Build the Foundation to Raise the Roof: Red Star’s Strategy and Orientation Towards DSA
Where Are We and How Did We Get Here?
Amid a rising wave of global reaction, deepening crises of political stability around the world, and the ecological unsustainability of capitalism stretching the earth and human society to its limits, the need for a serious left-wing political alternative in the United States is as desperate as ever. However, the posture of DSA is more ambiguous than it has been in nearly a decade. In the last ten years, the sense of momentum from the organization’s rapid growth and the lingering solidarity from the Bernie campaigns gave us a feeling of optimism and defiance, even following defeats. The initial wave of new membership during the Bernie 2016 campaign, the bump following Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 victory, and the huge jump during the early COVID lockdown in 2020 brought DSA from the verge of extinction, with about 4,000 mostly retired members in 2013, to nearly 80,000 young and energized organizers in 2021.
Unfortunately, since 2021 that feeling of momentum has betrayed us, leading to false assumptions of continued growth, the centrality of electoral politics, and the necessity of bulking up our national apparatus with more staff and more capacity to take independent action. A series of National Priority Campaigns were decided on, either by convention or the NPC, and then staffed and resourced without investigating their outcomes or their ability to draw in new members and retain existing ones. Optimism veered into self-delusion, as campaign after campaign objectively failed and as DSA membership began to decline precipitously from its peak in 2021. This term also saw a budget approved with a deficit of nearly 2 million dollars, betting on the ability of visible electoral campaigns to create more lightning strikes like the ones that animated DSA in the first place.
Since the 2023 Convention led to a shift in the NPC political balance, and Red Star first became an organized faction on the national stage, the inherited debt of the post-2016 DSA boom has started to become due. First, in the most literal sense, as DSA grappled with a budget deficit that threatened to bankrupt the organization before the next convention. This crisis also surfaced the collected political debt that had been papered over by unsustainable spending, rather than political struggle over tactics and priorities. The role of staff and the staff union as a political force was grappled with in earnest for the first time, and the long-standing weakness of DSA’s anti-imperialism was tested following the Al-Aqsa Flood. The National unendorsement of AOC marked a pivotal turn, with an NPC majority no longer content to rely on hitching our fortune to political celebrities as a strategy. All this and more in the first year since the 2023 convention.
This term was also the first where a genuine majority existed to enhance the ability of membership to participate in decision-making and take on leadership roles in National work. While there isn’t complete consensus on how to go about this, there is a general willingness to break down barriers to participation in many different parts of DSA. Currently, the only meaningful role that membership generally has in National DSA is the election of delegates to convention. While convention nominally decides the direction of DSA for the next two years, in reality, there is very little control other than the election of the NPC, which has wide discretion to prioritize or overrule Convention resolutions, and which itself struggles to operate democratically.
DSA’s struggle since 2023 has been intense at times, largely because latent political conflict was brought into the open, rather than sublimated into personal vendettas or palace intrigue. Except for the recent resignation of Rose D., this NPC term is the first in recent memory that hasn’t had numerous members resigning or being forced off the leadership body. This conflict is an inevitable part of resolving the contradiction in DSA between its outdated system and style of leadership and the emergence of a robust, rigorous socialist democratic culture.
The core of this outdated system of leadership within DSA is located precisely within National DSA, the apparatus which holds the vast majority of the organization's resources, acts as the most visible expression of DSA’s politics to the public, and wields administrative control over most aspects of DSA’s functioning.
The Contradiction of National DSA
National DSA’s structure resembles that of a chapter, with a loose collection of Committees, Campaigns, and Working Groups with fairly recognizable themes: Labor, Ecosocialism/GND, Queer Socialism, Anti-Imperialism. The membership of these bodies is often closed, with admission criteria that limits who is allowed to participate. The leadership of these bodies is chosen through a sometimes confusing combination of appointment by NPC and election by the committee. They are drawn from a relatively small pool of National organizers, typically caucused DSA members who have little or no connection to their local chapter but outsized prominence in the org or online. The NPC is roughly analogous to a chapter Steering Committee.
The shallowness of the organizer pool that National draws from means that it’s often very difficult to fill leadership positions, and results in an outsized reliance on Super Organizers who sit on multiple leadership bodies, take on inordinate amounts of work, and often burn out and disappear. There is not a developed culture or expectation of delegating work, let alone opening it up to the larger membership.
Unlike a Chapter, DSA National employs around 25 staffers in Tech, Organizing, Finance, Operations, and Comms, as well as directors and managers of these various departments. This NGO structure was created relatively quickly in the post-2016 boom, reaching its biggest size and influence just before the 2023 Convention. This NGO structure is in regular conflict with a democratic membership organization, and staff wield outsized influence. This is done both informally through their greater familiarity with DSA infrastructure and practice, compared to the relatively short-tenured member-electeds on NPC, as well as formally, via the Staff Union filing grievances and NLRB charges during the recent layoffs.
As it stands, National DSA, which controls the vast majority of DSA’s financial and infrastructural resources but is operated by a tiny minority of membership and staff, floats above the much broader base of Membership that interacts with DSA almost entirely through Chapter structures. The only connection between chapters and National, other than the Convention elections every 2 years, is in the form of direction and guidance offered by staff Field Organizers, or via National campaigns that may occasionally connect with chapters in the course of mobilizing turnout. National does not emerge organically from Chapter democracy, but rather operates mostly independently, taking only nominal guidance from convention resolutions, and historically providing very little communication or explanation for its actions.
National DSA has assumed its current deficient form for a number of reasons. First, in the pre-Bernie era, it essentially was DSA; chapters barely existed as more than informal reading groups, and National collected the entirety of membership dues and was the single point of any political decision-making. During the Bernie Boom, a flood of electoral-minded campaign organizers flooded into DSA, and in addition to the explosion of new chapters, the savviest organizers set up shop in National, recreating the NGO structures that they were familiar with in the shell of the old DSA. In the intervening years, National has operated as a very secure redoubt, allowing electoral campaigners to control the majority of the organization's resources and political decision-making with relatively little democratic challenge.
This structure has incubated and been molded in turn by SMC and Groundwork, caucuses whose theory of change leans heavily on mobilizing membership as an undifferentiated mass of volunteer labor, and directing DSA into a series of Campaigns that, despite their objective failure, are seen as galvanizing the working class.
The Promise of Chapter Democracy
In opposition to National DSA, a vastly different, and oftentimes strongly opposed, Chapter culture has emerged in the various cities where DSA has a presence. While every chapter has its own politics and internal culture, there is a strong sentiment among many local organizers that National DSA is either directly antagonistic to local organizing or, at best, disconnected and unhelpful. The vast majority of DSA’s members outside of caucuses have little awareness of how National operates, which is inevitable given its extreme opacity and lack of democratic oversight.
However, simply by virtue of their greater proximity to the bulk of membership, chapters tend to have much greater pressure to operate democratically, to have transparent communication and oversight, and to empower membership to handle the levers of power. It’s precisely this democratic culture that gives DSA its political advantage in comparison to more closed-off socialist organizations like PSL or CPUSA. DSA is a place where someone can join and immediately get a chance to play in the democratic sandbox of their local chapter. They are immediately trusted with power and responsibility that people rarely experience in capitalist society.
It is this democratic culture in chapters that provides the most solid base upon which Red Star can build a party capable of absorbing and developing the U.S. working class as it is radicalized by the successive crises that capitalism throws up. By expanding, systematizing, and deepening this culture, and expanding it up into the National structure that currently lacks it, we can create a durable structure that can adapt to changing conditions or strategies and can support a variety of struggles across the U.S.
This development has been occurring over the years, albeit slowly. The implementation of Dues Share vastly changed the dynamic between National and Chapters, and its preservation (which Red Star maintained as our principal goal in the face of budget cuts) showed that it had become a durable political factor that couldn’t be easily dispensed with. The 2023 convention had a big upsurge of reforming energy, after the failure of the previous NPC. Since then, a lot has been done to make National transparent and open, with mixed results; although the gates are open, a path hasn’t been built for membership to get to National, so positions are still unfilled, and the pool of candidates hasn’t grown much.
Where do we go?
Red Star is a Partyist caucus. We believe that the struggle to build a vanguard party of the working class is the preeminent project for socialists in the United States, and one which encompasses and transcends individual tactics like electoral campaigning, labor organizing, tenant unions, or mutual aid. We don’t think there’s sufficient evidence to identify which area of exploitation under U.S. capitalism will be the one to produce a decisive rupture. What we do think is unequivocally true is that a well-organized, durable, and socially embedded Party will be necessary to convert any rupture into a revolutionary break. Instead of trying to pursue rapid growth through Campaigning, we think DSA needs to find stability, develop its internal structures, and become a suitable vessel for absorbing the waves of radicalized workers that capitalism will continue to produce. By consistently and visibly opposing U.S. capitalism in local chapters, we can be the first choice for workers looking for an alternative.
We shouldn’t continue to chase the exponential growth that created modern DSA. The circumstances from 2016 to 2020 represent a significant rupture within capitalism; the Bernie and AOC moment genuinely radicalized hundreds of thousands of Americans, with many flowing into DSA. But that moment has passed, and the DSA that formed in its wake has been slow to realize it. Created by an electoral lightning strike, many in DSA are convinced that if we just keep recreating the forms, we can get the same result. But in the meantime, we’ve missed other significant ruptures, around the George Floyd protests and the Palestine Liberation movement. While DSA was present to some degree, it failed to present itself as a credible vessel for people radicalized by those struggles, so the movement went elsewhere, often to its detriment. Meanwhile, the tide has begun to roll back on our electoral success and the attendant membership numbers. We’ve lost significant campaigns (Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush), and even winning hasn’t led more members to DSA.
To begin to turn the tide, and to create the foundations of a more effective DSA, we have to decisively turn away from the dominant Campaigning model that is currently in effect, which leans very heavily on staff-based, top-down, undemocratic mobilizing around electoral causes, and move instead toward an approach that builds on chapter democratic practice, prioritizes learning and sharing lessons from local organizing, and aims to build strong, protagonistic socialists. This is the first step towards turning DSA into a revolutionary party that is capable of fighting and winning on a variety of fronts.
Red Star will make this its core focus in the near term, by using its position on NPC and in National committees to push for transparency, openness, and democratic reform; by implementing strong democratic practice and culture in the chapters where it is present; and by advocating for this vision as a caucus, via publications and public comments.
How do we get there?
Our basic plan is to invert the function and goal of National DSA; National should be a forum for the coordination of member activity, rather than a site of independent activity. Its goal should be to grow and develop chapters, rather than to grow and develop itself as a “Super Chapter”. Our vision of DSA as a Party is one where members come together to collectively decide on their goals, apportion the necessary work to accomplish it, and collaborate across geographies to accomplish them.
Develop and Expand Chapter Democratic Practice
National DSA should investigate and promulgate a guide for chapter structure and practice that allows for the most meaningful democratic participation in chapters, establish baselines that chapters must meet, and ensure that Robert’s Rules are known and practiced in chapters.
Allowing chapters to pose difficult questions of democratic practice to experienced local leaders from other chapters, as well as providing forums for discussion and debate among membership about how to most meaningfully convert membership sentiment into tangible action.
Extend Chapter Democracy up into National DSA
As chapter democracy is expanded, it should form the foundation of National DSA’s structure and governance. Chapter leadership should be the basis of admission to National committees, where decisions are made about strategies and resource allocation to grow and develop certain areas of work.
In this way, National decisions will increasingly be made by elected chapter leaders and shaped by chapter needs, rather than decided by the priorities of a closed set of appointed National leaders.
As National DSA becomes a more democratic structure, it will be better able to establish standards and political direction for the organization as a whole. As it is, National DSA’s programs and activities have very little buy-in or even awareness at the chapter level. When National becomes integrated into chapter democracy, its decisions and statements will be both more reflective and more influential in chapter work.
Scientific Approach to Growth and Retention
One principal goal is to conduct a serious, scientific examination of DSA chapters, and to develop an analysis and program to create thriving, democratic, and politically educated formations. Strong chapters develop strong socialist organizers, a mutually reinforcing cycle that can sustain DSA during feasts or famines in American national politics.
Growth and retention numbers in chapters were, until recently, little known outside of chapter and national leadership. We’ve started down the right path by publishing these, and should continue to reinforce a culture of open investigation and discussion about how to improve them. Field Organizers should be tasked with investigating chapter practices, to learn from rank-and-file DSA members and chapter leaders, while capturing practices that can be shared with the organization and political leadership more broadly. The National Growth and Development Committee should also be conducting this investigation, in particular by having members investigate the political culture and practice of chapters. This focus – specifically, fulfilling the convention-mandated State of DSA report that Red Star put forward in 2023 – is one of the main reasons that Red Star has contested the direction and leadership of the GDC: it has a unique opportunity to synthesize the lessons of nearly a decade of chapter organizing in the post-Bernie era, and to ensure that the benefit of that experience is shared across all of DSA.
Invest More National Resources into Chapters
The results of this investigation should be used to inform a program of National Grants that chapters can request to help them develop or implement identified Best Practices in local organizing. National committees should have their current funding be allocated towards carrying out this work, rather than towards operating their own National campaigns. In addition to Dues Share, there should be a variety of other means for chapters to access funds from National, to establish Strike Support programs, perform Mutual Aid, canvass for Candidates, etc. Field Organizers should be responsible for making these resources known and available to chapters.
In addition to financial resources, National Staff and Infrastructure should be directed towards chapters, via the development and implementation of tech tools, trainings, etc., that can help centralize and standardize chapter infrastructure.
Competing Visions for DSA
This vision for DSA will inevitably encounter resistance from the existing political currents in DSA. The NGO model of National DSA was purpose-built for the professionalized political mobilization campaigns. The “pressure campaign” structure of DSA that uses members primarily as phoneback volunteers will be severely curtailed if Red Star’s vision is implemented, and the resulting structure of democratic practice will be much more difficult terrain for their politics. We should expect opposition and countervailing arguments for a different “democratic” practice, much like the “Democratize DSA” proposal from last convention, or Groundwork’s “Membership Referendum” positions at various points this term. Instead of cultivating an active and engaged membership that is capable of taking on leadership roles, they will try to push for “reforms” (like straw polls, referendums, or direct election) that allow them to secure a mandate from whipping deactivated paper members, rather than activate, educate, or organize them into being protagonists.
There will continue to be a large portion of membership that still tries to recreate the Bernie Boom and operate a cargo-cult around tailing high-profile center-left politicians in any given moment. Recreating the form of a vanished moment without the content that made it meaningful, they will push the organization to involve itself chiefly with presidential elections and political campaigning in general, continuing to prioritize friendly relationships with left-liberal and social democratic politicians over being present on far more vital and potent issues.
Another strand of opposition will come from the belief that DSA is already a strong and developed force in American politics, and that focusing on strengthening our base instead of trying to influence politics on the National level is a waste of time. This analysis is tied in with an insistence in doubling down on Congressional electoral campaigns, despite our recent losses and the lack of accompanying membership growth.
In addition, we should expect that efforts to reorient our staff towards chapter work, or putting members in charge of deciding the direction of their work, will be met with opposition. Our goal of giving funds directly to chapters will continue to be in conflict with staff-led mobilization paradigm, and it’s likely that there will be more flare-ups if members take a more visible and pronounced role in leading and representing the organization.
Finally, a last misstep to avoid will be to reinvigorate the dormant strain of Localism in DSA, a belief that chapters should operate in isolation, can overrule National decisions, or are politically more developed than National bodies. Red Star aims to lay a strong foundation for a Democratic National, which will pave the way for chapter organizing and support member-organizers with tools, strategies, and political resources to realize national priorities, rather than devolving decision-making to a lower level.
There may be detractors of this vision who believe it is insufficiently political, overly bureaucratic, or concerned more with the structure of a party than its function. We do not believe this is the case. Turning socialists into theoretically and practically developed leaders who investigate, foment, and drive forward class struggle together is one of the most important tasks that socialists at the heart of empire can do at this moment. The working class, the productive class, the revolutionary class, needs a tool for waging collective class struggle, and this tool is its own party.
Further Discussion
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