During his lifetime, Karl Kautsky was such an influential theorist he was called the “Pope of Marxism” — but he was also famously branded “the renegade Kautsky” by Lenin for his betrayals of revolutionary socialism. In recent years there have been efforts to revive Kautskyism in order to justify reformism and electoralism. This approach is as wrong as it always was: Kautskyism remains a renegade socialism that is fundamentally opposed to revolution.
In recent years, the threat of Trotskyist entryism has served as a bogeyman for some members of the Democratic Socialists of America — and a stated goal for others. But the history of the French Turn reveals a strategy that is only viable for Trotskyist organizations under very specific conditions. It is always doomed to fail within the DSA, which is essentially an appendix of the capitalist and imperialist Democratic Party. This analysis has important implications for how we approach the united front and revolutionary regroupment.
In the leadup to the DSA’s national convention, the Tempest Collective assessed the organization and their work within it. Firebrand points out that skipping the work of political and organizational clarification in order to influence broader layers means accomplishing neither.
We have enacted a policy prohibiting our members from holding dual membership in our organization and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). This policy is based on our commitment to working-class independence and revolutionary socialism, because we understand...