Noah Khrachvik is a co-director of the Midwestern Marx Institute and treasurer of the American Communist Party, where he serves on the executive board. Recently, he joined me to discuss his ideological journey, the details surrounding the establishment of the American Communist Party, and the people of various backgrounds who make up the party's membership.
Grant Klusmann: Before realizing you are a communist, what political activities were you involved in?
Noah Khrachvik: It wasn’t so much that I realized that I was a communist; it was more so that I learned how to be a communist. Part of doing that was the previous political activity that I had been involved in. I’ve been involved in community organizing most of my life. Whether attending union events with my father or school board meetings with my mother, it’s always been a part of who I am. Watching reformist methods to effect change fail over and over again caused me to take more seriously the lessons I had been receiving in Marxism from my father.
Grant Klusmann: Were your parents Marxists?
Noah Khrachvik: Not really. My father knew quite a bit about Marxism, but he was never a communist or a member of the communist party or anything like that. My family on his side was from the Soviet Union, and my mother came out of the New Left. So, it was kind of always around, even when it had a bit of liberalism involved in it.
Grant Klusmann: Many may recognize you from your work with the Midwestern Marx Institute. How did you come into contact with your colleagues from that organization?
Noah Khrachvik: It’s actually a somewhat funny story. A few years ago, I was in this nihilistic stage of my life where I was under the impression that nothing would ever change for the better in America. Millennials sort of black-pilled me, I guess. That is, until the phenomenon of the Trump and Sanders campaigns came about. Witnessing working-class people recognize the problems of our day inspired me to get involved again. At first, most of what I found when I did that was liberalism with a socialist vocabulary. But then I found Midwestern Marx. I think it was one of Carlos’s videos that impressed me, and so I emailed him to ask if Midwestern Marx was looking for writers. He emailed me back, saying they had been following me on social media and that they were actually going to ask if I could join them. In retrospect, it was more of a timing coincidence than a legitimately funny story, I guess. But that’s how it happened. The rest is history. I got involved, and then I got more involved. Before I knew it, a few years had passed, and Carlos and Eddie had become a regular part of my life. Not just colleagues, but close friends.
Grant Klusmann: When did the leadership at Midwestern Marx, along with the leadership of the rest of the American Communist Party, decide to reconstitute the old party?
Noah Khrachvik: Both Midwestern Marx and Infrared had been trying to help the old party for years, but our efforts were combatted at every turn. We were finding out that there were relatively powerful forces within the organization that wanted nothing to change. Every effort to inject Marxism training, or any organizing effort that would actually be effective in some way got blocked. Any attempt to combat the rampant liberalism and middle-class atmosphere throughout the organization got a target put on your back, and you’d find yourself isolated and attacked. Smear campaigns were a regular thing. Hours-long meetings with self-appointed HR departments were even more regular. But I’m getting off-point here. Things really came to a head at the 32nd National Convention when there was a coup by Joe Sims and his opportunist clique, and the old party basically liquidated itself. Everyone who stood against Zionism and serving the ruling class was getting the same treatment we’d gotten. Sims even started purging people for circulating a simple petition to address the question of Zionism, as they had choreographed the convention to avoid doing that. So, having this large social media platform we’d built up before this, we found ourselves in a position where we could help bring in all the real communists from the old party together, along with people who had been purged years ago, people who had seen the old party for what it became and stayed away, and all kinds of others, and reconstitute the now-liquidated party. We’d built up a sense of trust with people through the Midwestern Marx Institute, and through Infrared, and so we did what we considered our duty to do.
Grant Klusmann: What does your role within the leadership of the American Communist Party entail?
Noah Khrachvik: Quite a bit of dull record-keeping. I’m the treasurer, so it’s my job to ensure we keep receipts, that all the businesses the party members are starting are run legally, and that our books and accounts are kept up-to-date and accurate. I’ve also had to learn a lot about tax law. In addition to that, I'm also on the executive board, which is a democratic decision-making body, and in that role, I try to help guide the party to the best of my ability.
Grant Klusmann: Some have observed that the membership of the American Communist Party is comprised of people who came to communism from all across the political spectrum. What are your thoughts on the varied political backgrounds of the party’s membership?
Noah Khrachvik: That's a good question. There are two things that unite us: Marxism-Leninism and results. For us, it doesn’t matter how you get there, so long as you get there. If Marxism-Leninism is a real, useful worldview that aids us in the class struggle, then it must be proven in action. And so, proving that in the real world, actually getting results, is something that we emphasize. It doesn’t matter if you took a more orthodox route to get there, like we did in the Midwestern Marx Institute, or a more heterodox route, like the Infrared Collective did. What matters is that you’re here now, and you’re fighting on behalf of the working class. I think the sort of “zombie movement,” for lack of a better word that called itself “left-wing” in the last period of American history didn’t really understand this. As it developed and evolved, it became this middle class social scene that didn’t need to worry about results. There was no necessity pushing it forward, forcing it to actually fight. In the 2020s, we don’t have that luxury. We need to win, because the alternative is chaos and disaster. People look at this “political spectrum” like a flat line, right? They see it as a sliding scale where you go bit by bit further left or further right, but that entire view is not reflective of reality. In reality, things are complicated and nuanced, and if we’re viewing things with Marxism-Leninism, then we should know that this complication and nuance is not some flat line people march along performing inherent characteristics that define them, but instead a spiral of development, with effect becoming its own cause and vice versa. The characteristics a movement or a person has can’t be counted up to determine what they are. Instead, they must be analyzed through how they came to develop. And when we do that, we see how the class struggle takes shape. When we do that, we can clearly see how we got here, so that we know where we are going.
Grant Klusmann: Where do you see the American Communist Party in the future?
Noah Khrachvik: In the White House. We’re in it to win it.
Grant Klusmann: If one thing’s for sure, it's that the rise of the American Communist Party is happening at a time when frustration with the illusion of choice presented to American voters via the two-party duopoly may be at its highest level in our lifetimes. We look forward to witnessing what impact the American Communist Party makes on the political scene, and I thank you for your time.
Noah Khrachvik: Thank you too, Grant!
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