sign in sign up
<<
Home , Bernt Carlsson, Communist International, Frankfurt Declaration, Labour Party (Ireland), New American Movement, PASOK

DSA’s Options and the DSA Internationalism Committee April 2017

At the last national convention DSA committed itself to holding an organizational discussion on its relationship to the Socialist International leading up to the 2017 convention. The structure of this mandatory discussion was left to DSA’s internationalism committee. The following sheet contains information on the Socialist International, DSA’s involvement with it, the options facing DSA, and arguments in favor of downgrading to observer status and withdrawing completely.

A. History of the Socialist International and DSA

The Socialist International (SI) has its political and intellectual origins in the nineteenth century socialist movement. Its predecessors were the First International (1864-1876), of ​ ​ which was a leader, and the (1889-1916). In the period of ​ the Second International, the great socialist parties of Europe (particularly the British , German Social , and the French Section of the Workers International) formed and became major electoral forces in their countries, advancing ideologies heavily influenced by Marx and political programs calling for the abolition of and the creation of new systems of worker .

The Second International collapsed when nearly all of its member parties, breaking their promise not to go to war against other working people, rallied to their respective governments in the First World War. The of America (SPA)—DSA’s predecessor—was one of the very few member parties to oppose the war. Many of the factions that opposed the war and supported the Bolshevik came together to form the in 1919, which over the course of the 1920s became dominated by and by the 1930s had become a tool of Soviet foreign policy and a purveyor of Stalinist orthodoxy.

In 1923 the Second International was reconstituted as the Labour and Socialist International (with the SPA as an affiliate), but this ceased to function with the outbreak of the War. Meanwhile, the victories of Mussolini in , Hitler in , Franco in , plus rightwing authoritarian regimes in most of Eastern Europe had destroyed most of the European socialist movement by the time World War II began. During the 1930s and ‘40s, the USA was much larger and more successful in American politics and the labor movement than the SPA was.

Post-War Europe

At the end of the war the socialist parties in the part of Europe that had been under /Nazi domination rebuilt themselves and became a major factor in European politics. The reconstituted European social democratic parties tended in the late 1940s and early 1950s to have memberships which, having experienced the horrors of the Great Depression, , and war, demanded far-reaching economic and social reforms on the way to a transformation to a socialist society. In 1951 the European social democratic parties came together to establish the Socialist International (again, with the SPA as a member) and

1 issued the Declaration, which declared its to capitalism (as well as to authoritarian ) and stated its goal to be the creation of a socialist society.

At the same time the parties of the Socialist International had begun to become regular loyal, parliamentary parties with reform agendas within the capitalist states of Western Europe. They found it hard to reject the American and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which in effect meant accepting US hegemony over European capitalism. Yet within this context, these parties began to initiate far-reaching reforms. The British Labour Party in particular created an extensive social democratic state by nationalizing much of heavy industry and establishing the National Health Service, a system of socialized medicine.

By the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, many of the socialist parties had begun to move in a more explicitly conservative direction. The German (SPD) adopted the in 1959, which turned away from its Marxist tradition and the notion of class struggle, and abandoned the goal of for that of simply reforming capitalism. A similar reorientation occurred in the British Labor Party and others. The question of was another weak point. The French party, in power, began the French war against Algerian independence. Similarly in Britain the Labour Party in government for the most part continued the ’s imperialist policies around the world.

The social democratic parties tended in most countries to be based on powerful industrial labor unions which in some nations had become highly integrated into both government and the corporations. For example in Germany, the unions joined corporate boards to participate in Mitbestimmung (codetermination of corporate decisions). The unions and the socialist parties’ objective was to ensure that the workers in their home countries enjoyed a share in the increase of wealth created by the postwar boom of the global capitalist economy. The social democratic parties secured such benefits through social programs: universal , universal education, workers’ compensation, unemployment benefits, and health and safety programs, and so forth.

These programs gave the Western European people the highest standard of living and the best lives in terms of health (infant mortality, longevity, etc.) of any region on earth. Of course the wealth of these countries, which made these systems possible, was based on the global system of capitalism and . The leadership of the social democratic parties of the SI had reconciled themselves with capitalism and the governments in which they had become partners, content to give up on the idea of a movement toward socialism and instead to manage capitalism in ways that improved the lives of the workers they represented. Not all members were satisfied with this reconciliation, and Marxist thought and democratic socialist tendencies remained within these parties.

The : 1960s and 1970s

In the 1960s young people in the advanced capitalist countries drew inspiration from the in (1945), (1949), (1959) and (1962), leading to new political tendencies on the left, both in the Socialist and Communist parties and beyond. The student movement of that era and the revival of labor militancy were accompanied by the

2 growth of far-left socialist organizations, mostly Maoists and Trotskyists, but also saw a strengthening of the left wings of the SI parties. Within the SI there was a renewed interest in and in socialism especially among the young.

Then in the late 1960s, the world capitalist system entered a prolonged crisis that undermined the stability that had provided the basis for social democratic reforms. The social explosion in in May 1968 signaled the opening of as capitalism entered into a new period of instability.

In the 1970s, left parties of various sorts in countries around the world affiliated with the SI, which for the first time became truly global in its membership, rather than predominantly European. Yet some of these parties seemed to have little to do with socialism, such as the corrupt, authoritarian, and violent Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of and the dictator Mubarak’s National Democratic Party in (which ruled until toppled by the Arab Spring revolution in 2011).

After a major struggle, DSOC, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, was ​ ​ ​ admitted to the SI at its 1976 Congress in . Social USA (SDUSA) lobbied ​ strongly against DSOC’s membership, arguing that DSOC had no relationship to the US movement. DSOC’s roster of vice-chairs which included the UAW’s Victor Reuther and Meat Cutters Ralph Helstein, who were well known in Europe, however, undercut that argument. At that same Congress, the German social democratic politician was elected SI President and from the Swedish Social Democrats became General Secretary. The Swedes were particularly active in the anti- movement, solidarity with third world movements in general and had also strongly opposed the war in Vietnam. DSA, formed in 1982 as the merger between DSOC and the New American Movement, ​ ​ ​ continued membership in the SI.

European reached a high point in the 1970s when the parties’ social welfare agenda became modified by feminism, , and a new spirit of internationalism. The Swedish “Meidner Plan” and Francois Mitterrand’s victory in France in 1981, could be seen as the political expression of that moment—both were victories of an explicitly socialist tendency within major SI parties, offering programs of a democratic transition from capitalism to socialism. The Mitterand’s government in summer 1981 nationalized 25% of French industry and enacted reforms greatly enhancing workers’ power. The Meidner Plan would have socialized ownership over most Swedish firms over a twenty year period by taxing corporate profits to create worker-and-consumer controlled “wage-earner funds.” But capitalist and middle-class interests mounted fierce resistance to this radical program and in 1978 the Swedish Social Democrats lost its first election in fifty years. In France, capitalists went on strike (refusing to invest) and the Mitterand government curtailed its radical reforms, before losing in the 1985 parliamentary elections. These movements were the highpoint of postwar parliamentary socialism in Europe and their defeats were harbingers of the coming political downturn of socialism.

Neoliberalism and Austerity

The 1980s saw the rise of “neoliberalism”—that is, policies that cut the social welfare

3 budget, privatize and deregulate the economy, open markets to both foreign investment and trade, and enforce labor law reforms that weaken unions and make labor more flexible. Such policies came not just from the Reagans and Thatchers of the conservative parties, but just as much from the leaderships of the SI-affiliated social democratic parties in Europe.

The with its common market, the European Central Bank, and the euro as its common currency became the institutions through which neoliberalism was extended in Europe in the 1990s. By the 2000s throughout Europe, from ‘’ in Britain to PASOK in , from the SPD of Germany to the PSOE in Spain, social democratic parties actively enforced policies of austerity on the workers they once claimed to represent. Virtually everywhere the socialist parties sought to cut the social welfare budget, health, and education, as well as to privatize social welfare systems. Much like the Christian Democrats and other conservative parties, the socialist parties now strove to lengthen the workweek, to prevent wage increases, and to cut unemployment insurance.

A “social democratic surplus” remains today from the postwar period: Northern European countries are still less inegalitarian than the and maintain higher rates of social mobility. Nonetheless the exploitation of immigrant labor, and, in Germany, a growing low-wage sector—created by neoliberal “labor law reforms” carried out by the Social Democratic Party in the early 2000s—means increasing numbers of citizens find themselves excluded from these social protections.

On the one hand these parties hemorrhaged members to the growing nativist far-right parties, such as the French , which for a long while seemed to offer workers the only genuine alternative to neoliberalism. On the other hand, thankfully, new mass socialist parties formed to the left of the SI parties, such as in Greece, Podemos in Spain, Bloco de Esquerda in , and the Parti de Gauche in France as well as DIE LINKE in Germany, which have often come into sharp struggle against neoliberal social democratic governments in power. Both of these tendencies reflected the SI parties’ embrace of neoliberalism and subsequent lack of political appeal amongst working people, a trend which has escalated following the 2007-08 financial crisis and the subsequent sovereign .

Recently, the SI itself has suffered serious attrition as an organization. In May of 2013 a number of social democratic parties formed an alternative international organization: the (PA), of which the Democratic Party of the United States is a member. Many large and small parties have withdrawn their membership from the SI over the past few years, including the , the Dutch Labor Party, and the Labour Party, while the British Labour Party, Norwegian Labor Party and Swedish Social Democratic Party have downgraded their status from ‘member’ to ‘observer’. These parties are shifting their primary international affiliation away from the Socialist International toward the Progressive Alliance. The SI today then seems to be in a state of disintegration.

In a few historic SI parties, there has been a recent rebirth of stronger left and pro-union tendencies, as witnessed in becoming leader of the UK Labour Party (though this is no longer an SI member party and has observer status), Benoit Hamon becoming the presidential candidate for the French Socialist Party. Despite these victories, a vast majority of elected politicians within these parties continue to vehemently oppose the left-wing

4 insurgencies. Overall, the historic SI parties in Europe still are dominated by neoliberal national leaderships, though some of their remaining base, particularly in the labor movement, are open to a more left alternative, both within and without these parties.

Further reading: - Parties and groups affiliated with the SI - “How Far Is Europe Swinging to the Right?” NYTimes, Dec 5, 2016 ​ - “ thou art sick: The centre left is in sharp decline across Europe” The Economist, ​ Apr 2nd 2016 - “Long goodbye of the European Left” Politico, March 29, 2016 ​ - “Socialist in Name Only” , Dec 28, 2014 ​ - “The Slow Death of the Socialist International” Union Solidarity International, July ​ ​ 2014

B. Options and Finances

DSA has three options: remain a full member of the SI, downgrade to observer status, or withdraw from the SI completely. Regardless of what option is chosen, DSA has financial considerations in furthering our international work. All engagement abroad involves monetary obligations.

As one of the smallest organizations in the SI, DSA has been assessed the minimum dues payment of £3,000 (about $3,750) for most of its membership. Yet prompt payment was always a problem. Around 2008 DSA’s debt to the SI reached a crisis level. DSA staff negotiated a settlement for paying the outstanding balance along with a reduction of new dues to £2,000 (about $2,500). We paid that amount through 2012.

In 2013 the SI resumed assessing DSA the higher amount without consultation. The SI did not respond to DSA’s objections, and we stopped paying. Despite being five years behind on dues, the SI continues to list DSA as full member party. DSA staff has recently twice emailed the SI secretariat to inquire as to the exact amount of DSA’s debt, if this is negotiable and what is involved downgrading to observer status. Staff has still not received a substantive response.

DSA has traditionally had delegates attend SI conferences and some council and committee meetings. These travel and housing expenses abroad amounts to several thousand dollars a year. Because of budgetary constraints DSA has sent members who can pay their own way. When no volunteer has the personal resources to pay, DSA has not sent a representative. There is broad organizational agreement that this practice must stop. Having delegates pay their own way to SI and/or non-SI related meetings effectively excludes most people and allows those members with financial means to buy greater say in the organization. Personal financial means should not play a role in any representational work—international or otherwise. DSA needs to commit to fund the trips of delegates selected to international meetings.

Remaining a member provides DSA with speaking and voting rights. It costs $3,750 a year in dues, though we may be able to negotiate a lower rate. The costs of minimal

5 participation—sending one or two delegates to one conference per year—may range from $1,500—$6,000, depending on its distance. Payment or waiver of back dues—estimated ​ between $12,000 at the reduced rate and $18,000 at the increased rate—is negotiable.

As an official observer, DSA would retain speaking rights only. We do not yet know whether ​ annual observer fees would be the same as or less than the $2,500–$3,750 range DSA previously paid for full membership. Similarly, the waiver or payment of back dues specified above is subject to negotiation. Travel expense estimates are at most the same as estimated above with full membership.

Complete withdrawal from the SI means not paying any annual fees or back dues. This severs all official relations between DSA and the SI. The option of withdrawal from the SI does not come attached to commitment to do anything else to replace SI-related activity. As no program is proposed, there is no estimate on travel and other expenses related to other international outreach efforts.

DSA’s total national expenses in 2016 were $525,000. A budget of $10,000 a year for internationalism work would be roughly 2% of this total. DSA’s national budget will be substantially larger in 2017 and 2018, and a similar budget for international work would be a modest portion of total expenses. Consequently, budget considerations are not the most pressing concern in deciding the question of Socialist International affiliation. The following section lays out the more substantial arguments.

C. Arguments

DSA may choose to remain a full member of the SI. The Internationalism Working Group’s members are divided between those who recommend downgrading to observer status and those who recommend withdrawing official status in the SI completely. The following are some arguments for these options.

Observer Status:

a) DSA should develop bilateral relationships with a wide variety of socialist, left and global political and civil society groups, relating to the best trends in SI parties and observers and those to the left, without privileging any. DSA should work with those ​ who share our values to create a better global structure. To accomplish this, we must take advantage of every available forum to create contacts and build relationships. b) Withdrawing membership to become an observer facilitates this process while distancing DSA from SI policies. c) On a very practical level, given DSA’s limited resources, observer status is the cheapest and most time efficient way of developing many bi-lateral relationships with the best left tendencies in member and observer parties gathered at the same meeting place. Most productive relations are formed in side meetings at official events. Numerous meetings (both multi and bilateral) could be held at a fraction of the cost of travel for individual engagements—even taking annual observer fees into account. d) Observer status provides access while not advocating and endorsing the organization’s policies and programs.

6 e) DSA needs stronger and broader ties—not fewer—to comrades and friends who help us carry on the struggle wherever they are. For all its faults, the Socialist International includes the largest and most geographically inclusive collection of social democratic/socialist organizations in existence. Observer status will continue to give DSA easier access to left rank-and-file tendencies and ties to labor in some of the large European historic SI parties in particular. It does not preclude developing solidaristic relationships with emerging socialist parties to the left of the SI, i.e., Podemos, DieLinke, Syriza. f) Voluntarily changing to observer (as opposed to being downgraded for lack of payment of dues) publicly signals that we reject the austerity and neoliberal policies of SI affiliated parties.

Withdraw completely:

a) SI affiliate parties (particularly the dominant wings in the PS in France, the SPD in Germany, the PRI in Mexico, etc.) are parts of the neoliberal political establishment, organizations that the left parties and social movements we identify with are struggling not with but against. We should not become an official observer. We need ​ ​ ​ to unambiguously sever our ties with the SI in order to clear the way for positive international outreach. b) Social democratic parties around the world have implemented measures rolling back gains in welfare, trade union rights, and other areas of crucial importance to socialists and the working class movement. All too often, the fight to protect and extend these gains is waged against the parties of social democracy, not with them. Today, new left formations around the world are often the ones at the forefront of ​ struggles to defend the historic gains of labor unions and social democracy, not the social democratic parties themselves. c) The SI and its youth section (International Union of Socialist Youth, IUSY) are not interested in maintaining a meaningful relationship with DSA and YDS. When IUSY delegations come to the US, they routinely ignore YDS and court the Young Democrats instead. We should not waste time, energy, and resources on maintaining a relationship that doesn’t actually exist in any meaningful sense. d) The organization and our activists have limited time and money. We simply cannot pursue every possible international contact. It’s essential for us to prioritize between ​ ​ ​ more promising venues and less promising ones. Paying observer dues and sending delegates to SI conferences would require time and money. Our time and money is much better spent reaching out to other parties and organizations. e) Since parties like Podemos and Die Linke are often on opposite sides of extremely polarizing conflicts with SI parties like the PSOE and the SPD, our affiliation with their bitter enemies may in fact discredit us in their eyes and make it harder to build ties. f) On the other hand, disaffiliation from the SI does not preclude developing solidaristic relationships with whatever left forces still remain inside the SI affiliate parties (like Hamon in France) since these forces would agree with us in their opposition to the main party structures. In fact it may be easier to do cultivate these ties if we do not have to try to explain to the equivalents of the world why our organization is affiliated with the party machines they are struggling against.

7