The Freedom Road Socialist Organization is a revolutionary socialist organization in the United States.
The organization was founded in 1985 from three groups of the Maoist tradition: the Proletarian Unity League , the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters and the Organization for Revolutionary Unity . These groups merged with a goal of uniting Marxist-Leninists as many of the Marxist-Leninist groups formed in the New Communist Movement of the 1970s were shrinking or collapsing. Freedom Road's predecessor groups supported self-determination, up to and including independence, for blacks and Chicanos in the US. Freedom Road continues that line on the 'national question', which is a defining feature of the organization's politics.
Freedom Road proved keen to merge with other groups, including the Amílcar Cabral - Paul Robeson Collective in 1988 and the Socialist Organizing Network in 1994. In 1999, Freedom Road Socialist Organization split into two groups, both of which have kept the organization's name. Thus two identically-named groups are commonly identified by their publication names — Fight Back Newspaper and Freedom Road Magazine.
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Fight Back) continues to identify as a Marxist-Leninist organization, and continues to recognize countries such as Cuba, Vietnam and China as upholding socialism. Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Freedom Road) criticizes the term 'Marxism-Leninism' as being too orthodox and has adopted a plan called left refoundation with a goal of uniting previously divided sections of the left, including some Trotskyist and social-democratic organizations. FRSO(FR) does not consider any country in the world today to be socialist.
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Last updated: 05-28-2005 18:22:25
