Doug Enaa Greene gives an overview and critique of the political journey of Michael Harrington, founder of the Democratic Socialist of America, and his influence on reformist socialism to this day.
And yet, since this 2019 article caucuses like Red Star (and MUG) continue to gain an ever-larger foothold in DSA Leadership positions, to the point of directing some of the largest chapters. There is true leftward movement happening in DSA and it’s visible at the chapter level.
Personally I see the DSA kind of like the Social Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution. There is clearly a principled leftward faction that exists in its midst which is getting more popular however the organization itself is mired with opportunists, and I’m not confident the principled marxists can achieve hedghemonic influence over the entire thing.
A split is going to happen at some point in time, within the next decade I suspect. Whether it’s the opportunists ejecting themselves due to not wanting to conform to a “tankie” political line, or the principled Marxists breaking off to join a valid vanguard party that emerges, I’m not sure. Though historically I’d say the latter is more likely, but the circumstances might end up leading to the former, which frankly would be more beneficial.
I am working through Lenin Rediscovered right now and the DSA base smacks of the group Lenin spoke to then: a disorganized collection of ideologies including, as you said, oppurtunists, but also economists and recent tailist tendencies post-Mamdani. That does mean they are a large base that is most likely to be receptive to ML/MLM ideology and a reasonable group to try to flip vs the working class, which seems to have failed any push, even with the amount of basic education on socialism they have (a la mantras like “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism”) and the imperialist tendencies (now again in the spotlight thanks to Trump).
And yet, since this 2019 article caucuses like Red Star (and MUG) continue to gain an ever-larger foothold in DSA Leadership positions, to the point of directing some of the largest chapters. There is true leftward movement happening in DSA and it’s visible at the chapter level.
Personally I see the DSA kind of like the Social Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution. There is clearly a principled leftward faction that exists in its midst which is getting more popular however the organization itself is mired with opportunists, and I’m not confident the principled marxists can achieve hedghemonic influence over the entire thing.
A split is going to happen at some point in time, within the next decade I suspect. Whether it’s the opportunists ejecting themselves due to not wanting to conform to a “tankie” political line, or the principled Marxists breaking off to join a valid vanguard party that emerges, I’m not sure. Though historically I’d say the latter is more likely, but the circumstances might end up leading to the former, which frankly would be more beneficial.
I am working through Lenin Rediscovered right now and the DSA base smacks of the group Lenin spoke to then: a disorganized collection of ideologies including, as you said, oppurtunists, but also economists and recent tailist tendencies post-Mamdani. That does mean they are a large base that is most likely to be receptive to ML/MLM ideology and a reasonable group to try to flip vs the working class, which seems to have failed any push, even with the amount of basic education on socialism they have (a la mantras like “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism”) and the imperialist tendencies (now again in the spotlight thanks to Trump).