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In 1978, Hodee Edwards’ Labor Aristocracy first saw print with Aurora Press of Stockholm. In that landmark work, Cde. Edwards cut through the fat of reformist “Social Democracy” in Europe and the settler-relation underlying racial capitalism in the U.S. She revealed, through economic analysis of the presence and source of imperial superprofits, that Lenin’s thesis about the labor aristocracy of the imperialist countries holds more true than ever before — and has been completely obscured by the so-called Marxist-Leninists since the mid 30’s of the last century.

This was work that had begun by Communist luminaries like Samir Amin (Accumulation on a World Scale, 1971; Unequal Development, 1973). Edwards’ book is a thoroughgoing analysis of the imperialist system as it existed in the 1960s and 1970s. It unsparingly excoriates the Marxists who have refused to heed Lenin’s words that “Capitalism has now singled out A HANDFUL (less than one-fifths at the ‘most generous’ and liberal calculation) of exceptionally rich and powerful states which plunder the whole world simply by ‘clipping coupons.’” (V.I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism)

Cde. Edwards divides the imperial metropoles into two types: those with semi-colonies physically present within them (like the United States) and those who have no internal semi-colonies. She convincingly, correctly, maintains that Social Democratic (reformist, anti-Communist, and revisionist) parties flourish in the second type of country. In the first, open, reactionary, racist terror flourishes instead. The basis for both is the material benefit, the super-wages, the suppressed prices of luxury goods, that come as a bounty of imperialist exploitation and which are shared with the imperialist’s “own” workers.

This book is a critical text. Without understanding the problem of why revolution has not yet been successful in a developed imperialist country (or even attractive), we cannot begin to assault the bastions of capitalism. Cde. Edwards’ work comports with the practical information gathered over ten years by social investigations and organizing among the staff of Unity–Struggle–Unity Press and all of its affiliates. We can confirm that Cde. Edwards’ analysis explains the reality of organizing in the imperialist centers almost precisely.

This new, second edition printed by Estuary Press, is vital to study. Unfortunately, it introduces a number of irritating formatting errors (mis-numbered end-notes, mysterious extra blank pages, bs where there should be hs, indicating the use of an OCR method) which detracts somewhat from the overall reading experience — but nevertheless, all those who would claim Marxism-Leninism in the imperial centers must read this book and other works that address this problem.

So what does this have to do with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)?

It is exceedingly easy to apply a mechanical analysis to the DSA and dismiss the “party” without a second thought — which many Marxist-Leninists in the U.S. have done. After all, once one identifies the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA), the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), or the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) as the most principled organization in the Empire, why bother analyzing a “social-democratic party”? One can simply dismiss it as a pseudo SDP (the German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, which was in power during the Weimar Republic and which betrayed the German Communists) and recapitulate the same history of Germany in the early 20th century. “Social democracy is objectively the left wing of fascism” — indeed!

But we are not in the third period of the Soviet Union, the DSA is not the SDP, and there is no equivalent to the KDP (the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, the Communists who split from the SDP). We must analyze the particularities of our historical moment, not do battle with the ghosts of history. Let us consider, then, some objective facts.

1. In 2020, the DSA estimated that it had approximately 66,000 members. This by far outstrips the PSL’s internal “estimate” of 2,000 members and the CPUSA’s claimed 5,000. By any stretch of the imagination, the DSA has more contact with the masses through its base membership than either of those parties through all of their programs.
2. The DSA lacks even the fundamentals of political discipline. Any and every trend and tendency is permitted to openly organize into political factions without expulsion and, for the time being, to struggle for supremacy within the organization. Obviously, this state of affairs will not continue.
3. The DSA is undoubtedly heavily compromised by the intelligence agencies as well as by the extremely reactionary elements’ organization within it. As an organization, it is in the thrall of an anarchistic non-ideology — what its members call the “big tent,” permitting anyone who proclaims even a vague appreciation of socialism and pays their dues to become a member.
4. The DSA has elected a spate of vile imperialist pawns and assets to high office to participate in the management of the U.S-Canadian capitalist empire. These politicians have proven that the organization has no discipline; even against strenuous objections by the DSA, the politicians continue to act in the interests of the empire and they are subject to no repercussions.

What does this information tell us? In the first place, the DSA is drawing orders of magnitude more advanced workers than any other even nominally socialist organization in the U.S.-Canadian empire. In the second place, these advanced workers, who are newly-waking to class consciousness, are being miseducated by the reactionaries their organization combines them with. This intermixing of radicalizing workers and reactionary old-guard social-democrats enables the elders to poison the newly awakened workers before they get their feet under them. These rightist elements are a major stream within the DSA and are intermixed with all the others.

Normally, as Marxist-Leninists, we would deride this organizational mish-mash, this utter incoherency, and it is true that this incoherence means the DSA cannot take up the role of a worker’s party. It cannot legitimately represent the outlook or needs of the workers. Thus, we should put aside starry-eyed optimism about what the organization is and can be.

In order to make sense of the phenomenon we are now observing, we must keep in mind the political development of the revolutionary classes as outlined in our prior article, Battle Lines, but with a further and more detailed analysis of the most advanced section of the workers.

These advanced workers can be separated as follows:

Tailing advanced section. Workers just reaching class-consciousness tend to develop eclectically, to display extreme unevenness in their comprehension of even basic political economy and strategy, and to be easy prey for reactionaries. Indeed, this fraction can be leveraged by reactionaries to form a bulwark of tailism within the revolutionary classes themselves — they can be transformed into their own inverse.

This group of tailing advanced workers are by and large the group entering into the DSA.

Intermediate advanced section. Class-conscious and relatively well-developed, the intermediate advanced workers are essentially that group which have already become fairly well-versed Marxists. They compose many of the Marxist caucuses within the DSA, as well as the bulk of true revolutionaries in the U.S.-Canadian empire.

Leading advanced section. The truly well-educated Marxist-Leninist is a rarity. There are unlikely to be more than several hundred in the U.S. Empire’s geographic territory.

Obviously, it is imperative for the more advanced elements to link up with the tailing-advanced elements before they can be mobilized by reaction. Perhaps paradoxically, the tailing-advanced section is more vulnerable to being misled in this fashion even than the less advanced sections of the working class. This section possesses some preliminary theory, but not a sufficient amount to differentiate between the devious sleight-of-hand performed by imperialist “Marxists,” who have trained their whole lives to deceive the working classes.

Secondly, most of those people claiming to represent some ideological tendency in the U.S.-Canadian empire are  not true adherents of that form of thought, but merely aesthetically attracted to this or that aspect of a tendency. They are generally among the tailing advanced section, not the intermediate advanced section, and will not be able to enter that section until such time as the contradictions sharpen and the lines of battle become more clear to them.

Thirdly, the extremely unstructured internal organization of the DSA means that it is not a conventional social-democratic party, but rather a forum for the organization of cliques and factions. Depending on the geographical prevalence of any trend, a given location may be more or less “party-like,” more or less advanced, etc.

What does all of this mean? Based on these three underlying propositions that:

1. The tailing-advanced workers are entering the DSA in relatively large numbers
2. Most people claiming an ideological tendency among advanced workers are not ideologically committed to that tendency, and
3. The fact that the DSA is not a centralized party but merely a loose group of “fellow-travelers” — a “big tent,”

Then our treatment of the DSA should not be as a social-democratic monolith with the internal organization of a hostile party, but as a broad field where newly-radicalizing workers stand to be exposed to a variety of ideas and streams of radicalism. Thus explicated, it becomes our duty not to stand aside and apart, criticizing the DSA as a stern elder sibling who knows better, but rather to organize its membership into the seeds of Marxist local, primary organizations; to provide political education and democratically guide the masses of tailing-advanced workers through proper political development and militancy.

Some will ask if this is merely entryism, to which we must make a simple but all-important clarification: entryism is an incorrect strategy of attempting to secretly take control of a bourgeois party. The above is distinguishable in several respects, namely:

1. The DSA is not a “party” in the traditional sense, and
2. The analysis does not require attempting to wrest control of the DSA.

This is not entryism. This is the organization of constituent members of the DSA into Marxist organizations that can, at any time, help form the basis for an all-empire party of Marixsts.

The Need for Organization and Discipline

However, this strategy cannot be pursued by lone, disconnected unconnected individuals. When surrounded by potential counter-revolutionary and reactionary currents, one must have a real connection to other principled advanced workers of at least the intermediate-advanced section. The risk is that one is atomized within the party and isolated from revolutionary currents, thus becoming transformed into an appendage of the reactionary streams. Thus, prior to attempting to carry out a local plan of this type, we urge our readers to either form a Marxist organization apart and outside of the DSA that can serve as a guide to these efforts, discusses successes and failures, determine strategy, etc., or else to connect with the Press so other principled members of the Press can help serve this role.

The capacity for the Press to act in this fashion is the result of technical changes in the methods of communication and organization since the beginning of the last century. It is now possible to rely on geographically disparate comrades to act as a central repository of knowledge and aid, pooling their capacities through the internet, and to serve as a blood bank of struggle to answer questions, and so on.

Thus, we urge those unaffiliated advanced workers to organize within the DSA and those already pursuing this strategy to connect with the Press.

Organize the membership of the DSA!