The Left (a fighting, organized Left) doesn’t exist in Amerikkka. “Communist” “Leftist” “Revolutionary”, even “Maoist” political groups are not operating on a basis of Marxism Leninism Maoism. Without a Marxist (Maoist) grounding for revolutionary action, such groups can barely be considered organized. The Cadre Rule came out of this understanding and was created to fix the situation.

The Cadre Rule combats the dead end strategies of movementism, legalism/electoralism, and mutual aid as revolutionary methods in and of themselves.

The Cadre Rule’s ultimate Goal: Develop cadre; develop more cadre.

To be thorough, the Cadre Rule is presented as if you’re an individual beginning from zero, i.e., you have no organizations, groups, or even friends to organize with but you still want to do something.

You will begin as a one-person cell and go through efforts to find at least one other person to join with, preferably a friend who is also disillusioned.

How it’s done (in semi-sequential dialectical order):

1. Acquire a Maoist political education. Study must become a part of your lifestyle.

2. Develop physical and mental health so that you can be effective in the struggle as long as you can.

3. Accountability. Constantly reinforce the importance of the first two elements.

With this, other objectives become more attainable. The concept of Criticism and Self-Criticism is important here.

4. Get armed, become proficient in the use and maintenance of firearms, and practice in some form of combatives.

You cannot call yourself a cadre if you’re not ready to kill if necessary. You must be able to defend yourself and your comrades, and if necessary, engage in the highest form of class struggle. At any moment there can be an escalation of the class war. To hesitate to engage in this step and not fully invest yourself into this – even if it’s for mental health reasons! – bars a person from being a Maoist cadre. This is where most individuals and organizations fall off the revolutionary path.

5. You need to learn medical skills, be able to patch wounds, do emergency care in case someone goes down.

This is of great interest to any formation. Any serious revolutionary must have the ability to use a tourniquet, do wound packing, basic CPR, and use chest seals. To be missing these skills while having a gun and education makes yourself not only a fool but creates a liability and puts your comrades at risk of death.

6. Do an evaluation of other political formations.

Come to understand why your organization cannot afford to organize with them – spotting their ideological traps that thwart revolutionary potential. They should not be discounted, however, for occasional advanced elements. Work toward passive defeat of these organizations by growth of one’s own work and establishment of strength.

7. Once you are confident in your skills, develop your revolutionary strategy and therefore what you must actively reject as a group.

  • Electoralism
  • Entryism – pluck advanced elements out of other groups; don’t take over groups

  • Protest – As a cadre, protests don’t have a tactical purpose for your organization. Protest in the US is a strategy within legalism

  • The Legal Struggle – reject NGOs
  • Mutual Aid as Red Charity
  • Unprincipled Unity
  • Performing services for other groups such as for security or medical support

Embrace

  • Weapons Training, Combatives
  • Training others in your specialty at a base level and encouraging people to come in and get further training
  • Constant political education
  • Collaboration with those who are ideologically principled
  • Promising individuals that seem to have affinity for what you are doing
  • 3-step vetting
  • Limiting the level of skill training if the individual is not willing to join the organization as a candidate for cadre or does not engage in political study

8. Don’t fall into the numbers trap.

A key thing that every revolutionary group will run into is the issue of capacity. You must prioritize the development of cadre over a false sense of growth. Capacity comes with developing cadre with a shared goal. Limit the organizational power and participation in higher level operation of cadre candidates until they prove their commitment and dedication to the long term.

9. Seek to destroy revisionist organizations by bleeding them dry of promising candidates and through exposure campaigns.

Revisionist organizations drain revolutionary energy and need to destroy revolutionary organizations to survive. They are vampires that halt progress and as a result of your existence naturally decline as you grow. The revisionist organizations will attempt to work with you and recruit you as an affiliate down the line. The goal of the cadre should be to use this to extract candidates. If no viable candidate can be found then cutting them off from your activities is necessary unless a temporary tactical alliance is useful. In this alliance your organization must dominate in terms of strategy and decision making if it is centered around your specialization.

10. Above all you are a secret organization.

There are some things that can only be learned about organizationally if you are at the cadre level. Restrict key information, everything in organizing doesn’t have to be open nor should it be. Develop documents to formalize the cadre organization and add structure internal for cadre to see, and some open to candidates. To supplement, develop documents that serve the purpose of communicating externally but give a general idea of what you do and are about.