[[link removed]]

HOW WE REBUILT THE YOUNG DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS  
[[link removed]]


 

David Duhalde
April 9, 2024
The Forge
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ DSA's youth section used lessons from Mao and contemporary labor to
build a winning strategy: When a strategy and its tactics cease
producing desired results, you need to reassess. Sometimes that means
going beyond your comfort zone to find success. _

YDS 2008 Winter Conference,

 

Nearly two decades ago the Young Democratic Socialists (YDS), as it
was then called, was on the brink of collapse. Our traditional
social-democratic milieu organizing methods were failing us.

As the National Youth Organizer for the YDS, a role I held from 2006
to 2008, I saw the student group escape its lowest point. This narrow
evasion of complete collapse rested on a reassessment of our longtime
organizing strategies and tactics. Putting aside tradition, we focused
on non-elite colleges not known for left-wing activism; emulated the
merger strategy of particular US labor unions; adapted to new social
media tools; and went as far as borrowing from the strategic retreat
of Mao Zedong’s Red Army, albeit on a smaller scale. 

A decade and a half later, I can reflect on that strategy as a product
of a specific political moment for the left and a lack of resources
for DSA and its youth wing. With the exception of Pink Tide
governments in Latin America, the socialist movement seemed in
terminal decline throughout the world –– especially in the
so-called “first world.” The US was a paragon of the weakened
workers' movement with more internal fighting than against the boss.
This led to a new labor federation called Change to Win in 2005, a
split of several major unions from the AFL-CIO, championed by the
Services Employees International Union (SEIU), which was growing but
often more from mergers –– both welcomed and not –– with other
unions than new organizing. 

While not as depressing as organized labor, national student
organizing was also radically different than it is today. Major groups
such as the United States Student Association (USSA) –– which
represented over a million students when I was in
college –– simply don’t exist anymore
[[link removed]]. 

YDS Members at an anti-Wall Street protest in 2008.

The International Socialist Organization was probably the most dynamic
of the anti-capitalist formations in the era, especially at colleges.
These clubs often kept YDS out of forming chapters at the same school
by sending an advanced cadre (for this purpose, a DSA/YDS member whose
primary if not sole political commitment and skill-building is
dedicated toward a socialist organization) to other group’s meetings
to undermine the organizing effort. Regardless of ISO’s activities -
DSA was weak. Our 5,000 members hid the fact that, of them, only a
couple of hundred were cadres.  YDS, too, had far fewer activists
than that. When I was a student, absent a few people knowing
then-congressman Bernie Sanders, the nearly invisible socialist
movement might as well have only existed in history books.

That’s where I found myself as a student socialist activist at
Bowdoin College. My college had a democratic socialist student club
but was unaffiliated with either DSA or the Socialist Party, USA - the
two national democratic-socialist formations. I eventually got the
club to become a chapter of YDS by my junior year, which would be a
harbinger of my campus organizing strategy when I worked for DSA a few
years later. But as young socialists in Maine, we were as removed from
our comrades around the country as much as people even outside of our
movement. A big reason was that, even with the internet, the world was
still not as directly connected as it is today.

Outside of email listservs, unless you knew a comrade directly, there
were not really ways to communicate with fellow YDS members outside of
our two annual conferences. While Facebook existed then, big group DMs
and no Twitter made instant communication much harder among unfamiliar
DSA and YDSA members on social media platforms. The isolation
eventually led me to restart the YDS quarterly newsletter, Red Letter,
which could at least inform student activists of what their peers were
doing across the country from chapter updates to conference
reportbacks.

A few months after graduating college, I was given my dream job of
becoming the National Organizer for YDS. I had served two years in the
Youth Section leadership (now called the National Coordinating
Committee) and volunteered a summer in the national office. I thought
I was aware of the strengths and weaknesses of YDS. I was wrong.

YDS was way worse off than I had expected. My first week, a chapter
wrote in to say they were disaffiliating. I soon realized that our
annual outreach conferences of a hundred or more students masked that
effectively we had maybe five chapters across the whole United States.
In fact, some of the chapters only had one remaining member. The YDS
group at the University of Chicago was down to one comrade who was
helping the nascent revival of Students for a Democratic Society host
one of their first national events. We struggled not only to recruit
cadre but to keep them interested in building us while as members.

This reflected what was called the “donut problem.” DSA was a
“donut” as it had no center drawing cadre. Activists would become
socialists, join DSA, and then conclude mass movement work was easier
to do outside of DSA. Both DSA and YDSA would join coalitions but it
was harder to justify being a socialist as you could get better
political education and writing in the ISO or more easily do movement
work in any number of single-issue nonprofits. So the members of DSA
and YDS were primarily those incredibly loyal to the organization or
the idea specifically of a democratic-socialist project being more
important than just doing activism.

In the first weeks of my job, I concluded that YDS would either grow
or die with me. The youth section was rudderless and without
direction. In turn, I was getting a lot of different advice on what to
do. But I was only given a $2,000 travel budget and when asked for how
much to spend on the winter conference I received no clear answer at
all. I knew I would be working with next to nothing. This meant that I
needed to find a strategy and find it quick.

t this time, one of the major pieces of advice that I received was
that I should focus on building a YDS presence on major campuses of
New York City. This was very good counsel even though I ultimately
rejected it. The logic was simple: YDS needed a national center in
NYC, where the office was, and a venue where we could host the winter
conference. Having a campus group or two could provide valuable
volunteers and conference space that the YDS staffer and underfunded
organization so desperately needed. 

So why did I eschew this guidance? For one, I felt that the YDS I was
offering was not attractive in the biggest city in the country, which
already had an organized left. Nearly every major university in the
Big Apple already had an established socialist club. I thought the
idea of me tabling around a few campuses (which I did at least at
Columbia University) would not be the best use of my time. Again, I
was alone as the sole staffer. Every moment counted. Instead, I turned
to two very different men –– only one who may have been a
democratic socialist once –– Mao Zedong and Andy Stern to build a
new organizing strategy.

In both my left-wing activism before DSA and my college studies, I
became familiar with the political and military strategies of the
Chinese Communist leader. Mao produced many practical anecdotes that
could be used in many organizing spaces. The ones I most drew from
were as follows:

* SOMETIMES IT IS OKAY TO RETREAT TO THE COUNTRYSIDE
[[link removed]]: Our
traditional areas of strength, such as elite institutions, would
require much more effort to win than schools without a strong
left-tradition and/or high rankings in the “best college” lists. 
* FIGHT NO BATTLE UNPREPARED, FIGHT NO BATTLE YOU ARE NOT SURE OF
WINNING
[[link removed]]:
[[link removed]] We
had to acknowledge that under-developed YDS cadre would stand a better
chance organizing outside of New York City and campuses where more
skilled and developed rival socialist formations and even allies
operated.

In this case, the countryside was metaphorical. What it symbolized was
seeking out schools in non-major cities or places that lacked a
historic left-wing culture. I sought out campuses where a YDS chapter
might be the only game in town for anti-capitalist activists. Places
that I knew a YDS club would be sure to win. I felt much less
confident about trying to put new YDS activists against veteran ISO
members for example.

Andy Stern, then president of SEIU, had grown the International as I
mentioned earlier through merging with existing unions
[[link removed]].
I was raised in an 1199 family and remember when the local affiliated
with SEIU. As with my own college chapter, I saw how mergers brought
in new cadres. In fact, several Bowdoin alums went on to be leaders in
the DC and San Francisco DSA chapters even if the YDS club didn’t
stay around much long after we graduated. I was aware a merged group
might not have the same loyalty as a chapter started just as YDS, but
we needed numbers.

For me, as shallow as it seems, numbers were the most important thing.
Because, like Mao, I knew we eventually had to leave the proverbial
countryside and take the cities. But YDS could only do that if it was
attractive and strong to potential members. A YDS of 10 to 15 active
chapters was more saleable than the five weak chapters we had. The
strategy was to focus on schools with no socialist presence or with
independent socialist clubs. So how did we find them? Aside from
typical students who would contact us, I and key YDS volunteers did
two things. First, we looked at college websites to see where there
were socialist clubs listed. We’d then reach out directly if there
was a student contact. This is how we eventually built a group at
Brown University. Second, we took advantage of the fact that Facebook
then allowed for non-campus specific groups and created a DSA-YDS
Facebook group. We subsequently messaged the hundreds of people who
joined and prioritized those who met our criteria for non-major cities
and schools without a strong left.

Through this outreach, we connected with a handful of students who
started chapters that would go on to produce great activities and DSA
cadre for years to come. In my first year, I was able to effectively
triple the number of YDS chapters and attendance at our summer
conference. To me, it showed the strategy was working.

Yet, I still faced some pushback about not prioritizing New York.
There was also a latent, if not explicit classism, in that some in DSA
leadership wanted chapters at more elite college campuses than many of
the state schools that were growing in places as different as New
Jersey, Ohio, Kansas, and Virginia. This critique of my effort led me
to write down my strategy for the DSA board. I also concluded in the
document I sent to the DSA leadership that I found the concern about
the ISO to be exaggerated. I felt we were losing more students to
nonprofits such as United Students Against Sweatshops who had more
staff and exciting labor programming. 

[David Duhalde Speaking at William Paterson University in New Jersey]

David Duhalde speaking at William Paterson University in New Jersey

Today, the Young Democratic Socialists of America –– the new name
adopted in 2017 –– has around 100 chapters. This number is what I
dreamed of going through all those Facebook messages. The groups we
fought against or were our allies like the ISO and USSA do not even
exist anymore. Many parts of this history now do not even feel
relevant to what young socialists are doing and how they are
organizing.

But what is eternal and remains true is that if it is not working, fix
it. When a strategy and its tactics cease producing the desired
results, you need to reassess. Sometimes, that means going beyond your
own traditions and comfort zone to find success. 

 

_David Duhalde is a long-time democratic socialist activist, starting
as a campus activist with what is now called Young Democratic
Socialists of America. Since then, he has served as DSA’s National
Youth Organizer and Deputy Director. Duhalde also served as political
director._

_The Forge is built by and for organizers. Though we’ve raised a bit
of startup money to build the site, this publication and community
will be only as strong as we, together, make it. Please click below to
become a sustainer. When we have some cool swag, you’ll be first in
line!  Donate [[link removed]]_

* organizing
[[link removed]]
* DSA
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]