DSA forbid Demcent, but the left has gotten that rule rescinded as part of a larger effort to build DSA into an actual socialist party. It is an encouraging development if one practices a principled theory of change. But admittedly there is a long way to go toward actual discipline within the org.
Also the Bolsheviks had sects too, some had to be dealt with and others worked the self out over the course of active political struggle. It takes time to build durable organization, and its particularly frustrating as time seems to be running out. But demcent isn’t an ideal, it is a dynamic strategy that ensures the actual leaders of a section of the org are actually elected with broad support rather than creating informal power structures which drive political divisions. The factionalism in DSA I believe is just a stage necessary to move from the sect that it was toward the revolutionary party it will need to become.
The fact is, sectarianism is a structural condition imposed on us by our conditions. DSA is breaking down those divisions, not sustaining them. Idk how else it would possibly go down trying to organize extremely idealist, confused class on a mass level without having to organically working through that confusion, via struggle. You can slap a demcent label on an org, but that doesn’t make it part of the workers movement. You know, there is another definition of sectarian that doesn’t mean “full of sects” but rather a sect that stands separated from the mass movement. Revolution def isn’t a popularity contest, but ideas only prove themselves in practice.
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DSA forbid Demcent, but the left has gotten that rule rescinded as part of a larger effort to build DSA into an actual socialist party. It is an encouraging development if one practices a principled theory of change. But admittedly there is a long way to go toward actual discipline within the org.
Also the Bolsheviks had sects too, some had to be dealt with and others worked the self out over the course of active political struggle. It takes time to build durable organization, and its particularly frustrating as time seems to be running out. But demcent isn’t an ideal, it is a dynamic strategy that ensures the actual leaders of a section of the org are actually elected with broad support rather than creating informal power structures which drive political divisions. The factionalism in DSA I believe is just a stage necessary to move from the sect that it was toward the revolutionary party it will need to become.
The fact is, sectarianism is a structural condition imposed on us by our conditions. DSA is breaking down those divisions, not sustaining them. Idk how else it would possibly go down trying to organize extremely idealist, confused class on a mass level without having to organically working through that confusion, via struggle. You can slap a demcent label on an org, but that doesn’t make it part of the workers movement. You know, there is another definition of sectarian that doesn’t mean “full of sects” but rather a sect that stands separated from the mass movement. Revolution def isn’t a popularity contest, but ideas only prove themselves in practice.