Could you elaborate on your thoughts regarding the CPUSA and DSA? Specifically, the DSA? I am American and my understanding of the DSA is that it is not a democratic centralist organization whatsoever. They’re just a democratic socialist faction of the Democratic Party, which is itself a ruling class party anyway. Do you mean to refer to another organization?
I can’t say much about CPUSA. They aren’t really… seen. Anymore. They were extremely active about 50 years ago with huge names in their cadre but have been effectively dismantled/sidelined from my understanding. I am quite active and I’ve never once seen them on the streets, much “smaller” organizations appear at protests and in the news these days.
But I think I do actually intimately understand what you mean, from experience. All leaders are imperfect but I find incredible trust in the cadre I interface with daily. I think that’s one of the more important facets of party-building - we require cadre who would resist in face of failure from the top. The organization must develop the capacity for self-correction, even if this is somewhat hypothetical and new in application. It’s all there in theory but we require the membership to be confident enough in itself to hold the party accountable, a feature which often develops asymmetrically.
The CPUSA’s national leadership is known for stifling any move towards radicalism by local chapters. The most charitable interpretation for their leadership is that the fear of becoming scapegoated like Eugene Debbs was, whose imprisonment killed off the SPA, is one where no electoralist approach has yet found a solution for a century later.
For the DSA, I was specifically referring to the DSA’s National Political Committee, which notoriously de-chartered their Palestine/BDS working group in 2022 after the DSA endorsed an Iron Dome-voting Zionist congressman. My understanding from individuals who were part of the DSA’s East Bay chapter, which partly led the opposition to the attack on the Palestine working group, was that the DSA NPC had been, and gave off the impression during the dispute, attempting to exercise a de facto sort of democratic centralism, which was unsupported by the DSA’s constitution. From what I understand, nowadays, their present issue appears to be an overcorrection towards the other direction, most recently exemplified in the fight with the DSA-LA chapter over LA’s new mayor.
Could you elaborate on your thoughts regarding the CPUSA and DSA? Specifically, the DSA? I am American and my understanding of the DSA is that it is not a democratic centralist organization whatsoever. They’re just a democratic socialist faction of the Democratic Party, which is itself a ruling class party anyway. Do you mean to refer to another organization?
I can’t say much about CPUSA. They aren’t really… seen. Anymore. They were extremely active about 50 years ago with huge names in their cadre but have been effectively dismantled/sidelined from my understanding. I am quite active and I’ve never once seen them on the streets, much “smaller” organizations appear at protests and in the news these days.
But I think I do actually intimately understand what you mean, from experience. All leaders are imperfect but I find incredible trust in the cadre I interface with daily. I think that’s one of the more important facets of party-building - we require cadre who would resist in face of failure from the top. The organization must develop the capacity for self-correction, even if this is somewhat hypothetical and new in application. It’s all there in theory but we require the membership to be confident enough in itself to hold the party accountable, a feature which often develops asymmetrically.
The CPUSA’s national leadership is known for stifling any move towards radicalism by local chapters. The most charitable interpretation for their leadership is that the fear of becoming scapegoated like Eugene Debbs was, whose imprisonment killed off the SPA, is one where no electoralist approach has yet found a solution for a century later.
For the DSA, I was specifically referring to the DSA’s National Political Committee, which notoriously de-chartered their Palestine/BDS working group in 2022 after the DSA endorsed an Iron Dome-voting Zionist congressman. My understanding from individuals who were part of the DSA’s East Bay chapter, which partly led the opposition to the attack on the Palestine working group, was that the DSA NPC had been, and gave off the impression during the dispute, attempting to exercise a de facto sort of democratic centralism, which was unsupported by the DSA’s constitution. From what I understand, nowadays, their present issue appears to be an overcorrection towards the other direction, most recently exemplified in the fight with the DSA-LA chapter over LA’s new mayor.