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In this magazine we take stock: Where is the Socialist Movement Going?
The 2024 presidential election is a grim reflection of the one before, with Donald Trump and Joe Biden facing off again. Since Biden took office, social movements are stuck in an ebb that has resulted from challenges they were unprepared to face. This includes movement and labor leaders trailing the Democrats, and trying to pump the brakes as soon as they’re in power.
This ebb has been interrupted over the last few months by a significant movement for solidarity with Palestine, after the 75-year occupation reached another breaking point with the US-funded war on Gaza. Despite its relatively small size, the boldness with which the movement has broken from the mainstream ruling-class consensus of support for Israel has been striking.
While this offers an important opportunity for the left and DSA, and many DSA comrades are deeply involved in this struggle, DSA nationally is again primarily looking inward. Years of poor leadership have led us into a budget crisis with a deficit of over $1,000,000.
The Way Forward
We believe that DSA can overcome the challenges it’s facing right now if it begins taking steps toward becoming a campaigning organization, returning to bold demands and strategies which can break through the awful prospects of today’s political situation. Tens of thousands of people joined DSA in the struggle against Trump because we were able to present a class-struggle alternative to the politics of the capitalist class. Living up to that not only means democratically facing our internal problems head on, but offering a renewed and fighting vision for democratic socialism today and into the future.
Within the pages of our magazine, we also take a sober look at socialism’s prospects internationally. The Cuban Revolution successfully ousted the dictator Fulgencio Batista on New Year’s Day, 1959. This year is beginning with no such revolutionary inspirations. US imperialism is anemically stretching across the globe, throwing it into a maelstrom of war and poverty, while Cuba, the last tie to the half-finished revolutions of the 20th century, suffers from an unbearable blockade and a moribund bureaucracy. A reflection from DSA’s recent delegation to Cuba shows that things can’t continue the way they have been for so long, with an uncertain future ahead.
We hope the reflections on movements, revolutions, and revolutionaries which are contained here point to routes forward in a world in flux.
In solidarity,
Sean Case, Judith Chavarria, Rosemary Dodd, Stephan Kimmerle, and Brandon Madsen
Editorial Board of Reform & Revolution
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