Presenting the 2018 Boston Refoundation Platform

Boston DSA has grown enormously in the last year, and our members have done amazing work on different fronts: we joined a local BDS campaign in solidarity with Palestine; we’ve formed meaningful alliances with groups standing on the front line against gentrification; we were instrumental in winning several local elections; and we have mounted a sustained protest against fascism, as racist right-wing movements continue to grow under Trump.

However, Boston DSA has yet to challenge the liberal status quo that created the climate of political disaffection that defines the current era. In the state of Massachusetts — stronghold of the Democratic Party; of neoliberal and meritocratic ideology; of imperial strength via the MIT-Raytheon core; of white supremacy through violent gentrification and policing; and of continued urban segregation enforced by police power — our chapter stands in an extremely important position to challenge the capitalism and racism exported by Boston. For too long, DSA has avoided confrontation with the Democrats, and even abetted them. This deference to the Democrats forecloses the opportunity to unite with other socialist groups and the many people immiserated by Democratic Party policies. While our most visible and “successful” work in the last year — getting progressives into local office — may have helped boost the profile and bargaining power of our local chapter, it has done little to push us closer to socialism. The racist and corrupt political economy of Boston does not need to be better managed; it needs to be overthrown through a mass movement.

As Boston Refoundation, we’ve drafted a platform in order to steer our chapter toward structural changes and concrete policy steps that build our chapter’s capacity to fight the social and ecological violence of the capitalist system in the near term of 2018–2019. Though these changes are achievable in the following year, they are part of a political vision that extends into what we hope DSA and the US-based Left as a whole will be and do in the future for years to come.

The members of Boston DSA Refoundation Caucus have collectively written and edited this platform. This platform represents our political vision and sets out to guide us in the upcoming year of work in DSA. It is a living document and will be returned to and updated as our membership grows, as our political education deepens, and as we learn from our experiences.

This platform was written and edited by seventeen caucus members between the start of January 2018 and the end of March 2018. It represents Refoundation Caucus’s current collective understanding of our politics, principles, and priorities. The process of writing a platform democratically is a gradual one; further planks on Labor and Internationalism will be appended to the platform in the coming weeks, as well as an expanded explanation of our plan for coalitions work.

After this platform was written, it was discussed and debated during an in-person meeting and follow-up Zoom call. The Refoundation Caucus membership then voted on the platform, and it passed with a vote of 28 in favor and one abstention on March 17, 2018.

To the extent that there are areas of this platform that clarify and/or elaborate on political or strategic differences within our chapter, we look forward to participating in open and direct debate with our comrades about politics and tactics while we also work together to build socialism.

Read our individual planks:

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