this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026

61 points (96.9% liked)

The Deprogram

1950 readers

102 users here now

"As revolutionaries, we don't have the right to say that we're tired of explaining. We must never stop explaining. We also know that when the people understand, they cannot but follow us. In any case, we, the people, have no enemies when it comes to peoples. Our only enemies are the imperialist regimes and organizations." Thomas Sankara, 1985

International Anti-Capitalist podcast run by an American, a Slav and an Arab.

Rules:

No capitalist apologia / anti-communism.
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
Be respectful. This is a safe space where all comrades should feel welcome; this includes a warning against uncritical sectarianism.
No porn or sexually explicit content (even if marked NSFW).
No right-deviationists (patsocs, nazbols, Strasserists, Duginists, etc).
Use c/mutual_aid for mutual aid requests.

Resources:

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

airbusairnet@lemmygrad.ml

Ancient_Egg_57@lemmygrad.ml

61

Motherfuckers call them 'Democratic Socialists' as if Socialism isn't Democratic in the first place. (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 6 days ago by Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml to c/thedeprogram@lemmygrad.ml

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

China and Cuba have more grassroots democracy than the average DSA Chapter.

top 30 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] bookwhyrm@lemmygrad.ml 20 points 6 days ago (1 children)

same with "socialism with a human face". socialism is the most humanitarian system already!

[–] ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I think that’s more to imply you’re associating a recognizable face to a nebulous political concept. Basically laypeople people saying, “Oh! Socialism is what Lenin/Mao/Castro was doing” as a baseline for their understanding of socialism. Very rudimentary, but then again, few people dig as far into politics as the people here.

[–] Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 5 days ago

My reply to them, "Yes, they were doing socialism. And it was based."

[–] Tabitha@hexbear.net 19 points 6 days ago

walter-breakdown Imperialist Socialism

[–] KrupskayaPraxis@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 5 days ago

Democratic (Party) Socialists of America

[–] Bronstein_Tardigrade@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 6 days ago

DSA: Democratic Sellouts of Amerikkka.

[–] demeritum@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 5 days ago

Yeah it betrays their anti-communist and reactionary nature.

[–] TacticalSanta@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 5 days ago

They mean bourgeois "democracy", basically forcing their terrible forms of First past the post or parliamentary systems into a socialist reform.

[+] null@lemmy.org -30 points 6 days ago (9 children)

Love seeing lefties attack what should be their allies for not being their particular flavor of left.

[–] Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml 29 points 6 days ago

[–] stink@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 5 days ago (1 children)

DSA has consistently criticized their "allies" across the global south. Calling AES states dictatorships isn't particularly "ally" worthy, in my opinion.

DSA in my city tried to recruit me, and one of their selling points was that they collaborate with the police during protests to ensure it's safe for everyone.

I'm sure some places have better chapters, but from my experience it's just libs

[–] Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 5 days ago

one of their selling points was that they collaborate with the police during protests to ensure it's safe for everyone.

Ayo, what!? 😭

[–] cornishon@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 6 days ago

Democratic socialists love throwing actual socialists abroad under the bus (e.g. Mamdani on Maduro and Diaz-Canel). They are the ones who reject "leftist unity".

Just that one incident was more harmful than any amount of internet forum squabbles are.

[–] Cowbee@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 5 days ago

This infantilizes critique. The weaknesses of so-called "democratic socialists" are valid to point out, as forming a strong, coherent line with a unified base is the most important task for organization and preparation for revolutionary conditions. We can still work together on projects, of course, but that doesn't mean ignoring glaring weaknesses. It isn't simply because they are different, it's because the matter that is different is structural weakness and usually opposition to existing socialism.

[–] Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Begone, yakubian leftist. You're on the wrong server. We don't cater to western chauvinists here.

[–] Maeve@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 6 days ago

yakubian

+1 😂

[+] null@lemmy.org -10 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Look at this. I lay down a tame, no heat, barely even flavored criticism that you know you're guilty of and your default response is isolationism and petty namecalling.

And you wonder why you have trouble reaching people.

[–] Cowbee@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

To be clear, Marxism-Leninism is rising, even in the west. Some people may be more difficult to reach than others, but that doesn't mean the process on the whole isn't positive.

[–] Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

No heat? Your ideology revolves around denouncing revolutionary socialism and calling actual socialists 'authoritarians', and then you come here and complain about "leftist Unity", that too to the people who came up with democratic centralism, the method of unity among socialists.

Is that not a provocation in your eyes, shitlib?

[+] null@lemmy.org -12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Who said it was my ideology?

Can't handle the mild sauce OR make a point without projecting. You need to touch grass.

[–] Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Oh, so you are just an unprincipled chud who came here to stir up some shit.

Go back to your lair, kiddo. The average communist here organizes more in a week than you probably do in a year.

[–] Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 6 days ago

The only people you have reached are social chauvinists who vote for warcriminals with Nazi tattoos and white billionaires who can't call a genocide a genocide.

[–] TacticalSanta@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

And yet you don't see the very obvious flaws with trying to reform the imperialist parties into socialism. Many of these people are democratic socialist in name, they think you need a liberal democracy first then to reform it. It's a lazy way of looking at the transition to socialism, the same way its lazy to call china revisionist because they are still working within a global capitalist system towards transition. None of this to say the democratic socialism of these imperial core leftists is wrong, its more that MLs assert that history shows its likely ineffective.

[–] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don't know what the makeup of DSA is like these days. There may be chapters that are more marxist-leninist than others.

But the issue with so-called democratic socialism as a label is that it comes with a belief that the capitalist class can be deposed from power by voting them out, essentially. In practice, in the US, it also tends to have problems with not supporting actual socialist projects in the world (such as China).

The reason the "flavor" of it matters is because when we're talking about people who don't support existing socialist projects in the world, or don't take seriously the confrontational nature of taking on an existing entrenched, exploitative, and violent power structure, it's hard to take them seriously as wanting the same things.

Anyway, that is where the dissing comes from.

[–] ComradeSasquatch@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 5 days ago

If only people realized how often the government ignores the will and well being of the general public, they might actually realize that they can't vote their way out.

[–] Comprehensive49@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 6 days ago

The moat prominent founder of the DSA, Michael Harrington, literally founded it to be the "left wing of the possible within the Democratic Party", while rejecting the actually existing systems of the Soviet Union, China and the Eastern Bloc.

Read this: https://cosmonautmag.com/2019/04/michael-harrington-and-his-afterlives/

[–] SNAFU@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 6 days ago

[–] demeritum@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

The leftist spectrum that somehow all are allies, want the same thing and are united in the fight against the right - is a social construct.

Can someone from say Palestine that needs the end of the empire to survive ever be allied to someone who doesn’t? That’s incompatibility on a fundamental level.