The Executive Committee (EC) of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America (CDSA) is a 23-person body. However, under the current bylaws, it will increase to 30 members over the next two years as our membership continues to grow (Article VI, Section 1, CDSA bylaws). This growing body is already larger than that of  any other DSA chapter in the country. For example, our comrades in New York City DSA, whose chapter is roughly four times the size of our own, has the largest executive body of any other DSA chapter (Article VI, NYC-DSA bylaws). Meanwhile, other chapters have substantially smaller bodies despite several having similar or larger membership than our own. Metro DC and Boston have 11 members, Portland has 14, and Los Angeles has only 9.

A proposal coming before the General Chapter Meeting (GCM) this March (see Figure 1) would take effect in June 2026, at the end of the current leadership’s term. It would limit the body to 11 members, a number much more in line with similarly situated chapters. The proposal achieves this reduction by removing most officer positions from the EC except the Treasurer, Secretary, Membership Engagement Coordinator, and the Co-Chairs. The proposal also removes branch representatives (currently numbering 15 but growing to a cap of 22) and adds 5 at-large members elected by the whole chapter and a representative from YDSA.

Why EC reform?

The EC is tasked with carrying out the will of the chapter, as expressed by our quarterly GCMs. However, in the months-long gaps between these meetings, the EC must lead the chapter both politically and administratively. Under these circumstances, it is crucial that our executive body is as representative and efficient as possible to meet the needs of its task of political leadership.

Efficiency

If CDSA seeks to realize the vision of maintaining an efficient executive body, the sheer size of the EC stands as an obstacle standing between us and that goal. Smaller bodies make decisions faster; it takes less time to debate and vote on proposals when there are fewer people in the room. Current EC members are aware of this; this is why CDSA has established and maintained a chapter Steering Committee (SC) as a subset of the EC to address less controversial proposals in a timely manner. If the SC did not exist, the EC would fail to fulfill its responsibilities within its current structure. As the EC is currently constructed, it is not uncommon for votes to pile up, resulting in days or even a week to clear a single proposal. This delay occurs, in large part, due to the logistics of coordinating 23 people with multiple roles in the chapter to debate and vote in a timely manner. In contrast, a smaller body whose members have only one major role could debate and vote on urgent votes much faster without the need for a chapter SC.

Consultation

A smaller body is easier to consult. If a resolution is proposed to the EC, members are highly encouraged to share the document with at least a few others on the EC to see if there is buy-in and find points of compromise to avoid debating a half dozen amendments. In a body of 23 to 30 members, this consultation process can be lengthy, and theoretically requires individual conversations with up to 11 other members to ensure the resolution is passable. Practically, this number can be even higher, since those who would oppose the resolution will often wish to be consulted ahead of time as a show of good faith. Shrinking the body from 23 to 30 members to 11 will encourage all members of the EC to consult on proposals as broadly as possible by making it feasible to speak to the whole body in a reasonable amount of time.

The Multi-Officer Problem

Currently, the EC is composed of a wide range of chapter officers, members of the geographic branch steering committees, and a representative from the Labor Branch and YDSA. As a result, every person on the EC is serving in at least one other crucial role in the chapter.

Officers 

Elected officers assume a substantial burden in managing their committees. If a member of CDSA has the expertise, time, and energy to invest in leading one of these offices, they may be deterred from doing so because it entails taking on the responsibilities of the office plus two monthly meetings for the EC and SC. By removing these officers from the EC, they are provided the necessary time and energy to focus on the work they were elected to do.

Branch Leaders

Branch leadership faces a similar problem. If a member is interested in helping organize agitprop or socials in their branch, they may consider running for their branch SC. However, as currently constructed, winning a seat on their branch SC means they are also seated on the EC. This paradigm erases opportunities for fledgling leaders to develop at their own pace by forcing them to take responsibility for the leadership of the entire chapter. Separating these offices introduces an important opportunity to develop a more robust middle layer of leadership in the form of branch leaders and officers providing the chapter with an incubator for future leadership.

Political Representation and Democracy

CDSA meets as a general body less frequently than other similarly-sized chapters. Other DSA chapters commonly have general meetings monthly or bimonthly, whereas CDSA only meets every three months. As a result, the EC often makes decisions about priorities, events, and projects between these meetings. The EC’s decisions are subject to reconsideration, but in practice the body makes many important political decisions for the chapter. Under these conditions it is especially important that the EC represents the political tendencies of the chapter.

Heightening Chapter Democracy 

A strong democratic culture requires structures which lead to votes with meaningful outcomes. The current EC structure is likely to lead to a continuation of CDSA’s history of non-competitive elections. Last June, only two of eight officer positions faced competitive elections (Secretary and Communications Coordinator). The West Cook branch did not have a competitive election for its EC representative; the South Side and North Side Red Line (NSRL) branches each had only one more candidate than seats, and the North Side Blue Line (NSBL) branch had two more candidates than seats.  In 2024, there were almost no competitive elections at all in the chapter (NSBL only filled one of eight steering committee seats and NSRL four of seven).

With the 2025 surge of leadership candidates and the Zohran membership bump, it is essential to encourage competitive elections going forward. Allowing the branch SCs to continue growing to maintain proportional representation on the EC would be a mistake. An 8-person NSBL steering committee is unlikely to produce a competitive election even as the branch surpasses 1,000 members. To avoid this problem without creating an EC which seats 30 members is to separate the branch steering committees from EC representation and fix the branch SCs at sizes that fit the needs, size, and activity of the branch in question. 

Additionally, lifting the burden of EC and SC duties from many of our chapter officers will reduce the workload expected of members elected to those offices. It follows that offices thus unburdened are more likely to attract candidates and help develop the chapter toward more competitive officer elections.

Political Representation Over Special Skills: The Problems of an Officer-Heavy EC

Talented organizers and competent administrators are ideal to sit on the EC; however, an officer-heavy EC often forces voters to choose between a skilled candidate who would make an excellent officer and a less-skilled candidate who will vote how a political faction would like on political decisions.

It is worth pointing out, again, that of the eight chapter officers currently sitting on the EC, only one of them was elected in a contested election. Under the current structure, the requirement of special skills or the manifold responsibilities of a chapter officer likely deters a broader field of candidates. What is certain is that these positions are not currently the product of internal political debate or representative of the chapter’s political tendencies. Seats are simply filled by anyone willing to take the job, regardless of their political opinions or priorities.

To further encourage accurate political representation in the EC, we decided to exclude branch representation from the base proposal. This decision springs from the same line of reasoning which inspired an earlier article on the role of branches in CDSA. The article argued that branches exist as infrastructure units of CDSA, not as political ones. The internal political interests of a CDSA member does not typically hinge on whether they live in Garfield Park, Rogers Park, Hyde Park, or Oak Park.

The resolution also proposes implementing the single transferable voting (STV) method to address the problem of political representation. By maximizing the number of at-large members elected by STV, the various interest groups that do exist in CDSA, such as caucuses, labor organizers, electoral organizers, or identity-based groups, will be able to internally organize around candidates that represent their interests and have an opportunity to win a spot at the table. In addition, this proposal would allow our members to freely vote for candidates that more closely fit their political orientation and support a system which encourages proportional representation.

Conclusion

According to DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC), CDSA had 2,621 members in January, an increase of over 100 from December, putting the chapter on track to reach its goal of 3,000 members before June (GDC Member Data Report). If we meet that goal and no change to the EC is made, we will begin elections for an approximately 30-member Executive Committee ahead of the June membership convention, including North Side Branch SCs of seven or eight members. We and our comrades across the chapter are bringing this proposal to the spring GCM because we believe that EC reform is sorely needed to ensure CDSA’s leadership body is representative of the internal political tendencies of the chapter without consuming 30 cadre organizers. We want a body that can operate decisively in a rapidly evolving external political situation. The chapter needs to reign in the size of this body now to ensure competitive elections, effective branches, and a functional EC in the coming term.

The post The Case for Reforming the Executive Committee appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

High Peaks DSA voices our complete opposition to the United States and Israel’s February 28 decision to initiate an illegal war against Iran, a sovereign nation. We emphasize that this war is both catastrophic and unjustified. We stand unequivocally with the Iranian people in their fight for freedom and self-determination.   

Iran posed no imminent threat and was in the midst of negotiations when the United States abandoned any attempt at a peaceful resolution to join Israel in a war of choice. This war has only begun because of the arrogance of the Israeli government, the ignorance of the American government, and the complete collapse of the international rules-based order. 

The early attacks on Iran in the first few days of this war have already killed at least 1,800 civilians, including a horrific strike on a girls’ school that killed 168, most of them children between the ages of 7 and 12. Much of the Iranian leadership has been assassinated or incapacitated, most notably the assassination of the supreme leader,  Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei. The assassination of a head of state is a dangerous precedent and a brazen violation of international law. 

A rapidly expanding war has since grown throughout Southwest Asia, as Iran is responding with an onslaught of missiles that are seriously testing the Israeli defense systems in Israel proper, along with strikes on nine other countries in the region. Iran has already attacked energy infrastructure and is greatly impacting maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical corridor that accounts for a quarter of the world’s oil trade. Iran has also retaliated by striking several U.S. military bases in the region, resulting in seven soldiers killed at this point and many more wounded. Israel has further escalated its targets with additional attacks in Syria and Lebanon, where hundreds have been killed, and a mass displacement crisis has unfolded. Israel has also closed off humanitarian aid, again, to Gaza. 

Israel and the United States have further escalated their onslaught on the Iranian capital of Tehran, a city of more than 10 million, with additional strikes that have hit residential targets and social infrastructure, including hospitals and schools. The bombings of oil sites near or in Tehran’s city limits have covered the city in a black sky, an ecological disaster that will have alarming health ramifications for the population long after this war is over. A reminder that war itself and the United States military are one of the single greatest contributors to the worsening of the climate crisis.

Trump may have felt that Iran would be like Venezuela, a short bombing campaign, kidnap the President, and work out a deal with the Vice President to take the oil. This short-term success itself is unlikely to hold up in the long run. Iran is a vast mountainous country with a large and diverse population, and it has a substantial military that has been preparing for a war with the West for 40 years. The leadership structure is greater than one individual, and a new Ayatollah, the son of the old Ayatollah, has been selected. He is considered a hardliner and has strong ties to the Iranian Revolutionary National Guard, the state’s military body. 

Iran is not Iraq or Libya either. In each of these prior wars, efforts were made by the Obama and Bush administrations, on false pretenses in Iraq, on false promises in Libya, to sell these wars and garner coalition support from European allies. Following the approval of Congress with votes in favor from 3 of the next 4 Democratic nominees, Bush and Blair launched their illegal invasion of Iraq. The war killed at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and became an unmitigated disaster for the reputation of the United States. 

Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi ruled their countries with less public support than the Iranian Regime, and while their governments fell quickly, each war turned into a years-long quagmire. The Iranian government will be harder to topple, and the country much harder to stabilize. If regime change is successful, an outcome worse than Afghanistan is most likely, given that Iran has similar mountainous terrain and is a more important geopolitical state. 

Donald Trump, who, in part, won the 2016 Republican nomination by being seen as an outspoken critic of the Iraq War, was then able to successfully position himself on a platform of no new wars as the peace candidate when contrasted with Hillary Clinton in the general election. 

In practice, much of this perception was always false. The budgetary priorities of campaigning for massive tax cuts and large increases in defense spending inevitably would lead to direct actions taken by the Trump administration in its first term that were never going to be peaceful. The implementation of these policies contributed to the events of October 7, the ratcheting up of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank, and more than two years of genocide in Gaza that followed, and laid the groundwork for the War with Iran. 

Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of a six-nation nuclear agreement with the Iranian government that was working to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons program. Toward the end of his first term, he recklessly assassinated a top Iranian general, and we only avoided war because of Iran’s restraint with a narrow and orchestrated response. 

The annexation of the Golan Heights, the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem, the implicit support through inaction on the further expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, and the pursuit of the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and the countries of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and later Morocco and Sudan all were major factors in the continued isolation of the Palestinians and contributed to the rationale behind the October 7 attacks by Hamas. 

A brief discussion of the historical context in which the current war arose is helpful. In 1953, the United States and the United Kingdom initiated a successful coup to oust the democratically elected government in Iran by strengthening the powers of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to stop the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. The monarchy ruled with an iron fist and an indifference to the suffering of the Iranian people. Decades of political instability in the country ensued, culminating in the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The monarchy was abolished, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was formed, initially with popular support following an anti-imperialist revolution. 

For the last 47 years, Israel and the United States have been deliberate in their efforts to shift the Arab states from a position of adversarial opposition to the brutality of the Zionist apartheid state to client states that now consistently work for the interests of the Western powers while having to appease the sympathies of their populations, who remain with the Palestinian cause. Like the Shah’s rule in Iran, Israel has calculated that they benefit from having an Islamist opposition in Hamas, and has done everything in their power to weaken all secular Palestinian alternatives. 

Iran is viewed by Israel as one of the last remaining states in the region that is providing real economic assistance and military support to the Palestinians through Hamas. Much of this is overstated, as the Iranian regime is primarily invested in remaining in power, and like the other autocratic regimes that dominate the region, has little interest in liberation that could threaten their legitimacy if a viable democratic state were to be formed in Palestine.

The continuation of the Trump polices under the Biden administration, about Israel and its ongoing support as Israel conducted its systematic genocide in Gaza, along with its failures to adopt a more humane approach to immigration, depressed the Democratic party’s voting base and helped Trump win the 2024 election. Once again, Trump presented himself as the peaceful anti-war candidate, in contrast to Kamala Harris, who refused to distance herself from Biden on these issues. The dye had been cast, and this time, Trump retook the presidency, now having complete control of the Republican party, and surrounding himself with a cabinet of sycophants willing to go along with his worst impulses.

On immigration, he has been more draconian in the targeting of all immigrants regardless of their status, detaining many who were engaging in the legal process by revoking previous legal protections like temporary protection status, deferred action for childhood arrivals, student visas, and ignoring the international right to seek asylum. The overwhelming majority of immigrants who have been detained have no violent criminal record and are being held indefinitely amidst squalid conditions in concentration camps, awaiting deportation or court proceedings. He has used the violent arm of the state to occupy major U.S. cities, violate people’s rights to lawful protests with mass arrests on dubious charges that are almost always later dropped, and has killed protestors. 

Trump has brought the same cruelty and disregard for the rule of law he exercises domestically to the international stage, murdering Venezuelans in fishing boats without evidence to support his accusation of drug trafficking, kidnapping the Venezuelan president and his wife, and starving the people of Cuba through an oil blockade. He has also threatened to annex Greenland and Canada.

The failures of the political opposition in the United States and Israel, the absence of accountability from both the domestic and international institutions for the unlawful actions, have neutered our ability to confront the aggression and illegality of Putin‘s invasion of Ukraine, or the violent suppression of protests in countries like Iran, where a theocratic regime has been able to escape from under the boot of U.S. imperialism, only to stifle the aspirations of its own people.

For Iranians, whose liberation is long overdue after decades of oppression from both ends of the imperialist boomerang, history has shown us that no foreign military force can ever lead a people to freedom. This war is only being fought to serve the interests of capital and the imperial powers. Wars are often promoted and fought under the guise of liberation for the marginalized, but in reality, they suppress all ability to achieve social progress. For the bravery of the dissidents in Iran who have never stopped fighting for their rights over the years, only to be killed and imprisoned, this war will only make their struggle harder and the collective suffering greater. 

The oil barons of yesteryear stand in the way of a sustainable clean energy future. The tech oligarchs of today use algorithms and surveillance tools to censor our dissent and determine our fate with targeted strikes, like the one on the girls’ school in Tehran that further separate us from our humanity. These masters of war, the old and the new forces of capital, can only be defeated when the working classes, the oppressed in all corners of this world, can recognize our shared morality and begin to organize ourselves to build a better world, one without artificial hierarchies and violently enforced borders.

The post High Peaks DSA Statement on Iran appeared first on High Peaks DSA.

Several months into the second year of his second term, Trump’s might-makes-right strategy, at home and abroad, has spurred more mass disgust among his opponents and even among a few previous supporters. But does that mean Trumpism is in decline? As we confront the need to build an anti-war movement, resist ICE repression, and defend civil liberties and voting rights, it’s useful to think through our political opponents’ strengths and weaknesses. In a previous article, I suggested three scenarios that might play out in the next few years. This piece looks at the strengths and weaknesses of two of them: Clintonism 3.0 and Trumpism 3.0. (The third, AOCism 1.0, will be the focus of the next piece!)

Old wine, old bottles

Clintonism is the rule of centrist politicians who believe in neoliberal, international free trade, a moderately funded welfare state, the rule of law within the framework of mass incarceration, and market mechanisms to mitigate climate change. They tolerate unions and nonprofits, but believe that anyone to their left is “unelectable.” They yearn for a return to bipartisan normalcy where elite “adults” run the government and dominate the global economy through “multilateral” (i.e., Western) banking relationships and military might. Although it’s hard to remember now, the Republican Party used to sing a version of the same song.

The most important factor in the power of Clintonism is the lack of an organized, working-class political alternative. Social movements and unions — and working people in general — have suffered forty years of bipartisan neoliberalism. The percentage of workers who have a union and who are confident enough to strike — the most basic measure of working-class clout — both remain near historic lows. In 1970, unions represented nearly 30% of workers. Today that number has slipped to 10%. 

That 7 million people attended No Kings rallies in October indicates widespread rejection of Trump among an important segment of the population, but that power remains only potential. For instance, while communities in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Maine have stood up to ICE and slowed down their operations — no doubt saving many families from detention — the body snatchers continue to operate with impunity. Democratic leaders in Congress like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries want ICE agents to attend a few sensitivity seminars in exchange for re-upping their funding. Clintonism 3.0 hopes to displace just enough Republicans to win a majority in Congress and begin negotiating with Trump. 

This makes Clintonists a weak force against Trumpism; however, they have huge reserves of power and money and just might pull it off. Critically, despite their own low polling numbers, establishment Democrats’ political theory — namely, that capitalism is just fine, it simply needs to be modified to reduce the worst outrages — is widely held among large parts of the electorate. A centrist return to power will be felt as a huge relief for many. But that would hardly end the crisis. A Democratic majority in one or both houses of Congress will only raise the stakes for MAGA while doing little or nothing to improve the lives of the vast majority of working-class families. Trump is not afraid of Clintonism. He proved that by defeating Biden/Harris/Walz handily in 2024.

What is MAGA?

Trumpism represents a new political phenomena: namely, a specific version of American fascism. Stefanie Prezioso warns us that knee-jerk analogies between the contemporary far right and earlier fascist movements “may risk anchoring us too firmly in interpretations of the past, hindering a rigorous analysis of today’s realities and the development of effective responses.” We should listen to her. At the same time, the human brain has used analogy to good effect over the years: If that animal is a different color but almost as big as a bear, if it doesn’t growl but it does howl, if it’s hunting in a pack instead of on its own… I should probably get out of here! This kind of thinking can be life-saving. 

If Hitler and Mussolini represented fascism coming “from below” (through a mass fascist movement) and Chile’s Pinochet and Spain’s Franco represented fascism coming “from above” (through military coups), all four constructed similar regimes once in power. But the specific character and ferocity of these fascist states was shaped by their social bases and the particular political crisis that brought them to power. 

There are obvious parallels between earlier fascist movements and regimes on the one hand and MAGAism and the Trump administration on the other. Fascists — and this distinguishes them from ordinary conservatives — insist they are fighting for “the little guy” and often powerfully criticize aspects of capitalism because they want to build a cross-class, mass movement. 

But fascists are not consistent anticapitalists. Their goal is not to build an international movement of working-class people against global capital. Rather, they seek to build an alliance between “good” nationalist capitalists and “productive” people (workers, small businessmen, professionals, etc.) from the dominant racial or religious groups who share their supremacist ideology. To do so, they must find scapegoats. Capitalists per se are not the enemy, only “disloyal” capitalists are. Hitler blamed German capitalism’s real crisis on imaginary culprits: Jewish capitalists (and Jews in general) and the Versailles Treaty. Trump blames American capitalism’s real crisis on his own imaginary culprits: immigrants, the Paris climate accords, etc. 

The fascist story can provide a powerful explanation for millions of people who want something different for themselves and their children. As Leon Trotsky put it when describing growing support for Hitler, “Despair has raised them to their feet and fascism has given them a banner.” This is what gives Trump his power, and until that story can be replaced by a more compelling explanation from the left based on strong unions, multiracial solidarity, and material reforms that change workers’ lives for the better, MAGAism will remain a strong force in American politics.

Despite his sagging poll numbers, Trump’s power is not limited by normal electoral mechanisms. The results of elections — real or imagined — still matter a great deal to MAGA, because Trump cannot yet dispense with the formal levers of state. That’s why the administration is putting so much effort into gerrymandering. But Trumpism is more than a right-wing electoral machine; it’s an inchoate fascist movement attempting to turn the state into a fascist instrument for repression. 

If previous fascist movements in Italy and Germany first had to build an armed, mass movement powerful enough to destroy their enemies (unions, left-wing political parties, etc.) in order to then take over the state and wield its power, Trump has turned the map upside down. He has built a certain kind of movement, but his real political genius (stable or otherwise) is based on two realizations. 

First, Trump understands that the institutionalized democracy represented by the American federal state was so corroded by Clintonism that he could simply bully it aside. In this, he learned from India’s Modi, and he is teaching France’s Le Pen. As Ugo Palheta notes, “In France, the civil liberties and social rights won by the working class and its organizations over the last two centuries have been worn down by a series of governments. The traditional mechanisms of parliamentary democracy are systematically undermined, marginalized, or hollowed out by the ruling class itself, in favor of unelected bodies or procedures to circumvent its processes.” 

Second, Trump won over the billionaire class. Three generations of oligarchs grew up and prospered under Clintonism — even as they dismantled the New Deal and the Great Society — and they could not understand why anything should change. As Hillary Clinton famously insisted, America was already great for them, why rock the boat?

Fast forward to 2026: They now realize they were suckers to let any crumbs (progressive taxation, regulations, global trade rules, etc.) fall from their tables. Trump kicked open the door to unfettered AI development, military spending, a drill-baby-drill fossil fuel revival, and stunning tax cuts, paid for by robbing Medicaid. So far, Trump hasn’t needed a well-disciplined, volunteer fascist army or a military coup to wield state power. 

With the state and billionaires in his pocket, Trump has transferred hundreds of billions from the working class to the ruling class through tax cuts, turned up the thermostat for global warming, and launched a new round of military misadventures. Trump’s rage against Chief Justice Robert’s decision to strike down part of his tariff policy shows that he intends to bend any remaining institutional barriers to his will. To do so, he will need a weapon his fascist forefathers wielded — that is, an extralegal military force to break through the limits of legality to authoritarian lawlessness and brute force. 

The old Confederacy needed the KKK to smash the post–Civil War Reconstruction era and impose Jim Crow. Hitler needed 3 million members of the SA and SS to destroy the unions. Franco needed his bando franquista to destroy the Spanish Republic. Where is the Trump-Bannon-Miller MAGA militia? 

The Proud Boys and the tangled mess of squabbling wannabes must be a disappointment. Trump pardoned them all for January 6, and they still failed to make anything of themselves… yet. And herein lies Trump’s key weakness: his base remains essentially passive. Trump’s MAGA crowds want America to be great again, but they do not want to have to make it great themselves. They want it done for them. To revise Trotsky’s comment about fascism in Germany, “despair has raised them to their keyboards, and Trump has sold them a brand.” The core MAGA belief is “don’t tell me what to do.” 

Steve Bannon wants a white Christian nationalist volunteer army of a million willing to fight for the fatherland. What he has at this moment is a band of hostile snake oil salesmen. Their voices are amplified by right-wing media funded by billionaire ideologues, but they remain (so far) unable to march. 

So if Trump does not yet have the extralegal ground troops to force through his extralegal desires, how can he remedy this shortcoming? Three letters: I.C.E.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE hired 12,000 new agents in just four months in 2025, bringing its total force to 22,000. Although that force remains small as a percentage of the total 750,000 armed law enforcement personnel in the U.S., the Big Beautiful Bill allocated ICE an additional $75 billion to spend in the next four years. To get a sense of its room for growth, if each new ICE agent costs taxpayers approximately $100,000, that means 10,000 new agents costs $1 billion. In other words, there is plenty of money in their piggybank to hire masses of agents. And there can be no doubt that they will be recruited from the far right.

What will Trump do with such a force? Clearly he will intensify his war against immigrants and civil liberties. He aims to normalize ICE invading cities and towns, rampaging for weeks or months, and then withdrawing. All the while, ICE will dole out favors and funding to local and state police who learn to play the new game. Indeed, this process is well underway in many of the deepest red states. 

But it seems foolish to assume that Trump will stop at street terror. He still needs the formal levers of state power to stay the course. He may chafe at the Supreme Court and internal squabbles in the GOP, but he is not yet strong enough to rule without Congress, and as his prospects dim for winning a fair and free election come November, ICE looms large. Trump has already announced he wants “federal” control in 15 major Democratic cities. If he unleashes ICE in October and November to create havoc, he can claim fraud, throw contested election results to friendly state legislatures, and then fight out a Constitutional crisis. This is a playing field on which he has demonstrated he can defeat the Clintonians time and again. After Venezuela, after Iran, we must take this gambit seriously.

So how do we get out of this mess? Having assessed Trump’s strengths and weaknesses, in my next article, I’ll examine the prospects for AOCism 1.0 — leftwing electoral growth and the rise of fighting social and union movements — and review some lessons from three words that start with the letter M: Minneapolis, Maine, and Mamdandi.

***

This piece also appears in The Call, a publication by Bread & Roses, a caucus within the Democratic Socialists of America

The post Aiming for Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: MAGA Before the Elections, Part II appeared first on Pine & Roses.

Previous entries — Part One, Introduction; Part Two, Electoral Politics; Part Three, Labor; Part Four, Diversity in the SPA

The 1910s were a period of opportunity for socialist organizing across the world, and represented the peak of mass membership in socialist organizations in the United States. The country’s economic inequality was becoming more salient, with the First World War exacerbating these dynamics as working people were being sent to their death for the profit of the wealthy. The SPA was able to take advantage of these conditions to build a mass socialist organization which this country has not seen before or since, but it ultimately failed in its mission to transform society. The causes of the party’s collapse are multifaceted, including its aforementioned failure to embrace the multiracial, multigendered working class, as well as state repression and heightened internal party conflict.

As the 1910s went on, the left wing of the SPA consolidated, with Ruthenberg as an important leader of the faction that would be increasingly in tension with the party’s incumbent leadership. Many left-wing leaders, such as legendary IWW organizer Bill Haywood, would be accused by fellow members of supporting violence and sabotage, implicating them in legal proceedings and removing them from party office. Despite Ruthenberg’s rejection of these tactics, he was similarly removed from state party leadership in 1912.  In Ohio, Ruthenberg and his allies still had strong support, and may have been able to defeat this motion were it not for his ongoing gubernatorial campaign. Elsewhere, however, the right wing of the party was more solidly in control. In many locals, these attacks, often on left-wing labor organizers connected to the IWW, led to a significant exodus from the party throughout the 1910s. 

However, things were different in Cleveland. From 1912 to 1919, as national membership declined or stagnated, Cleveland’s local would see immense growth. With more than 3,000 of the Ohio SPA’s 8,000+ members in 1919, they would present a major success story for the party’s left wing. The local’s internal structures were a crucial part of building this connection to the masses. They emphasized political education, particularly on Marxist theory. This ranged from establishing a Socialist Sunday School for children to speeches from figures such as Karl Liebknecht and Bill Haywood. The party also held cultural events and fundraisers for adults, while developing a Young People’s Socialist League which included bowling matches, dances and baseball games. These opportunities allowed party members to not only organize politically, but develop socialist culture and community with their comrades.

In 1917, the US formally entered World War One, despite President Wilson’s campaign promise to maintain peace. In reaction, the SPA held an emergency convention in St. Louis, where leaders across the organization, including Ruthenberg, drafted an anti-war resolution. Many workers, who did not want to be sent overseas and fight in a brutal war, were increasingly drawn to socialist politics. Cleveland’s well-organized local, with a clear left wing politics that consistently stood against imperialis, was well positioned to take advantage of this. In 1917, the Cleveland Local saw its best ever electoral results, with SPA candidates J.G. Willert and Noah Mandelkorn elected to Cleveland City Council and A.L. Hitchcock elected to the school board. Additionally, Ruthenberg’s Mayoral campaign, calling for “socialism, peace and democracy” would win close to 30% of the vote. While socialists were not in the majority, they were gaining in popularity among workers, and the ruling class was starting to notice.

Soon,  the harassment, censorship, imprisonment and deportation of socialists and the broader anti-war movement would escalate. In 1918, Cleveland’s two socialist city councilors and school board member would be removed from their positions for opposing the war. Ruthenberg was fired from his job and repeatedly arrested for anti-war speech along with many of his comrades. This culminated in the previously mentioned anti-worker judge David Westenhaver sentencing Ruthenberg to a year in the Canton work camp.

During his time in Canton, Ruthenberg was informed of the success of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. The Cleveland local had held a 2,500 person celebration that February of the Tsar’s overthrow, and the enthusiasm continued to grow as they heard of this news. Ruthenberg himself found a lot of inspiration from the Bolsheviks and the writings of Lenin, which were at that point not very commonly read among the socialists in the US. Under his leadership, the Cleveland local would lead the SPA in becoming an outspoken proponent of solidarity with the Russian revolution, and opposition to US military intervention on behalf of the White Army.

For the next couple of years, Ruthenberg and Eugene Debs would be repeatedly imprisoned, often directly calling for the other’s release.  At the 1918 Ohio Socialist Party convention, held within view from Ruthenberg’s prison cell, Eugene Debs would give his famous Canton Speech, calling for Ruthenberg’s freedom and an end to the US involvement in the war. Debs would subsequently be arrested for this speech, and sentenced to ten years in prison by, once again, Judge David Westenhaver. Once Ruthenberg was released from detention,he would help organize multiple rallies calling for Debs’ freedom, culminating in the 1919 May Day demonstration, which would once again land him in jail.

The events of May 1st, 1919 represent the peak of mass socialist presence in Cleveland, with 30,000 workers, led by the Socialist Party and including many IWW and AFL members, marching through the streets. The demonstration called for the economic demands of work for the unemployed and an increased minimum wage alongside calls for international solidarity and opposition to war.  The workers held Red Flags and American Flags as they marched towards Public Square. This display was considered offensive by one businessman, who drew a revolver on a socialist WW1 veteran holding a red flag. Soon thereafter, the police, who had until that point been oddly absent, would descend on the demonstration, and along with other right wing members of the public, beat and arrest over 150 workers. Two workers would be killed by the police that day, and the socialist party headquarters would be ransacked.  In the next day’s issue, The Plain Dealer would describe the violence as followed:

“Mounted police at the gallop wielding truncheons on the heads of Bolsheviki, citizens and soldiers tearing red flags and trampling them in the mud, [and] tanks from the western battle front charging crowds in the front of the statue of Tom Johnson”

Today, this event is commonly known as the May Day Riot. One could embrace that term, in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous proclamation that “a riot is the language of the unheard.” Alternatively, you could describe what happened as a peaceful demonstration and a subsequent massacre. The violence was provoked by the reactionaries, and actions taken by socialists were largely in self-defense. Ultimately, while the May Day demonstration led to another round of arrests and imprisonments for socialist leaders like Ruthenberg, it also coincided with the continued growth of Cleveland local, with hundreds more joining that month.

From this point onward, the repression of socialist and anti-war organizers would continue to escalate, while the Socialist Party was facing extreme internal turmoil. Ruthenberg and others on the left wing of the party would formalize their internal faction, and win 12 of the 15 National Executive Committee seats. However, the incumbent SPA leadership refused to recognize these results, eventually leading to a mass exodus of party members, either through expulsion or resignation. What followed was a messy process which eventually culminated in the establishment of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), led by General Secretary C.E. Ruthenberg. 

This split, alongside  the continued repression of the movement, was the final nail in the coffin. The SPA would continue to operate, but no longer holding its same mass reach, with the party falling to 10,000 members by 1923. Socialist organizing would continue elsewhere, of course, including in Ruthenberg’s CPUSA. However, no US organization has since reached the peaks of the SPA’s 113,000 members in a country of less than 100 million. Learning from this period, we cannot understand the organizing of the past solely through modern lenses. The historical development of capitalism and the US political system placed 1910s SPA organizers in very different positions than DSA members in 2026. However, there are still some conclusions we can draw from the electoral and labor organizing of the party, as well as its demographic makeup and internal structures.

For both electoral and labor organizing, the conditions of the 1910s were dramatically different, but ultimately the SPA’s success showed the importance of the slow and steady work of constructing a socialist organization. Engaging the masses with a socialist vision requires a commitment to improving their lives in the short term, while maintaining our principled vision for a socialist future. This can come through electoral campaigns, and through solidarity with the workers fighting for better conditions at work. 

On the other hand, the SPA’s failures demonstrate the need for constructing a culture within our organization which is welcoming, stands clearly against bigotry, and accepts political conflict while striving for unity in action. No resolution or policy alone can make our organization more diverse, but a welcoming attitude and constant, proactive thinking within each part of our organizing work can help. Similarly, no moderation or grievance policy alone can prevent the worst forms of interpersonal conflict or political repression. These policies are the first step, which must be accompanied by conducting ourselves in a comradely way for the next thousand steps. 

Of course, there are things we cannot control – like the actions of our enemies. We do not know how or when the socialist movement will face additional state repression. But one lesson of the SPA, and any other successful socialist movement, is that our opposition will not sit idly by while we work to build ourselves up. With that in mind,  I will end with the last words of C.E. Ruthenberg, reported after his death in 1927:

“Tell the comrades to close their ranks, to build the party. The American working class, under the leadership of our party and the Comintern, will win. Let’s fight on!”

The post History of Cleveland SPA, Part Five: Conclusion: The SPA’s Rise and Fall appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Bosses and workers take on average 400 days to negotiate new contracts. The organizing challenge is significant, so how do you win?

The post How do I win a first contract? appeared first on EWOC.

by Mackenzie F

Throughout this harsh winter, we have watched the rising tide of fascism surge across our country, with trans communities squarely in its crosshairs. Kansas has revoked gender-affirming IDs with no grace period, clinics nationwide are shuttering their doors, and a myriad of anti-trans executive orders are being challenged in court. In Ohio, Republicans are working to dismantle bodily autonomy despite Issue 1 passing in 2023, and they continue to attack transgender people for simply existing in public life. Undeterred by these threats, Cleveland DSA holds the line on trans rights, maintaining our commitment to protecting the trans community.

Over the last year, we turned commitment into action.

By canvassing the city of Lakewood for weeks, building relationships with Lakewood City Council, and collaborating closely with community allies, we secured the passage of our Gender Freedom Policy. Cleveland DSA dedicated significant time and effort to developing this legislation, ensuring that it provides robust protections from law enforcement overreach for transgender and gender-nonconforming people within Lakewood, all without costing taxpayers a dime. 

Cleveland Heights and Lakewood have shown what is possible for the rest of Northeast Ohio, and other cities are taking notice. But the rest of this story is yet to be written. To win real safety for our trans neighbors, we must continue to build a strong, organized socialist movement in Cleveland. It is critical that Cleveland adopts our Gender Freedom Policy, not only to protect its own residents, but to send a powerful message: Ohio stands with the trans community.

Learn more about the Cleveland
Gender Freedom Policy here!

Cleveland DSA recognizes the power of collective action, which is why we are calling on all of our local allies to join the fight alongside us. From the AIDS crisis to every subsequent wave of government overreach, history has shown that our community survives only when we act together. This moment is no different. Pillars of our community like the LGBT Center, TransOhio, and Equality Ohio must stand in solidarity now more than ever.

The safety and dignity of our transgender neighbors rests on our shoulders. If you share our commitment to protecting this community, we urge you to take action. The legislation is written, and relationship-building with Cleveland City Council is already underway. But in order to move forward, we must gather at least 5,000 signatures from registered voters in Cleveland. While this may be no small task, we acknowledge that justice does not arrive by chance. It is built, block by block, by those who refuse to stay silent.

The state targets trans people not by mistake, but to divide us, to remind us that some lives matter more than others. We reject that logic. Trans liberation is not secondary to our movement; it is central to it. Because a world worth building is one where no one is left to struggle alone. So as the sun returns, warming both the land and our spirits, we invite you to join us in this crucial fight.

Here’s what you can do:

• Meet with one of our organizers to help collect signatures
• Attend one of our project meetings
• Contact your Cleveland City Council representative
• Talk to your loved ones
• If you haven’t already, join DSA. Join the fight.

We will not rest until we have shattered the chains that bind every one of us. Solidarity forever!

The post Trans Rights: We Will Not Rest! Sign the Gender Freedom Policy in Cleveland! appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Previous entries — Part One, Introduction; Part Two, Electoral Politics; Part Three, Labor

As we learn from the successful organizing of the SPA, we must also acknowledge the SPA’s greatest failure. At the same time reactionary tendencies dominated the AFL, bigotry also had a far too common place in the socialist movement. Many prominent SPA members held racist and misogynistic viewpoints, and the membership of the organization (predominantly white and male) reflected this. While it is accurate that socialist politicians and the party’s position tended to be more emancipatory than other political organizations of the time, the lack of a strong anti-racist and feminist culture significantly weakened it.

While many women did join the party and played crucial roles as socialist organizers, the organization never reached anywhere near gender parity, with few women in leadership positions. This occurred despite an effort by the party to take a role in the movement for women’s rights. In 1908, the SPA endorsed the women’s suffrage movement and hired a full-time staffer dedicated to the cause.  Ruthenberg himself once argued that there was “no more important cause” than bringing women into the party.  But the demographic imbalance persisted. This situation was described by Cleveland local member Nellie Zell in her article “The Lone Woman in the Local”:

“The first thing that greets her is that same capitalist mind of these Socialist men who have invited her to come. . . . Indeed, it is a very embarrassing position for both men and women. They want her there, yet now that she is there, they don’t know what to do with her. To make the matter worse, they talk about things of which she has no knowledge, and to smoke or not to smoke is the burden on their minds, while she is wondering whether she had better talk or preserve that lady-like silence so much admired by members of the old parties… I wonder if you men fully realize what that word ‘Comrade’ means to us women?”

Put simply, the party was failing to present a comradely attitude towards women who were interested in socialism. Within a broader US social culture that discouraged women from being active and vocal politically, this resulted in a failure to recruit significant numbers of women into the SPA.

The SPA did not embrace anti-racism in the 1910s in the same way it did the suffrage movement. Many locals in the South operated under segregation, and several prominent socialist leaders were open white supremacists. The Ohio Socialist Party adopted a position in 1911 of encouraging the recruitment of Black members, but there was a failure to explicitly condemn racial oppression, rather than just class oppression of Black workers. This changed over time, as discussed in Eric Blanc’s article which focuses primarily on SPA congressman Victor Berger’s shift from holding openly racist views to being praised by the NAACP.  However, this tolerance of racism was an incredibly significant failure of the organization for the duration of the 1910s, when it was most politically relevant.

On the other hand, we can take some positive examples from the SPA’s national and linguistic diversity. Cleveland was a cosmopolitan city,  and the Cleveland local represented this well, including German, Bohemian, Polish, Jewish, Finnish, Hungarian, Lettish, Lithuanian, Slovak and Italian branches.. Nationally, there were similar language-based federations, with both posing an interesting question of internal governance. These groups represented a significant portion of party membership on paper, but in practice operated very autonomously. Some SPA members, like Ruthenberg, advocated for more centralization of the language federations, bringing them closer in line with the organizing of the party as a whole. Others advocated for the autonomous model as an effective way to organize immigrant communities. Ultimately, it is clear that the party’s diversity among European immigrant groups was a strength enabled through providing spaces for socialists of the same identity to coordinate. With the language federation’s tendency to effectively act as internal factions, Ruthenberg’s push towards centralization is understandable, although such practices should be accompanied with a clear understanding that solidarity, not assimilation, is the answer to xenophobic attitudes.

In many regards, DSA has come a long way from the open displays of bigotry and predominantly white male membership of the SPA. However, there is still much to be learned from their failure to stand with the oppressed – which is both a moral disgrace and a political weakness. With a membership and mass reach beyond DSA’s today, one can imagine how much stronger the SPA would have been had it built a membership that represented the broader working class. To avoid replicating this, DSA members should heed comrade Zell’s words. Even with the SPA supporting women’s suffrage, it did not create an environment conducive for women to organize. It is easy for a chapter’s demographics to self-perpetuate, as new members do not feel welcome in a space that does not look like them or their communities. In order to change this, we need consistent and proactive effort throughout all organizing projects, and structured ways for marginalized comrades to coordinate. To do otherwise will only serve to cement Cleveland DSA’s current place – as a predominantly white organization in a multiracial city.

Please return tomorrow for Part Five: Conclusion: The SPA’s Rise and Fall

The post History of Cleveland SPA Part Four: Diversity in the SPA appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

by R.K. Upadhya

The American Civil War is a key moment of US history. If you grew up in the US, you almost certainly spent a good chunk of time in grade school learning about the Civil War. It is also likely the case that this education was boring and unengaging. This is a tragedy, for in fact the Civil War era had profoundly radical and revolutionary dimensions, and should be a source of education and inspiration for the modern Left and the US socialist movement. Case in point: after Abraham Lincoln’s re-election victory in 1864, Karl Marx himself helped pen a letter of congratulations to Lincoln, celebrating the Union cause as a universal interest of the working class, and encouraged him toward complete victory over the Southern slavers. It is not often that we think of Marx and Lincoln as being contemporaneous – but they were, and while it is unknown if Lincoln actually read Marx’s letter, it is likely that Lincoln read at least some of Marx’s many articles in the New York Daily Tribune.

The Civil War was the culmination of the abolitionist movement, which emerged out of free Black communities of the North, and the slave revolts which rocked the South in the 1830s. And the abolitionist movement is where the US Left was truly born; it was in this fiery struggle against slavery that many of the ideas we hold dear today – anti-racism, democracy, anti-imperialism, and anti-capitalism – went mainstream and became a permanent part of American politics. There is a grand history for how this happened, with many moving parts. But one fascinating thread is the way in which the abolitionist movement in the US was connected with the emerging revolutionary socialist movement in Europe. Abolitionism being the birthplace of the American Left wasn’t just a matter of converging values, but based on a direct exchange of ideas and militants between the US and Europe – and in particular, the cohorts of revolutionary German exiles who immigrated to America in the 1850s.

Historical Context

The abolitionist movement started in earnest in the 1830s, after Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831, which galvanized free Black communities across the North and put an end to any doubts that enslaved people were happy with their lot in life. Over the course of the next few decades, it grew dramatically in popularity, organization, and militancy; its electoral expression was the Republican Party, founded in 1854, while its more revolutionary tendency was expressed via the likes of John Brown, Harriet Tubman, and other insurgent figures. By the 1850s, the question of slavery was the defining political issue in the US, fostering an intense amount of political and civil unrest.

At the same time, Europe was also undergoing convulsions. In parallel to the growth of the abolitionist movement in the US, the revolutionary socialist movement was growing, and founding figures like Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels were coming into the spotlight. The tremors finally erupted into an earthquake in 1848, when a wave of uprisings and revolutions shook the foundations of Europe, particularly in Germany. Workers, peasants, and other parts of a “revolutionary citizenry” assaulted and overthrew centers of monarchical and feudal power. Marx and Engels wrote and published The Communist Manifesto during this tumult; Engels himself was in the streets as a revolutionary soldier.

Unfortunately, the revolution in Germany gets crushed, and millions of Germans escape to Western Europe and beyond, fleeing harsh counter-revolutionary reprisals as well as general economic ruin. Many of these refugees and exiles end up in the United States; about one million Germans emigrated to America in the 1850s. And among this number, roughly 4,000 were hardcore revolutionaries, socialists and communists, organizers and militants, in addition to tens of thousands more supporters, followers, and sympathizers. This cohort was known as the “Forty Eighters”, exiles of the 1848 Revolution. And once in the US, the Forty Eighters immediately bolstered the ranks of an increasingly revolutionary abolitionist movement. This was a natural alliance; the nature of the Southern slaver elites was an uncanny mirror image of the tyrannical aristocrats that they had attempted to overthrow at home. And for the abolitionist movement, these veterans brought military experience, organizational discipline, and expansive ideas about liberty, labor, and capitalism, which coupled well with the parallel works of the leading abolitionist intellectuals.

Colonel Weydemeyer and General Willich

Two figures in particular represent the radical edge of the Forty Eighter abolitionists: Joseph Weydemeyer and August Willich. Both of these men were German communists and revolutionaries, who eventually ended up as high-ranking military officers in the Union Army.

The initial trajectories of the two men were similar. Both were Prussian military officers in the 1840s, who became radicalized by Marx’s writings about capitalism, class, and revolution. They rebelled in 1848 on the side of the Revolution, and fled west when the revolution was crushed. They made personal acquaintance with Karl Marx in London, and joined the Communist League and helped further develop revolutionary socialist politics in Europe. After a few years, both men emigrated to the United States, where they planted themselves among fellow Forty Eighters and made a living via political organizing and radical intellectual writings. And when the Civil War began, they enlisted along with large numbers of fellow Germans, and quickly rose up the ranks due to their previous military experience and their political fervour.

Compared to Willich, Weydemeyer was more of an intellectual type. He was a friend of Marx and Engels; in fact, it was Marx who directly suggested to Weydemeyer that he emigrate to New York City. Once there, he quickly got to work in left-wing journalism and organizing, joining a growing cohort of revolutionary Marxist voices that joined the abolitionist movement. He was a co-founder of what was arguably the first socialist organization in the United States, the American Workers League (which, despite its broad name, was almost entirely an organization of radical German immigrants). This group would later become the New York Communist Club.

When the Civil War began, Weydemeyer enlisted and quickly ended up as a technical aide to General Fremont, an abolitionist and a radical rival to Abraham Lincoln. Within a year, Weydemeyer was a Lieutenant Colonel and in charge of a volunteer artillery regiment. Later on in the war, he served as a Colonel of the 41st Missouri Infantry Regiment. Amusingly, throughout his active duty service, Weydemeyer kept up his intellectual pursuits, exchanging letters with Marx and Engels about the war, writing opinion pieces for local newspapers near his posts, and engaging in local debates. In 1864, when Marx helped found the International Workingmen’s Association (a.k.a., the First International), Weydemeyer printed out copies of the inaugural address and passed it out to his men (it is unclear how many of these Missouri infantrymen subsequently joined the cause of international communism).

After the war, Weydemeyer remained in politics, winning an election for the St. Louis County auditor. He ran the office as a Marxist, using his powers to strengthen tax laws and chase down war profiteers. Unfortunately, his tenure was short-lived; Weydemeyer passed away in August 1866 from cholera.

August Willich led a similarly colorful life, albeit one more oriented around military affairs.

An excellent book on his entire life, only a tiny fraction of which can be discussed here, is Radical Warrior: August Willich’s Journey From German Revolutionary to Union General.

Like Joseph Weydemeyer, Willich also knew Marx & Engels; indeed, Engels was Willich’s right-hand man during several battles in the final stages of the 1848 Revolution. But unlike Weydemeyer, Willich did not like Marx at all. Willich led the left-wing faction of the Communist League, and thought Marx was too conservative and was not eager enough to wage revolutionary struggle; for his part, Marx was not impressed by Willich’s intellectual standing. There may have also been some more personal animosity at play; Willich apparently was quite interested in Marx’s wife, Jenny, and would regularly come visit her at their home in London and engage her in long conversations about theory and politics. As Jenny Marx described, “He would come to visit me because he wanted to pursue the worm that lies in every marriage and coax it out.” It’s not clear if Willich ever coaxed out the worm; within a few years, he emigrated to the United States, engaged in radical writing, and organized among other German immigrants and Forty Eighters in the midwest.

When the Civil War began, Willich played an important role in recruiting fellow Germans into the military; he would become a Colonel, and then a General in command of an all-German infantry unit, the 32nd Indiana Infantry Regiment. Willich and his men quickly distinguished himself on the battlefield, helping win one of the few Union victories in 1861 at the Battle of Rowlett Station in Kentucky. This battle saw about 500 German infantrymen defeat over 1,000 Texas Rangers and assorted Confederate infantry. This battle is also commemorated in what is the oldest surviving Civil War monument, the Bloedner Monument, which was carved by a member of the regiment a couple of weeks after the battle. It’s a remarkable piece of history, since it’s likely that this battle is mentioned in many Civil War textbooks – but the radical historical context, that this victory was one of a revolutionary communist veteran and other revolutionary exiles, is papered over or ignored.

Willich and the 32nd would go on to fight in other major Civil War battles, including the 1862 Battle of Shiloh, the 1863 Siege of Chattanooga, and General Sherman’s “March to the Sea” in 1864. After the war, just like Weydemeyer, Willich went into government service and was elected as a county auditor in Ohio. In his later years, he went into academia. August Willich passed away in 1878.

Forty Eighters in Texas

The legacy of the Forty Eighters is also present right here in central Texas, where many Germans settled in the 1850s. San Antonio and the Hill Country were particularly popular – a legacy that still continues today, with cities like New Braunfels and Fredericksburg remaining centers of German culture, as well as smaller towns like Boerne and Comfort. Despite being in a southern slave state, just like their brethren in the midwest and the north-east, German immigrants to Texas were generally anti-slavery and pro-Union. In 1854, Germans in San Antonio caused a major political firestorm when they held a convention and passed a resolution condemning slavery. In 1861, during the Referendum on Secession, the counties with the most Germans tended to vote against secession.

As the war progressed, repression against Unionists escalated, with Germans being a major target. In 1862, the Confederacy passed a conscription law to mandate military service, which provoked German Texans Unionists to escalate into armed resistance – which in turn, brought martial law across the Hill Country and waves of violent reprisals. The struggle culminated in August 1862, when a band of Germans gathered up arms and attempted to escape to Mexico. Unfortunately, the Confederates caught wind and chased them down, eventually cornering them on the banks of the Nueces River, and defeating them after a pitched battle. Despite being right at the border, the German Unionist rebels were captured, and 34 executed on the spot. The dead were buried at a cemetery in Comfort, Texas, where after the war a monument was erected – the Treue der Union Monument, or, the “Loyalty to the Union” Monument – to honor them and the pro-Union beliefs that they died for. This monument remains in Comfort to this day.

Conclusion

These stories – of German Texan rebels, communist commanders, and the surprise emergence of Marxism in antebellum America – should make us recognize the importance of tracing back our own political lineage to this period. It was the abolitionist movement that established a long and unbroken legacy of socialist politics and struggle in the United States. Abolitionists went on into different movements after the war, expanding the struggle into labor organizing, civil rights, anti-imperialism, and feminism. After the abolitionist movement, came Radical Reconstruction; veterans of that went on into the Knights of Labor, and then the Industrial Workers of the World; then emerged the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party, and so on. We should look at abolitionists as our own political ancestors, and with the connection to radical German immigrants, appreciate that revolutionary socialist politics has been in this country for a very long time.

And to draw a final parallel to then and now: the Civil War didn’t start out of nowhere. It was preceded by years of civil unrest, violence around elections, and collapsing legal boundaries. And one dynamic in particular, was the escalation of violence in the 1850s by federal agents against Northerners. After the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, federal agents and southern bounty hunters and slave catchers had free legal reign to indiscriminately hunt down Black people to kidnap and enslave. This enraged public opinion across the North and galvanized abolitionists and their allies, who organized Vigilance Committees to track and disrupt federal operations, preventing arrests, staging jailbreaks, and engaging in pitched battle against the feds.

And it is a remarkable parallel today, when we have federal troops engaging in indiscriminate violence with impunity, hunting down immigrants, assaulting and murdering protestors, kidnaping people and whisking them off into a growing network of concentration camps. And in response, just like over 150 years ago, people are organizing and mobilizing, forming rapid response networks, tracking and disrupting federal operations. It is a beautiful thing, and shows how our political ancestors can echo through us today, even without our conscious knowledge. The struggle has been going on for a long time; and if there is to be another civil war, let us make sure we finish it for good this time around.

The post Between Marx and Lincoln: German Communists in the American Civil War first appeared on Red Fault.

Previous entries — Part One: Introduction; Part Two: Electoral Politics

There were two different approaches to “the labor question” in the 1910s SPA. The first approach was to work within the existing unions. In the early 20th century, the dominant AFL was composed of trade unions representing workers with specific skills, did not stand up for broader working class interests, and was bigoted and exclusionary towards racial minorities and women. Many socialists sought to confront the AFL leadership and push unions in a different direction. This included Clevelander Max Hayes, who would at one point win close to a third of the vote in the AFL leadership race, and is now commemorated in a namesake West Side high school. 

Others sought to follow the path of dual unionism, which was advocated by the SLP, and organized on a mass scale following the founding of the International Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905. Wobblies, as IWW members were at times known, favored industrial unions, which represented sectors or workplaces, rather than workers with specific skills. This advocacy for industrial unionism was shared by others in the SPA (including some in the AFL), but was not reflected within the party’s platform for most of the 1910s.

Labor organizing was another topic where Ruthenberg demonstrated a commitment to unity, despite the bitter divides among SPA members. As his biographer stated, “his primary interest was in labor’s struggle, whether led by a craft union or industrial union.” This principle of solidarity came to the forefront as worker organizing escalated. In 1911, Cleveland saw the historic International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union strike, with thousands of workers participating. In his mayoral campaign of that year, Ruthenberg argued that the power of the state should be wielded in favor of the workers through the swearing in “a hundred of the coolest heads among the strikers” as special police. Three years later, Cleveland teachers organized a union, working in solidarity with a group of mothers from the school districts. Ruthenberg again supported this organizing, which was ultimately derailed by the administration’s firing of pro-union teachers. This repression of worker organizing was upheld by a frequent enemy of workers – District Judge David Westenhaver, who effectively delayed the unionization of Cleveland teachers until 1934. The same year, Ohio miners were locked out of their workplace following the passage of a new labor law, which the mine owners hoped to appeal as unconstitutional. In response, Ruthenberg called on the Ohio Socialist Party to push for immediate state ownership and worker operation of the coal mines. Later on, Ruthenberg would unionize his own white-collar workplace, and lead mass rallies of workers including IWW and AFL members.

The unity practiced by Ruthenberg and the Cleveland local is admirable, and carried on within DSA’s labor organizing approach today. While there are still contentious debates to be had within DSA regarding our approach to labor organizing, the disagreement is over narrower territory.  This is largely a reaction to the changes in the labor movement within the past century, shifting predominantly towards industrial unions which are much more willing to embrace the entire working class. This has eliminated a considerable portion of the impetus for dual unionism. Instead, DSA labor work now focuses on organizing new workplaces into unions, and bringing existing unions towards a more militant posture and political unity with our aims. As we undertake this work, as I am honored to do as Cleveland DSA’s elected Union Liaison, we should strive for the same levels of mass organizing as the SPA, bringing thousands of workers towards a socialist vision.

Please return tomorrow for Part Four: Diversity in the SPA

The post History of the Cleveland SPA, Part Three: Labor appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.