UCLA

Throughout U.S. history, cultural conflict within organizations and coalitions has been significant to subverting the socialist movement. I use 39 months of participation observation with three self-identified socialist organizations, hundreds of field interviews, and 18 semi-structured interviews with key organization members, to examine the ways today’s socialist organizations engage in cultural struggle at organizational and interpersonal levels while organizing in an increasingly culturally diverse and culturally focused political context. I also examine the relational dynamics between “radical flank” organizations and the political center by analyzing the ways relatively marginal and “radical” political actors are influenced by their moderate counterparts around questions of identity, inequality, and social change. The ideological differences of the guiding platforms the organizations use result in three approaches to answering the “national question” specifically and the question of identity in socialist struggle generally. These three approaches and the ideological dispositions they represent correspond to their position on the political spectrum. The most moderate group is also the group whose efforts to address social inequality internally and systemically most align with the mainstream social movement consensus. The group furthest to the left ideologically seeks to maintain a materialist analysis and approach. Both are shown to have clear limits. A third approach is positioned between the others. The prevalence and concern shown to these issues reflects their centrality to the socialist cause. Like organizations that are trying to foster a multicultural environment generally, groups along the radical flank consider these issues in all spheres of their organizing. They face the challenge of doing so while working toward proletarian revolution.