Too often, DSA is dismissed as a purely social democratic organization, and outsiders discount the communist organizing within it. As a Marxist-Leninist DSA caucus, we reject this narrative. DSA is our political home! We in Red Star are communists who believe that DSA is the most effective place to serve
I’m not ‘exiling’ myself. I just will not pay dues to the DSA ever again until I see a real shift in the relationship between the regional and national parties.
CPUSA, to my knowledge, started demcent, then became cent over time as the leadership tightened under ‘fed’ (or democrat comprador, at least) control, to the point now that it is now completely centralized. The history is alittle wonky there, at there is a lot of documentation on that is old head and zine knowledge lost to time at this point imo. I am unsure of the trajectory of the PSL in that regard (which is something to look into), I just assumed by their stances and prominence they would be nearly completely centralized (which hey, egg on my face). In my personal experience, I have just had easier times discussing the state of things with their members, so imo clearly they are doing something right imo from an education or recruitment perspective. They seem clearly focused on getting ideologically trained members willing to participate in immediate and responsive direct action (one of the reasons I didn’t join, cause I wasn’t sticking around in tbe area). To what end, I couldn’t say, perhaps their protest logistical training is poor.
I already have to talk to social democrats and baby leftists all the time. It wouldn’t help me for them to have organizational cover.
For context, where I am living now, there is no left-wing movement to speak of at all. Most of the students I was around didn’t even know what ‘Palestine’ was, let alone that there were protests going on at other campuses. The ones who did know either had friends on other campuses getting arrested, or because their conservative parents had asked them about it. But I do what I can, go to Marx reading group, discuss Marxism in public when the topic arises and history broadly when I can, but between working two jobs in the summer and a job and school it is tough to remain politically active in an area where it is not really self-sustaining.
If you are actually in the thick of it, you are more active than I am atm, and can make better judgements as to where your time is best spent. I was not impressed by the DSA to say the least, but hey, time moves ever forward.
I’m not ‘exiling’ myself. I just will not pay dues to the DSA ever again until I see a real shift in the relationship between the regional and national parties.
CPUSA, to my knowledge, started demcent, then became cent over time as the leadership tightened under ‘fed’ (or democrat comprador, at least) control, to the point now that it is now completely centralized. The history is alittle wonky there, at there is a lot of documentation on that is old head and zine knowledge lost to time at this point imo. I am unsure of the trajectory of the PSL in that regard (which is something to look into), I just assumed by their stances and prominence they would be nearly completely centralized (which hey, egg on my face). In my personal experience, I have just had easier times discussing the state of things with their members, so imo clearly they are doing something right imo from an education or recruitment perspective. They seem clearly focused on getting ideologically trained members willing to participate in immediate and responsive direct action (one of the reasons I didn’t join, cause I wasn’t sticking around in tbe area). To what end, I couldn’t say, perhaps their protest logistical training is poor.
I already have to talk to social democrats and baby leftists all the time. It wouldn’t help me for them to have organizational cover.
For context, where I am living now, there is no left-wing movement to speak of at all. Most of the students I was around didn’t even know what ‘Palestine’ was, let alone that there were protests going on at other campuses. The ones who did know either had friends on other campuses getting arrested, or because their conservative parents had asked them about it. But I do what I can, go to Marx reading group, discuss Marxism in public when the topic arises and history broadly when I can, but between working two jobs in the summer and a job and school it is tough to remain politically active in an area where it is not really self-sustaining.
If you are actually in the thick of it, you are more active than I am atm, and can make better judgements as to where your time is best spent. I was not impressed by the DSA to say the least, but hey, time moves ever forward.