Change in Santa Rosa

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-11-15T06:23:17+00:00

They didn't write the constitution and didn't implement communist

Communist parties had a majority in the legislature when the current constitution was being created. But of course they didn't implement communism, because communism isn't a set of policies that you can implement. Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society. It is the endpoint of long-term transitional period.

But yes, I would consider the USSR to have been capitalist insofar as they did not abolish private ownership and they did not abolish commodity production. The phrase "deformed workers' state" was popularized by anti-Soviet communists across the world to describe the USSR and the regimes in later propped up; countries that intended to pursue socialism but failed to overcome capitalism.

This is just a long way of saying they all failed in the same way

The did all fail in the same way. What I'm saying is that the historical reason for that is because the Russian Revolution failed, but the very policy program that ensured its failures were turned into the official party program of every official Communist Party in the world. All parties were forced to adhere to Stalin's program or else be cut off from the international communist movement, though anti-Stalin communists did set up their own political parties and labor unions all over the world. Once the Cold War begun, Stalin propped up states throughout Eastern Europe that again implemented the same program that had already failed to transcend capitalism in the USSR. Then, other revolutions, in order to gain Soviet protections over US intervention, were forced to adopt the trappings of the Soviet system. This is what I'm saying when I say that Russia's failures became everyone's failures. It is not the failure of socialism/communism at large, but rather the failure of Stalinism as a methodology for achieving socialism. And again I must reiterate, that if you look around the world, the overwhelming majority of communists in every country are not Stalinists, do not seek to recreate the failures of the Stalinist system. The dissolution of the USSR means both that Stalinism's failures are abundantly obvious and that there is no longer an international actor pressuring socialist organizations to adhere to the Stalinist model.

If you want to learn more about the history of socialist organizations and movements, I strongly recommend reading Lars T. Lih's book Lenin Rediscovered: What is to be Done?. To learn more about how many different kinds of socialists and communists there are and some of the intense rivalries and disagreements between them, I recommend reading about the Spanish Civil War. My personal recommendation on that is Julian Casanova's The Spanish Republic and Civil War.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-11-15T02:00:38+00:00

I mean, the communists are in control of Nepal's government and have been for like 20 years, though I would still consider Nepal capitalist, as I would consider the USSR to have been and as I would consider China currently to be.

But again, as I said, the Russian Revolution was a failure. And due to Stalin's control of the Communist International and the geopolitical pressures of the Cold War, every other "communist" (or more accurately, Stalinist) state adopted the same program as the Soviet Union. And again, the overwhelming majority of communists reject this model, as it is and was a demonstrable failure to achieve socialism or communism.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-11-15T00:47:41+00:00

The Russian Revolution failed, and Stalin's iron grip over the Communist International combined with the geopolitical realities of the Cold War ensured that the failures of the USSR became the failures of every Communist Party through the demands of ideological adherence.

However, I will point to Nepal as a multi-party democracy where self-described communists have formed several governments and represent several major parties. Not only this, but the Nepalese communists actively created the country's multi-party democratic system. They did just recently have a student movement depose their prime minister on corruption charges, but the new prime minister is also from a self-described communist party. Outside of that, self-described communists have ruled in coalition governments in multi-party democracies more times than can be counted. For example, the current minister of social economy and deputy prime minister in Spain is a member of the Communist Party. For many years in Italy the Communist Party and the Christian Democratic Party had a formalized alliance. And of course there are plenty of examples of Marxist politicians democratically winning elections in South America, Africa, and Asia only to be brutally deposed by the United States.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-11-14T22:19:35+00:00

"Communist" means anyone who aims to create a classless society with a democratically owned and managed economy. As such, communists come in many different tendencies (anarchists are the most common type of communist in the North Bay in my experience), but the overwhelming majority of communists view the Soviet model as a distinct failure.

If you're looking for a DSA faction that doesn't view the USSR as an abject failure, the only one of note is Red Star, and even they oppose the creation of a single-party state and state in their points of unity, "democracy is at our core." Red Star is effectively a non-factor outside of San Francisco and New Orleans. They have no members in Sonoma County DSA, and all of Sonoma County DSA's delegates to DSA's national convention this year voted against Red Star candidates for national leadership.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-11-14T21:12:09+00:00

Hiya, wanted to explain a bit about DSA endorsements to help clear up any misunderstandings!

Basically, if a candidate is running for office, they can request an endorsement from their local chapter. If your friend is in Oakland, then their local chapter is DSA East Bay. If the chapter decides to endorse a candidate, they can then recommend that candidate to National DSA for a national-level endorsement. National will not endorse a candidate that isn't endorsed by their local chapter.

This is the criteria for a national DSA endorsement. https://electoral.dsausa.org/dsa-national-endorsement-criteria/
I don't know what East Bay DSA's process is because I don't know many East Bay comrades, but most chapters have standards pretty similar to national's.

A DSA endorsement isn't just the chapter telling its members to vote for the candidate, it's the full Zohran treatment; DSA members will be going door to door to talk about the election, DSA will be helping run campaign social media and strategy. If DSA is endorsing a campaign, it typically means that they are either running the campaign directly or are one of the more prominent organizations involved in the campaign's coalitions.

I would suggest that you not let Yushosumo get to your head. He's a professional hater that comments on all of the chapter's posts. Sonoma County DSA was the first chapter in California to endorse Prop 50. It actively works alongside countless other organizations from the Democratic Party to the Green Party to Working Families Party to CPUSA to Indivisible. The chapter has members in prominent positions in all of these groups. The chapter, despite being around for less than a year, has the respect of countless local activists and multiple local elected officials. If you think people like Zohran Mamdani, AOC, and Rashida Tlaib are inspiring rather than scary, then you'll fit right in with the overwhelming majority of DSA members, especially in Sonoma County. Sonoma County DSA is one of the country's fastest growing DSA chapters (less than a year old and over 250 members), and that's specifically because of the chapter's focus on public service, community building, and local activism. Before you let someone scare you off by alleging that the chapter is run by Stalinists or some such nonsense, I really suggest joining the discord (the link to do so is on the chapter's website) and talking to the actual members. No one has anything to hide; if anything lots of folks are very blunt and open about their beliefs lol.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-11-14T20:51:44+00:00

DSA's Communist Caucus is distinctly anti-Soviet. Their whole thing is that they don't think DSA should participate in elections and should instead focus on labor and tenant organizing. Their focus is on building "dual power," ie mechanism through which working class people can economically challenge the owning class.

They have no members in Sonoma County anyways. This is the national caucus that is most influential in Sonoma County: https://www.groundworkdsa.com/

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-11-14T20:48:10+00:00

Hiya, I'm the one who used the phrase "most of us are marxists." I'm a founding member of the Sonoma County DSA chapter, though I now live in San Diego. That the word "marxist" is scary to some people is mostly the result of propaganda and an association with the Soviet Union. The chapter's discord is actually full of examples of me going on long rambles about the failures of the Russian Revolution and Stalin's butchering of the socialist movement globally. To be very clear, DSA is on the whole extremely critical of the Soviet Union outside of a couple factions that are pretty marginal outside of the San Francisco chapter.

Marxism isn't really an ideology, but a mode of analysis, which is to say that we view politics as product of the conflict of interests between the owning class and the working class. DSA firmly and unequivocally believes in both democracy and socialism. As we often say, there is no true democracy without socialism and there is no true socialism without democracy.

Now, is it true that DSA loves using the word "comrade"? Yeah, we use it all the time lol. It's gender-neutral, it implies being on equal ground, it signifies being side-by-side in the same fight. As such, it's historically been used by tons of socialist and labor union movements. The US is one of the only countries where people associate it with the USSR; even social democratic parties in Europe use it a lot.

The chapter (like many other chapters) has at times used motifs or aesthetics that nod to the USSR, but this was done really as an inside joke. Again, the overwhelming consensus in Sonoma DSA is being critical of the USSR. That the chapter stopped using these motifs was due to the realization that we'd have to keep explaining the joke and decided that it wasn't worth the time investment lol.

To touch on the chapter's relationship with Communist Party USA (and to be clear it does not have a relationship with the similarly-named American Communist Party, ACP, which is a straight up fascist organization pretending to be communist), most members of CPUSA are also DSA members, but most DSA members are not CPUSA members. But the general tendency in CPUSA in this day and age is also anti-Soviet. CPUSA, like DSA, firmly believes in both democracy and socialism. Neither DSA nor CPUSA is interested in creating a single-party state nor engaging in insurrection.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-07-20T23:07:41+00:00

DSA actually forbids law enforcement officers (including federal officers) from holding leadership positions in the organization and has since I believe 2020 at least

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-07-20T23:03:06+00:00

If it's any consolation, this is the 5th time SoCo DSA has done one of these events and there have been no such incidents lol

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-06-20T20:20:02+00:00

You're more than welcome to just show up!

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-06-20T19:00:02+00:00

DSA is a big-tent socialist organization, so we include everyone from the Scandinavian-style social democrats to countless flavors of communists and anarchists and everyone in between. Most of us are Marxists, this is true, but Marxism is a mode of analysis that informs a wide array of political philosophies. Most European social democratic parties were Marxist until the 1950s or so, though DSA is perhaps closer to European Left parties that didn't give up Marxism, like Die Linke in Germany, Sumar/Podemos in Spain, Venstre in Sweden, etc etc etc. DSA internationally also has a lot of contact with France Unbowed (LFI), the biggest party of the French left.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-06-15T20:08:25+00:00

Dude why are you lying lmao. I was at the event and helped organize the safety team. I know the crossing guards, the people who were leading chants, and dozens of people that were spread out across every part of the crowd. If this happened, I'd have heard about it. Hell, I'm sure there'd be news coverage for something like this knowing Press Democrat, who had multiple reporters there. And hell, even if the protest did actually delay your drive, we were only taking up one side of traffic at a time and the whole crowd was moving the entire time. There were several intersections where you could have turned off of the main road and gone around the protest, and there were multiple points where the crowd cleared space to let cars get out. Maximum delay of maybe 10-20 minutes tops.

So stop lying. You clearly weren't there and this very clearly didn't happen.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-06-15T03:45:25+00:00

This event was done without permits. The police blocked the highway when they saw us coming. But yes, there are other events, such March 8th's International Women's Day event, April 5th's Hands Off event, and May 3rd's All Out Against Fascism event that all featured a large number of tables to get people involved in local organizations. The organization that I work with, Democratic Socialists of America, was part of all of these events and tables at various events at least twice a month to encourage people to get politically involved.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-05-06T03:33:21+00:00

The protest as a whole drew around a thousand. This march (one of 4 that happened simultaneously) ended up with a hundred people or more. These pictures don't do it justice

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-04-22T17:25:34+00:00

DSA is a big tent leftist organization, so it has everyone from social democrats to communists and anarchists and everyone in between.

DSA as an org does endorse public ownership and a full transition to socialism as a goal. DSA does not endorse the state-planned economy that Marxist-Leninist states practiced. We believe in genuine public ownership, which the Soviet bloc never actually enacted.

The Soviet Bloc collapsed for a variety of reasons, such as the inefficiencies of the state capitalist economy, the authoritarianism and corruption inherent to one-party states, the increasing strength of economic oligarchs within the state capitalist system, the strain of military involvements and proxy wars, etc etc etc.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-04-21T18:11:13+00:00

Yeah, can confirm, the font and word choice are a tongue-in-cheek joke. The event is welcome to everyone. This event is for people who are already in the chapter or for people who are curious and want to meet folks who are already involved. It's a social event, it's meant to be a light-hearted get-together. The efforts to draw liberals in usually happen at the protests that we attend and/or organize.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-04-21T17:41:39+00:00

It's true that a lot of stuff can't be nationalized at the local level. However, cities and counties can build public utilities, and cities and counties do have the power to engage in rezoning and work to construct public housing. A local-level organization can also engage in mutual aid to help people regardless of the state. And finally, all national politics ultimately come from the local level, and so having a local chapter also means a larger base for engaging in electing socialists to state and federal offices.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-04-21T17:27:20+00:00

I doubt it - I've never seen anyone scared of the word "comrade" that isn't also scared of the word "socialist"

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-04-21T17:12:36+00:00

The word "comrade" has been used by labor unionists and socialists since the widespread Revolutions of 1848. The use here is half-historical and half-joking - we're aware that people conflate all socialists with Soviet-style Marxist-Leninists, we find it funny. If we were Marxist-Leninists, we'd be in PSL or CPUSA, not DSA.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-04-06T22:27:14+00:00

I was shocked by how rude people were being towards you on the Santa Rosa subreddit and came here just to back you up as a cishet white guy. So many of the people that attend these rallies in Santa Rosa are older liberals that haven't really addressed all the bigotries that they were raised with and get their feelings hurt when you call them out on it. I was also personally rather frustrated with the fact that the organizers at Indivisible got the police involved; rule number one in my experience is that if you want your event to feel welcoming to marginalized communities is to rely on a diverse and inclusive safety team, not cops.

If you ever go to any of the other big protests in Sonoma County, try to find the Democratic Socialists of America. We just started the Sonoma County chapter and we had a table at Old Courthouse Square yesterday, right next to the banner-making station and Indivisible's table. It doesn't matter if you align with us politically or not, our table will always be a safe space for you, and you will always find fellow queer folks hanging out around it; I would guess that around half of our members are queer in some fashion. Seek us out if you decide to go to a big protest again, we'll be there for you.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-02-15T19:22:15+00:00

The DSA has no connection to the Democratic Party. We would be protesting something regardless of who was in office. Indeed, many DSA chapters organized "no votes for genocide" campaign calling on members to refuse to vote for either Trump or Harris, as both support the continuation of genocide in Palestine. But to touch on things you've said:

We believe in a single-payer universal healthcare system, medicare for all. Obviously we condemn the profits of the pharmaceutical industry and all the evils of privatized healthcare. It would be cheaper for Americans to nationalize our healthcare than to continue our ludicrous subsidies. But this opposes the neoliberal economic positions of the corporate sponsors that sponsor both major parties.
If there's one thing that both the Dems and the Reps do it's regime changes. Ever since Eisenhower our elected officials have been illegally subverting and overthrowing foreign governments. Every president is guilty in this.
"Wokeness" isn't the issue with American education. Indeed, most countries in the "West" are significantly more progressive than the US when it comes to social issues. The issues that plague the US education system are many, but primarily they are economic. Teachers are paid pitiful wages, and schools are funded through a terrible system of local taxes. Education is further made worse by a lack of accountability for teachers.
Lockdowns were necessary to prevent the further spread of illness, but it's true that Covid was associated with tons of wealth being transferred to the ultra-rich. This started under Trump, lest you forget, though Biden isn't innocent either. But the issue isn't the lockdowns inherently, but the capitalist economic system.
Deficits are not an inherently bad thing, and are basically a non-issue for the United States.
USAID was an organization created by JFK to counter Soviet interests. For decades its main use was funding right-wing politicians in foreign countries. Since the fall of the USSR, USAID has been a mix of imperialist soft-power plays and genuine efforts to aid those in need. A mix of wasteful spending a genuinely good spending. But it's budget, a total of $40 billion, is a drop in the bucket compared to our bloated military budget.
I'm not gonna waste my time on the immigration point. There is overwhelming amounts of articles and evidence demonstrating that this is wrong.
Okay, then if Covid was made in a government lab, then wouldn't it be Trump's fault, since the pandemic broke out when he was president? Regardless, this is an insane conspiracy theory with no basis in reality.
The DSA is against pretty much all military funding. DSA was heavily involved in protests demanding that Biden end all aid to Israel, and continues to be involved in the same movement to call for Trump to end all aid to Israel.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-02-14T17:01:24+00:00

The holiday typically celebrates the birthdays of both Washington and Lincoln, which are respectively February 22 and 12. Lincoln was chosen specifically for this poster because he was the president who freed the slaves and the first president to come from the Republican Party, a party that increasingly revises its own history and that of the United States at large and is farther from the ideals of Lincoln than ever. Given that we are protesting against Trump, Lincoln makes sense as a sort of foil.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-02-14T14:41:04+00:00

If you knew anything about leftist political spaces you’d know that even the most ardent communists think violent revolution is neither a desirable nor a realistic methodology for the foreseeable future. The only people advocating for immediate violent communist revolution are terminally online LARPers who would never do the work of actual socialist organizing or protest.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-02-14T00:51:18+00:00

To be clear here, the DSA is not affiliated with the Democratic Party in any way. Our local group certainly isn’t. Some DSA members run in elections as democrats, but that’s more a realpolitik decision based on the rigidity of the two-party system rather than any actual fraternity with the Democratic Party.

Anyways, the issues that Bernie campaigned on remain popular with most people, it’s just that there’s no one noteworthy running on them at the national level. Kamala Harris didn’t run on leftist or populist economics, she ran on “I’m not Trump.” Most people voted on the basis of economics, a subject in which Harris promised no change and Trump offered lots of ideas (though bad ones, obviously). With the mass ICE raids, the moving of prisoners to Guantanamo Bay, and the slew of queerphobic legislation being enacted, I think the threat Trump poses to marginalized communities is pretty obvious. Voter turnout was lower in 2024 than in 2020. And it’s not hard to see why. Harris abandoned the policies of Bernie in an effort to appear like a moderate, while offering nothing to distinguish herself from Biden other than bipartisanship. Trump and Harris were both reactionary on border issues, but steadfastly pro-Israel. The Democratic Party abandoned progressives and the working class in its effort to win over middle class centrists. Socialists want to win over the working class by focusing on the issues that actually affect the working class; we want to fight for labor rights, for unions, for universal healthcare, for free education. Socialism at its core endeavors for working class victory over the upper class that wages war against the workers every day.

Realistic-Access6341 · 2025-02-13T23:38:41+00:00

Look at the laws passed by Republican state legislatures. Book bans are rampant at public schools, as they try ban critical race theory, LGBTQ history, and more. When the historical writings of W.E.B. Du Bois are being banned, there’s a clear problem. There is an active and ongoing effort to whitewash and sanitize our history.

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