A Response Patrick Dalton’s “The Liberal-to-Ultraleft Pipeline: Breaking the Cycle”
Criticisms from an Ultraleftist.
A link to the article can be found here.
A while back on, I was made aware of an article by Patrick Dalton of the Metro D.C DSA written in their publication Washington Socialist. Seeing the title immediately peaked my interest as it was a perfect description of me! In 2016 I considered myself an Democratic establishment liberal but it was the Bernie campaign that turned me into a “Democratic Socialist” (Social Democrat). From there I moved on, first to pseudo-anarchism and then eventually to the arms of Italian Left Communism and the positions of the ICT. However, reading Dalton’s article left me severely disappointed and more than a little annoyed. I came to see that Dalton doesn’t seem to even understand what ultra-leftism is and when he does mention positions actually held by the ultra-left, he immediately dismisses them without actually refuting them; all of this stems from Dalton’s strange reverence for his organization as the shining red star that will lead America down the shining path of democratic socialism, that is to say, social democracy. But Dalton does get something right: the left does have an over attachment on aesthetics.
For an article about the Ultra-left, Dalton seems to have no understanding of what the ultra-left actually is. He even seems somewhat proud of his ignorance:
What’s the difference between a De Leonist, Council Communist and a Syndicalist when none are able to fill the room they reserved at the library with working people?
To anyone who actually takes time to learn about the history and development to socialism this is an outrageous statement. These two tendencies have different developmental history and disagreements on both theory and praxis. But to Dalton this doesn’t matter. They aren’t popular like DSA, and if they don’t have mass organizations that have electoral candidates then its not worth the time to learn. This will be a recurring theme of Dalton.
Returning back to definitions, Dalton describes the ultra-left as such:
…anti-capitalists whose entire ideological motivation and self-conception is that they are “to the left” of XYZ, typically DSA
Furthermore, he goes on to describe ultra-leftists as “terminally online. All of this demonstrates Dalton’s ignorance. He completely ignores the fact that words do indeed mean something. Ultra-left has been in use since at least the mid-20th century and encompasses a variety of tendencies (Italian left communism, council communism, autonomism, communization theory, etc) not internet trolls who are to the left of DSA. Furthermore, organizations like the Internationalist Communist Tendency (part of the Italian communist left tradition) has an active presence in the UK and Italy. Not only are they present at strikes and protests but they also tirelessly dedicate themselves to reporting on workers’ struggles throughout the world not just writing but also translating articles from communist organizations from Iran to South Korea. More so, Dalton seems to be aware that his grasp of the term is limited by expressing that he doesn’t want a semantics battle about what term to use.
Now just because Dalton doesn’t know what ultra-left means, that doesn’t mean he can’t understand their positions. Unfortunately for us, Dalton barely takes the time to give a full-hearted critique and prefers to dismiss them without a second thought.
Dalton has ire especially for calls to start a general strike and the idea of electoral abstentionism. These two calls-to-action are emblematic of the ultra-left’s tendency to demand only radical tactics from the playbook of history. To Dalton’s credit, his issue with calls for general strikes is less about the strategy but rather how it has become a buzzword that is endlessly spewed on Twitter. So instead I will focus on Dalton’s distaste for political abstentionism.
Dalton doesn’t even bother to give an in-depth critique of the idea and simply proclaims that the ultra-left’s aversion to electoral solutions demonstrate an irrational skepticism of “mass politics”. This is ultimately where I feel the differences in politics between DSA and more revolutionary focused ultra-leftists come into existence. Dalton has this obsession with “mass politics” but to him, mass politics is simply pursuing socialism the way the “masses” accept. That is to say, via elections. It’s not that the ultra-left doesn’t believe the masses are unnecessary for any successful workers movement but we understand that we can not conform our politics based on popular opinion because popular opinion is not revolutionary! The ruling ideas of the day are the ideas of the ruling class, it is our goal is to increase class consciousness among the working class and that can only be done by keeping the revolutionary line. By rejecting the ideas of success through elections, the ideas that by increasing social security and turning stores into cooperatives we can achieve socialism. To craft your political strategy based on what will make yourself more appealing to the non-revolutionary population is nothing but opportunism and will only end up shooting the workers’ movement in the foot.
M y final issue with Dalton’s piece has to do with the way he portrays DSA.
If you were to take Dalton at his word, DSA is the vanguard for the progressive movement. A big tent where all factions, despite their disagreements is able to get to work and get some real change for the American working class. This is a fantasy.
DSA is far from revolutionary. They are a social democratic organization, center left on the global political spectrum, the kind of organization that would vote to dissolve their BDS working group. The idea of a multi-tendency organization that Dalton is so proud of is also a source of weakness. You can not have an organization that includes reformists, anarchists, and “marxist leninists” and expect there to be any coherent revolutionary platform because all of these tendencies have legitimate differences in tactics and analysis, differences that conflict with each other. DSA to me often faces an identity crisis with each faction trying to become the face of DSA and with the more moderate and reformist elements winning out in the end.
I t is at this point that I want touch upon what I consider to be a good observation about the current state of the Left. That is there is a large portion of leftists who are only leftists on an aesthetic level with no actual desire to do politics. My issue with this point is that he lays the blame on this phenomenon on the ultra-left when (as we’ve previously established) he doesn’t know what that term means.
In the final portion of his article, Dalton lays out a set of set of prescriptions to counter this aesthetic leftism. He encourages DSA to continue their education and recruitment efforts not just online but with more emphasis on in-person meetings and discussions. I would agree that this is an excellent idea and any organization worth their salt would pursue these actions.
It is Dalton’s final prescription that he loses me once again. In his section on improving organization he says DSA should prioritize focusing on “winnable campaigns” and continue to canvas for socialist candidates. This is a dead-end and will only distract from any meaningful organization efforts. I think AOC is the best example of the fate of these democratic socialist candidates. I remember AOC as a radical, someone who wasn’t afraid to stand up for what’s right and will bring a youthful energy to Congress. But here we are now: AOC openly supporting economic sanctions on Russia which rather than hurting Putin or his cronies only end up starving the Russian people and being silent on the Amazon unionization efforts. Radicals don’t survive in the political machine. It sucks that energy right out of you and you either moderate yourself or resign yourself to serving one term.
Dalton is right, there is a horrible tendency of aesthetic leftism that is alive and well and it is right to fight it. It’s just not the Ultra-left he needs to worry about.
