this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026
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DSA has gotten hundreds of socialists in positions of power to represent the working class. Please, share what power you've been able to acquire.
With the entry of a socialist into the government, and class domination continuing to exist, the bourgeois government doesn’t transform itself into a socialist government, but a socialist transforms himself into a bourgeois minister. [...] The entry of a socialist into a bourgeois government is not, as it is thought, a partial conquest of the bourgeois state by the socialists, but a partial conquest of the socialist party by the bourgeois state.
DSA candidates are beholden to the demands of the working class, not the Democratic or Republican party nor capitalist donations.
Additionally, electing candidates to deliver material gains is only a single aspect of DSA. Along with mutual aid, labor organizing, and International solidarity campaigns to name a few.
A socialist entering a capitalist government does not make that government socialist. The government’s class function remains bourgeois, and the socialist is pressured to act as a bourgeois minister in order to get their (generally minor) reforms through.
Not really related to the criticism I was making at all.
I have read Lenin, and if you think he is advocating for electing socialists to the bourgeois government as something to strive for in and of itself, you have completely misread him. Winning bourgeois elections is not the goal, or even in the same playing field as the goal, for communist electoral work. The goal is agitation: using elections to expose bourgeois democracy, spread an independent communist programme, and sharpen the working class’s understanding of the state’s class character.
This quote, and the invocation of Lenin in general, does nothing to strike against the criticism I was making. My criticism was not “organization is bad” or “a political party is unnecessary.” The opposite being obviously true. My criticism was that putting socialists into a bourgeois government does nothing to alter the class character of that government. The state remains bourgeois, and anyone entering it is forced to operate according to its rules, pressures, limits, and class function.
Again, a socialist entering a capitalist government does not make that government socialist. Rather, the socialist is pressured to act as a bourgeois minister in order to administer capitalism and get minor reforms through. The result is not the conquest of the bourgeois state by socialism, but the partial conquest of the socialist by the bourgeois state.
Lenin was arguing for an independent proletarian party capable of organizing the working class for a determined struggle against the whole of capitalist society. He was not arguing for socialists to measure power by how many seats they win inside capitalist institutions, still less for tailing a reactionary party such as the Democratic Party (which the DSA appears quite fond of, which can be seen in their actions, such as the recommendation to vote for Graham Platner: another campaign inside the Democratic Party, another refusal to break from its shadow, another retreat from building a truly independent working-class party.).
Built a parallel mutual aid system that covers three towns and doesn't rely on the goodwill of a single war criminal. That's nice that you like voting for them though, I'm sure this time the capitalists won't just start killing you when you become an inconvenience like they have every other time in the last hundred years.
Lol. The working class loves white phosphorous apparently
Are you unaware that DSA also organizes mutual aid and labor?
And DSA is not beholden to any one person, it's built by hundreds of thousands of working class organizers
That's cool, call me when they stop backing openly imperialist candidates and maybe then we can all leave the razor wire-lined cul de sac of capitalist reform. I don't know if you've taken a look at the entire planet lately, but we are decidedly out of time for that bullshit.
Who's imperialist that the DSA supports?
Dude a significant number of them were going hard for a blackwater mercenary with an SS tattoo on his chest. What liberation movements do they support?