I occasionally hear about local chapters like this, and I have to wonder what the benefit is of an ML local paying dues to an explicitly anticommunist org that can expel members for being openly ML. The local obviously isn't changing DSA, and DSA would never willingly help the local.
But there’s potential utility in having a more radical caucus within a less radical organization. Used correctly it can act as the teeth or spearhead that utilizes the size of the org to achieve more radical ends than the org itself cares about.
I think this can be true, but it’s predicated on a radical caucus successfully using the resources of the broader org to deliver measurable material results that are greater than those that could be delivered on their own with the same time, effort, and resources. If they can’t show that, then they’re not using the org, the org is using them. DSA’s rule against democratic centralism was explicitly made to prevent that from happening.
At the national level, I can’t point to anything of significance that “radical caucuses” have achieved within national DSA apart from influencing certain Democrat primary endorsements in 2016 and 2020. Those endorsed Democrats have broadly continued to betray the people of Palestine, for the same reasons DSA has, at the first sign of conflict with the broader liberal democratic system they’re nominally trying to “move left”.
I guess I could see a local tactical argument for forming or co-opting a DSA local if national is handing you more money from all the liberal paper DSA members than your local org is putting into it, but the nature of DSA will still preclude you from putting that money toward revolutionary ends. Best case scenario you can shift the balance of that money more towards local charity and less toward Democrats, but it’s still not necessarily clear to me that would be more effective than just directly donating or volunteering at a liberal charity org. Neither is going to build revolutionary power, but at least the latter directly results in some material improvement in individual human lives.
It’s not a matter of characterization that DSA’s founders were explicitly anticommunist, and that the bylaws still have practicing democratic centralism as an expellable offense.
Oh, yeah, I agree it was founded as explicitly anticommunist. Those folks are in northstar, a tiny caucus that people don't take seriously. You're allowed to practice demcent, you're just not allow to explicitly say you're demcent. You can even explicitly say "We are doing this thing (demcent)" so long as you don't use the magic words "democratic centralist"
If the MLs tried to form their own group it'd just be another random book club communist party of 20 nebbish weirdos who get fucked with by the FBI constantly till some LaRouche-esk dude takes over.
maybe, but the alternative suggests that paying dues to a liberal anticommunist org protects them from federal attention. as an organization dedicated to collectively advancing proletarian class politics, ineffectiveness is the only surefire protection from federal attention.
but the alternative suggests that paying dues to a liberal anticommunist org protects them from federal attention
I mean I think that's the basic idea, by squatting in a liberal group the Feds don't pay them as much attention and they can do organizing in the background. Idk how effective it is though.
I mean really there can't be a communist movement in the imperial core so all this is moot.
I occasionally hear about local chapters like this, and I have to wonder what the benefit is of an ML local paying dues to an explicitly anticommunist org that can expel members for being openly ML. The local obviously isn't changing DSA, and DSA would never willingly help the local.
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I think this can be true, but it’s predicated on a radical caucus successfully using the resources of the broader org to deliver measurable material results that are greater than those that could be delivered on their own with the same time, effort, and resources. If they can’t show that, then they’re not using the org, the org is using them. DSA’s rule against democratic centralism was explicitly made to prevent that from happening.
At the national level, I can’t point to anything of significance that “radical caucuses” have achieved within national DSA apart from influencing certain Democrat primary endorsements in 2016 and 2020. Those endorsed Democrats have broadly continued to betray the people of Palestine, for the same reasons DSA has, at the first sign of conflict with the broader liberal democratic system they’re nominally trying to “move left”.
I guess I could see a local tactical argument for forming or co-opting a DSA local if national is handing you more money from all the liberal paper DSA members than your local org is putting into it, but the nature of DSA will still preclude you from putting that money toward revolutionary ends. Best case scenario you can shift the balance of that money more towards local charity and less toward Democrats, but it’s still not necessarily clear to me that would be more effective than just directly donating or volunteering at a liberal charity org. Neither is going to build revolutionary power, but at least the latter directly results in some material improvement in individual human lives.
I don't think this is a fair characterization- there are open MLs serving on the national political committee, including one cochair.
It’s not a matter of characterization that DSA’s founders were explicitly anticommunist, and that the bylaws still have practicing democratic centralism as an expellable offense.
Oh, yeah, I agree it was founded as explicitly anticommunist. Those folks are in northstar, a tiny caucus that people don't take seriously. You're allowed to practice demcent, you're just not allow to explicitly say you're demcent. You can even explicitly say "We are doing this thing (demcent)" so long as you don't use the magic words "democratic centralist"
If the MLs tried to form their own group it'd just be another random book club communist party of 20 nebbish weirdos who get fucked with by the FBI constantly till some LaRouche-esk dude takes over.
maybe, but the alternative suggests that paying dues to a liberal anticommunist org protects them from federal attention. as an organization dedicated to collectively advancing proletarian class politics, ineffectiveness is the only surefire protection from federal attention.
I mean I think that's the basic idea, by squatting in a liberal group the Feds don't pay them as much attention and they can do organizing in the background. Idk how effective it is though.
I mean really there can't be a communist movement in the imperial core so all this is moot.