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
You're looking at it as though it's Calvinism. Stalin's statement is about where the ideology of social democracy fits into the framework of class struggle, not about how everyone who at any point identifies as socdem has the soul of a fascist and has never and will never do anything worthwhile. The point of his statement is that the purpose social democracy serves is the maintenance of capitalism and therefore that people working towards social-democratic ends are working on maintaining capitalism (which is also the job of fascism and fascists, though they accomplish it differently and under different circumstances).
That individual socdems radicalized or fought in self-defense or whatever has no bearing on the statement. What matters for it is that the socdem organization of the SPD, on the eve of revolution, chose to protect capitalism (even though many of its own members objected), demonstrating how even those smol bean well-meaning SPD members who just didn't appreciate Rosa's message until her corpse was dumped in the river nonetheless had been working towards the benefit and promotion of just the organization responsible for it.
Stalin joining the allies also has no bearing on this. It fails to comprehend the difference between ideological conflict and political conflict. What Stalin was drawing were the lines of ideological conflict, which is vindicated a thousand times over by the US, Britain, etc. materially supporting Nazi Germany up until the latter's expansionism put it and the various liberal states into political conflict. Because of this political conflict, it made sense to ally in the war with these liberal states, but that by no means made them somehow fellow-travelers, as demonstrated by how the US didn't even wait until the end of the war to start making barbaric plays in the interest of checking the power of the Soviet Union.
This exactly. As I've indicated in other parts of the thread, the primary problem of the moment is that of political education. This whole thread is an absolute testament to that. Everybody is so excited to share the good news of communism without having a complex understanding of a non-memyfied version of it. People mistake entertainment (especially shit-postimg) for education.
Perhaps I am a dour nerd in a corner on this, but I am fine with that, it won't be the first or last time.
The important thing is to use it as an opportunity to educate and not just bemoan lacking education (not that you did that, I saw some of you talking about things constructively).
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.
It absolutely is. A few individual self-identified communists in leadership positions of an org founded on social democracy with explicitly anticommunist bylaws that historically and currently pursues an exclusively social democratic strategy don't change the character of the organization. The character of the organization is determined by the actions it takes.
You're looking at it as though it's Calvinism. Stalin's statement is about where the ideology of social democracy fits into the framework of class struggle, not about how everyone who at any point identifies as socdem has the soul of a fascist and has never and will never do anything worthwhile. The point of his statement is that the purpose social democracy serves is the maintenance of capitalism and therefore that people working towards social-democratic ends are working on maintaining capitalism (which is also the job of fascism and fascists, though they accomplish it differently and under different circumstances).
That individual socdems radicalized or fought in self-defense or whatever has no bearing on the statement. What matters for it is that the socdem organization of the SPD, on the eve of revolution, chose to protect capitalism (even though many of its own members objected), demonstrating how even those smol bean well-meaning SPD members who just didn't appreciate Rosa's message until her corpse was dumped in the river nonetheless had been working towards the benefit and promotion of just the organization responsible for it.
Stalin joining the allies also has no bearing on this. It fails to comprehend the difference between ideological conflict and political conflict. What Stalin was drawing were the lines of ideological conflict, which is vindicated a thousand times over by the US, Britain, etc. materially supporting Nazi Germany up until the latter's expansionism put it and the various liberal states into political conflict. Because of this political conflict, it made sense to ally in the war with these liberal states, but that by no means made them somehow fellow-travelers, as demonstrated by how the US didn't even wait until the end of the war to start making barbaric plays in the interest of checking the power of the Soviet Union.
This exactly. As I've indicated in other parts of the thread, the primary problem of the moment is that of political education. This whole thread is an absolute testament to that. Everybody is so excited to share the good news of communism without having a complex understanding of a non-memyfied version of it. People mistake entertainment (especially shit-postimg) for education.
Perhaps I am a dour nerd in a corner on this, but I am fine with that, it won't be the first or last time.
The important thing is to use it as an opportunity to educate and not just bemoan lacking education (not that you did that, I saw some of you talking about things constructively).
Appreciate the check for sure.
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.
Then it's a good thing I would never equate Stalin, for whatever faults he might have had, with a bunch of memelords on a shitposting website.
It absolutely is. A few individual self-identified communists in leadership positions of an org founded on social democracy with explicitly anticommunist bylaws that historically and currently pursues an exclusively social democratic strategy don't change the character of the organization. The character of the organization is determined by the actions it takes.