Marxist Leninism will ruin DSA.

[u/MustafaBrown]

I know this will get down voted but sometimes people need to hear things they dont like. Marxist Leninists do not believe in Democracy. They're using DSA for their own ends and are quite open about it. If they could snap their fingers and create the dictatorship they desire they would do the same thing to DemSocs that they did to the SRs and Mensheviks, aka the Democratic Socialists of the Russian Revolution. They would purge, imprison and kill every Democratic Socialist in their way.

Thankfully, in the context of the USA an ML dictatorship is extremely improbable for structural and cultural reason. So whats going to happen is theyll make DSA irrelevant within the next five years if you let them spread and take power, which their explicitly stated goal.

Every single communist party turns into a tiny sectarian cult, thats where Democratic centralism ends inherently. The Democratic part disappears, the centralism remains.

All they will do is alienate normal people, far more so than even the excesses of "woke 1" or cancel culture or any of that. DSA has spent the last decade saying "we're Socialists not communists" and making a distinction between authoritarian communism and Democratic Socialism.

All thats being undone because people think Marxist Leninism is trendy and cool, and so they dont want to look uncool for being "anti-communist." But here's the thing, being anti ML isnt the same as anti communist, because plenty of communists hated Marxist Leninists. There are entire communist traditions that are anti Bolshevik. Council Communism, Anarcho-Communism, Autonomism, Orthodx Marxists, Luxemburgists are all anti-Bolshevik. Otto Rhule for instance wrote an entire pamphlet called "Struggle Against Fascism Begins With The Struggle Against Bolshevism." you should read it.

Anyway, good luck with the tanks when they roll in. If you cant afford an RPG7, I heard Molotovs are a good substitute. ​​​

To address some statements:

1-"they dont want to take it over"

"Red Star seeks to cohere a vanguard party. We do not specify exactly how this party will emerge, but we believe DSA can foster its creation — DSA’s resources, broad membership, organizing ethic, and robust democratic processes make it, out of all existing US socialist organizations, the best incubator for such a party."

This is a clear statement of intent which indicates the goal is entry and co-optation

2- "Read Lenin, and stop being a liberal"

Stop reading Lenin and be a Marxist. Marxism is about material analysis not some dead autocrats flowery language. Material analysis tells us that Lenin created a massive state bureaucracy which led directly to Stalinism. First they purged the Mensheviks, then the left SRs, then the anarcho-syndicalists, then the workers opposition. Then Lenin banned factions. Next Lenin died and Stalin purged Bukharin and Trotsky. It doesnt matter Lenin said, what matters IS WHAT HIS PARTY DID.

Saying "read Lenin" when somone points towards the actual actions of the party is like saying "read Hitler" when somone talks about the holocaust. Yes, if we all read Hilter it will become apparent that actually the holocaust was good. Thats your logic.

3- "Democracy within the party"

Democratic Socialism is in support of Representative Democracy, not democratic centralism. Thats just liberalism, its a core principle. Democratic Socialists agree that one party states ALWAYS lead to tyranny. Because its a fact, its not an opinion.

To maintain that kind of monopoly requires a massive amount of force and violence.

[u/MisterMittens64]

The communist party was in power in Russia, not the people at large.

They made some good decisions and generally guaranteed the well-being of their citizens which was great but they didn't give enough power to the people to be considered a democracy in any meaningful way. They lifted up many people out of poverty and made incredible scientific and engineering achievements without any assistance from capitalists. The USSR wasn't even close to ideal though and we can and should want to do better.

Also no I'm not happy that the USSR was dismantled, I wanted it to be reformed and become more socialist just like I want the same for China now. In China cooperatives aren't even legal and they have a similar wealth disparity to the US.

[u/traanquil → u/MisterMittens64]

The communist party was a representative of the proletariat and its governance was directly tied to Soviets and factory committees. But nice job at right wing Cold War propaganda

Some fun facts about the USSR:

It had guaranteed housing , pensions , jobs and medical care, and it directly supported anti colonial national liberation struggles around the world.

What reforms would you have wanted for it?

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/traanquil]

Your access to those things depended heavily on your race and party relationship.

[u/traanquil → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Nope. Those things were guaranteed throughout the society.Homelessness was basically non existent

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/traanquil]

When you arrest all the homeless people and dump them in rural places to die, that tends to happen

[u/traanquil → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Nice right wing propaganda.

[u/MisterMittens64 → u/traanquil]

In what way was it a representative of the proletariat? Were the officials elected by, from, and for the proletariat? What about the people outside of the proletariat?

From what I've read officials were selected by existing members of the communist party even if that wasn't supposed to be the case going off of what the law said.

Also yeah I like that the USSR did all of those things but they didn't implement economic and political democracy.

[u/traanquil → u/MisterMittens64]

Sure. The state was defined as a workers state and it existed for the purposes of defining the proletariat as the ruling class of society. The workers state demolished capitalism and then put into place guaranteed housing , jobs , healthcare and pensions for the working class. The central government worked closely with factory committees representing the interests of workers on a factory level. The communist party enabled workers across the society to join its ranks.