Martin Droll, better known by his alias, Marty Rifles, is a pro-revolutionary organizer and writer ideologically and spiritually oriented to what he refers to as “Righteous Communism.” He is informed by a Marxist discourse, having joined the Young Communist League of the USA at 15 in his hometown of Cambridge, Ohio, writing articles for the People’s Weekly World and organizing students for local issues.

Coming from the foothills of the Appalachian mountains from a poor white family, opportunities to afford to college were scarce. With Southeast Ohio being part of the larger Midwestern “rust belt,” its factories leaving and shuttering during his high school years, Martin packed a few changes of clothes and bought a bus ticket with his last dollars. His destination: Philadelphia.

A fellow member of the Communist Party allowed him to crash on the couch, hooking him up with a job at a gas station. As time drew on and Marty was able to afford an apartment of his own, he got a good deal with a Haitian family who he had come to know through his job. Finding himself immersed in a cultural world unlike his own, he was magnetized by the active African and Puerto Rican nationalist movements, despite still organizing mostly white high school and college students who were drawn to his more orthodox Communist and later Anarchist views.

As these organizations petered out with white college kids turning to drugs, alcohol and their own amusement before revolution, Marty did not abandon organizing but instead pushed forward to help build the resistance in the streets (at this time taking on his new name.) Increasingly impoverished himself, Occupy Philly re-energized his political activism as free food and shelter enabled him to live despite his low-paying job forcing him to move around.

Fascist police forces crushed Occupy and fissures among the revolutionary community shuttered work in Philly, so Marty took the initiative and moved to New York City living with and with the support of Puerto Rican revolutionary activists. Now a New York resident and an active member of the progressive spiritual community in the city, Marty has again picked up writing and hopes to open a church in Philadelphia and to eventually take his ministry back home to Ohio to begin a new community on his family farm.