You know what I think? I think the problem isn’t that democratic socialists even disagree that much with MLs about the criticism that it has failed because they’re unarmed.
This problem is not “democratic socialism needs to arm itself” because leadership and well educated socialists participating in these movements seem to agree that eventually they will be violently opposed. The real problem is how the fuck do we turn these democratic socialist movements into revolutionary ones when the moment calls for it?
The people that successfully create a formula for transitioning from democratic socialism into a properly armed revolutionary movement will create the formula that works everywhere else.
The problem right now is that these movements get warned, their members see the warnings and even agree with them, but they hit a wall because the organisations they have created and the movement they have fostered can not be transitioned from one to another. They become martyrs.
The real problem is how the fuck do we turn these democratic socialist movements into revolutionary ones when the moment calls for it?
That’s not really possible, these are completely different organizations that are structured in a different way. A peaceful political movement can live on a good speaker, a few dozen planners, a few thousand people engaged enough to post flyers, and a mass of people who show up for marches, rallies, and votes and then go home. An armed movement needs groups of 5-10 people who are willing to die for each other, and leaders they trust enough that they’re willing to follow their lead into situations where that’s a real possibility. You can’t form those squads out of people who show up with a couple friends to a march and then go home.
I think the best route is for a demsoc org to focus on building spaces and events where people can build friendships, co-host some of those with a more serious sister org, and let people funnel into the sister org as they become comfortable. When shit hits the fan, the demsoc org will crumble, but the revolutionary org will already be bigger than it would’ve been otherwise. (And a bunch of fence sitters will have a clear path forward.)
This sister org style is good but I don’t see why the armed sister org can’t be a wing of the original org, especially in countries where it is legal to have those arms.
It’s been a long while since I followed news from the NPA in the Philippines but iirc that’s what they do, there is the electoral wing of the communist party in government and the NPA in the jungle
That’s over structuring it. If you’re doing Democratic Socialism its because you don’t have a place to hide any sort of revolutionary army. Instead you have a large coalition of proletarian organizations and they all need to have a militant consensus and hopefully be armed.
The people that successfully create a formula for transitioning from democratic socialism into a properly armed revolutionary movement will create the formula that works everywhere else.
But social democracy is not really a philosophy. It is a policy manifested by all kinds of ideologies. Kind of like anarchism I guess. There are social democrats who are ideologically anticapitalist but pragmatically reformist, and there are social democrats who are both ideologically and pragmatically supportive of capitalism. There can’t be a common strategy for converting these different types.
I think Engels had it right when confronted with a similar issue of Lassalleans and other bourgeois socialists. The best way to rid of these “nostrums” was to engage them in practical struggle so that they can see for themselves how well it works. Better to show than to explain. I doubt merely electing Mamdani will effectively do this though, because he’s not really engaged in any broader class movement, but moving exclusively in the sphere of bourgeois politics.
You know what I think? I think the problem isn’t that democratic socialists even disagree that much with MLs about the criticism that it has failed because they’re unarmed.
This problem is not “democratic socialism needs to arm itself” because leadership and well educated socialists participating in these movements seem to agree that eventually they will be violently opposed. The real problem is how the fuck do we turn these democratic socialist movements into revolutionary ones when the moment calls for it?
The people that successfully create a formula for transitioning from democratic socialism into a properly armed revolutionary movement will create the formula that works everywhere else.
The problem right now is that these movements get warned, their members see the warnings and even agree with them, but they hit a wall because the organisations they have created and the movement they have fostered can not be transitioned from one to another. They become martyrs.
That’s not really possible, these are completely different organizations that are structured in a different way. A peaceful political movement can live on a good speaker, a few dozen planners, a few thousand people engaged enough to post flyers, and a mass of people who show up for marches, rallies, and votes and then go home. An armed movement needs groups of 5-10 people who are willing to die for each other, and leaders they trust enough that they’re willing to follow their lead into situations where that’s a real possibility. You can’t form those squads out of people who show up with a couple friends to a march and then go home.
I think the best route is for a demsoc org to focus on building spaces and events where people can build friendships, co-host some of those with a more serious sister org, and let people funnel into the sister org as they become comfortable. When shit hits the fan, the demsoc org will crumble, but the revolutionary org will already be bigger than it would’ve been otherwise. (And a bunch of fence sitters will have a clear path forward.)
This sister org style is good but I don’t see why the armed sister org can’t be a wing of the original org, especially in countries where it is legal to have those arms.
you need the socdem org to be a front for the militant org i guess
It’s been a long while since I followed news from the NPA in the Philippines but iirc that’s what they do, there is the electoral wing of the communist party in government and the NPA in the jungle
The Communist Party of the Philippines is illegal, you’re thinking of the “national democratic mass organisations”
Ah that’s right, appreciate the correction
That’s over structuring it. If you’re doing Democratic Socialism its because you don’t have a place to hide any sort of revolutionary army. Instead you have a large coalition of proletarian organizations and they all need to have a militant consensus and hopefully be armed.
i figure you might as well control the socdems rather than have them operating on their own devices or as sheepdogs for liberals.
You do that through the militancy of the coalition behind them. If you try to play puppet master you split the coalition.
But social democracy is not really a philosophy. It is a policy manifested by all kinds of ideologies. Kind of like anarchism I guess. There are social democrats who are ideologically anticapitalist but pragmatically reformist, and there are social democrats who are both ideologically and pragmatically supportive of capitalism. There can’t be a common strategy for converting these different types.
I think Engels had it right when confronted with a similar issue of Lassalleans and other bourgeois socialists. The best way to rid of these “nostrums” was to engage them in practical struggle so that they can see for themselves how well it works. Better to show than to explain. I doubt merely electing Mamdani will effectively do this though, because he’s not really engaged in any broader class movement, but moving exclusively in the sphere of bourgeois politics.
This is why I believe in parallel revolution.
The nonviolent and militant movements both need to be developed.
Lenin himself was very consistent about exactly this