This is chapter by chapter. My local chapter voted against running candidates on the Dem ticket. And are critical of using limited DSA resources for candidates they know would ultimately be unaccountable to them once elected. I think some members of the chapter might be on here.
Half the chapters aren’t. Currently the left is in the majority albeit an uneasy one.
NYC has a large electoralist contingent, and there are problems sometimes reigning them in. There is no working apparatus to discipline electeds. Breaking from the democrats is hotly contested, active debate.
I think you will not find many liberals and “social fascists” (lmfao) in DSA. there is a large, organized, moderate tendency but they aren’t liberals. Def some people are social democrats but that’s different and they aren’t in the majority nationwide. Though there are many in NYC DSA, they would be left progressive social democrats, and their influence is waning due to radicalization pressures everywhere.
Anybody who A) Supports arming and funding Ukraine or B) Cheered when Syria was destroyed or C) Wants a two-state solution or D) supports any American or NATO military action are Social Fascists. Social Fascism, also known as Social Chauvinism, is the tendency within the social-democratic left to be pro-war and to shirk revolutionary defeatism as a duty and concept.
It’s not just an epithet, this is the primary contradiction in the western left and has historically caused it to implode. Almost every collapse and schism of the international left is due to this contradiction. Revolution is literally impossible until this contradiction is resolved in favor of the anti-imperialists.
I’m aware of the definition, but i think it is categorical and alienating from material conditions. I’m aware of the contradictions but I don’t shy away from them. That is exactly where we need to be working, forcing the issues politically, representing our principles, building our mass base, and developing the party.
I think this kind of categorical understanding, which Marxism is an advancement over old materialism, is another critical contradiction for the left. it leads to sectarianism, prefiguration, and all kinds of idealism. We aren’t puritans, we don’t avoid contradiction, that is rationalism. We seek out the contradictions because that is where the class struggle lives.
There are plenty of clean breakers and ultraleftists in DSA as well. The reformists need to be confronted and split off from the real movement. But because the political conditions haven’t been developed, they hide within it, maybe even hide from themselves. They need to be exposed to themselves so they can change, or exposed to the movement so it can change, but that isnt going to ever happen without direct, principled struggle.
I’m actually quite averse to the kind of categorizing you are doing here, but also we all have a long way to go. Reformists are still capable of developing certain aspects of the struggle, but we have to take care not to hand the movements to them when the conditions ripen for revolution. Our job is to make sure the people have the power, through a party capable of continuing the struggle.
I believe what your perspective lacks is a coherent theory of change, although to be fair, you can be a good practical organizer and still have some wrongheadedness to work through, I know I do. That is what I see in DSA. There are def some very toxic reformist elements in the org, but you should see how they make utter fools of themselves, how isolated and sectarian they are becoming. I’m more worried about the opportunistic center than the social democratic “party surrogates” at this moment. But there is nothing to be accomplished standing outside of the struggle and trying to define it by putting things into categories. It is un-marxist, and doesn’t meet the moment with a practical analysis to take action.
Why would the struggle take place in a social reformist organization and not in a communist party with Democratic centralism as an organizing principle as it has always been done historically? Where is there even a single example of a successful revolution that emerged from a social reformist non-party and not from a communist party?
This is just the logic of revisionism. Every Western leftist generation thinks they need to reinvent socialism and reinvent Marx and Lenin. Oh isn’t it convenient how we always have to “modernize” to the right, back to the same dead end social reformism that existed for hundreds of years without even a single success to its name. Why is this “modernization” never to the left? Or along a new axis? It’s always just back to Berniecrat shit over and over.
Again, categorizing. Every communist party had to break from its reformism, through a process of struggle. There are communists within DSA, in fact I’d say the majority of active members are Marxists. Where have communist parties come from? Do they emerge fully formed? Do you think that by knowing things you can change the conditions automatically? I promise you, any active DSA member would probably agree with you some, if not totally. The difference is that is where the struggle is for us. If that’s not where it is for you, that’s fine. I work with other tendencies all the time. But it is an experiment, and you can’t see the future. If you think myself and my comrades are social chauvinists, you are out of touch. Look up Springs of Revolution, and call them social chauvinists. If the rest of the org was, then SoR wouldn’t have been able to affect it, but they did, their influence and lives experience in decolonizing struggle has changed the org dramatically in a short time.
DSA is becoming a party, we just aren’t there yet. If it fails to become one at the critical time, it will likely trigger a crisis in the org. The party question and party discipline is on the tip of every active member’s tongue. Local party committees are being formed all over the country.
DSA is far from perfect and we would love it if they had some of the same internal structures as more radical communist parties. DemCent is no longer banned (it was always a joke and a trick played by the Harringtonites) so that is changing internal democracy dramatically. Also its not like other american left parties aren’t complete fucking basket cases. PSL has a ton of problems, cpusa tails the democrats too. SAlt is imploding under its own traditions, the Kshama faction that split to form WDM are arguably the more sectarian faction. But you gotta respect the audaciousness, which DSA seriously lacks. Meanwhile, Our numbers are growing and progressives are being radicalized in DSA, educated and organized. All of these groups have problems but that’s just the USamerican left! We are a baby that has been aborted over and over and over.
I’m in DSA to change it. I’m a deep entryist. Maybe that’s wrong but that’s what got me here, in the struggle. It changed me an I try to change it. We need to stop putting abstract things in abstract boxes like some bourgeois, and center human experience, like Marx instructed. Study Theses on Feuerbach, Friere, Fanon.
Like you’re right about certain things, in a very narrow way, but I can tell you aren’t basing your analysis on an unfiltered assessment of material relationships. You aren’t defining things by their relationships, but by their parameters. This is static thinking, we need to be dynamic and practical, always. Any thinking that prevents our acting is counter revolutionary, and therefore bourgeois.
If you want me to listen to you, you are going to have to demonstrate a better understanding of actual conditions. Or better yet, share your own experiences so we can come together and take something new back into our own organizing.
You have a very sober and realistic take on what DSA actually is and are clearly speaking from the same experience with it I have. Yes there are liberals and social fascists in DSA. They will not be a part of any future socialist party unless they grow ideologically into the actual left. Anybody who has spent any time getting to know actual active DSA members knows a significant fraction, if not outright majority of active membership are not just liberals. In the meantime, I’m glad the dues of the liberals are funding the org as a place for actual marxists, as much as many disagree in tactics, to staff most important committees and caucuses. The party question is growing larger every day, and we even are beginning to see once local Marxist caucuses pivot towards a nationwide position.
I don’t think we believe DSA will be the socialist party of the American future, but at this point it is very obvious incubator that is most likely to have some sort of actual prominent socialist party apparatus grow out of it.
Well a recent resolution is now supposed to be a way to reign in electeds and requires candidates be anti-Zionist as an endorsement requirement. Yet to be enforced and unsure if it is retroactive but it did pass
The trend has been candidates are real buddy buddy with their local volunteers but whenever the org tries to enforce discipline they go dark, or pull some backroom shenanigans.
If AOC runs for president it will be an interesting test, she will have to come out against Israel (she won’t) and DSA will have to not endorse. But since the org was historically, from the Mike Harrington days, a pro-zionist org, it was a dramatic step toward something coherent and meaningful. We lost a lot of good pro-palestine organizers after 2023 when we didn’t pass the anti Zionist resolution.
The 2025 res was much better, but also the stakes are more urgently real also. Its disappointing we couldn’t meet the moment back then, but I’m glad the org can respond in a meaningful way to those stakes, rather than retreat into Utopian idealism which runs rampant in our movements
If AOC gets the nod from DSA it’s a severe indictment of the DSA, not that there isn’t plenty of ammunition there already since the DSA is a white supremacist project in the first place.
Ironically enough, I think AOC coming out as anti-Israel openly in a presidential run would HELP a campaign and be the first steps towards actually harnessing the left populism Bernie was so afraid of.
And I’m just talking about right now. If trends indicate anything, by the time campaigning season comes around the issue will be even more pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. But we NEED that anti-Zionism commitment to work, desperately.
Totally agree, on all points. It would be amazing to see AOC come out as anti-Zionist in a presidential campaign, but I’m really just too used to electeds being a big disappointment. Doesn’t keep me from helping with campaigns, but we need to be able to build strong cadre candidates, and enforce discipline.
Getting there will be a process, and there are small pockets and opportunities appearing everywhere, more and more. And that’s what makes this work so interesting and meaningful.
Ok but consider this: what if we tried nothing in the electoral field and just got angry that all of the candidates were pro-Israel?
Jokes aside, anybody who has done anything in electoralism knows being pro-Palestine used to be a poison pill. I don’t want to say it was all electoralism, but having a handful of politicians ready to call out the Zionist entity on its genocide in Palestine was probably not insignificant in helping public opinion shift. Rallying even liberals behind anti-Zionist candidates undoubtedly helped galvanize the opinions of them and those around them
My impression of DSAers has been genuine people who want a better future, but most of them are not online and don’t have strong views on socialist sects and tendencies. Those of us who are nerds that are more versed in theory often talk about how socialism is a mass movement and we can’t gatekeep the revolution.
Because DSA folks don’t read the theory you see some boneheaded moves (less and less as the left actually gets a foothold), and due to the political climate in American occupied territories, the left in general has a labor aristocratic class character (to be very polite about it).
Accurate assessment. Look at the members, organizing work, and statements of the various committees and caucuses and you’ll see the more “radical” and ideologically driven organizers do most of the heavy lifting in the org.
I mean…yes. But there is no lack of effort to counter all these tendencies. Even moderates point out these problems within the org. Internal struggle is working, even prominent moderate electoralist caucuses are leading Marxist reading groups.
Theory heads like us have our own problems, we easily become sectarian, we often are not self critical enough of our own ideas, we subscribe to all sorts of idealism, usually via intellectualism, we use “Marxism” or “dialectical materialism” in a way that actually alienates us from the real struggle.
But yeah compared to like the Russian rsdlp, we are like at 1895, maybe? Probably not even that far since the ambient narodnikism in the country at least made revolutionaries really fucking serious. We are all just volunteers, but for a few exceptions.
But it is very clearly happening over time. Despite not making up a majority of DSA membership, most committees are run by ideologically driven caucus members, which despite their difference between caucuses, all fall much farther to the left than the rank and file DSA member.
Most internal DSA elections are dominated by the left caucuses, which is a good thing for base building while simultaneously using the dues and manpower of otherwise more liberal membership to take more left leaning public action and positions.
I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t think you have any idea what active DSA membership actually looks like. DSA is not the American socialist party of the future, but it’s very obvious that within it an actual socialist party is incubating amongst the Marxist membership who are, by far, the most active members and objectively constitute a majority in committee representation and caucus representation
It’s not a highly centralized organization at this point in time because the most important task in the imperial core is deprogramming decades of antisocialist propaganda. Keeping the org decentralized in this way at this point in time allows each chapter to have a unique local approach that brings more people on board with the left in general and opens the door for further base building, which has undeniably taken off in the past ten years as DSA’s numbers (and thus dues) have risen dramatically. The demographics of the org have also dramatically changed from older white people to a more diverse crowd of younger people who are increasing the visibility of socialism to the next generation
So is the goal to heighten the contradictions in the DSA and cause a split when they pick a social chauvinist line in a moment of crisis so their membership can radicalize and join a better org?
I don’t agree with Trot-esque entryism with the intention of splitting, but that doesn’t sound like what the pro-DSA people here are arguing for. Is the comparison to the Mensheviks supposed to be flattering to the DSA? Do we have unironic menshevik stans here?
The difference is that it isn’t trot-esque entryism though. It happened as a natural progression of actual marxists becoming the most prominently represented groups within active DSA membership. There are some actual trots in the org that do feel that way for sure and are doing entryism, but the natural growth of DSA has brought it to this point, and as you can see represented in this thread, the main split within the DSA Left-right divide is on electoralism under the Democrat label. Dems will end that one day and that will probably result in the internal DSA crisis that ends with a DSA split
I mean, probably a split between the DSA right and the DSA left rather than joining any existing org. Like, this multi-tendency left coalition emerged last convention: https://sordsa.org/ which points to the politics such an org might have
I think the big thing is going to be when the democrats finally kick out DSA affiliated folks and the question is going to be “leave the party?” Vs “stay in, move right, and keep the campaigning apparatus”
I just responded to the same comment as you before reading what you wrote and I agree that’s exactly where the split will happen. Dems will categorically refuse DSA participation at some point if Marxists keep directing the majority of DSA’s future, as they have been the past few years when they are the majority of internal representation.
There has been a nudge towards that split already on a break with Dems during the Zohran campaign. There was discussion on what to do if he lost the primary by a small margin. He was still eligible to run on the Working Families Party ballot line and there was some intern NYC-DSA discussion on whether we should pursue that apart from the Dems in the general election, and the divisions on it were pretty much right down that DSA right-left line where we’d expect to see them.
Chapter by chapter approach is probably for the best right now as base building grows. Some have far more organization and resources at their disposal to engage in projects like electoralism, like NYC-DSA.
I think there’s a real possibility for cooperation between DSA and PSL on this point that I think some locals chapters are in a prime position to exploit.
The DSA is a club, not a political party. Unless it’s members run as independents, they need a Party to run under in most cases. And while DSA can be good for building organizing skills, because of their lack of ideological discipline they lack the ability to create disciplined ideologues and are prone to endorsing opportunists.
While DSA members cannot join the PSL or vice-versa, there is no rule against DSA endorsing PSL candidates for office or members volunteering for their campaigns. And while PSL branches cannot endorse non-PSL candidates, a common workaround is publishing a “Peoples’s Program” of local political demands and asking local candidates to endorse the Party Program.
In both the Cleveland and Akron branches of the DSA, most active members are either with the Marxist Unity Group (Trots) or Red Star Caucus (MLs). They have different organizational goals from the PSL but, overall, they’re Good. I don’t want to necessarily generalize my local experience to the entire country, but it seems that the DSA is heading in a more explicitly Marxist direction and I look forward to a future where the DSA serves as a part of the PSL’s party periphery.
I agree completely. The majority of DSA committees are held by caucused membership, which are almost exclusively hard left when compared to the uncaucused DSA rank and file. It sets DSA’s course to left for sure, as these caucuses are largely responsible for the political agenda DSA engages in.
The biggest internal debate within DSA is about electoralism, and I don’t see it being large enough to fracture the org because it is so decentralized. As the org grows, I do see it gaining the ability to wield party-like level control of politics in some strongholds. Popular Front style DSA-PSL campaigns where groundwork could go a loooooooong way in places like NYC where a ground game can essentially unseat any incumbent politician. This in combination with the Working Families Party, there is essentially a party apparatus waiting to be used behind the “Smash Glass In Case Of Working Class Politics” sign.
We actually came quite close to using this in NYC this mayoral election cycle should Zohran have lost the primary. We were strongly considering throwing our weight behind running him on the Working Families Party ticket in the 4 way general election. Turns out he was too popular for that to be necessary lol
While DSA members cannot join the PSL or vice-versa
This is not true actually. At the most recent DSA National Convention this year the anti-democratic centralism clause was repealed, so there is no problem being both part of DSA and PSL anymore
PSL doesn’t allow dual membership with another organization with democratic centralism, but DSA doesn’t have anything like that and isn’t a political party so it’s fine as far as I know. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong though
May they eventually feel able to win elections without running as Democrats
This is chapter by chapter. My local chapter voted against running candidates on the Dem ticket. And are critical of using limited DSA resources for candidates they know would ultimately be unaccountable to them once elected. I think some members of the chapter might be on here.
How can an organization function as a working class party when half of the chapters are liberals and social fascists?
Half the chapters aren’t. Currently the left is in the majority albeit an uneasy one.
NYC has a large electoralist contingent, and there are problems sometimes reigning them in. There is no working apparatus to discipline electeds. Breaking from the democrats is hotly contested, active debate.
I think you will not find many liberals and “social fascists” (lmfao) in DSA. there is a large, organized, moderate tendency but they aren’t liberals. Def some people are social democrats but that’s different and they aren’t in the majority nationwide. Though there are many in NYC DSA, they would be left progressive social democrats, and their influence is waning due to radicalization pressures everywhere.
But to answer directly, its an experiment
Since the vast majority of “leftists” in the US actually are social fascists I seriously doubt this is true.
Anybody who A) Supports arming and funding Ukraine or B) Cheered when Syria was destroyed or C) Wants a two-state solution or D) supports any American or NATO military action are Social Fascists. Social Fascism, also known as Social Chauvinism, is the tendency within the social-democratic left to be pro-war and to shirk revolutionary defeatism as a duty and concept.
It’s not just an epithet, this is the primary contradiction in the western left and has historically caused it to implode. Almost every collapse and schism of the international left is due to this contradiction. Revolution is literally impossible until this contradiction is resolved in favor of the anti-imperialists.
DSA is absolutely filled with these types
I’m aware of the definition, but i think it is categorical and alienating from material conditions. I’m aware of the contradictions but I don’t shy away from them. That is exactly where we need to be working, forcing the issues politically, representing our principles, building our mass base, and developing the party.
I think this kind of categorical understanding, which Marxism is an advancement over old materialism, is another critical contradiction for the left. it leads to sectarianism, prefiguration, and all kinds of idealism. We aren’t puritans, we don’t avoid contradiction, that is rationalism. We seek out the contradictions because that is where the class struggle lives.
There are plenty of clean breakers and ultraleftists in DSA as well. The reformists need to be confronted and split off from the real movement. But because the political conditions haven’t been developed, they hide within it, maybe even hide from themselves. They need to be exposed to themselves so they can change, or exposed to the movement so it can change, but that isnt going to ever happen without direct, principled struggle.
I’m actually quite averse to the kind of categorizing you are doing here, but also we all have a long way to go. Reformists are still capable of developing certain aspects of the struggle, but we have to take care not to hand the movements to them when the conditions ripen for revolution. Our job is to make sure the people have the power, through a party capable of continuing the struggle.
I believe what your perspective lacks is a coherent theory of change, although to be fair, you can be a good practical organizer and still have some wrongheadedness to work through, I know I do. That is what I see in DSA. There are def some very toxic reformist elements in the org, but you should see how they make utter fools of themselves, how isolated and sectarian they are becoming. I’m more worried about the opportunistic center than the social democratic “party surrogates” at this moment. But there is nothing to be accomplished standing outside of the struggle and trying to define it by putting things into categories. It is un-marxist, and doesn’t meet the moment with a practical analysis to take action.
Why would the struggle take place in a social reformist organization and not in a communist party with Democratic centralism as an organizing principle as it has always been done historically? Where is there even a single example of a successful revolution that emerged from a social reformist non-party and not from a communist party?
This is just the logic of revisionism. Every Western leftist generation thinks they need to reinvent socialism and reinvent Marx and Lenin. Oh isn’t it convenient how we always have to “modernize” to the right, back to the same dead end social reformism that existed for hundreds of years without even a single success to its name. Why is this “modernization” never to the left? Or along a new axis? It’s always just back to Berniecrat shit over and over.
Again, categorizing. Every communist party had to break from its reformism, through a process of struggle. There are communists within DSA, in fact I’d say the majority of active members are Marxists. Where have communist parties come from? Do they emerge fully formed? Do you think that by knowing things you can change the conditions automatically? I promise you, any active DSA member would probably agree with you some, if not totally. The difference is that is where the struggle is for us. If that’s not where it is for you, that’s fine. I work with other tendencies all the time. But it is an experiment, and you can’t see the future. If you think myself and my comrades are social chauvinists, you are out of touch. Look up Springs of Revolution, and call them social chauvinists. If the rest of the org was, then SoR wouldn’t have been able to affect it, but they did, their influence and lives experience in decolonizing struggle has changed the org dramatically in a short time.
DSA is becoming a party, we just aren’t there yet. If it fails to become one at the critical time, it will likely trigger a crisis in the org. The party question and party discipline is on the tip of every active member’s tongue. Local party committees are being formed all over the country.
DSA is far from perfect and we would love it if they had some of the same internal structures as more radical communist parties. DemCent is no longer banned (it was always a joke and a trick played by the Harringtonites) so that is changing internal democracy dramatically. Also its not like other american left parties aren’t complete fucking basket cases. PSL has a ton of problems, cpusa tails the democrats too. SAlt is imploding under its own traditions, the Kshama faction that split to form WDM are arguably the more sectarian faction. But you gotta respect the audaciousness, which DSA seriously lacks. Meanwhile, Our numbers are growing and progressives are being radicalized in DSA, educated and organized. All of these groups have problems but that’s just the USamerican left! We are a baby that has been aborted over and over and over.
I’m in DSA to change it. I’m a deep entryist. Maybe that’s wrong but that’s what got me here, in the struggle. It changed me an I try to change it. We need to stop putting abstract things in abstract boxes like some bourgeois, and center human experience, like Marx instructed. Study Theses on Feuerbach, Friere, Fanon.
Like you’re right about certain things, in a very narrow way, but I can tell you aren’t basing your analysis on an unfiltered assessment of material relationships. You aren’t defining things by their relationships, but by their parameters. This is static thinking, we need to be dynamic and practical, always. Any thinking that prevents our acting is counter revolutionary, and therefore bourgeois.
If you want me to listen to you, you are going to have to demonstrate a better understanding of actual conditions. Or better yet, share your own experiences so we can come together and take something new back into our own organizing.
You have a very sober and realistic take on what DSA actually is and are clearly speaking from the same experience with it I have. Yes there are liberals and social fascists in DSA. They will not be a part of any future socialist party unless they grow ideologically into the actual left. Anybody who has spent any time getting to know actual active DSA members knows a significant fraction, if not outright majority of active membership are not just liberals. In the meantime, I’m glad the dues of the liberals are funding the org as a place for actual marxists, as much as many disagree in tactics, to staff most important committees and caucuses. The party question is growing larger every day, and we even are beginning to see once local Marxist caucuses pivot towards a nationwide position.
I don’t think we believe DSA will be the socialist party of the American future, but at this point it is very obvious incubator that is most likely to have some sort of actual prominent socialist party apparatus grow out of it.
Well a recent resolution is now supposed to be a way to reign in electeds and requires candidates be anti-Zionist as an endorsement requirement. Yet to be enforced and unsure if it is retroactive but it did pass
I know, I voted for it!
The trend has been candidates are real buddy buddy with their local volunteers but whenever the org tries to enforce discipline they go dark, or pull some backroom shenanigans.
If AOC runs for president it will be an interesting test, she will have to come out against Israel (she won’t) and DSA will have to not endorse. But since the org was historically, from the Mike Harrington days, a pro-zionist org, it was a dramatic step toward something coherent and meaningful. We lost a lot of good pro-palestine organizers after 2023 when we didn’t pass the anti Zionist resolution.
The 2025 res was much better, but also the stakes are more urgently real also. Its disappointing we couldn’t meet the moment back then, but I’m glad the org can respond in a meaningful way to those stakes, rather than retreat into Utopian idealism which runs rampant in our movements
If AOC gets the nod from DSA it’s a severe indictment of the DSA, not that there isn’t plenty of ammunition there already since the DSA is a white supremacist project in the first place.
Ironically enough, I think AOC coming out as anti-Israel openly in a presidential run would HELP a campaign and be the first steps towards actually harnessing the left populism Bernie was so afraid of.
And I’m just talking about right now. If trends indicate anything, by the time campaigning season comes around the issue will be even more pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. But we NEED that anti-Zionism commitment to work, desperately.
Totally agree, on all points. It would be amazing to see AOC come out as anti-Zionist in a presidential campaign, but I’m really just too used to electeds being a big disappointment. Doesn’t keep me from helping with campaigns, but we need to be able to build strong cadre candidates, and enforce discipline.
Getting there will be a process, and there are small pockets and opportunities appearing everywhere, more and more. And that’s what makes this work so interesting and meaningful.
Ok but consider this: what if we tried nothing in the electoral field and just got angry that all of the candidates were pro-Israel?
Jokes aside, anybody who has done anything in electoralism knows being pro-Palestine used to be a poison pill. I don’t want to say it was all electoralism, but having a handful of politicians ready to call out the Zionist entity on its genocide in Palestine was probably not insignificant in helping public opinion shift. Rallying even liberals behind anti-Zionist candidates undoubtedly helped galvanize the opinions of them and those around them
You’re saying a minority of the DSA are “democratic socialists”?
No a minority are social democrats, who identify as democratic socialists. And most of them are strong, active, reliable organizers
My impression of DSAers has been genuine people who want a better future, but most of them are not online and don’t have strong views on socialist sects and tendencies. Those of us who are nerds that are more versed in theory often talk about how socialism is a mass movement and we can’t gatekeep the revolution.
Because DSA folks don’t read the theory you see some boneheaded moves (less and less as the left actually gets a foothold), and due to the political climate in American occupied territories, the left in general has a labor aristocratic class character (to be very polite about it).
It’s not like there’s an alternative anyway.
Accurate assessment. Look at the members, organizing work, and statements of the various committees and caucuses and you’ll see the more “radical” and ideologically driven organizers do most of the heavy lifting in the org.
I mean…yes. But there is no lack of effort to counter all these tendencies. Even moderates point out these problems within the org. Internal struggle is working, even prominent moderate electoralist caucuses are leading Marxist reading groups.
Theory heads like us have our own problems, we easily become sectarian, we often are not self critical enough of our own ideas, we subscribe to all sorts of idealism, usually via intellectualism, we use “Marxism” or “dialectical materialism” in a way that actually alienates us from the real struggle.
But yeah compared to like the Russian rsdlp, we are like at 1895, maybe? Probably not even that far since the ambient narodnikism in the country at least made revolutionaries really fucking serious. We are all just volunteers, but for a few exceptions.
I read this article by J Cannon this week, has a lot of really prescient points. https://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1925/sitdiff.htm
We advanced beyond this by 1935, but 10 or so years later we regressed basically all the way back, and now, even further behind.
They do other stuff besides endorse democrats.
Post that stuff to this comm and you will find a much different response.
Interesting how the post about DSA Democrat electoralism is the one where we criticize democrat electoralist tendencies in the DSA
Nobody thinks of the DSA as a working class party
The people who want it to be are working on reforms to purge/marginalize the liberals but that hasn’t happened across the org yet.
But it is very clearly happening over time. Despite not making up a majority of DSA membership, most committees are run by ideologically driven caucus members, which despite their difference between caucuses, all fall much farther to the left than the rank and file DSA member.
Most internal DSA elections are dominated by the left caucuses, which is a good thing for base building while simultaneously using the dues and manpower of otherwise more liberal membership to take more left leaning public action and positions.
This is just a lie. The DSA is liberal, it’s always been liberal, and there’s no reason to think it ever won’t be liberal.
I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t think you have any idea what active DSA membership actually looks like. DSA is not the American socialist party of the future, but it’s very obvious that within it an actual socialist party is incubating amongst the Marxist membership who are, by far, the most active members and objectively constitute a majority in committee representation and caucus representation
If your group calls itself “democratic socialists” to distance itself from the evil USSR I don’t know what to tell you
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It’s not a highly centralized organization at this point in time because the most important task in the imperial core is deprogramming decades of antisocialist propaganda. Keeping the org decentralized in this way at this point in time allows each chapter to have a unique local approach that brings more people on board with the left in general and opens the door for further base building, which has undeniably taken off in the past ten years as DSA’s numbers (and thus dues) have risen dramatically. The demographics of the org have also dramatically changed from older white people to a more diverse crowd of younger people who are increasing the visibility of socialism to the next generation
One can ask the same about the Mensheviks before their split
So is the goal to heighten the contradictions in the DSA and cause a split when they pick a social chauvinist line in a moment of crisis so their membership can radicalize and join a better org?
I don’t agree with Trot-esque entryism with the intention of splitting, but that doesn’t sound like what the pro-DSA people here are arguing for. Is the comparison to the Mensheviks supposed to be flattering to the DSA? Do we have unironic menshevik stans here?
The difference is that it isn’t trot-esque entryism though. It happened as a natural progression of actual marxists becoming the most prominently represented groups within active DSA membership. There are some actual trots in the org that do feel that way for sure and are doing entryism, but the natural growth of DSA has brought it to this point, and as you can see represented in this thread, the main split within the DSA Left-right divide is on electoralism under the Democrat label. Dems will end that one day and that will probably result in the internal DSA crisis that ends with a DSA split
I mean, probably a split between the DSA right and the DSA left rather than joining any existing org. Like, this multi-tendency left coalition emerged last convention: https://sordsa.org/ which points to the politics such an org might have
I think the big thing is going to be when the democrats finally kick out DSA affiliated folks and the question is going to be “leave the party?” Vs “stay in, move right, and keep the campaigning apparatus”
I just responded to the same comment as you before reading what you wrote and I agree that’s exactly where the split will happen. Dems will categorically refuse DSA participation at some point if Marxists keep directing the majority of DSA’s future, as they have been the past few years when they are the majority of internal representation.
There has been a nudge towards that split already on a break with Dems during the Zohran campaign. There was discussion on what to do if he lost the primary by a small margin. He was still eligible to run on the Working Families Party ballot line and there was some intern NYC-DSA discussion on whether we should pursue that apart from the Dems in the general election, and the divisions on it were pretty much right down that DSA right-left line where we’d expect to see them.
DSA is makes the distinction to not call themselves a party
Then remove that word, how can an organization fight for the working class when half of the chapters are liberals and social fascists?
De-liberalizing political education is available at every DSA branch I’ve encountered
Remove what word from where?
the word party from my post
I’m trying but I haven’t figured out how to edit it
Equally as easy as removing the Zionists from this website
Chapter by chapter approach is probably for the best right now as base building grows. Some have far more organization and resources at their disposal to engage in projects like electoralism, like NYC-DSA.
I think there’s a real possibility for cooperation between DSA and PSL on this point that I think some locals chapters are in a prime position to exploit.
The DSA is a club, not a political party. Unless it’s members run as independents, they need a Party to run under in most cases. And while DSA can be good for building organizing skills, because of their lack of ideological discipline they lack the ability to create disciplined ideologues and are prone to endorsing opportunists.
While DSA members cannot join the PSL or vice-versa, there is no rule against DSA endorsing PSL candidates for office or members volunteering for their campaigns. And while PSL branches cannot endorse non-PSL candidates, a common workaround is publishing a “Peoples’s Program” of local political demands and asking local candidates to endorse the Party Program.
In both the Cleveland and Akron branches of the DSA, most active members are either with the Marxist Unity Group (Trots) or Red Star Caucus (MLs). They have different organizational goals from the PSL but, overall, they’re Good. I don’t want to necessarily generalize my local experience to the entire country, but it seems that the DSA is heading in a more explicitly Marxist direction and I look forward to a future where the DSA serves as a part of the PSL’s party periphery.
I agree completely. The majority of DSA committees are held by caucused membership, which are almost exclusively hard left when compared to the uncaucused DSA rank and file. It sets DSA’s course to left for sure, as these caucuses are largely responsible for the political agenda DSA engages in.
The biggest internal debate within DSA is about electoralism, and I don’t see it being large enough to fracture the org because it is so decentralized. As the org grows, I do see it gaining the ability to wield party-like level control of politics in some strongholds. Popular Front style DSA-PSL campaigns where groundwork could go a loooooooong way in places like NYC where a ground game can essentially unseat any incumbent politician. This in combination with the Working Families Party, there is essentially a party apparatus waiting to be used behind the “Smash Glass In Case Of Working Class Politics” sign.
We actually came quite close to using this in NYC this mayoral election cycle should Zohran have lost the primary. We were strongly considering throwing our weight behind running him on the Working Families Party ticket in the 4 way general election. Turns out he was too popular for that to be necessary lol
This is not true actually. At the most recent DSA National Convention this year the anti-democratic centralism clause was repealed, so there is no problem being both part of DSA and PSL anymore
PSL still has a no dual membership clause
PSL doesn’t allow dual membership with another organization with democratic centralism, but DSA doesn’t have anything like that and isn’t a political party so it’s fine as far as I know. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong though
That’s very interesting wording that I think will end up being very relevant if/when the DSA split happens
Honestly I’m not sure if this changes the policy or not
DSA may allow it now but I don’t think PSL does.
Oh FR? That’s actually awesome idk how I missed that
In the works as base building and non-electoral work grows
“Works”
Yet to be determined lol
So we’ve been told, but we keep seeing Ds. Veremos