I guess it might be an issue of locality- I feel like I can get access to experienced socialist organizers for free, and I can take part in and advance the quality of poli-ed for free? Like, you can read Lenin and Fanon in a group and not pay 200 dollars a month for it, you know?
Doing things besides canvassing for democrats? Lots of chapters aren’t interested in being a dog for the democratic party, and the national vibes are growing more skeptical as evidence mounts against the viability of change through democrats.
after the revolution, begging the revolutionary gen alpha-ers to just shoot me instead of sentencing me to a late 2010s DSA convention roleplay
I think you’re dismissing quantitative changes because you haven’t seen qualitative changes yet. I understand wanting to wait for qualitative changes to not be skeptical, but as Marxists we also understand that qualitative changes are an accumulation of quantitative changes, and there is very clear evidence of quantitative changes.
dialectical materialism posits that qualitative changes occur through the accumulation of quantitative changes- for example, adding grains of sand will eventually produce a pile of sand- I think this runs contrary to what they’re trying to argue though, so maybe I’m incorrect in what they’re referencing.
How do you stop the right factions from doing that? Stay out of the fight because the right factions are terrible? Like, 2/5s of the DSA right now is a way of deradicalizing folks back into supporting the democrats. It used to be almost all of the DSA, like how CPUSA is captured by democrats.
I think people are disillusioned by bourgeoise democracy and don’t understand that the DSA has an actual democracy because they see DSA being shitty and assume it is irrevocably captured. The right faction aren’t that connected to the democrats, it is more of a “notice me senpai” relationship where some of the leadership want NGO positions, and the right leadership’s hold of their membership is really tenuous because they aren’t actually invested in organizing their membership, they’re interested in mobilizing to prove that they’re good mobilizers to democrats, putting them at a massive long term disadvantage which we’re exploiting.
Most of the actually existing demcent parties weren’t ‘very democratic’ by liberal standards. There was usually political education that was required for even basic entry (outside of provisional) unless you were engaged in direct militancy and then on top of that you were still usually beholden to the party bureaucratic structuring, that would affect how votes were cast. Organizations aren’t perfect, they’re people.
I def support political education as a requirement for vanguard/center purposes, but that isn’t what this is about.
Context matters, when you are attempting maintain an anti-imperialist leftist org in the imperialist core, you have to maintain political cohesion and the only way to do that is through some level of top-down party control. Otherwise ultras (whom may or may not be feds) will come in, and they will ruin your shit (CPUSA specifically comes to mind).
Isn’t CPUSA another example of an org that claims to be demcent but is just cent? Isn’t this not a good example to use? Feds got up high in the internal structure and used their cent against them.
Most of the principled leftist orgs I know are in siege mode and focused entirely on education and getting people into places where they can be educated. Good or bad, that’s where it’s at atm. Honestly, I’m surprised the CC isn’t in full control of the party management in the PSL.
PSL just straight up isn’t in the illegal period. And even during the illegal period, the bolsheviks didn’t enter “siege mode” If you’re in siege mode now, what is PSL going to do when shit continues to get worse? Does PSL foresee a period where there is less political repression in the US than there is now?
It’s not about ‘hanging with the cool kids because soc-dems are sooooo annoying’. This isn’t high school. It’s about getting people who are interested into revolutionary education that acknowledges and understands the role of revolutionary defeatism, and the current and past revolutionary proletarian history of the U.S. And most socdems, and even baby leftists I know are not ideologically willing (and likely will never be willing) to sacrifice imperialism (particularly moral) if it comes at the cost of material comfort, which it always does, because that is not why people join the DSA.
You’re going to eventually have to talk about imperialism with not-particularly politically developed social democrats.
“It’s about getting people who are interested in…” to do what?
, I’ve seen how this works time and again, writ small. I don’t have much hope for it writ large.
Literally be a historical materialist about it. The july 26 movement and the bolsheviks both emerged from and participated in less disciplined orgs, they didn’t exile themselves. Can you name a successful vanguard of a movement that isolated themselves like US sects do?
I think democracy is important for non-ego reasons- scientific socialism works better within an internal democracy, democratic consultation and deliberation create institutional knowledge in a way bureaucracies don’t.
I don’t see any reasonable benefit to PSL not being democratic at this stage of the struggle- if they don’t have the educational capacity to onboard new members they should create probation membership status (less ideal but those membership dues though) or stagger cohorts.
Nope, although some caucuses have published stuff like this: https://redstarcaucus.org/cuban-links/ and the international committee is establishing guidelines for future trips to prevent the same nonsense from happening. We should apologize but Cuba also understands that DSA is a big tent org with some shitty folks in it.
I mean, tut tutting israel is actually pulling them left- it used to be a lot worse, and there is value in having DSA not be actively zionist. It isn’t like DSA is tut tutting but then also shipping bombs to Israel.
I really don’t see how “hey, your org very clearly isn’t democratic” is a purity test. PSL straight up isn’t democratic in internal structure, internal democratic structure is actually important for a party to function in a healthy way.
Then join another group that better represents your vision of demcent policy and scientific socialism, or fuck, make your own party. My point is that the DSA is not worth a comrades who are not already established members within its time.
“join a sect or form another sect” is a deeply unserious suggestion. Like the whole argument here is “there are better orgs out there” and there really isn’t if you actually want to do work with a critical mass.
TBF folks are out here being Calvinists in this thread to individual succdems.
But yeah, I agree, don’t join social democratic orgs. But DSA isn’t a social democrat org, it sure is contested by them, but the majority of the NPC is a mixture of communists of varying levels of good.
The less tut-tutty stuff barely failed, which I would call progress, it sucks that that is where it is at but movement is happening.
I am more concerned about long term development- not having democracy isn’t conducive to scientific socialism, and you aren’t demcent without the dem.
Okay, but consider ceding the terrain where the baby social democrats and socialists congregate to groundwork and SMC because social democrats are annoying? : P Then we’d be able to hang out in the cool kids club without having to constantly explain ourselves to the semi-organized masses, which communists, as you know, hate doing.
THE PSL isn’t capable of doing demcent or scientific socialism if this is correct? https://archive.org/details/party-for-socialism-and-liberation-psl-constitution-2022/page/6/mode/2up
The central committee being able to select up to 40 percent of delegates means it’s going to be inflexible and less capable of developing in the long term, even if it starting from a better ideological position.
It’s moving left though? Certainly not fast enough to meet this revolutionary moment but it is.
And if you are still a social democrat after the 2020 election cycle, you either weren’t paying attention, and shouldn’t be trusted, or you are hopelessly naive, and shouldn’t be trusted.
What percent of the US population is currently beyond social democrat? We don’t have to win over most people, but we have to win over some people to socialism. Like, IDK, a couple percent? I trust them less if they learn now than if they learned a while ago, but it is still worth educating folks. I’ve seen some folks really change for the better in the time I’ve been in DSA.
There is massive inertia, and the NPC is currently minority social democrat. The problem is Trotskyists with shitty third camp opinions making up the deciding votes, which is a better situation than a previously social democrat led org, and you know, those folks can be further pushed as they see the consequences of their actions not work out as they hoped. They’re not mustache twirling villians, they’re just wrong.
All orgs have SA issues, I think there is probably some truth to cover ups regarding external facing aspects of it, my local PSL chapter sometimes won’t even give me inane details to make coordinating with them easier. The question is whether there is internal cover ups.
I’m willing to bet there are because of the way PSL structures communications keeps locals isolated from eachother, and I get the sense of paranoia/siege mentality probably making folks more inclined to avoid spreading stuff that could be damaging to the org.
However the org also allows the escalating of SA stuff past local leadership which is an exception to their command structure.
I think criticism of PSL should probably be more concerned with their lack of democratic centralism (40 percent of delegates can be appointed by the central committee), their structure not really resembling successful pre-revolutionary structures because they are a Cadre org, not a cadre org within a wider democratic organization of socialists/anticolonialists, and they waste a lot of time with the presidential campaign.
Before people say “the presidential campaign is mostly to just have a pretext to talk to people” I’ve seen the literature for this year, and a lot of it is solely oriented around getting your vote and not convincing you of the correctness of their positions or analysis. I’ve also had 1 on 1s with psl organizers and been at their educational events. They claim it is about having conversations but they treat it like the goal is to get votes. While I like talking theory with PSL comrades, they seem really underdeveloped as actual organizers and popular educators.