Leader of the Oakridge Revolutionary Workers’ Party, comrade Eleanor Bridges, says the party has lost the majority of its political base after a devastating public session at a local coffee shop in the rural community about 40 miles east of Eugene.
“We just couldn’t come to a consensus on what is effective revolutionary action and it resulted in numerous groups splintering and forming their own reactionary movements,” Bridges says.
The ORWP was formed in November 2025 in response to increased aggression from far-right groups in the region who had threatened local socialist organizers at a zine meet-up. Since then, the ORWP has been instrumental in Oakridge’s movement towards progressivism and equality.
At the meeting, several speakers loudly voiced their opposition to the ORWP’s requirements for members to be actively involved in organizing and revolutionary actions. “Arguing on BlueSky is just as effective as canvassing in our communities,” attendee Jackson Myers says. “It’s problematic that you even asked us to organize, my Discord server has over 1,000 members from hundreds of different counties and that’s actually organizing.”
A disgruntled party member who identified themselves as “Buzz” responded, “Communism is when no iPhone.” A series of boos were heard throughout the room and Buzz was accused of “platforming reactionary consumer narratives.”
One attendee stood up and shouted, “Red fascists! You can’t spread your authoritarianism here!”
Bridges responded, “We’re not fascists, we are trying to figure out how to actively respond to fascism and consider a transition that prevents authoritarian oppression of the working class.”
Despite her pleas, the attendee stormed out of the building, followed by several others who shouted of their own “strategic online awareness campaigns.”
Later in the meeting, party member Peter Foster presented documents leaked from an FBI investigation into the movement. The documents say the FBI “has no idea what is going on here,” and “will try to destabilize the movement through Reddit posts on r/Eugene.”
Foster told the group that there could be a federal agent among those present and a brief scuffle broke out between ORWP members and a small faction of Oakridge residents who took offense to being “fed jacketed.”
The fight was broken up by ORWP members and the room calmed shortly after. Foster reminded the group that the feds “can’t understand the left, because even the left can’t understand the left.” Foster says this is a good thing and works to their advantage to keep federal investigators in the dark.
At the end of the meeting, several groups of five to 10 people had pledged their separation from the ORWP, including one group that named itself “Oakridge Unity Collective.”
Bridges recessed the session and called for the groups to rethink their alliances and personally approach them with their concerns.
In a press release to Eugene Weekly, the ORWP announced that it will be joining forces with the Workers Party of Springfield to bring order back to Oakridge and ensure a “party of the proletariat.”
The ORWP writes that despite its failures to effectively organize, it seeks to remind its constituents that it defeated the “fascist brigades of Patriot Front,” just months earlier in the “Battle of TV Butte,” where protesters pushed back a group of far-right agitators from Vida.
“We need to remind ourselves that in-fighting aside, we stand strong together against the fascists that seek to undermine our sovereignty, equality and strength as workers,” Bridges says. Bridges says they will reform to address concerns among its constituents to be “more progressive” and “expand the revolution.”
Despite disagreements on what exactly is praxis, the new local groups have pledged to remain in solidarity against fascism.