Springs of Revolution: The Revolutionary Left of the DSA Struggles to Shape the Organization

Rev Left Radio

Breht O'Shea

Communism, Politics, Liberalism, Society & Culture, Philosophy, News, History, Leftwing, Socialism, Marxism

4.8 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2025

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Breht sits down with Ahmed and Luisa - two members of the Democratic Socialists of America’s National Political Committee and leaders within the Springs of Revolution Platform. With the August 2025 DSA Convention approaching, this episode dives into the growing struggle between the organization’s revolutionary left and its more moderate, staff-driven tendencies.

Representing a strategic coalition of rank-and-file organizers from across the country -including Red Star, Liberation Caucus, MUG, and Emerge - Springs of Revolution is fighting to remake DSA into a bottom-up, anti-imperialist, and internationally rooted revolutionary organization. From prioritizing local chapters and doubling their funding, to instituting anti-Zionist political commitments and unified electoral strategies, their platform directly challenges the right-wing of the organization and sets out a more radical vision for this evolving organization.

We discuss what it means to build DSA into a revolutionary mass force, why Palestine is the “moral compass” of the left, the material lessons of recent uprisings like the George Floyd rebellion and Pro-Palestine Campus Uprisings, and how deep organizing is key to seizing future ruptures.

If you’re a delegate heading into convention, a DSA member on the fence, or an outsider wondering what the internal political battles of the U.S. left really look like, this episode is essential listening.

Learn more about the platform here: https://sordsa.org/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio.
0:09.1	Okay, on today's episode, I have on Ahmed Hussein and Louisa Martinez from the DSA to talk about basically not only the political situation more broadly, Palestine, mass deportations,
0:22.7	we touch on all of that, but also in a sort of, in the internal dynamics of DSA and their
0:28.2	spring of revolutions platform that they are advancing in this August's DSA convention
0:34.4	happening next month. They're coming on to talk a little bit about that platform and their attempts to
0:40.4	improve the DSA, increase its sort of anti-imperialism and the principled politics
0:47.2	on that front, oriented towards the current ongoing brutal ICE mass deportation raids and the Palestine issue,
0:58.5	find ways of making the DSA more of a bottom-up organization instead of a top-down
1:04.1	organization and to push an anti-imperialist and internationalist politic to the forefront and center of the DSA as a national organization.
1:14.4	And to do so, they have formed a coalition of left caucuses in the DSA to fight for this new platform.
1:21.9	And so we talk about some of the weaknesses of the DSA.
1:24.8	The fact that the DSA is in a constant state of evolution and how
1:28.8	people can get involved and help push it in the proper direction that we would like to see the
1:33.3	largest socialist organization in the United States be, which is more internationalist,
1:37.9	more principled, more anti-imperialist, more anti-colonialist, more pro-Palestine, without any
1:43.6	reservations, etc.
1:45.4	So I think this is a really important fight within the DSA, not just within the DSA,
1:50.6	but within the broader socialist movement in the country.
1:54.1	And we also, of course, in the process of discussing those things we touch on major political issues happening now.
2:01.7	And they, you know, parts of this episode, it gets downright inspiring.
2:05.4	These are two organizers born in the, in different countries, born in the global
2:10.0	South.
	...

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