by A platform for Daniel Salup-Cid’s National Coordinating Committee campaign
Reform & Revolution is committed to turning DSA into a socialist party. This is our primary goal as a caucus. To that end, we are committed to 5 goals in YDSA:
1. Building the youth wing of a socialist party
Our generation has been abandoned by two parties which abhor our values and betray us at every turn. We have been locked into debt by our colleges and mired in poverty by low wages. Our universities invest in war and send our peers to die for a bloodthirsty imperialist system. Our lives and futures are threatened by climate catastrophe.
The mass movements that have spread across campuses over the last decades have mobilized tens of thousands of students. But millions more young people remain apathetic. To resolve this, we need to build our movement at every turn, winning people to socialism, and organizing towards a break from the Democratic Party. We aim to bring together social movements, labor, and the radical student movement to build amongst our generation the foundations of an independent party. We unabashedly aim to overturn capitalism, and our goal is to help YDSA in the long, diligent struggle to build a force strong enough to fight the bourgeoisie and win.
We have two tasks in building YDSA. We aim to lead DSA by creating strong, cohesive campaigning structures which clearly advocate for socialist politics in every major struggle. And at the same time, we must win over our peers and classmates to revolutionary positions. The US working class is faced with a crisis of consciousness, organization, and leadership; YDSA must lead the fight to resolve these crises.
On the NCC, our internationalism will be built on the foundation of working-class solidarity in the common struggle against capitalism and imperialism.
Building the youth wing of a socialist party means more than just building up the structures of YDSA today. Much of our generation is radical, we must keep it that way, and as we grow into power, it is the role of YDSA to ensure it is a socialist power.
Building up party-like structures requires a robust internal campaigning apparatus. We support strengthening the Campaign Organizing Committee, Comms Committee, and NCC. To achieve a mass campaigning approach, we need to support our leaders, empower our rank and file through member run committees, and pick and choose our campaigns to maximize results. We are dedicated to chapter outreach, membership retention, national-chapter training and communication, and leadership cohorts. By building up regional organizations, establishing a clear program, expanding beyond campus, running consistent campaigns, orienting to labor, and building on our strong comms and mobilizing structures, we can steadily cement the influence of DSA.
We aim to use these national resources to build a powerful recruitment machine, which turns our campaigns into meaningful growth, and builds chapters of socialist leaders at schools across the country.
YDSA should confront political developments with the goal of linking our politics to existing struggles, and bringing forward a loud, unapologetic socialist position. We should use and design our internal infrastructure for political ends: with the goal of bringing every chapter into campaigns, coordinating every campaign with shared messaging and tactics, and directing our actions towards the goal of political independence from all forms of capitalist influence (socially, politically, and ideologically).
2. Fighting imperialism
The fight to Free Palestine is the paramount social movement of the moment. Ending the occupation is a task that requires the international working class. YDSA has proudly played a leading role in the fight in our own country. On the NCC we would recommit to this work, aiming to hold forums, produce materials for chapters and carry on our strong comms work to give chapters the strongest foundation for organizing and the best resources to win their demands.
We want YDSA to prepare for a strong intervention at the DNC, to build a long-term anti-imperialist movement, and to make university administrations pay a price for the suppression of solidarity encampments.
Liberating the victims of imperialism means ending capitalism. Accordingly, as YDSA members we believe our message against imperialism must go beyond a ceasefire in Palestine. We advocate for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the IDF from all of Gaza and the West Bank, an end to all US military aid to Israel, immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the Middle East, the right of return, and a single, secular, socialist state with equal rights for all. We recognize the critical role played by our colleges and universities in propping up the war machine. Our allegiance, as socialist internationalists, is not to any country but to the whole working class.
Palestine Solidarity is the front line of the wider fight against imperialism. Joe Biden has presided over the expansion of NATO, escalations with Iran and Yemen, and the intensification of a New Cold War with China. On our own campuses, military recruiters trick our peers into throwing their lives away.
What is needed is a clear socialist opposition, and in YDSA, our role is to fight to position ourselves as leaders of that opposition within our generation.
The biggest contribution we can make here in the US to the struggle for Palestinian liberation is to build the international movement to overthrow US imperialism. Unfortunately, DSA’s own elected leaders have too often been quiet about opposing militarism around the world. It is a basic violation of socialist principles that all three DSA Congressmembers voted to expand NATO and for hundreds of billions for US imperialist intervention in the Ukraine war.
The Democratic Party remains, at its core, an imperialist party, and we need to build a socialist party that fights back against the whole capitalist system.
On the NCC, our internationalism will be built on the foundation of working-class solidarity in the common struggle against capitalism and imperialism. Socialists need to articulate a program based on the objective needs of the working class across all borders. We do not believe Socialist internationalism can be reduced to the mantra that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” It is our job to seek out the strongest leftist forces, and to orient towards them with an honest, and sometimes comradely but critical message. We are unashamed to oppose ruling parties that repress their workers, even if those parties claim to be of the left.
We carry this fighting internationalist spirit into a moment of enormous opportunity for the anti-imperialist cause. Hundreds of thousands of students across the country are coming to doubt their president and question the imperialist political consensus. YDSA must be fighting to recruit these students and win them to socialism. By campaigning against the war on the basis of class struggle, calling for more mass protests, labor actions, protest democracy and international solidarity, we cannot simply join, but lead the fight against imperialism.
3. Towards Political Unity
As we expand our influence, through campaigns, public forums, and mass organizing, our work must be rooted in an articulation of our politics. YDSA needs a distinct, sharp message articulating a clear anti-capitalist position, aimed directly at young people. Our strong campaigning work has so far lacked this unifying message. This is why we support the development and distribution of a YDSA program, helping to build more unity within YDSA around common political goals.
Our goal is to win people, through struggle, to socialism, and to joining YDSA. DSA is a big tent organization, and our diversity strengthens us, consensus cannot be arrived at overnight. Reform & Revolution aims to convince comrades of the need for a mass socialist party with a transitional program connecting current consciousness to revolutionary aims, which is among the strongest tools to build YDSA.
YDSA should be the loudest voice on campus articulating the need to end war, imperialism and capitalist private ownership. It is our role to link every fight, every campaign, and every action to the class struggle which unifies our movements.
4. Political independence
We are committed to a distinct socialist message. In our coalition work, YDSA must fight for democratic organization, socialist demands, a class struggle orientation, and a revolutionary horizon.
We aim to build broad coalitions to make our movement as strong as possible, connecting to the working class and our student bodies. But within those coalitions, our aim is to win people to socialist politics. YDSA should distinguish ourselves confidently from liberal groups, campus Democrats, and nonprofits. We are distinct, as a membership run socialist organization. That means voicing the need for political independence from the Republicans and Democrats, working to recruit to YDSA from our organizing and events, and aiming to build strong, durable connections with student groups and unions.
We believe socialists should openly contest for positions in student government and use their positions to advocate for YDSA’s priorities and agitate for socialist politics.
Fighting for socialism means working to win leadership in protests, making energetic socialist interventions in student government campaigns, and positioning ourselves as a distinct force, with a unique vision for achieving change.
What is needed is a clear socialist opposition, and in YDSA, our role is to fight to position ourselves as leaders of that opposition within our generation.
5. Fighting the class war
We aim to unify the labor movement and the socialist movement. Students have an essential role to play. Through the rank-and-file pipeline, strike support, student unionization, and coordination with labor on protests and rallies, we can ally ourselves with the labor.
In our struggle for organized, democratic protests and militant, independent messaging, we can work alongside sympathetic unions to win practical unity on strong demands.
We believe the working class are the primary agents of change in society, and we aim to strengthen workers, not just as an oppressed group, but as a class with revolutionary potential. On the NCC, Reform & Revolution will be a consistent voice for a principled socialist program and strategy in the fight against capitalism, imperialism, and all forms of oppression.
If you would like to learn more about Daniel’s NCC candidacy, check out our announcement here. Consider joining Reform & Revolution by applying here.
