cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6977686

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12225

All over the world democratic socialism failed in the face of ascendant fascism, as a fickle fascination with form saw “socialists” ally themselves to bourgeois republics. The many millions of dead call to us from beyond the grave to not repeat this mistake.

The post The DSA Is Repeating the Historic Failures of the Social Democrats appeared first on Left Voice.

Many on the U.S. Left are viewing the current political moment with optimistic caution. They see Mamdani’s victory as evidence of the viability of the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) strategy of electoral entryism in the Democratic Party as a program for achieving socialism on a broad scale. It is in this climate that Left Voice has called on the DSA to break from the reactionary capitalist graveyard of social movements that is the Democratic Party. It’s vital in this disruptive moment to keep a clear analysis of what is happening, what we want to happen, and what history tells us could happen.

Build a Working-Class Party to Defeat the Far-Right

So what does this have to do with Zohran Mamdani? For one thing, his election has created new enthusiasm for the politics of parliamentary socialism, with many newly activated adherents perhaps unfamiliar with how tired and trite some of the arguments for that strategy are. As the DSA debates the merits of a dirty break, a clean break, a party surrogate model, and myriad other “strategies,” they ignore the history of failure penned in blood by their parliamentary forebears, and even fall short of the progressive credentials those groups had. If the SPD in Germany and PSI in Italy were ultimately reduced to the political status of liberals, they still proposed a more progressive agenda than the DSA does now. After all, what good is it to infiltrate the Democratic Party, the most important imperialist party in the world, with a socialist Trojan horse just to end up another liberal albatross? And yet they call to us to join them in the marsh. We, on the contrary, are urging them to change course.

We should also examine the historical role of the elected socialists. What happens when a revolutionary philosophy is applied as an administrative force within a capitalist country?

The legacy of the so-called Sewer Socialists in places like Milwaukee serves as an important lesson. Having accomplished remarkable achievements, like the namesake installation of the sewer system, these officials presided over roughly 40 years of massively popular electoral successes, creating a seemingly unbreakable coalition in the process. While it is hardly fair to task them with defeating the national repression of McCarthyism single handedly, their failure was most importantly in not tying their achievements to a broader revolutionary socialist movement. They occupied a political wilderness in spite of recurring victories, while primarily implementing ideas that were largely amenable to private capital and slapping a buzzword on it. When the hammer of reaction came down nationwide, they stood alone amidst the wonders they had made, unable to rally a fight against it. A lot could have happened in 40 years, but didn’t.

It is in this spirit that rank-and-file DSA members should reorient their organization away from the reformist strategy condemned by history. With the Far Right emboldened and normalized, now is not the time for timidity. This is also not to condemn the powerful role of electoral campaigns. Taking executive positions such as the mayor of New York City without a revolutionary program only leads to well-meaning progressives presiding over the systems they campaigned against, and “socialists” representing billionaires.

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