I mean what the fuck else are you doing if you’re not in any other org?
kidding
mostly
But honestly, if you are not organizing, campaigning, volunteering during time that you are free (and emotionally capable, never overwork yourself and burn out comrade) joining DSA will give you easy access to doing these things. I can hear you all in the comments now “DSA is lib!” and you know what? Yeah. It is. But what does that make you? The armchair quarterbacking I see on here about what DSA should/could do but isn’t honestly breaks my heart. You can do those things. There are commie caucuses that are incredibly influential in DSA policy and punch well above their weight compared to how many comrades are in them. The farther left people are, the more they tend to be active in organizing. There really are so few excuses to not at least be a paper member so you can throw your weight behind something you do deem worthy of your time when it comes up.
No DSA in your area? That’s fantastic. You can start one that will now be 100% the left agenda you want it to be.
Don’t like the DSA strategy? You can actually have some influence on that. DSA is huge in your area but too lib? Join a Commie caucus. No commie caucus? There are national ones. Want to work on the local level? Start a commie caucus. These other ones didn’t just appear out of thin air and I have my doubts that you’re the only leftist in your city. Oh and good thing there is conveniently an entire organization already in place to make it much easier to find your fellow leftists who seek the same change you do.
I know it isn’t easy. No organizing is. I’ve seen “would Lenin be in the DSA?” thrown around a few times on here and you should absolutely know that it doesn’t matter whether he would be or not. You aren’t Lenin. Luckily for you though, he did leave an encyclopedic amount of information on what you can do to emulate what happened in Russia elsewhere. In that literature lies a very key point that the revolution was NOT simply a worker’s revolution from the anti-tsarist starting gun. It was guided by the Lenin’s energized group to take this bourgeois revolution and mold it into a worker’s revolution. The work must be done to cultivate a base ready for revolutionary politics and action, and I’m telling you that you’re far more likely to find comrades amongst the DSA rank and file than you are with your random person in the American working class at this time.
You 100% have the ability to mold the DSA you currently see as incapable into something that might be capable of revolutionary action/politics through collective action on the left, but what do you have to lose by trying? Even if you become another paper member, you are still throwing fuel onto the fire and showing DSA that it has the ability to be a standalone left entity separate from democrats and it cost you absolutely nothing.
DSA literally has in its charter that doing any sort of Democratic Centralism is not allowed. If a chapter is found doing this then they can be removed. I don't see how you could make a national commie organization out of the DSA then tbh. I have been to a meeting and while the chapter near me does good work I don't see how DSA can be effective nationally if the org has been founded on the idea of not enforcing instructions organization wide.
I agree with organizing locally. If the only place to do is DSA in your region go ahead do that. If it isn't then I don't think forming another DSA chapter is the best route of action. If you have some reason for why you think DSA can make national strategies and push members to do so then I would be interested in hearing that.
Edit: I forgot to mention they go so far as stating that if you are even a part of an org which practices democratic centralism then you will be kicked out. I can't help but feel it is designed to fail nationally.
My thoughts/ hopes for the DSA are either that it gains enough standalone strength to become electorally self sustaining, after which centralism will be inevitable, or that DSA is the vehicle which organizes the left and the left outgrows DSA.
I don’t know of any DSA members/groups being removed for practicing Democratic centralism though
I imagine this will mostly come in play when the commies are actually becoming more powerful/relevant within DSA. I am curious are any of the commie caucuses big? Do any of them try to institute democratic centralism?
The commie caucuses aren’t enormous obviously but they are very influential (mostly because communists tend to be dedicated organizers) which is why I’m begging more communists to join DSA. I do not know of any caucuses which practice democratic centralism.
The benefit of joining is that you can be influential in a commie caucus and move towards democratic centralism. That’s part of the organizing and being a member of a horizontal organization. The more of us there are, especially this early, the better
Isn't it simpler to encourage commies to join PSL instead? If people can demonstrate PSL can be successful wouldn't that be better than organizing under DSA's banner. (tbf I have 0 idea if PSL exists anywhere around me - although your argument about starting a DSA chapter then should extend to starting PSL presence in your city right?)
Also do these commie caucuses talk to each other? I am seeing that all commie caucuses are localized within a city. Do they have some reason for not being a single group? Sorry for the asinine question. I am genuinely curious.
I don’t think there’s much of a difference honestly. As long as you, the communist reading this, are the one doing the organizing that’s what matters. DSA is definitely more accessible for more people than PSL imo but there’s absolutely no reason to not organize with either.
Yes the caucuses do talk to each other and work together on certain proposals/goals. The main reason they are different caucuses is that it allows for more local organization, but they aren’t different groups. The group is DSA and that’s incredibly useful