I know people are going to be angry I leaked this and i understand but my responsibility is to DSA. We can’t let a sect take over. 🌹 🏴 the movement has to come first

 

Natalie M <nataliekmidiri@gmail.com>

Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 12:17 PM

To: Christie Offenbacher <christieof@gmail.com>

Cc: Andrej Markovcic <andrej.markovcic@gmail.com>, DSA Spring Caucus NCC <dsa­spring­caucus­ncc@googlegroups.com>

 

Hi all,

I'll try to elaborate a bit more about why I'm so concerned and the dynamics in the caucus that are raising red flags to me.

Following the Spring convention, Dustin forwarded the following email (see attached) to the Philly caucus, recapping his thoughts on what had happened and framing our local debrief. I've had misgivings for weeks now about sharing this email but I think the need for transparency weighs out at this point given how paralyzed the NCC is currently.

I have problems with this email and the conversations it launched in Philly on a political level and as a matter of democracy within the caucus. I have urged Dustin to share his position with the rest of Spring and the NCC, via email and in person at our meeting. He refused and instead, the Philly caucus agreed to what I would consider a disciplined approach to engaging with the rest of Spring, i.e. separate communication channels, only engaging with the broader caucus listserv when strategic after the Philly branch is in full agreement about a course of action, block voting of Philly NCC members, etc.

I think this behavior is very inappropriate and it makes it difficult for me to have the kind of trust that Christie raised in her email above. Basically, I know from being on the Philly listserv and from attending Philly caucus meetings that there is a high level of dissatisfaction in Philly, including among the Philly NCC members, and that it is continuing to be stoked, yet we're largely unable to do anything about it because they've continually refused to bring it out into the open.

To summarize, saying one thing to a part of the caucus and another to the rest is not okay with me. Advocating for a disciplined approach in Philly and against accountability for NCC members nationally is also not okay with me (see Will Bunch's email thread on discipline and accountability for NCC members on the main listserv.)

In Solidarity,

Natalie

 

Forwarded message ­­­­­­­­­­

From: Briana Last <briana.last@gmail.com>

To: philly­momentum@googlegroups.com

Cc:

Bcc:

Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2019 16:12:46 ­0500 Subject: Caucuses and Cadres

 

Hi all,

Dustin and I have spent the last two weeks since the convention reflecting on what happened and how we think we should move forward as a local caucus. What follows is a note by him that, in a sense, records those conversations and provides some historical context for the formation of the national caucus. We hope you have the chance to read it in addition to the recommended texts by our meeting tomorrow night.

 

Everyone,

I am still trying to formulate all my thoughts on our caucus convention. I don't want to overstate divisions (nor make a theory of the divisions), which is easy to do. So I will start by saying that practically speaking I think we ought to caucus with the Spring Caucus, understanding that this means what "caucus" means literally: we will whip votes, campaign for leadership and advance a set of resolutions arm­in­arm with the Spring Caucus at our July DSA Convention. This to me is an instrumental consideration. We as a Local caucus are too isolated and too weak to influence anything at the Convention level, the Spring Caucus is, as yet, the only formation that is capable of steering the direction of the organization. And steering the national organization in a productive direction is necessary for any of the work we would like to continue to pursue.

That said, I am worried (as many of you are) by the potential for our caucus to become an independent organization, and a cadre organization at that. What follows is both an attempt to think through what characterizes the national caucus and why seemingly minor differences ended up generating serious conflict.

Briana approached me about writing some thoughts for a sort­of special edition of caucus political education that will hopefully offer some insight. I ask that you read over the following two texts: Hal Draper's "Anatomy of a Micro­Sect" and his "Toward a New Beginning." I think these may be instructive for our caucus in order to understand some of our situation. With these texts I think we can approach what might be the central division in the caucus with some more clarity: whether our group is a tightly organized cadre­organization or a broader more open caucus.

It may also be helpful to understand a brief history of the tendency that informs the Spring Caucus (even before “Momentum” was born). That political milieu was inspired by a certain brand of “post­Trotskyism” (a phrase only a Leftist could take seriously) and made up of a few small political grouplets like Solidarity (1986­today), DSA’s old Left Caucus (2014­2017), and characterized by the political orientation developed by Jacobin magazine. The politics of this group have always been a mix of left­wing of social democracy (sometimes called Kautskyism) and the right­wing of revolutionary socialism (Trotskyism). In DSA this translated to strong criticisms of the Democratic Party, a rejection of DSA’s old compulsion toward “lesser evilism”, a commitment toward rank­and­file union agitation, a seriousness about intellectual activity and an insistence on the need for rigorous political analyses.

With the advent of Bernie Sanders the old divisions in DSA were essentially swept away, practically speaking the organization was born anew. The Left Caucus fell apart and Momentum was formed as a response to the new developments.

I assumed that just as the old divisions were abolished, so too were the old solutions, and when our tendency agreed to pursue Bernie work, to start taking elections seriously, and to engage in coordinated practical political activity I found little reason to think much about Trotskyism and an orientation to politics that I no longer found useful. If our group was going to succeed in what was quickly becoming a major organization on the political Left, we had to give up on the tenets, predictions and practice of revolutionary international socialism which was in Joanna Misnik’s words “as dead as the 20th Century.”

In terms of ideology, there was good reason to suspect that this was the modal position of our tendency. There was a major shift among some of our formerly “revolutionary socialist” friends on important political questions. After all, Spring Caucus is quite conservative in relation to the Trotskyist Left. This is a welcome sign that a new theory of democratic socialism is taking hold. Seth Ackerman helped us abandon a sectarian and fruitless orientation toward elections and the Democratic Party; Vivek Chibber helped us move beyond the hope of some great future revolutionary rupture; Bhaskar Sunkara helped us understand how to write for a popular audience; Amber Frost helped us understand how to talk to masses of people and the weakness of symbolic aimless protest; our own practical engagement in DSA helped us all better understand that politics begins at a mass level and that internal democracy is grueling but necessary. All of these are significant positive developments.

In spite of these ideological shifts, in terms organizational thinking ­­ that is in terms of our form and our function ­­ I worry that some in our caucus are repeating past mistakes, mistakes inherited from the Trotskyist tradition.

Emphasis on "building cadre", “creating a mini­mass institution", “developing the militant minority”, “industrializing” and the heavy push for the need for “political leadership”, leads me to see a portion of the caucus following some of the key slogans from the Trotskyist tradition (maybe even unwittingly).*

I don't want to exaggerate the extent to which a certain strain of thinking has matured but I think on the there is a significant cohort committed to a vision of our caucus that looks much more like a cadre­ organization (with social­ democratic characteristics), than a caucus seeking to win elections and resolutions. The debate around the dues discussion with some in the majority arguing for hiring an organizer, recent emails about cadrefication on the national list, the completely unnecessary defense of the ISO (in response to Vivek’s tame critique) from the floor are further confirmation that the desire for a cadre group is quite strong. Is it possible that much of this is unintentional? That people are genuinely trying to figure out how to be non­sectarian? That people simply mean different things by the word “cadre”? Maybe. But it is equally possible that many see the task of the caucus as developing and training members into hardened and ideologically unified cadre.

Now none of this is to say that I am against the formation of “cadres” (highly committed, well trained, ideologically sophisticated organizers) the difference, I suppose, is that I think cadre are developed through campaigns (not simply “tempered” through ideological training as is so often the case in cadre organizations) and further I do not think that our caucus can be made up exclusively of cadre.

Despite all this, I want to caution against premature conclusions. We shouldn't overcorrect. While our caucus is hardly the vanguard of the workers' movement (and while I chuckled when someone said that the "future of socialism" was in that room on Sunday) it’s also not some tragic turn, it does not represent some great danger that must be urgently addressed, this is not a grand historic betrayal (even if your feelings were hurt as were mine!). Finally, I don’t think it is productive to make a big show of walking out of the caucus or denouncing it because you disagree with the above orientation. Such reactions are also pathologies of the Left and should be avoided.

Instead, we should continue to approach the caucus as a caucus, that is in instrumental terms. Regarding the NPC election we should firmly support electing what will be the most competent and politically sophisticated group for leadership on offer and the only group our Philadelphia delegation will find attractive. Regarding resolutions we should work to win support for a slate of internal reforms and perspectives to make it to the convention floor. And in regards to political priorities I think we will find ourselves distinctly on the Spring side of the verbal barricade. No one needs to read sacred texts, chant certain slogans or buy into the idea that you are indeed a cadre ­­ a professional midwife of the revolution ­­ in order to pursue those practical activities.

Dustin

*The urtext for Trotskyism is “The Transitional Program” in this one document Trotsky sets the tone of the entire tradition. The essay opens characterizing the world crisis as one of “leadership” of the working class, the document is characterized by a supreme confidence in the utter correctness of the program, and Trotsky is undisturbed by the smallness of his group because these small ranks are nothing less than the best cadres: “Outside these cadres there does not exist a single revolutionary current on this planet really meriting the name. If our international be still weak in numbers, it is strong in doctrine, program, tradition, in the incomparable tempering of its cadres.” Ironically, Trotsky’s political project is at root quite voluntarist in orientation, the key to every crisis is forming the correct political perspective and pursuing that perspective with an extraordinary intensity.

 

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