As the title says, I want to know what you think about parties like Die Linke in Germany, Vänsterpartiet in Sweden, or the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (I do not mean the DSA). Each of them came into existence as a union of various socialist movements, but many communists as well. We certainly support the USPV and their fight against imperialism in Venezuela, would you support a party like this in your own country? Why or why not? Should we work to build if not a party then something like this, or would that compromise the integrity of our organizations? I’m sure this is different for every country, of course, but I’m still curious to hear your thoughts.

  • @queer_bird
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    154 years ago

    I have worked a lot with DSA here in the Pacific Northwest, only because I don’t live in Seattle and I don’t have a car and they happen to be the only major Leftist org with a chapter in my city besides the IWW. It’s interesting because at least in my chapter almost everyone is a tankie in the same situation as me, only a small minority of anarchists and and SocDems. So being a big tent isn’t so bad, but I sure hope a major ML org spreads here soon. BUT i do notice that we get many new members, particularly younger ones through who we got through Bernie work, quickly get radicalized once will tell them how cool Lenin is. Seriously one of the first DSA things a went to here was someone did a slideshow about Mao. I am under the impression that most DSA chapters aren’t this based tho. Big tent has it’s place, at least for the moment.

  • @FKidneys
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    144 years ago

    I think they are fine as long as they are truely left and do not include Social Democrats and other Capitalists. A party can still have capitalist members as to gain power as long as the lead of the party is ran by Anti-Capitalists and that once we reach power we either remove or educate the capitalist classs

  • @XiangMai
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    4 years ago

    Useless.

    My reference is labour

    However if you read the history of the labour party (:or whatever social democratic party in Germany/Sweden etc.) then it is a litany of class betrayal and capitulation

    Social Democracy: The Enemy Within is a fantastic overview of the labour party and well worth a read.

    https://espressostalinist.com/2011/10/04/book-review-social-democracy-the-enemy-within-by-harpal-brar/

    You only need look at what working within big ten parties has done to the trots. Militant (now the Socialist Party) thought they were getting traction until they were banned or they were allowed in Labour whilst they were a politically outvoted and exploited minority.

    What, then, has become of the trots?

    They became prostitutes to the labour party and little more than radlibs to organise their members into voting labour (and to what end? Labour were just as good as stewards of the British Empire as the tories and it was a labour government that began privatising the NHS).

    It is better to stand on decent principles in an actual communist party than try and prostitute yourself to Social Democracy. When the winds change (and they’re changing rapidly now) you do not want to be on the side of the Social Democrats and making the people think that “socialism” is just another outgrowth of disastrous Social Democracy.

  • @chad1234
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    24 years ago

    They are probably social democratic and would end up making compromises if they got into a coalition with the larger centrist parties

    The primary support base often tends to be petty bourgeouis environmentalists currently