The Leading Light Communist Organization (LLCO) is a radical-left Maoist extremist organization which claims to include “the only real Communists today.” ¹ It claims that its goal is to “initiate the next great wave of communist revolution” and “lead the masses to complete victory over the Bourgeois ‘First’ World enemy.” ^{2 3}

The LLCO’s ideology promotes a violent communist revolution in the developing world that will then sweep across developed nations, imposing communist rule in developed countries “whether the populations want it or not.” ⁴ Its long-time leader admitted that it hides these principles from leftist activists when organizing in Western countries, positioning itself instead as “anti-war, anti-militarism, etc.” ⁵

History and Leadership

The Leading Light Communist Organization was founded in Denver, Colorado in 2010 by Brennen Ryan, Jacob Brown, and other communist activists. ^{6 7} Its leaders follow the communist revolutionary practice of using pseudonyms, and Ryan took the name “Prairie Fire,” a reference to the extremist Weather Underground manifesto promoting “the politics of revolutionary anti-imperialism.” ⁸ An LLCO website described Ryan as “one of the most important theorists of revolution in our age” and “the Marx of the present epoch.” ⁹

A memorial tribute to Ryan by one of LLCO’s co-founders claimed that before launching LLCO in 2010, Ryan had led “a street dealing crew” for drug cartels in Albuquerque, New Mexico because “he saw no other way to build a massive war chest that a People’s Army would need.” The tribute asserted that Ryan had engaged in the illegal drug trade to fund communist extremist initiatives. ¹⁰ Ryan reportedly resumed his “politicized drug trafficking” while leading the LLCO, which earned him “admiration for willingness to openly defy the state” among some fellow communist leaders. ¹¹ Ryan was criminally convicted in Colorado on drug charges, which led to his imprisonment and his expulsion from the LLCO. ^{12 13 14}

Ryan passed away from a heroin overdose in 2019. ¹⁵ The LLCO’s current leader goes by the pseudonym “Uziel Stryker.” ¹⁶

Ideology

Leading Light Communist Organization advances radical-left, extremist views of communism which claim that the Soviet Union of the 1960s and the People’s Republic of China of the 1970s were insufficiently communist. ¹⁷ It also argues that present-day socialist countries are not truly socialist, claiming that Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Vietnam, China, Libya, and North Korea are not socialist regimes. ¹⁸

LLCO endorses the violent overthrow of the modern world order, calling for the “Global People’s War of the Proletarian World to defeat the Bourgeois World and its neocolonial agents.” ¹⁹

LCCO views all countries hostile to the United States as victims of alleged imperialist aggression. The group supports the development and deployment of nuclear weapons by North Korea, arguing that the country needs “to deter the United States and its allies who seek to invade the country, destroy them, reverse their revolutionary gains, and exploit their natural resources and labour [sic] power.” ²⁰ The group also supports Russian and Iranian intervention in the Syrian civil war to “depose the U.S. and its terrorist proxies.” ²¹

Activities

Leading Light Communist Organization operates on a need-to-know “cell” basis and shrouds its activities in secrecy and misdirection. ²² Late leader Brenden Ryan revealed that the LCCO does not always operate openly as a communist group when organizing leftist activists, saying in a post since deleted from their website, “You might need a cult to organize people effectively, but why a *communist* cult? Just build any old cult and direct people into anti-war, anti-militarism, etc… This is why LLCO hid the red flag when we set up various fronts in the First World.” ²³

The LLCO operates an online news and opinion website, New Power, which promotes its communist extremist ideology. ²⁴

1. “Leading Light Communist Organization.” Leading Light Communist Organization. Accessed July 28, 2021. https://llcodotorg.wordpress.com/.
2. “What We Strive For.” Leading Light Communist Organization, September 5, 2017. https://llco.org/what-we-strive-for/.
3. “What Is the Leading Light? (and Other Frequently Asked Questions).” Leading Light Communist Organization, October 12, 2016. https://llco.org/faq/.
4. “What Is the Leading Light? (and Other Frequently Asked Questions).” Leading Light Communist Organization, October 12, 2016. https://llco.org/faq/.
5. “A Recent Conversation on the History of LLCO in North America.” LLCO. Leading Light Communist Organization, May 26, 2014. (Accessed via Wayback Machine) https://web.archive.org/web/20140722171109/https://llco.org/quotes-from-a-recent-conversation-on-the-history-of-llco-and-other-fun-stuff/.
6. Brown, Jacob. “A Tribute to Leading Light Founder Prairie Fire.” Leading light communist organization, 2019. https://leadinglightcommunist.org/a-tribute-to-leading-light-founder-prairie-fire/.
7. “A Recent Conversation on the History of LLCO in North America.” LLCO. Leading Light Communist Organization, May 26, 2014. (Accessed via Wayback Machine) https://web.archive.org/web/20140722171109/https://llco.org/quotes-from-a-recent-conversation-on-the-history-of-llco-and-other-fun-stuff/.
8. Raskin, Jonah. “‘Prairie Fire’ Memories.” Tablet, July 18, 2019. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/prairie-fire-weather-underground.
9. Ryan, Brennen. “Empire, Gender: An Interview with Leading Light Commander Prairie Fire (BRENNEN RYAN).” Army of the Leading Light. Leading Light Communist Organization, May 2, 2017. https://leadinglightarmy.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/empire-gender-an-interview-with-leading-light-commander-prairie-fire/.
10. Brown, Jacob. “A Tribute to Leading Light Founder Prairie Fire.” Leading light communist organization, 2019. https://leadinglightcommunist.org/a-tribute-to-leading-light-founder-prairie-fire/.
11. Brown, Jacob. “A Tribute to Leading Light Founder Prairie Fire.” Leading light communist organization, 2019. https://leadinglightcommunist.org/a-tribute-to-leading-light-founder-prairie-fire/.
12. Thompson, John. “A MESSAGE FROM THE LEADING LIGHT COMMUNIST ORGANIZATION.” Facebook. Leading Light Communist Organization, April 20, 2017. https://www.facebook.com/LLCOMMUNISM/posts/a-message-from-the-leading-light-communist-organizationconcerning-our-former-com/1153120428131153/.
13. “On the Passing of Comrade Prairie Fire.” Marxist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons, March 2020. https://www.prisoncensorship.info/article/on-the-passing-of-comrade-prairie-fire/.
14. “LLCO: An Extended Footnote.” woodsmokeblog, June 10, 2019. https://woodsmokeblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/llco-an-extended-footnote/.
15. Brown, Jacob. “A Tribute to Leading Light Founder Prairie Fire.” Leading light communist organization, 2019. https://leadinglightcommunist.org/a-tribute-to-leading-light-founder-prairie-fire/.
16. Stryker, Uziel. “Onward towards 2017! a New Year’s Message.” Leading Light Communist Organization, December 30, 2016. https://llco.org/onward-towards-2017-a-new-years-message/.
17. “What Is Socialism? What Is Communism?” Leading Light Communist Organization, September 2, 2016. https://llco.org/what-is-socialism-what-is-communism/.
18. “What Is Socialism? What Is Communism?” Leading Light Communist Organization, September 2, 2016. https://llco.org/what-is-socialism-what-is-communism/.
19. “What We Strive For.” Leading Light Communist Organization, September 5, 2017. https://llco.org/what-we-strive-for/.
20. Velina, Janelle. “The DPRK, Nuclear Weapons, and ‘Morality’.” Leading Light Communist Organization, April 27, 2021. https://llco.org/the-dprk-nuclear-weapons-and-morality/.
21. Stryker, Uziel. “Presidents Putin, Rouhani & Erdogan Vow to Defeat Terrorism in Syria, Denounce US Presence.” NEW POWER. Leading Light Communist Organization, September 21, 2019. https://new-power.org/2019/09/20/presidents-putin-rouhani-erdogan-vow-to-defeat-terrorism-in-syria-denounce-us-presence/.
22. “8 Instructions to Lone Comrades.” Leading Light Communist Organization, July 6, 2016. https://llco.org/8-instructions-to-lone-comrades/.
23. “A Recent Conversation on the History of LLCO in North America.” LLCO. Leading Light Communist Organization, May 26, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140722171109/https://llco.org/quotes-from-a-recent-conversation-on-the-history-of-llco-and-other-fun-stuff/.
24. “New Power.” Leading Light Communist Organization. Accessed July 28, 2021. https://new-power.org/.