauvinists, and wreckers.

Q: What is “No More Nukes”?
A: No More Nukes was a state-wide day of demonstrations led by Washington Against Nuclear Weapons (WANW). WANW held events all around the state and for our event we held a demonstration targeting our House of Representatives district representative: Kim Schrier. We were specifically targeting her horrible track record on nuclear weapons and her general support for the Democratic Party’s ghoulish policies of imperialism & militarism.

Q: Can you talk about why nuclear deproliferation is such an important issue today?
A: Its an important issue nationally because the US has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world even though the cold war justification for the nukes is gone and its an important an important state wide issue in Washington particularly. Hanford was a nuclear facility in central Washington that produced plutonium. it was on stolen Yakama (Yah KAW Ma) land and Hanford gave the plutonium that was used for the two bombs that would be dropped on Japan. While its not in use anymore its still polluting the area and the former employees are suffering medical conditions related to radiation exposure. Washington state is also home to Naval Base Kitsap Bangor, which houses nuclear submarines and further Washington state was home to dozens of minuteman missile launch sites, Issaquah was home to one of them. Soviet citizens were completely banned from visiting Washington as a result of this. 

Q: How does deproliferation fit together with anti-imperialism? 
A: Nuclear weapons in the hands of imperialists will be used for imperialist means leading to the type of brinksmanship that nearly caused global destruction numerous times and the type of bloodshed at the scale of hundreds of thousands as we saw in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Q: How does the the student struggle relate to anti-imperialist struggle?
A: Like all other sections of the masses have the obligation to oppose imperialism everywhere it rears its ugly head. Students are given a unique opportunity to oppose imperialist recruitment on our campuses and imperialist propaganda being fed to students.

Q: Can you briefly speak on the protest itself?
A: The ‘No to Nukes’ Protest was a part of the state-wide day of action against Nukes hosted by WANW. We started off at a Park where ISL and a local chapter of climate activist organization, 350, gave speeches on the issue. We then marched to Kim Schrier’s office. Despite the rain, we had good turnout and, received support from people in the town.

Q: What events have the ISL attended/hosted besides the No to Nukes action?
A:  The ISL attended numerous events hosted by the International League of Peoples’ Struggles (ILPS) such as their Mayday marches on March 30th and May 1st, solidarity school event this July and their people’s summit against the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) this August. The ISL marched alongside the Puget Sound Revolutionary Study Group (PSRSG) and ILPS member orgs. We hosted an educational event on the lessons we learned from High School organizing at the people’s summit against APEC, it was a packed room full of people to enthusiastic to learn! We have also noticed that people at events are constantly pleasantly surprised by our attendance, people in our area just know Issaquah as a PB (Petit-Bourgeois) city where nobody cares about these issues, so we’re breaking peoples expectations by being mostly High schoolers from that area who are organized and knowledgeable about socialism. We also stand out physically in a lot of spaces as we are usually the youngest in the room, and at marches we have a militant and youthful appearance (with our red bandanas.)

Q: How does ISL measure the success of an action?
A: We measure the success of an action depending on our pre-determined goal(s) that we set for the action. For example, participating in the No to Nukes day of action had the goals of: 1. Mobilizing Students, 2. Propaganda value. We exceeded both of our goals for the action.

Q: What are some challenges you have faced during student organizing?
A:  There tends to be a divide in knowledge between members. We have struggled in determining what to study in a meeting so that the material will still make sense to everyone but also be stimulating to those with prior knowledge on the subject. Another challenge in larger meetings is that some members get off topic quickly rather than engaging with the material. We combat these challenges by utilizing the second hour for advanced discussions, holding side meetings dedicated to covering material in-depth for more advanced attendees, and we personally speak to those who tend to get off topic quickly.

Q: What are some key takeaways from your organizing experience?
A: There are numerous key takeaways from our experience but we can elaborate on a few. Although the suburbs seem unassuming for political organizing, it’s an untapped resource that should be taken advantage of. Since there are almost no other political organizations present, it’s easy to dispose students to our ideas. Forming a student based mass org is not that hard! Get a dedicated activist core and you can start from there. We call upon all students/youth, no matter where they are, to try to form an RSU chapter. The U.S. may be flooded with student organizations currently but no nation wide student formation besides the RSU are fighting to forge a genuine student movement that is linked with the worker’s struggle. The student-worker alliance is key to building an effective student organization, the student struggle must not be waged in an isolated manner. Educating students about MLM really is possible, we had people who thought Mao & Stalin were mass murderers eventually become Maoists in a relatively short amount of time. By deconstructing capitalist narratives about communism and explaining why the capitalist superstructure can only perpetuate lies about communism we won them over.

Q: Do you think that ISL could become a model for student organizing moving forward and how so?
A: Yes, we certainly believe the ISL is a model for student organizing in the future! Principally for High schoolers. The Communist movement in the U.S. has historically failed to properly approach the student struggle. We must rebuild its organizing amongst all sections of the masses and we seek to build a stronger, more militant and Maoist led youth movement. We think the ISL can be a model because, 1. Our organization is led by Maoists and guided by Maoism, Maoism is all powerful because it is true and it is the complete and total repudiation of revisionism of all types. 2. The ISL prioritizes the worker-student alliance and doesn’t fall for student power politics nor right opportunism in the student movement. The student movement must not be isolated from other struggles, it has to be connected to worker struggles/the Communist political movement. 

Q: What are future plans for the ISL?
A: We seek to expand into neighboring cities (we already have in the case of Bellevue, a nearby city) and consolidate our attendees knowledge of Maoism. We expanding our outreach to teachers, pre-existing clubs, and begin social investigation in our localities, so we can gain a deeper understanding of the struggles taking place here. We aim host more in-depth and advanced meetings to compliment our weekly ISL meetings, along with covering lies perpetuated by the school system about socialism at our weekly meetings.

Q: What are the goals of ISL?
A: Mobilize students and youth and politicize them with MLM so as to generate the next generation of cadre. We think these two goals should be the main goals of student based mass organizations.

ISL: We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderous editorial team at The Masses for reaching out to us to arrange this interview. We hope that this interview will prove to be a great read for those interested in student organizing from a genuine revolutionary perspective or those who want to understand the student movement from the Maoist perspective. We encourage all students reading this to reach out to the RSU and form their own chapters.

Abel: And I would like to thank you comrades for sharing your experiences organizing students. I hope that our readership is inspired to follow the path that the ISL is carving out now in Washington State. The revolutionary youth are the future of Communism, and it should be one of the top priorities of the Maoist Communist struggle to help train and organize the future cadre that we will join with in struggle against capitalism. 

BUILD THE WORKER-STUDENT ALLIANCE! 
STUDY REVOLUTION, FIGHT EXPOLITATION!
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTIONARY STUDENT UNION!

1. Mao Tse Tung, Talk at a meeting with Chinese students and trainees in Moscow (November 17, 1957).