Study & Struggle is a program of the Catalyst Project based in the SF Bay Area, which focuses on creating spaces for political education, and movement strategizing focused on studying and developing fresh, vibrant and relevant analysis for today’s complex social, political and economic landscape.

Catalyst Project believes we need to strengthen and build grassroots fighting organizations and develop politics based in a synthesis of different political traditions. We aim to foster an environment of trust and respect that brings us together to build healthy relationships and movements.

Our goal is to help foster an atmosphere of intensive and disciplined study, reflection, and strategizing, which can bring together and cohere different aligned non-sectarian movement forces in the Bay Area fighting for revolutionary change. Study and Struggle creates space for activists and organizers from different sectors to reflect on, and draw lessons from, their work. The program also highlights the work of left academics and movement theoreticians.

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Study & Struggle sessions range from small, intimate, study series, to public panel discussions and presentations. Past sessions have included:

• Reclaiming Revolution: A study of the history and lessons of STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), a multi-racial, internationalist, left cadre organization based in the Bay Area from 1994-2001.
• Empire and Multitude: A discussion with Michael Hardt, co-author with Antonio Negri of the influential book Empire and its recently released sequel Multitude.
• Resistance in Brooklyn: A discussion with Matt Meyer, one of the founding members of Resistance in Brooklyn, a long-standing white revolutionary anti-imperialist group.
• Beyond the RNC: Building a Multi-Racial Movement Against Imperialism: A panel discussion in New York City leading up to the Republican National Convention, featuring immigrant tenant organizer Maria Poblet and Catalyst member Chris Crass along with Heidi Reijm of the Ruby Affinity Group, Vanessa Moses and Greg Hom of the anti-imperialist delegation Siafu and Marc Kirpanski of Immigrant Justice Solidarity Project.{mosimage}{multithumb}
• Lessons in Revolutionary Anarchism: From Network, to Federation, to Cadre Organization A presentation and discussion session with author and organizer Joel Olson on the history of the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation, and Bring the Ruckus.
•  Towards Land, Work, and Power: A study with organizers from POWER [People Organized to Win Employment Rights] on their new book, Towards Land, Work, & Power, looking at the political economy of the Bay Area and building an anti-imperialist movement based in working class communities of color. Presenters included Jason Negron-Gonzalez, Marisa Franco, and J. Browne.
•  Revolutionary Healing: A workshop with Mordecai Cohen Ettinger introduce the tools of somatics, mind-body medicine, the impacts of trauma, history of U.S. medical establishment and how this knowledge can help us reflect on and strategize about how an ecological and socially just future is possible in the present.
• Outlaws of America: A panel discussion on the history, politics and lessons of the Weather Underground. Ex-Weather Underground members along with radical historian Ron Jacobs and lon-time anti-racist activist Dan Berger presented an key lessons for today’s anti-war and social justice movements. This event was co-hosted by AK Press and Freedom Archives.
• Lessons from the Global Intifada: A discussion with members of the Left Turn editorial collective about the global social movements and local struggles that influence the magazine and what lessons they draw as anti-authoritarians doing non-sectarian movement building work. Rayan Elamine, Francesca Fiorentini, Sasha Wright and Max Uhlenbeck presented.
• Bolivia: On the Brink of Electoral Revolution A presentation by Mateo Nube on the historical development of Bolivia’s political economy and peasant and worker based resistance movements.  Analysis of contemporary left in Bolivia. Co-hosted with the School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
• Solidarity Not Charity: a discussion on roles of white activists in the multiracial movement for justice in New Orleans. Strategy session with New Orleans based activist/doctor Catherine Jones and Philadelphia based activist/educator Molly McClure.
• New Orleans: Organizing on the Ground A conversation with Kali Akuno and Ingrid Chapman from People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition and the Anti-Racist Work Group of the Common Ground Collective.
• Lessons from Anti-Racist Activism and Parenting in the Mid-West A discussion with Laura McNeill from the Groundwork Collective in Madison, Wisconsin.
• Prefigurative Parenting A workshop led by Rahula Janowski, a working class mom with the Heads Up Collective, on the convergence of radical politics and parenting.
• Mexico: the Other Campaign, the Elections and the Repression A presentation by Mexico City based anti-imperialist organizer Marisol O’Campo who works with Committee Pedrogales. Co-hosted with the School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
• Burning Questions: What is it going to take to get Revolution out of the Air and Onto the Ground? A discussion with Max Elbaum on lessons from the New Communist Movement and the strategic role of United Fronts.  Followed by Rahula Janowski from the Heads Up Collective, Claire Tran from Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Steve Williams, an organizer with POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights), on left organization, strategy and movement building. Co-hosted with the School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL)