What happened to DSA?

 

Based on reputable information within DSA,  in 2008-2009, not sure precisely of the date, the DSA was in bad shape. 

It had membership numbers similar to  when it was formed in 1982, some 6,500 members.

Why so low? Because the Michael Harrington (MH) strategy was not working.   DSA members who went into the Dem party at that time, mostly DSOC’ers, found the work boring and unfulfilling. Most left DSA and allowed their memberships to expire to pursue their carriers and families.  There were not enough DSA’ers to make any real impact within the Dem party and this was the problem. Would this strategy work in 2026 with 120,000 members?  

At this moment in 2008-2009,  there was a small presence within DSA of a group of some  300 members, calling itself the CCDS, an offshoot from the CPUSA when in 1991,   Angela Davis, Pete Seeger and Gil Green  decided to lead a faction and leave the CPUSA forming this group, as a multi tendency democratic socialist organization, really reformed communists who felt that democracy was a good idea. 

 The NAM and CCDS members  were mostly  in charge of the DSA at the time.  The CCDS is not a “democratically centralist” organization so they could be DSA members and were accepted as such. They  however,  faced a crisis within DSA of dwindling DSA membership nationwide and money.

  To change  the “democratic centralist”  exclusion, which banned anyone from joining DSA from a “ democratically centralist” self described, organization, required a convention for a vote and a convention requires money.  There was no money in 2008-09 to organize a convention to hold a vote and change the existing bylaws. So, what they did was understandable. They felt, rightly or wrongly, that in order to save DSA, they had to violate DSA’s own bylaws. This was largely a business decision. The CPUSA members had always wanted badly to be members of DSA, so they engaged directly with CCDS and NAM leaders about the change.  The “deal” was to allow  CPUSA members to join DSA and support the DSA.  MH, who died in 1989, would have never allowed this to happen. 

CPUSA’s argument for entry was, organized labor was a democratically centralist organization, (which is not true), so why should political organizations be any different, they argued?  MH welcomed  organized labor, knew this,  and still created this bylaw ban on these political groups while alive. 

Because CCDS and NAM disregarded the DSA bylaws, this created a precedent, by opening the flood gates to other “democratically centralists groups,” like Socialist Alternative and the ISO. This explains their presence within DSA by 2016. 

The exclusion was finally dropped via a bylaw change  by a convention vote and passed  at the 2025 DSA convention. So this now cements the presence, of the self described democratically centralist organizations within DSA. 

The hostile take over was accomplished.  CCDS and NAM finally got their way!  The bed was made so sleep in it!