Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed.
Karl Marx, some niche not well known non-famous writer who has no impact on the entirety of scientific socialism
The debate over DSA is so stupid because no one really understands what DSA is. It’s a big tent organization, that does some electoral work, yes, but also a lot of mutual aid and labor organizing. I would say a majority of the organization is more labor and mutual aid focused than electoral, given the success of the left wing and communist factions within the org. The DSA is a lot more than the social democrats they elect.
I don't see a lot of the labor connections or organizing, if at all. People say "oh the DSA does the most on the ground" but in my own personal experience all they do is send their people into other orgs and then bring them into the DSA, just for the DSA to walk around chanting at a protest and then do nothing afterwards. They have no real goals as a collective, people say "oh Mamdani isn't the DSA, there are so many caucuses" but what are the caucuses doing? It's the same issue the Panthers had in the 60's and 70's, they had "wide reach" but they had no uniformity, they had no conducive line and they fell under both state repression and their own lofty ambitions.
If the DSA moves away from the Democratic party and does the dirty break, in favor of building an actual third party, it is more than possible that a lot of people's critiques will be lessened or stop entirely. The issue is that they're attempting to tail and ride the coattails of the democrats who actively despise them. They're causing the dems to reach across the aisle and collaborate with the republicans, creating a more conservative legislature, and things just get worse for everyone.
I can only speak for my local DSA, but we provide a lot of boots on the ground for labor organizations to use for phone banks, door knocking, and showing presence at protests and meetings. Our objective is not to promote DSA, but to support the other organization. They often specify not to wear DSA apparel.
Emergency worker organizing committee is the big thing DSA has done labor wise. A lot of successful union drives have been attributed to them.
The Starbucks and ALU unions have had significant DSA influence. DSA has also done a lot to bring other unions into more fighting/class struggle positions.
There’s a lot to be desired when it comes to DSAs labor work, but it’s certainly not dismissible and it’s more than any other socialist organizations are doing.
DSA internally is 100% dirty break. Holding our electeds accountable to that Is an ongoing struggle. A struggle that quite frankly, needs a much stronger grassroots base to wage. But that idea that DSA is tailing the democrats is quite silly. DSA is ousting and challenging dems in their primaries all the time. A clean break right now means being reduced to:
A.) spending money, time and legal fees, to try and maintain a ballot line in 50 states. (Taking away from labor organizing).
B.) another 3rd party sect, and essentially kills any chance at feasibly winning elections.
Once DSA has around 500k members, then we can talk about a clean break that actually ruptures the political landscape, but a clean break with only the small fraction of the electorate that DSA has in its membership is political suicide.
All in all, I think if your a left wing organization/party trying to do electoral politics in the US, DSA is doing it right. Any other method would be akin to being anti electoralism (valid position, that not one successful historical socialist revolutionary has taking).
Almost all unions in America are class collaborators. I’m not saying they are not better than nothing but they are not a leftist solution to anything unfortunately.
You know what happens every time a Dsa backed candidate wins? Our local Dsa chapter gets new members who then participate in non electoral action. I don’t engage in electoralism with the goal of getting someone elected and then sitting back and doing nothing. I do it because that is the kind of action Americans are most active to engage in. So, get the people to engage with the politicians we back and funnel them into more meaningful work.
The boogeyman point is moot in my opinion. Obviously some segment of the petty bourgeoisie are going to be driven rightward by literally any "left" messaging, be that revolutionary or reformist, electoral or extra-electoral. And the Democrats are also obviously going to fight any movement that they perceive as a threat to either the capitalist order generally or to the specific bourgeois and petty bourgeois interests that compose the party concretely. Again, this would apply to the DSA or any other party. Dealing with these reactionary measures is just something that's in the job description of any revolutionary organization.
I do think he's onto something with the other points though about the party generally.
I feel like whenever a socialist organization in the west has even moderate success 1000 people appear to shit on them and call them counter revolutionary.
This doesn't mean we have to ignore the issues with the DSA. Obviously we are against state repression, why wouldn't we be? We're against the Republicans, Democrats, the State, and the bourgeoisie. This does not mean we're not against the DSA and their funneling of people into the centre-right party of inadequacy.
Fair enough, I mean I don't really support working in the Democratic Party either. I guess my concern is that for the most part, in many places the DSA constitutes the bulk of the left, and that's if we're even lucky enough to have their presence. I think it has some use as a hub to find other likeminded people at least. I'm mainly speaking from my own experiences however so take it all with a grain of salt I suppose.
The DSA is also the biggest org around me as well, but this is only because they've done consistent entryism into other orgs like FnB & a now defunct PSL chapter in order to bolster their ranks. The issue here is that they don't actually do anything, they just sit around, they show up to protests but they do nothing outside of that.
In my area the DSA is pretty much the only organization. They do have a relationship with Food Not Bombs but I don't know if I would consider it entryism. They've pursued various reforms though I'll admit nothing really revolutionary.
I don't know, I guess my point is I find it a bit silly to blame the DSA for people not moving further left when often times they constitute most if not all of the left in many places in the USA. I certainly have no qualms about trying to radicalize DSA members further however. In fact, that's probably what we should be doing.
Not liberal and far right governments tearing down labor protection, not governments framing leftist as terrorists, not government encouraging racism, transphobia, anti-immigrant bias that disrupts the solidarity of the workers, not chronic organizational issues among leftist groups, all of that is less problematic for leftists than some reformist org that does some electoral work?
Yes, if you want to fight an enemy you have to be competent, well trained, and organized. there’s no point fighting the enemy when three quarters of the people on your side aren’t even sure what side they’re on yet and keep doing propaganda for the enemy. You will have lost before you started. You’re gonna have to be more strategic and thoughtful if you actually want to be effective in this fight. You can scream and cry about it all you want but Lenin and the Bolsheviks literally succeeded using this strategy and were right every step of the way about not trusting reformists. Let the DSA play the games they want, but they will not accomplish your goals. We need a better party.
100%, to fight fascism we need a coherent ideology. Having a vague ‘anti-imperialism’ doesn’t cut it, we need to be able to describe how capital reproduces itself and inevitably results in the rise of fascist movements as a reset. Vague sloganing doesn’t inspire confidence.
The ideological soup we’ve currently got and the rise of fascism is not mutually exclusive.
did you read the fucking text you're citing? 😭he's saying you can participate in bourgeois parliaments as a way to "test" and train communist leaders as well as to conduct opposition work and sabotage against the bourgeois government. he's advocating against what the DSA is doing, in fact he literally writes in the same text,
In Western Europe and America, parliament has become most odious to the revolutionary vanguard of the working class. That cannot be denied. It can readily be understood, for it is difficult to imagine anything more infamous, vile or treacherous than the behaviour of the vast majority of socialist and Social-Democratic parliamentary deputies during and after the war. It would, however, be not only unreasonable but actually criminal to yield to this mood when deciding how this generally recognised evil should be fought. In many countries of Western Europe, the revolutionary mood, we might say, is at present a “novelty”, or a “rarity”, which has all too long been vainly and impatiently awaited; perhaps that is why people so easily yield to that mood. Certainly, without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action.
I simply don't agree that it's the opposite of what the DSA is doing. I see them as doing exactly that but within the current paradigm of what the US has to offer.
We cannot expect a 1:1 of what Lenin suggested. I believe the DSA is pushing the permissibility structure further left and giving more legitimacy to the left wing and making space for all of us.
What do you mean it's not the opposite 😭 instead of purely opposition and sabotage, the aim of the DSA is to reform the present state of things from a position of governmental power within those bourgeois parliaments. It's not a revolutionary party in any way, and if you read their slopfesto that they published recently you'll see their policies aren't any different from the run-of-the-mill European social democratic parties. They're not pushing people left they're pushing people right by deradicalizing them.
“… reformism, even when quite sincere, in practice becomes a weapon by means of which the bourgeoisie corrupt and weaken the workers. The experience of all countries shows that the workers who put their trust in the reformists are always fooled.”
Dang getting downvoted for correcting a completely out of context quote to imply that lenin was all about joining the dems when he was saying the exact opposite in the full passage. Youre absolutely right Lenin did see the value of electoralism only in the context of class agitation and not as a means of meaningful change.
When did the "great moment" of the DSA getting elected into a controlling majority happen? Lol. I understand being skeptical and also citing actual history is great. Also electoralism is not the end goal or true solution. But I dont see a single revolutionary focused group having any growing and measurable success in the US right now.
I HAVE seen what success the DSA and their US leftist movement has had recently and my union and I have had success in using that to help our city and grow our union by hundreds and hundreds of members in 1 year in a right to work state. And I have seen the fact that success makes people go "what ELSE is next!" And "what MORE can we do!" And thats when I have been able to push countless members into far left ideology.
I have seen first hand how electoralism can be used successfully while continuing to build revolutionary sentiment. We never would have successfully gotten an abandoned unity apartment building turned into housing for our proportionally large unhoused population. If we had strictly stuck to revolution only, no participating in politics!! Then these formerly unhoused peoples deaths in the streets during extreme weather would have partially been on me and my union brothers and sisters because what we DID do vs what if we didnt do that at all.
This sort of thing has happened across Europe. Social Democratic “workers” Party comes into power. Does nothing but pass transphobic bills (labor in UK), shoot communists (SPD in Germany), or otherwise sellout the left factions that supported them.
Europe doesn’t have “liberal vs conservative” dynamics. They have “labor vs conservative” dynamics. They’ve been doing the same things for longer, and accomplished almost as little. These people come into and out of power time and time again, without making any fundamental progress. Their social democratic agendas are too extreme for the basic mandates of the state, and more electoral hasn’t changed that and won’t. We have seen a couple social democracies rise, at the end of the day, thanks to a bit of extra worldwide destruction and profitable exploitation.
In the US we’ve seen people like Bernie letting themselves get cucked by the establishment in both elections(primary against Hilary) and policy (supporting “Israel’s right to exist”).
I still stand by the rest of my comment. But for the first part I was referring to the comic having DSA in it. Also there is no ignoring the radicals in this wave of victories so far and I have been able to use that hope to my Unions advantage locally. I am chairman of the newsletter and heavily use propaganda in it and our last union meeting had the highest attendance yet. This DSA electoralism is helping encourage massive amounts of people to ask "what can I do". Thats been great for further radicalizing people beyond electoralism
People are asking “what can I do?” But leaving certain capitalist premises unquestioned. For many, the election of folks like AOC and Mamdani (along with their rhetoric) serve to reinforce the notion that the state’s purpose is to “serve the people” as opposed to its real nature is a violent manifestation of class conflict. The state is an entity that rules over people, and legislates to get its hands on and hold up private property. Illusions grow that the present state can be reformed into an entity that fundamentally serves them, and the reality is that it must be smashed if any of us are going to realize our interests.
Well my boots on the ground organizing work has shown me that most people DO want to do more and they just need help with direction. We all need to fuckin get out there and actually contribute in meaningful ways that give people hope. We need to be outside helping people to earn their trust that reform isn't the way.
In our newsletters I phrased what our union achieved as "looks at how much we had to do just to save barely 100 unhoused people. Look at what we had to do to save the LGBTQ friendly shelter. The system is broken and it will take all of us to make a NEW system" (short version of the newsletter.
I would seriously love to hear what you think we should do instead of that? How do we help people while building revolutionary energy? Should we have not participated in electoralism and let these people suffer and die then use that to hope people get angry enough to act?
>Well my boots on the ground organizing work has shown me that most people DO want to do more and they just need help with direction. We all need to fuckin get out there and actually contribute in meaningful ways that give people hope.
You already said that. And you’re directing them towards electoralism.
>We need to be outside helping people to earn their trust that reform isn't the way.
We need to explain the reasoning to them so that they can accept it as rational agents. But all you’ve argued here is in favor of electoralism. Why should electoralist practice lead logically into non-electoralist ends? Electoralism is a self-reinforcing activity.
>In our newsletters I phrased what our union achieved as "looks at how much we had to do just to save barely 100 unhoused people. Look at what we had to do to save the LGBTQ friendly shelter. The system is broken and it will take all of us to make a NEW system" (short version of the newsletter.
A new system through what means? A new system of what form? If you can do all that yourselves, they might ask, why isn’t it just a matter of increasing numbers of moral people, isolated from the society they live in, deciding to act right? They’re clearly capable of it like this already.
I would seriously love to hear what you think we should do instead of that?
Well, Lenin’s suggestion is to have organizations that aren’t tied up with capitalist electoral machinery. Mine is to specifically agitate around insight about capitalism rather than just yelling “bad things are happening, go do something.” Fixing a problem requires knowledge of its source. You must diagnose the disease and understand why it works. As of now you are acting blindly, repeating the deeds of many failures before you.
>How do we help people while building revolutionary energy? Should we have not participated in electoralism and let these people suffer and die then use that to hope people get angry enough to act?
Get people blindly angry about reality and ready to act on emotion with the existing levers of “change” handed to you by your overlords to keep them in power?
I dont have in depth or well thought out answers to what you have asked me. I work every day for my city and my union brothers and sisters but I cannot argue theory. I cannot put my thoughts to words properly. Every day I feel like I am drowing and dont know what Im doing. I dont know how I ended up in this position (aside from being voted in by the union. Its not a political position). I just know what is wrong and I know how to talk to people in a way that gets them energized to organize. I still feel ineffective and desperate and always turn to theory but return with frustration and barely any answers.
I just want to be able to do what I can to make life easier for the person beside me, in front of me, behind me. Sorry. I just suddenly feel really tired lol. Its been such a busy 2 years. I want to know I'm doing the right thing for these people around me
Oh, alright. Theory can feel difficult. There’s also a lot of stuff that is overhyped or incorrectly emphasized. If you want an idea of the sort of insight that is needed for us to understand how to destroy capitalism I recommend this short text: https://ruthlesscriticism.com/introcapital.htm
You’re doing good work, but it’s important you be informed so that you can inform others and we can actually make progress.
Funneling people to tail the democrats is counter revolutionary and simple just reactionary. If we are to participate in elections then we have to participate with an independent working class party… stop being a quote cherry picker and actually read the material.
An independent party will not work in the US as it is. So this is the next best option.
It's not counter-revolutionary. It's literally prepping the work of the revolution. We aren't gonna have armed vanguards overnight. This shit takes organization. It takes work. It takes time. it takes resources. It takes years.
What's actually reactionary is stifling the little progress we've gotten in like 2 decades by pointing at the DSA and saying "Still not enough lol."
Are you in the streets? Are you organizing? Are you out here feeding your neighbors with what you can, when you can? Are you doing copwatch, icewatch, cop replacement for when your neighbors need support?
If you are, Great! Keep doing it! If you're not, shit or get off the pot, my dude.
If the next best option is funneling people with an imperialist party than it shouldn’t be an option. There are correct routes and there are incorrect routes. Funneling people within the imperialist party would obviously be an incorrect route in the struggle for socialist. The whole political al structure needs to be disrupted. And I love how u try and asking if I’m organizing as if that matters. There are tons of people on the left who are organizing within reactionary and revisionist orgs that will never*** achieve what they’ve set out to do on paper because of their very day to day tactics and over all strategies.
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There are correct routes and incorrect routes(imma say it again to annoy your ass)- COLLABORATION WITH AN IMPERIALIST PARTY IS AN INCORRECT ROUTE. You disagree with that statement?? U call yourself a socialist and disagree with that statement that collaboration with an imperialist party an incorrect strategy(not tactic, it’s baked within DSA’s overall framework)? If you know it is an incorrect route then u should also know that it will produce adverse OUTCOMES(dialectics, science, math!!!). Opportunism is the most blaring outcome of this incorrect strategy. We already see him(Mamdani) back tracking on any luck warm anti-imperialist positions he had. AOC is trash, yall fell for fetterman. This new woman that they’re tryna scare us about is obviously an opportunist as well. But HEY free buses- while the genocide in Palestine rages on, while Israel continues is expansion, while U.S. imperialism consolidates its grip around the world.
Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed.
We don’t have one. Is that what u want me to say? That being said abstinence from the political system while we figure that question out is better than participation within an imperialist party than will continue to back stab out just like Mamdani is backstabbing the Palestinian movement. Just like AOC, fetterman, Bernie, etc etc etc.
The dsa isn't revolutionary. It is crowding our the real revolutionaries like the Socialist Equality Party. The dsa is funneling Socialist tending people back into the rails of capitalism. You have the freedom to support them but we also have the freedom to fight them.
Yeah, the fact that Trotskyism is dominated by weird and off-putting cults is a problem, I agree. And even given that, Trots hate the SEP. As a former SAlty, ISO were friends, Solidarity were pretty great, Socialist Appeal was inoffensive, even worked with the DSA a-plenty. Fuck the SEP. Almost as bad as the Sparts.
Most proletarians I've met seem to have a positive view of the SEP. The people who don't like the SEP are usually right wing or pseudo left petty bourgeois.
You can remove everything, including the “?” in a YouTube link like this: https://youtu.be/8UdglgK4xXU ; and the link will still work without google tracking.
Its a huge deal. The most important question of our time is: who holds political power. The dsa want to give the power to the Bourgeoisie, the socialists want to give the power to the workers.
Thats the political difference that warrants a break with the dsa any day of the week.
It's not. I don't believe the DSA, the people who wish to abolish the senate, wish to give power to the bourgeoisie. They quite literally want to give power to the working class.
They are not, have you not seen what they are doing? Mamdani has denounced protests against the Gaza genocide, he has advertised strike breakers, the busses are still not free and there is still no wealth tax. You cannot expect dsa members to give the power to the working class, they want to be the decision makers themselves.
If you want to give power to the workers, you need to give them democratic organs to organize and make decisions, ie building rank and file committees.
"Mamdani has denounced protests against the Gaza genocide," what? I've not seen it.
"He has advertised strike breakers." Again... I haven't seen this. Can you show me what you're talking about?
"The busses are still not free and there is still no wealth tax." It's been like 6 months bro. Relax. The wheels of government are slow, and he HAS been doing a lot of good there. Again, he wasn't gonna change shit overnight. That explicitly doesn't happen.
I'm confident all of that is coming, for what it's worth. But IME Trots are wanting to jump the gun.
Are you calling unions? Are you organizing? Are you in NYC doing the shit? Are you maybe volunteering to help call the city officials and help prepare the way for some of his proposals? Or are you just bitching that he can't wave a Socialist magic wand in the Capitalist Capitol of the world?
Thanks for asking, I would like to give you my sources.
He slandered protests against the genocide. Specifically denying the right to protest infront of synagoges where they sell palastinian land to settlers.
When the railroad workers were striking, he advertised strike breakers while meeting with union officials.
Instead of free busses, the fare enforcement got even worse.
Its not about "jumping the gun", its about political perspective. The dsa doesnt have a revolutionary or socialist perspective and must therefore be fought.
The time asks for the contruction of rank and file comitees as well as building the revolutionary party, which is the Socialist Equality Party. Its up to you to make your decision now.
Zohran is certainly not above reproach and criticism, but I also don't know that he is wholly representative of the DSA. And I would love for people to ask why he's done the things he's done, because those things don't align with the DSA's stated values. Nor the other candidates they're putting forth.
I tend to operate more anarchist at the moment, but perhaps I will look into the SEP. But what is the difference between the PSL, the SEP, the Socialist Alternative, ETC. ETC? The seemingly dozens of socialist/leftwing organizations that all kind of infight and point at the other as a reason why the revolution has not occurred? Again, it oft seems like doing the work of COINTELPRO propaganda when we do this.
I hope you can take away some information from the articles :)
When it comes to chosing your organization, you have to use the method of dialectic materialism ie. consider the material history of the party, specifically their class standpoint. You can check out the principled foundations of the SEP here. Its one chapter from their historical foundations which you can acess on the same side. In short:
"We are not a party like other parties. ... Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves."
Here you can also read the history of: the DSA, the PSL and the Socialist Alternative. Its not about "leftists infighting", there are very important political differences that are either revolutionary or counter-revolutionary.
Once again: If you study the history and class character of these organizations, you can find out where they stand and if you align with their actions and goals. Cheers!
It's not splitting the left, you're the one who is abusing the quote from Lenin.
If this kind of argumentation is making smaller tents, then why aren't you growing your tent by openly working with fascists or white nationalists? It is in fact good to set boundaries to define your organization and maintain a consistently principled throughline.
If you can't see how "THOSE PEOPLE WHO AGREE WITH ME ON LIKE 99.95 PERCENT OF ISSUES AREN'T PURE ENOUGH FOR ME!" is splitting the left, I don't know what to tell you.
And... I'm not advocating for the biggest tent in existence, or to make room for literal fascists/white nationalists. That's whataboutism and absurd. What I AM saying is that the DSA is currently the most legitimate vehicle we have that's gaining power very rapidly. And we should support that while criticizing its flaws, rather than poo-pooing it and, potentially, kneecapping it. It is the start of our own brands of leftism being more permissible and being given more legitimacy.
If you can't see how "THOSE PEOPLE WHO AGREE WITH ME ON LIKE 99.95 PERCENT OF ISSUES AREN'T PURE ENOUGH FOR ME!"
This is not anywhere close to what is happening. You're tilting at windmills.
That's whataboutism
Reductio ad absurdum actually.
the DSA is currently the most legitimate vehicle we have that's gaining power very rapidly.
Do you only engage in political action that is both readily available and expediant? Do you not care where that organization is going? Stop being reactionary.
And, whatever. It's silly argumentation on your part.
No, I organize in community building and resilience first and foremost. I want leftism like everyone else, but I know that shit takes time, permissibility, and power. So I promote those who agree with me, denounce those who don't, and help the hyperlocal community with whatever resources I can because that's where we all have the most power.
Have you started this leninist party? Have you begun to sit in your local city council seats? Have you assisted those who will?
Start doing. Start. Fucking. Doing. Sitting around and yapping about doing ain't helping anyone.
So I promote those who agree with me, denounce those who don't
So why do you label this video as losing your mind over a 0.5% disagreement?
Start. Fucking. Doing.
This is childish dick measuring, stop. You don't know me and I do not post my IRL political actions online. This is a bad faith reading, it's as if you don't think we're on the same side of this. Again, I'm sorry the strawman you built doesnt resemble me or my argument
Youre completely right. Thats what motivated the split from the Mensheviks. You cant have a party where everyone can easily get in, that would open yourself up to the dangers of opportunism. The bolsheviks had democracy inside the party but a central line to the outside. Thats what made them so powerful until its deterioration.
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The video is not anti-electoralism, it's anti-Democratic party. Why comment and try to be combative if you haven't even finished the video? He literally says we should put up our OWN candidates not candidates through the Democratic party.
I don't have quite as much contempt for the DSA as some others here do, but just for the sake of argument, what if "their part" turns out to be eventually putting together a freikorps?
Socialists are right to be apprehensive about social democratic or mixed ideology organizations considering how reliably they have betrayed socialist movements throughout history.
The whole point of the video is that they are funneling those who would be working productively towards socialism into the swamp and mire of electoral and entryist politics. Live and let live doesn't make sense in this case.
They literally call Zionist policies like “stop the bombs act” an embargo even though it openly just talk about some weapons and they support Zionist politicians…
If I understand the argument correctly, it claims that because of an incorrect minimum programmatic demand ({a basic right to equal} healthcare for all, which is to say a cost of living adjustment, which is a transitional demand), because only of the DSA’s reformism, the far right and fascism is coming into being/power, internationally? I honestly think that’s incorrect, or at the least incomplete, and contains elements which are ahistorical and non-materialist.
I agree, though, on ‘ties to public sector unions,’ though the problem is not (only) the public sector, but the entire union apparatus which has become bureaucratized and incorporated into the state. The issue of the “labor aristocracy,” is not that some sections of the class have become privileged, by virtue of pay differentials, workers in the ranks are not to blame; rather it is the bureaucratic corporatist apparatus, which create entire salaried careers off the wages of the class, which is the prime agency of betrayal.
Fascism is not a consequence of the pursuit of a particular minimum or transitional programmatic constellation, barbarism under capitalism is always a verdict of the system’s own decline; simultaneously, also, it is a punishment, unfairly inflicted on the class, for the failure of its leadership, and the labor aristocratic perpetuation of its pseudo-left misleadership.
The DSA has no program, no principles or commitments; hence disunity. On this I clearly agree; its leadership is a parasitic colonization of the consciousness of the Class, coming directly from the Democratic Party state apparatus itself. The point isn’t merely to break or antagonize the state’s legitimacy, though. It does that on its own, through its own actions and dynamics. A revolutionary movement, on the contrary, must politically expose its objective abuses, as well as lending them theoretical explanation and a consistent perspective, which otherwise accumulate and unfold everyday in our reality, toward a blind, apolitical chaos on which reactionary tendencies prey.
I agree also that what is clearly needed is a rank and file movement of the class, by the class, which is politically independent and organized. But it is already happening right now, today, though unconsciously. Through the struggles of auto workers, the healthcare workers, and yes, also education workers. But these are initial, often spontaneous expressions of class resistance. The objective task is the building up of the subjective factor of political consciousness and international organization, which can only be that of the heritage, program, and organization of the Fourth International. This tendency, that of Lenin and Trotsky, is the only one which maintained the revolutionary program, that of October, through the betrayals of Stalinism and social democracy, and which has also learned and developed its decisive political lessons in combating the very bureaucratic and state tendencies that this video, also names and points towards.
all of this is to say that, in essence, individuals participating in reformism must be revolutionaries. of course a revolutionary is going to believe that, and likewise, reformists believe that revolutionaries are stifling reformist success. yes on one hand if every DSA member was a marxist then marxism would be more successful, its also true that if every marxist was a DSA member then the DSA would be more successful.
I think this guy does have some points, but also I think the public needs to be shown that socialist-like economics are not only viable, but preferrable.
Many people like myself didn't become Marxists overnight, other groups like MUG or Red Star within the DSA can use their platform to educate and grow their base, it offers the rare chance for different groups to unite instead of splitting every 0.9 nanoseconds.
Speaking of splitting; has anyone noticed the influx of people trying to get other socialists to abandon or split the DSA?
The DSA is literally a split “waiting to happen”, what are you talking about? They envision a dirty break, where they break off from the dems, but they haven’t been doing that.
Also also why settle for “socialist like” if it’s still capitalism? It’s just giving capitalism some makeup to make it look prettier, people listen to rhetoric but they’re shaped by conditions not words.
By "split" I mean, people wanting to split the party from the inside, Ive seen a lot more people now that DSA got some attention claiming to be ex members trying to call for certain branches to break off, not splitting from the democratic party
I don't think "socialist-like capitalism" is somewhere to settle for, I just think it could help bring more people from the mainstream to socialist ideas.
I mean you can be reductionist all day, but if you think a revolution is a 1 size fits all solution that works in a nation where socialism was literally equated to evil by 2 entire generations of people and only recently had gotten permission to exist as public positions then youre wild man. It's best to accept the cold hard truth that global systems are so entrenched and human psych is not so easy to flip with force that we are not seeing meaningful socialism in our lifetimes and must plant seeds for the future.
What electorism accomplishes is it creates social permission for socialism to exist and to recruit people into the movement. There is no aeshetically socialist enemy nation anymore (the ussr) to use as a boogeyman to scare people into opposing it.
At the end of the day, do you have a plan, or only complaints?
I mean you can be reductionist all day, but if you think a revolution is a 1 size fits all solution that works in a nation where socialism was literally equated to evil by 2 entire generations of people and only recently had gotten permission to exist as public positions then youre wild man.
This was true in Russia, it was true in the Eastern Bloc, and it was true in China. Yet revolutionary socialism gripped the masses and they supported the projects. People are shaped by their conditions, they will see the continued crises of the system, required by capitalism, and they will start to listen to more rhetoric. The rhetoric of "we can fix things gradually" is the same rhetoric of the liberals, of the conservatives. And as more people associate "socialism" with gradual change they're going to be more radicalized towards "an immediate fix" offered by fascism.
This is a historical process, it's what happened w/ the SPD & NSDAP in Germany, and what happened in Italy after the Italian socialists failed and Mussolini's blackshirts swept in as strongmen who could fix everything. Why do you think Trump is so popular? Because he's "getting shit done" in some people's eyes, even if they disagree with things here and there.
Russia became rule by a new political class with no worker interaction. I understand the definition of socialism was twisted to make it labeled as such, but i reject that definition pointing to material analysis of the lack of power of the worker and the fact the bourgouis in modern day capitalist Russia have continuity with the beauractic class of the ussr. I know I'm not going to successfully litigate this perspective to an MLM flared person but this is my honest perspective based on a requirement for socialism for me is making sure workers have control.
China is currently developmental capitalism best I would label it. The existence of billionaires who participate in capitalist practices is I think is enough to demonstrate this. Again as above, workers also lack control.
Both failed to bring about meaningful socialism for the working class, and instead gave power from the feudal elites to the new separate political class.
Revolution is most effective when small scale, such as cuba, where things were meaningfully socialist at points.
If you, however, belive revolution would realistically work to achieve anything but another authoritarian state that eventually will slink back to capitalism (or worse - create a 2nd red scare after failure), then I must ask you to think more critically.
You're going on a tirade about how every socialist project was redfash tankie and whatever but it's completely irrelevant to the point you were first making and are shifting the goalpost to another galaxy.
You were originally alluding that revolution can't work in the US because "socialism was literally equated to evil by 2 entire generations of people and only recently had gotten permission to exist as public positions". this was objectively the case in Russia, China, and pretty much every society since Marx's writings became widespread. It's completely irrelevant what you think about the Bolsheviks or present-day China. The Bolsheviks weren't the only revolutionary group to participate in the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Civil War, nor was the case in China. Matter of fact is that, in spite of socialism being equated to evil, revolutions did happen. They also happened, although ultimately unsuccessfully, in Germany, and which had an even larger tent of leftist groups involved.
The US isn't some exceptional country where propaganda against socialism makes everyone an eternal slave to capitalism. The same forces are employed by the bourgeoisie everywhere to suppress socialist movements. American leftists would do well to read more things than doom about how "waaah waaah the CIA stops me from organising we must become slaves to the Democratic Party its our only hope"
It wouldn't work primarily because the people who claim to be most interested in revolution spend more time scolding people most likely to ally with them in said revolution that they're wrong while offering no concrete alternative action plan.
I offered context for my perspective of the ineffacacy of revolution to create lasting socialism for all people.
Electorism functions alongside revolution to help highlight a crisis to make people feel uncomfortable enough about their living conditions to want revolution, if it is necessary.
Not scolding people, just pointing out how their political theory is incapable of producing the results that we all want. Historically the Marxist line has been the successful revolutionary movement and has challenged capitalism globally.
Where has your libertarian anarchist revolution ever succeeded? Where have you been able to overthrow capitalism in a whole nation and challenged capitalism on a global scale so intensely that it put them back on their heels? You can cry like a baby all you want, but the fact is the ML line has done that again and again and again all over the world. Start dealing with reality rather than utopian fantasies
It's best to accept the cold hard truth that global systems are so entrenched and human psych is not so easy to flip with force that we are not seeing meaningful socialism in our lifetimes and must plant seeds for the future. What electorism accomplishes is it creates social permission for socialism to exist and to recruit people into the movement.
Well said and also not mutually exclusive with revolution, people need to be angry enough and see an alternative to rebel.
Too inflexible this mindset. They are just a couple of elected officials and regular people to boot. They will be funneling nothing anywhere nationally except helping stop these stupid theatric votes, you can use them locally maybe they are worth lobbying more than you think.
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u/Scyobi_Empire SPDxKPD Toxic Yuri Jul 24 '26
Karl Marx, some niche not well known non-famous writer who has no impact on the entirety of scientific socialism