Our politics have resonated deeply with working class people across the country seeking a political alternative. This year has seen a significant electoral breakthrough for DSA candidates riding on the urgency of ending the genocide in Gaza, rising cost-of-living, Trump’s repression, and escalating wars, one that has grown our membership and forced us to contend with what it means to govern as socialists in different levels of government. Off this momentum, members must begin to reckon with our plans for 2028. Springs of Revolution believes that any DSA decisions on the question of presidential endorsement must be made by the highest democratic body of our organization: National Convention.

On Sunday, the National Political Committee is debating a presidential endorsement proposal put forth by the Presidential Exploratory Committee, a 6-member body composed of 2 Bread & Roses members, 1 Groundwork member, 1 Socialist Majority Caucus member, 1 Marxist Unity Group member, and 1 Red Star member. The proposal charges the sitting NPC with making a final decision on a 2028 presidential endorsement, reducing the role of the 2027 National Convention to rubber-stamping a campaign plan.

Allowing the NPC to make this consequential decision undermines our democracy and our organization’s ability to build buy-in from members for a broad, national-scale campaign. The 2027 Convention undeniably presents the most democratic opportunity to decide on existential questions facing DSA: Should we endorse anyone for President at all? Are any of the candidates sufficiently politically aligned to represent DSA on a national scale? How will we hold them accountable to our politics? Is there a more strategic intervention we could be making?

Together with comrades from Marxist Unity Group and Reform & Revolution, Springs of Revolution are submitting amendments to put the 2028 decision back in the hands of the 2027 National Convention.

A presidential campaign has the potential to irrevocably change the course of DSA’s trajectory. While a DSA-endorsed candidate may elevate our name recognition and lead to a new surge in membership, running for the highest executive office in the U.S. also carries significant risks for the organization. DSA has pulled off stunning, unpredictable upsets before: should our endorsed candidate advance to the general election and win, we would face the contradiction of a self-identified socialist at the helm of U.S. empire. With only a tiny bloc of DSA elected in Congress, a socialist president would not have a governing coalition behind them and would not be in a position to effectively resist pressure by the Democratic establishment and capital. How will we manage the fallout if our endorsed president drops bombs on the Middle East or fails to abolish ICE, lift the blockade against Cuba, and enact an arms embargo against Israel? Loss of credibility and morale amongst our base if a socialist president is unable to deliver on their promises is a major political risk that deserves serious deliberation and preparation lest it derail the nascent US left for decades to come.

If DSA members ultimately decide this risk is worth taking, the gamble should be backed by the full weight of the highest decision-making body of our organization. SOR believes the current NPC would be irresponsible to make a decision they will not be present to navigate our organization through. Convention will result in a newly elected NPC that will best represent the orientation of our rapidly growing and changing membership toward the questions of how to navigate a presidential race and its outcomes.

While we commend the base proposal for delineating a robust process of organization-wide discussion — including initial debates at the Organizing Summit and in chapters through the Member Input Question; organization-wide calls; regional discussion circles; an endorsement forum for nominated candidates; and chapter meetings to discuss and poll members on the possible candidates — this process is ultimately meaningless if it fails to provide a real basis by which any debate, forum, argument, or deliberation by members could change the pre-existing positions of the factions represented on the NPC.

Anyone who has paid minimal attention to DSA’s national politics will recognize that the positions of our highest political body, the NPC, are often entrenched. Our internal factions have political projects that they aspire to see grow in the socialist movement, and at the highest level those orientations are not often open to influence by the full membership. High-profile chapter and national leaders of Socialist Majority Caucus, Groundwork, and Carnation have already started loudly championing a DSA presidential endorsement of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, publicly presenting it as an inevitability to the media and in labor spaces like the 2026 Labor Notes conference — before the initial organization-wide debates even begin!

As such, we worry the “robust discussion regarding our relationship to the 2028 presidential election” outlined by the Presidential Endorsement Proposal will only serve as window-dressing for a pre-determined outcome desired by the caucuses most loudly championing this proposal. Just 14 votes are necessary to clear a simple majority on the NPC — 14 people with entrenched and long-standing opinions who will not be swayed by chapter discussions or member polls. Without a basis for deliberation among members to find and express a decision at Convention, a year of chapter debates offers only a hollow charade of participatory democracy.

The people who should be voting on a decision as consequential as a presidential campaign are the hundreds of delegates who will be entrusted and elected by their chapters to represent the diverse visions for our organization at the 2027 National Convention. Springs of Revolution believes that power must be put back in the hands of DSA’s highest decision-making body.

Let Convention decide!

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Below is a poem written by a Central American migrant at the Casa del Migrante in Coahuila state in Mexico just days before crossing the border.

We are socialists who identify not with liberal narratives about immigration, not with the so-called American [sic] dream or the white supremacy it was built upon, but with Junior from Central America. A man who expresses in his poetry a radical conviction—that to fight for one’s own life is a human right that lies undifferentiated in every single one of us.

Luisa

Our Updates

Organizing for SOR Political Priorities

The core SOR leadership body has voted on several political and organizing priorities. These were decided by democratic process of debate, consensus-building and voting. They are, in short, our current long-term projects. Every newsletter we’ll be featuring a few of these priorities and how you can get involved in them. Are you an SOR network member that wants to help push the abolitionist, anti-imperialist, pro-Palestine line in DSA? Check out our full list of priorities here and apply to join any organizing teams that interest you.

- Socialism is the People

A common critique leveled at DSA is that we act as transplants in our communities and that chapters are out of touch with the communities that they claim to represent. SOR is taking NYC’s Socialism is the People campaign and expanding it to new chapters to get DSA members sincerely and meaningfully embedded into their neighborhoods to build working class power collectively.

- Prisoner Solidarity

One of our pressing duties as organizers is to create within our communities the breathing room for working people of all backgrounds with jobs, families, and needs of all types to engage meaningfully in the struggle. We are already seeing increased efforts by the justice department to criminalize and prosecute those engaged in protest activity of all kinds, in particular of ICE and Zionism. No one who resists imperialism and militarism at home will ever truly be free from the threat of a jail cell. We must proactively build the necessary structures to support our comrades when they are targeted by the state and discard any notion that they could be allowed to become lost in the carceral system.

New SOR Reading Group

Political theory is only as helpful as the action it inspires and enables. Springs of Revolution brings together an ideologically diverse field of organizers, but how do we connect the dots between our disparate bodies of knowledge and theory? What form of political organization do we want DSA to be? Many members of Springs of Revolution Core have taken significant inspiration from Rodrigo Nunes’ Neither Vertical Nor Horizontal. So in a process that could only be called dialectical, we are going back to the text as a group to reflect more intentionally on our own theory of organization! Whether you have read the book and want to discuss it with comrades, or have never thought about movement ecology, join us! We will be reading the Introduction, Chapters 5 and 6, and the Conclusions and we hope that all will have something to bring and something to take away from a comradely study and discussion.

Fill out this form to stay in the loop!

NPC News

Locals First: Building the Foundations

Over the past two weeks, we’ve approved a first batch of over 100 applications for Chapter Development Grants, from the $1M of direct funding to chapters that SOR won via our Locals First resolution. Over the next few months, chapters as small as Lakefront (64 members) and as large as Metro DC (3512 members) will be busy using this money to build a more durable infrastructural foundation for their work.

In Ohio, Dayton-Miami Valley members are screwing in new light bulbs at their new office (funded partially by Office Matching Funds). In Asheville, they’re buying plant bulbs for their Socialist Farm, and car bulbs for their brake light clinics. Northern California chapters will converge in Sacramento for a cross-chapter leadership retreat to foster regional collaboration. South Jersey is planning intentional relationship-building in working class Black neighborhoods, while Red River Valley is strengthening the participation of their rural branches in the chapter. Printers, big and small, are making their way to DSA offices across the country. Buttons are being pressed, flyers are being translated, and organizing materials are finally being moved from members’ car trunks to accessible storage spaces.

After the collapse of the second Bernie Sanders primary campaign and the election of a Democratic administration in 2020, DSA found itself in crisis. With underdeveloped national and local infrastructure and without the compass of a flashy national campaign to capture media spotlight, most chapters were not able to fully absorb the swell of new members who signed up during the 2016-2020 membership boom, and DSA began hemorrhaging members and tumbling toward financial precipice. Now that we are once again in a phase of growth, propelled by the second election of Trump, the movement against the genocide in Palestine, and high profile electoral victories by DSA candidates, we must heed the lessons of 2021-2024.

While external events and big national campaigns may trigger rapid surges of membership numbers, it is the slow spade-work that chapters do every day - getting coffee with a new member to learn about their interests, building trust among the local community, teaching Organizing 101 skills, hosting social events, knocking doors, facilitating democratic participation by parents and disabled comrades, checking in on their members after a hurricane - that improves retention rates and turns paper members into socialist organizers.

This is the kind of invisible labor that slowly builds a resilient organization able to weather the changes in political winds. This is the vision for DSA that we advanced with Locals First: developing every day, not just during the campaign cycle; powered by chapters; rooted in the community; and built on strong foundations.

Abolish ICE Grants

Chapters around the country are stepping up to defend their communities from ICE attacks and occupation. Many are developing neighborhood watch programs and running campaigns to stop deportations and free prisoners from concentration camps dotted around the country. This is extremely vital work and DSA is in a position to help strengthen these efforts.

Chapters gearing up to face increased ICE presence in their area are eligible to apply for a non-competetive grant and reimbursement of up to $5,000 each. This money can be used to soften administrative burdens, print canvassing material, host Know Your Rights events, buy equipment to record agitational media, and more. Need help filling out the form? Reach out to us at sor4dsa@gmail.com and we’ll assist you. Don’t let the opportunity to claim this money go to waste!

More Than The Sum of Our Parts

We recently had the pleasure of co-publishing a piece on Democratic Left written by our very own Francesca M. and Red Star Caucus’ Hazel W., examining the shifting nature of DSA’s national structures and our ability to respond coherently, rapidly and with efficiency to acute moments of crisis. With the first test case being the launching of the US/Zionist entity attack on Iran, the newly created Rapid Response Protocol championed primarily by Springs of Revolution and Red Star NPC members created a workable, tangible framework to build upon that can allow DSA to act as the truly national organization that we aspire to be.

From the piece:

Read the full text here.

FSIO: our contribution

Springs of Revolution made a couple interventions in the recent creation of the Federal Socialists in Office (FSIO) Committee.

First, it’s important that such a body is focused. It’s inevitable in any body with significant leverage that people will vie for access to it. Who should be in the room? Our guiding principle is that each member on the body should have a democratic constituency which they can advocate for. In deciding who should sit on the committee, SOR put forward an amendment to include a chapter representative from each FSIO’s district, in addition to the 5 NPC members and 2 NEC SC members on the committee. For this body to be effective in building co-governance with our FSIOs, it needs to de-silo the division between chapters and national.

Second, there was a desire to delay the formation of this body till Fall and make this an exploratory committee. We struck that out to make the committee the default starting now. Arguments for the delay were in the vein of convincing existing actors in DSA to give the project a shot. In our view, we could spend 6 months trying to explain the goal of such a committee with skeptics — or we could begin to prove its utility and let that speak for itself.

From the Organizing Frontlines

Data Centers, A Radical Unionist Perspective

Data centers are quickly cropping up in our communities, posing an immediate threat to our health and cost of living. While we know of the consequences of data centers, many trade unions are benefitting from the work data center contracts bring. We asked former union plumber and CT DSA member Will Pfeiffer to tell us why he left the trades upon realizing data center contracts would be in his future:

Free Us All, Reflections on Delaney Hall

From Cordelia - Chicago DSA

Abolition in Trump’s Second Term How can DSA respond to the anti-detention movement? According to a recent KFF report, since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term, 46 people have died in ICE custody. I quit smoking my senior year of High School. It was never going to be permanent, but for a year, I felt a lot more free. I started smoking again on the evening of October 18th, 2025. I started smoking again in Maywood, Illinois. The light at the corner of 25th and Lexington kept cycling. But traffic had been shut down for weeks. Across the street, behind a row of hedges, a warehouse held hundreds of migrants kidnapped during “Operation Midway Blitz.” On that day, outside of that warehouse, I pulled two friends from the arms of black-clad cops. The cops on the other side of the concrete retainers were not ICE agents, and they were not local police. They were employees of the Illinois State Police, and their paychecks were signed by democratic governor J. B. Pritzker. I started smoking again because I was offered a menthol after a long day. The smoke curled up towards a half-full moon, and for a moment, I felt the physical sensation of absolute helplessness.

Across the country, Democratic politicians in “sanctuary” jurisdictions have deployed police to defend immigration enforcement actions. Pritzker in Illinois was joined very quickly by Tim Walz’s deployment of the Minnesota National Guard in January. In the past few weeks, New Jersey’s democratic governor Mikkie Sherril has deployed New Jersey State Police to the Delaney Hall private prison. Recent reports indicate her state agency is sharing information with Trump’s F.B.I. Pritzker, Walz, Sherril have all expressed solidarity with the anti-detention movement in their streets. On several occasions, prominent faces in the democratic party have shown up to the daytime rallies outside ICE warehouses: Kat Abughazaleh in Broadview, Ilhan Omar in Minneapolis, and Andy Kim in New Jersey. And yet, protestors are still gassed. Detainees are still kept behind bars, and denied adequate food, healthcare, and sanitation. Detainees are still murdered through systemic neglect and violence. Cops keep killing us, regardless of their employer’s partisan affiliation.

Conditions on the ground at Delaney Hall are horrific. Ninety comrades have been arrested for protesting in solidarity with detainees. That solidarity should remain the core of our engagement, not just “showing up” to a site of conflict in the abstract. Because for all the teargas choking Newark’s streets, and for all the beatings and welts left on mothers and journalists, conditions inside are worse. The Trump administration’s reaction to the ongoing hunger and labor strike at Delaney Hall has echoes of the Attica Prison Revolt. Liberal responses to it do as well. Since the 1970s, and really since forever, prisons have been the places where the contradictions of capitalist society are most obvious. Mainstream liberal organizations and politicians may be mobilized now because the “wrong people” got taken this time. It is DSA’s role to not stop there. We should not stop anywhere short of total abolition—short of unconditional freedom for the kidnapped and starved inside Delaney Hall, inside Broadview, and inside every immigration jail across America.

The anti-detention struggles of 2026 rhyme with the abolitionist struggles of 2020. Mainstream democratic politicians, with their kneeling and fist-raising and spiked police budgets, are responding the same as they did six years ago. The organized left could also respond the same. But we shouldn’t. The re-invigoration of the abolitionist struggle presents us with an important opportunity to rectify the mistakes of 2020. It is not DSA’s job to lead the movement on the streets. It is not DSA’s job to just “show up” either. It is DSA’s job to leverage our political power and socialist vision to hold up the movement in the streets. We should be taking to the streets, connecting abolition to our socialist and anti-imperial politics—see my favorite anti-ICE chant: “ICE, KKK, IOF; they’re all the same!”—and linking arms with comrades in line against the pigs. From Delaney Hall to Broadview, from Attica to wherever the struggle may arise next, liberation is still possible. It is our job as socialists to help that organic liberation come about.

Sneak Peak: reflections on Chris Rabb’s victory

From Coop - Philly DSA

We are sharing a preview of an upcoming article by SOR and Emerge member Coop, who was deeply involved in DSA’s first congressional victory of the 2026 election cycle, Chris Rabb’s resounding triumph in the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District.

Initially when I heard Rep Rabb was running for the seat, I was unsure if it would be a DSA campaign as he had not been a member prior, but I still wanted to help as this man was instrumental in my political development and I was quite fond of him as a person. I reached out to the campaign and offered my help, initially just as a volunteer. It started to become clear that Rep Rabb and the campaign wanted this to turn into a DSA operation, and so we began hosting town halls in people’s homes and fundraisers to get to know him before he sought our endorsement. During one of these fundraisers at someone's home, we based it primarily around international solidarity and talked to him about the work we had been doing as Philly’s International Solidarity Committee and then trying to gauge his positions around these issues. It was clear that he believed what Israel was doing was a genocide, and that the Palestinian people deserved self-determination, but it was still not his area of speciality (which was primary around issues of abolition as seen within his many accomplishments and actions as a legislator). So after many conversations and questions during the event, as well as continued conversations after, we began to help shape his platform in regards to foreign policy, winning notable planks of the platform such as Right of Return, Palestinian Self-Determination, Sanctions on Israel, and many more. A few weeks later, Philly DSA decided to endorse Rep. Rabb because of conversations like this that demonstrated his willingness to listen and work with us. […] Following the endorsement it did begin to pick up steam, and we saw many other organizations within the city such as the Working Families Party and Reclaim take interest in endorsing and supporting his campaign.

[…]

The tension between Philly DSA, and individuals as well as other progressive organizations became clear at times in the field, when DSA canvasses would not get lists until the day of and sometimes got incorrect lists, as well as literature becoming increasingly less radical in messaging. The message in which Rep Rabb was strongest around abolition, also saw downplay in favor of the Affordability message. Affordability messaging in Philadelphia is strong within areas such as West and South Philadelphia where we are already strong due to the majority being transplants and younger people who rent, but in terms of expanding our bases into North Philadelphia which is primarily home owning Black Philadelphians it does not play as well as issues surrounding police patrols and the prison industrial complex.

Once it became clear that I no longer really had a real role within the internal portion of the campaign, I transitioned further into bolstering the DSA side of it. The first task that I wanted to begin was starting Anti-War focused canvasses in neighborhoods we had been ignoring throughout most of the campaign, primarily in the North Philadelphia neighborhood Strawberry mansion, which is one of the poorest areas of the city. So myself and a few others began to go out multiple days a week for many hours, and a few times we did full 9-5 canvass shifts talking to folx in these neighborhoods about the amount of money Philadelphia alone spends on the military and connecting that to the school closures and the crumbling infrastructure. We also gained valuable insights through conversations with folx who rarely got to talk about these things with people outside their communities, such as the increase in police violence against young men, the lack of rehabilitation after people had gotten out of prison, and what they saw as being forgotten by the system in which they helped build and maintained. Many people said they were simply not going to vote in this election, or that they had not even known that an election was going on. Many people would also say things along the lines of “After this is over we are never going to be seeing you again”. Many folx in these neighborhoods were quite happy to hear about our socialism and the messaging that followed. We did make a lot of success and noise within this area, as the ward we had primarily canvassed in was the ward that Rep. Rabb did the best within this area. But it was still very clear that while we continue to win in areas that are wealthier, whiter, and genuinely tend to vote for progressives, we still struggled in a lot of neighborhoods where socialism ought to be building its base. This is not to say that we lost outright in all non-white working class neighborhoods, as Rep Rabb did win many wards that progressives have never won in, but the work is still to be done.

Stay tuned for the full piece coming soon!

Are you on the frontlines? We’d love to feature you.

Your organizing deserves recognition. Is your chapter fighting ICE deportations? Building apartheid free communities? Campaigning against the building of a data center? We would love to hear from you! We are always looking for ways to uplift the incredible organizing that SOR Network members are doing. Reading about fellow comrades, their successes and failures has the potential to inspire more people to action. Fill out our submission form, reach out to us at sor4dsa@gmail.com or tag us on Signal. We can help you develop your idea or publish an already finished draft.

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Championing the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, calling unapologetically for Palestinian liberation and the Palestinian right to return, and aggressively refuting his opponents’ opportunistic indecision on the abolition of ICE and acceptance of AIPAC donations, Rabb’s triumph challenges a conception of democratic socialist politics arbitrarily limited to welfare expansion and affordability, demonstrating that a broader socialism rooted in liberatory politics and committed to undermining the carceral and imperial order is not only viable, but widely popular within and beyond DSA’s traditional base, powering Rabb to victory deep in black and working class neighborhoods that have long been written off as outside the scope of DSA’s electoral project, and is a useful reminder that our electoral performance reflects the shifts we win in the streets.

Rabb’s campaign, swept to the finish line by a national DSA endorsement that delivered thousands of dollars in crucial final phase fundraising and earned media attention, further illustrates the power of organizing led by rank and file members at all levels, from the neighborhood to the national organization. Springs of Revolution has long sought a robust federal electoral strategy that sees our congressional SIOs operating as a socialist bloc and unlocks the full strength of the national organization for locally endorsed campaigns.

These developments are the latest signals that DSA’s electoral project is entering a new phase: one increasingly under members’ democratic control and guided by the shared objective of bringing to birth a new, mass socialist party. Increasing coordination between chapter work and national bodies, such as with SOR’s One DSA, are the steps DSA must take today to incubate that party.

On the heels of Rabb’s win, our comrades in Marxist Unity Group have brought forward such a structural proposal improving national-chapter coordination - for DSA to form a Federal Socialist in Office committee. Springs of Revolution eagerly supports this proposal, and looks forward to supporting its implementation. There is much work to be done; we have a world to win.

Over the Long Haul

March 24th marked the one year anniversary of the martyrdom of Hossam Shabat. Writing on the passage of time in the face of her grief, my friend Samaa Khullar reflected “the sun somehow rose the next morning, and Eid came.”

The last month has presented itself with far too many moments of grief and mourning. Countless villages bombed into the ground in southern Lebanon; schools, hospitals, and homes wiped from the face of Tehran as though they were never there. At home, an imperialist intensification in the cost-of-living crisis and a genocidal, fascist government continuing to challenge our perceived bounds of its depravity.

It has often felt that nothing we do can meet the extent of the task in front of us. There is an eventual malaise in the rallies and pickets. The greatest, most existential threat to our movement is not the fascism staring us down, but the sense of helplessness within; the numbing lull of nihilism.

No matter how bleak the political moment feels, we know, from the benefit of experience, ranks grown from the tents of the encampments and the banners of the marches, what is possible when we organize. Our work over the last three years – which transformed the blood-soaked arms deals from a ritual of popular cruelty to a stain on the state so universally reviled that even the Zionist lobby must pay lip service to repudiate them – remind us that transforming the terrain beneath us is not only possible, but the arc of history that we are on and collectively building.

Our communities are deeply craving sustained action, leadership, and clarity, and people are moved to action when they see those around them doing so, too. I’m kept going by these glimmers of revolutionary optimism. Thousands of members successfully defending arms embargo and divestment organizing in NYC-DSA’s Anti-War Working Group elections. The SOR Network raising thousands of dollars overnight to bond out a Memphis DSA comrade from detention. Our chapters marshaling tens of thousands into the streets for Iran and Lebanon.

Despite the scale of the moment, we are rising to meet it. We have a world to win. It is a struggle worth a lifetime of commitment, and in the long run, we will win it.

Ethan, SOR KC

Locals First

It’s finally time to apply for the Locals First grants!!!

• The application is OPEN and due May 31: https://go.dsausa.org/grantapplication
  

• Make sure you check out our Chapter Guide to learn about the program timeline, requirements, application process, and FAQs: https://go.dsausa.org/cdg_guide. If you missed our Launch Call on April 6 where we presented this information, you can find (most of) it recorded on the DSA Forum.
  

• We still encourage chapters to fill the Interest Form ahead of submitting an application, so we know you plan to apply and can follow up on any questions ahead of the final submission: https://go.dsausa.org/lfinterestform

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Our Updates

On the Question of Endorsing AOC

Since 2021, Springs of Revolution has fought to establish a line against liberal Zionism in the socialist movement. Following years of struggle within DSA, we won R22: “For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA” in 2025 and forced a reckoning with DSA’s own history of Zionism and progressive politicians’ failure to meet the moment nationally. As we watched the genocide unfold, Democratic politicians, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, continued to defend Israel’s right to self-defense.

Passed in over sixty chapters and adopted at National Convention, R22 mandated minimum lines on Palestine for any candidate seeking DSA’s endorsement. AOC’s verbal commitment in NYC-DSA’s re-endorsement forum to oppose funding for “defensive weapons” to Israel and oppose the IHRA definition of antisemitism is a sea change won by the Palestine solidarity movement, both within and beyond DSA. Sustained, mass organizing to bring DSA’s electoral project in line with members’ minimum demands and to decisively shift the consciousness of the American working class on Palestine, made these shifts possible.

While her newfound positions on “defensive weapons” represent a significant step forward, AOC’s repeated refusal to vote with other DSA members in Congress and support local and national DSA candidates represent significant questions about the sincerity of her commitment to DSA. Her immediate clarification after the re-endorsement forum that she supports the Iron Dome but “the Israeli government is well able to fund [it]” continue to muddle her positions on the Palestinian cause and a full arms embargo on Israel. Taking these events into account, NYC Springs of Revolution voted against AOC’s re-endorsement.

As NYC-DSA voted to re-endorse AOC, we look forward to holding her—in line with all candidates seeking DSA endorsement—accountable to our organizational platform and her re-endorsement forum commitments with sustained action.

New York City DSA Anti-War Working Group Election

After a fierce battle to decide the future leadership composition of the New York City DSA Anti-war working group, we are extremely proud to announce that the Long Haul Slate has been elected to a majority of seats.

Despite the attempt to subvert the previously established, democratically decided standards for elections, the comrades who have been the most dedicated organizers in the working group have officially been recognized for that work by their fellow comrades and will continue to play the most significant role in advancing the internationalist, working class anti-war struggle in DSA’s largest chapter.

SOR warmly congratulates all members of the Long Haul Slate who campaigned at a moment’s notice during an acute period of confusion in the chapter and nevertheless prevailed in the majority because of their history of leadership in the working group.

May 9th SOR Fireside Chat!

It’s time for our second Springs of Revolution Fireside Chat. These are quarterly calls open to all SOR-pilled and SOR-curious DSA members to hear what SOR has been up to and discuss pressing organizing questions with each other.

In the upcoming Fireside Chat, we will:

• Hear a report-back from comrades recently in Cuba with the Nuestra América delegation

• Discuss how we should deal with the recent liberal Zionist re-orientation toward the talking point that the U.S. must stop providing military aid to Israel, while still selling weapons

• Learn about SOR’s new projects, including expanding the Socialism is the People’s campaign nationally, building independent electoral coalitions, starting breakfast programs in chapters, and how to get involved

• Discuss the state of the anti-war movement nationally, and how we can break the current stagnation in responding to Trump’s fast-paced military aggressions

We will follow this agenda with a more open-ended Coffee Hour (or Beer Hour, or Tea Hour, etc.) to keep chatting and socializing. Feel free to invite any SOR-curious comrades in your chapter!

🫵Join us on: Saturday May 9, 2pm ET/11am PT

Register here: https://bit.ly/SOR-fireside-2

Organize SOR Priorities

United Front

Did you love our 2025 convention United Front resolution? Sad it lost and want to give it a second life? Has your chapter experimented with, or is interested in, running candidates on a third party ballot line in coalition with other left and progressive orgs?

Check “Seed local United Front coalitions” in this form if you’re interested in getting involved in an SOR project committee to create resources for chapters who want to build electoral coalitions independent of the dems!

Socialism is the People

Socialism is the People is a robust model for DSA members to intentionally engage and embed themselves in their communities at the granular level. Too often our chapters act as “transplants” in their communities and are unable to build the sincere relationships with working class people and organizations, particularly those led by BIPOC people, that are needed to organize effective campaigns that can genuinely improve the lives of them and their neighbors. This is not a problem that can be overcome, and no truly mass organization capable of contending with capitalism can be built, without without a coherent plan and commitment sustained by chapter members who are willing to work outside of their comfort zone.

We will be launching this particular priority as a ‘pilot’ program where members of the SOR Core and Network will willingly take on this program at the hyper local level looking to achieve results and meet regularly with each other to discuss success and failures.

Are you interested in implementing the pilot version of Socialism is the People in your chapter and working with your SOR comrades to build a stable program that can be implemented around the country? Check “Spread Socialism is the People” in this form and we will add you to our work group’s Signal chat after vetting your Network membership.

Prisoner Solidarity

Join the Fight for Abolition!

The National DSA Abolition Commission, created at National Convention last August, is up and running and is ready to support abolitionist organizing across the country. In order to do this, the Commission is looking for your involvement. Join the Abolition Commission and develop anti-prison and anti-cop organizing in your chapter.

Directly message redsnapper.55 on Signal if you want to join the Abolition Commission, as onboarding logistics is still being worked on

Update at the NEC

The NEC’s Socialist Cash Takes out Capitalist Trash program is a key part of building our capacity to act like an independent party. This program raises money for solid DSA cadre candidates like Anti-Zionist Oliver Larkin. You can help with this program by joining phonebanks every other Sunday!

Learn more and RSVP for biweekly phonebanks at: https://electoral.dsausa.org/socialist-cash-takes-out-capitalist-trash/

Donate directly to Anti-Zionist candidate Oliver Larkin here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/az4larkin

If you want to get involved beyond phonebanking, please contact SOR member and NEC Steering member Eric Herde on Signal.

From the Organizing Frontlines

Viva Cuba!

From Nick W. - DSA North Texas

With the help of DSA North Texas, myself and a chapter comrade were able to bring over 200 lbs of life saving aid to Cuba and see first hand the effects of the 60 year long illegal siege on Cuba. Seeing the Cuban people living through the blockade was simultaneously beautiful and deeply disturbing. The Cuban people continue on with remarkable resiliency, caring for each other and striving to maintain normalcy despite everything. Living under the US blockade, however, is anything but normal, and people struggle to afford food, deal with constant blackouts, suffer from almost a complete lack of medicine, and are often forced to live in homes that are falling apart. Seeing the results of the blockade edified in me the fact that anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism, and internationalism must be core principles of our organizing and we must organize a movement that can end the US blockade of Cuba and U.S imperialism everywhere. Let’s make SOR be that fighting force that leads to finally ending the US blockade of Cuba. Read the exhaustive account of my trip to Cuba here.

Viva Cuba!

Easter Rising

From Austin B. - Philly DSA

A few weeks ago, Philly DSA and Springs of Revolution members joined local Philly-based Irish Republicans to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the Irish Easter Rising. Every year Irish Republicans across the globe gather to pay their respects to the many men and women who sacrificed their lives so that Ireland might one day be free. In Philadelphia, local Irish Republicans from a wide range of groups like Tar Anall America, local AOH/LAOH chapters and Palestine solidarity activists gather each year at the graves of three Irish Republicans to highlight the contributions they each made to the cause of Irish national liberation. Those three men are Luke Dillon, Danny Cahalane and Joseph McGarrity.

Luke Dillon (1850 -1930) of County Sligo was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood or Fenians and later a leader in Clan na Gael. During his life he fought for Ireland by helping lead multiple dynamite attacks on such targets as Westminster Palace, Scotland Yard and the headquarters of the Conservative Party. On his last mission he was captured by the Canadian authorities and spent 14 years in jail before being released in 1914. Upon his release continued fighting for Irish freedom by helping raise funds for the fledgling Irish government during the War of Independence.

Danny Cahalane of County Cork came to the United States in 1950 and was a member of Irish Northern Aid (NORAID). NORAID was founded by Irish-Americans to raise funds to support the families of interned Republican prisoners. Within the span of a few years it raised nearly $4 million dollars and had dozens of chapters across the country. Danny Cahalane in his role as chairman of the Delaware County chapter helped organize fundraisers, handed out copies of NORAID’s newspaper the Irish People outside churches, and according to US and British authorities led a covert ring of Irish expats that helped smuggle thousands of Armalites and other guns to his comrades in the Irish Republican Army. In 1977, Danny and his co-conspirators were indicted with IRA membership and covertly smuggling weapons to support the cause. The jury only convicted them on the smuggling charges and sentenced Danny and others to one year in prison.

Joseph McGarrity was the Chairperson of Clan na Gael and over decades of work helped smuggle guns that would be used in both the Easter Rising and the Irish War for Independence. He also helped organize Eamon DeVelara’s tour of America which helped raise millions of dollars for the Irish Republican cause and helped garner the movement much needed international legitimacy.

At the grave of McGarrity, Sinn Fein MP Chris Hazzard gave a speech highlighting the revolutionary Irish Republican tradition and the history of Philadelphia and its support for the Irish struggle for national liberation. In his speech Hazzard made reference to Irish Republicans’ continued support for the Palestinian liberation struggle and urged attendees to redouble our efforts.

We want to spotlight your organizing!

SOR is actively seeking and accepting newsletter submissions by network members who would like to see their organizing spotlighted in our newsletter! Everyday, chapters across the country are doing incredible anti-imperialist, abolitionist organizing to advance our priorities and build our movement. If you’re interested in working closely with us to develop an idea for a submission based on your local chapter’s organizing, please submit your idea using this form and we’ll be in touch.

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Passed in over sixty chapters and adopted at National Convention, R22 mandated minimum lines on Palestine for any candidate seeking DSA’s endorsement. AOC’s verbal commitment in NYC-DSA’s re-endorsement forum to oppose funding for “defensive weapons” to israel and oppose the IHRA definition of antisemitism is a sea change won by the Palestine solidarity movement, both within and beyond DSA. Sustained, mass organizing to bring DSA’s electoral project in line with members’ minimum demands and to decisively shift the consciousness of the American working class on Palestine, made these shifts possible.

Now, we look onwards to a generational shift in favor of Palestinian liberation. To repair trust with the socialist movement, we encourage AOC to state the reversal of her prior positions publicly, update her written platform, and clarify her explicit opposition to the Iron Dome. AOC should follow up the re-endorsement forum with sustained action.

While her newfound positions on “defensive weapons” represent a significant step forward, AOC’s repeated refusal to vote with other DSA members in Congress and support local and national DSA candidates continue to represent significant questions about the sincerity of her commitment to DSA. Taking the events of the re-endorsement forum into account, NYC Springs of Revolution will vote against AOC’s re-endorsement. If NYC-DSA chooses to endorse AOC, we look forward to holding her—in line with all candidates seeking DSA endorsement—accountable to DSA’s mission: advancing the causes of socialism and Palestinian liberation in the United States.

In the United States, our fascist government continues to escalate imperialist violence against occupied and oppressed people. Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria all face US-Israeli aggression for the expropriation of land and treasure. The imperial boomerang brings this international violence to the home front as ICE terrorizes American communities, disappears our neighbors, and renders civil freedoms moot. All our struggles are connected. No one is free until everyone is free.

Our duty is to the cause of liberation for all people everywhere - to throw a wrench into the imperialist machine and shield our communities from state repression. Nowhere are the contradictions and injustice facing humanity clearer than in Palestine. To liberate all humanity, we must liberate Palestine.

free the land, free the people.

where do rallies go?

War is the mundane collapse of normalcy. The screens punctuate the dramatic, the screeching missiles and death tolls and blaring sirens, but the real choreography is far more banal. The empty stock shelves, the quiet discussions on what and when, the quarrels that develop when you’re left with no outlets or reprieve from your loved ones. The uneasy tension of the unknown, the unanswered texts you bury deep in your mind, fretting an answer you worry may be true. Even missiles dull to a predictable thud, an hourly bombing routine must humanise to reflect the mood of the person carrying out the strikes and how they might feel that day. Over a hundred million lives are on hold, living in the shadow of drones and missiles, fretting the far less dramatic but far more life-threatening incoming collapse. Of cut power supplies, of loss of drinking water, of economic stress, of toxic rain and decades of cancer treatments, weekly sessions of chemotherapy that may leave behind clues on the price of “liberation” by empire. As our hearts remain firmly with our loved ones in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, and all over the region, we stop to reflect on our own efforts.

Rallies can often be mundane, too. As we saw weaker numbers across the country, we must understand rallies as negotiated spaces too. Some elements are pre-supposed, reflecting the historic concessions ceded to rallies in our domestic context, but far more interesting are the negotiations between the actors in those rallies; the marshal and the cop, the grieving and the ideologue, the chants and the routes. Rallies need not be pre-supposed, they’re a collective conversation between the rally troupe and an unassuming audience, negotiations between the energy of the crowd and the limits imposed upon them by the state. The boundary lines can always be re-negotiated. Rallies in Paris, France take on a different shape than they do in Duluth, Minnesota. In the course of the George Floyd uprising, there were inflection points when the bounds of a rally were renegotiated across many US cities. A rally can take a loop, or it can loop a police station, it can take a highway and a bridge, and it can occupy a square or building for months on end, it can turn into a “riot” or it can be slow-moving mass flowing through a city bookended by police escorts. The taking of physical space, conversation between different groups, and end-goal of a rally or assembly may always be a negotiation, but it shouldn’t be pre-supposed. They can be entry points to far more creative endeavours. Where should rallies go and what should they do aren’t answered questions.

As we reflect on our ability to fight against this war, what our levers are, and what we can build to stop the unceasing death rained on the lives of many we love, we must understand what limitations we impose on ourselves and which are imposed on us when we fight back. There’s no standard playbook; anybody who tries to sell you on the primacy of a single tactic over another is trying to sell you a book. While we look to the struggle against the Vietnam war and past tactics, we can’t completely cede our agency to being onlookers to those who resist the US empire in the Global South in wars exported from our backyards. We must recognise our role as actors too, with significant agency to prevent the death and misery of hundreds of millions of people, too.

In Solidarity,

ahmed

Locals First

The GDC committee overseeing the implementation of SOR’s Locals First resolution grants is up and running, and we have some important updates:

• Ask your chapter leadership to fill this Interest Form to express intention to apply for the Chapter Development Grant available to your chapter: https://go.dsausa.org/lfinterestform This is not the application, only an interest form - but please do fill it! The purpose of this form is to give the Locals First subcommittee of the GDC an idea of which chapters are interested in the grants, what work chapters are interested in doing with these funds, and any questions regarding the application process.

• Join us on Monday, April 6, at 8 pm EST / 5 pm PST, for an Informational Launch Call to find out more about the grants, how your chapter can apply, and ask any questions: https://go.dsausa.org/lflaunchcall

Our Updates

• A few days into the beginning of the war, DSA held a mass call on Iran with >1200 in attendance. Speakers across the country shared a history and analysis for our members. In rapid response, SOR members led and laboured over the sequence of events that were available to us. It was clear that this wasn’t a a moment, but the start of a prolonged next phase that demands growth and maturity from DSA and of our organizing ability. As we look forward to medium and longer term strategic prospects, we see an anti-imperialist movement that must now shed false pretenses of power and effect. The coming shocks will not be kind to the working class. It’s our duty to overcome it.

• On January 3, the Trump Administration kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. They remain imprisoned in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center today.
  

  What led up to this illegal act of aggression by the United States?

  How does this kidnapping of the leader of a sovereign nation fit into the long history of US imperialism in Latin America and Venezuela specifically?

  What can organizations like DSA—in the core of the US empire—do about it?

  
  Fill out this form to invite guest speakers to your chapter for this important conversation. A member of the DSA International Committee’s Venezuela Working Group will follow up with you to start planning an event.
  

• As part of the United States and the Zionist entity’s joint unilateral escalation against Iran, the IOF has commenced a new wave of airstrikes across southern Lebanon and Beirut. The confirmed death toll lies well above 800, with countless thousands internally displaced amidst this latest imperialist aggression. As internationalists, we know that each of these aggressions — most obviously Lebanon and Iran, but also recent escalations against Venezuela and Cuba — are part of a single broader system of imperialist domination on the part of the greatest state sponsor of terrorism in the world: the United States.

  

  Springs of Revolution has urged DSA chapters to renew efforts to fundraise for impacted people on the ground in Lebanon, and is encouraging members to donate to relief efforts: http://linktr.ee/beit.aam
  

• Earlier this month, New York City DSA’s Steering Committee opted to seize control of NYC-DSA’s Anti-War Working Group (AWWG), taking over its social media, members communications, and unseating its Organizing Committee, calling a new leadership election open to all chapter members in brazen violation of AWWG bylaws. Springs of Revolution has joined the chorus of over 600 members across the country in supporting AWWG, and in the resultant election is supporting the Long Haul Slate. AWWG’s organizing projects, from Break the Chain to Municipal Palestine Policy, have helped pave the way for arms embargo, local divestment, and internationalist labor organizing across DSA, and we are eager to see that work continue under this group of leaders.

  

Update at the NLC

Developing an internationalist labor movement in the U.S. requires us to think bigger about who we include in our labor movement spaces; part of that process starts with democratizing our own movement, creating inclusive organizational practices, and building up the capacity of new leaders. On the last NLC Steering Committee term, our Red Star comrades created an onboarding process to the NLC to help personalize the space and encourage new participation through chairing the NLC Membership Committee.

When I stepped into the role this term, I hoped I could build on that work. I’m excited to say that at the NLC SC retreat, I was able to build consensus around a revised onboarding process that will make it easier for DSA labor organizers to join the NLC. The updates included revising the join form to allow interested members to indicate what worker center and union they may be a part of and select organizing campaigns they’d like to be connected with — including immigrant rights work. As a result, I’ll be able to provide the chairs of our various campaigns with new leads to help shore up capacity. The Membership Committee will also hold regular orientations to help members get better plugged in and learn about how to engage in the space, and the process for joining NLC is now largely automatic, ensuring that new applications get accepted and approved on a regular schedule. My hope is that with these changes, the NLC’s membership will steadily grow, become more multi-tendency, and help us build a socialist and internationalist labor movement.

Martina - SOR NLC

Organize SOR Priorities

Over the past several months SOR leadership has met to establish a democratically chosen set of organizing priorities to pursue in 2026 that align with our principles and long-term ambitions. They will include both external and internal organizing projects like using the Arms Embargo and Abolish ICE committees to help chapters build campaigns, developing free breakfast and political prisoner support programs, creating a robust system to distribute Locals First funds to chapters and much more.

The SOR Network has grown to over 200 organizers from around the country, all with unique organizing experience and skills, many who signed up to help advance SOR’s political vision. Now we are asking comrades to step up and join one of the many priority groups we are assembling with SOR NPCers, core leadership and network members working together.

Ready to help build out one of our many projects? Use this form to find a list of all our priorities and let us know which groups you’re interested in joining.

From the Organizing Frontlines

Every Campus a Sanctuary

From Anna - YDSA University of Minnesota Duluth

Within YDSA nationally, Sanctuary Campus campaigns were born out of an immediate response to the second election of Trump, aiming to pre-empt and respond to the new administration’s promises of mass deportation. The campaign was first launched nationally with the 2025 April 3rd YDSA/SJP day of action and was officially passed as YDSA’s priority campaign at 2025’s YDSA Convention. Now there are dozens of YDSA chapters across the country running sanctuary campus campaigns.

The campaign is inspired by that of campaigns for sanctuary cities, they similarly aim to get legislative protections against attacks on immigrants, in the case of sanctuary campuses, demands usually consist of police non-cooperation with immigration enforcement as well as prohibition of ICE presence on campus, though the specifics vary a lot campus by campus, especially on public campuses, which are prohibited from refusing compliance with ICE as a result of an executive order.

Now, many so-called sanctuary cities have been completely incapable and unwilling to enforce any of their stated sanctuary policies, ICE is still free to operate and target civilians in “sanctuary cities” like Minneapolis, thus these policies often end up being of little material protection to migrant populations. This is a crucial flaw with sanctuary cities and is absolutely a danger for sanctuary campuses.

While some campaigns have had real successes, such as at my chapter, in the University of Minnesota Duluth, where we have been able to get concessions regarding barring ICE agents from entering private areas of the campus without a judicial warrant as well as enforcing the school’s policy prohibiting campus police from acting as immigration enforcements, we cannot ignore that ultimately policies will only ever be worth anything if they are actually able to be enforced. We all know that when it comes to standing up to the government’s attacks on the people, it will never be bourgeois institutions like school administrations or city councils that rise to the challenge, they will capitulate, they will not save us.

We know that the only way to truly resist and achieve victory is through organization of the masses, the prime function of campaigns by YDSA is not in gaining concessions, but creating and growing our organizational structures through helping the people gain self empowerment. But of course the masses are only truly organised if they are actually capable of accomplishing material goals. Campaigns that only aim to pressure the existing powers into giving us concessions, and that have no organizing goal beyond growth for the sake of growth, might be organizing but it is not empowering. Showing your members that they have the power to make real world changes, even small ones, is necessary to beat alienation and create truly organized masses ready to act.

Establishing Rapid Response networks is a quickly growing strategy to respond to the ICE threat nationwide. These are usually neighborhood-wide organizing networks that aim to monitor ICE presence in their communities and perform the duties of constitutional observers, recording the actions carried out by ICE agents. Rapid response networks have been the basis of Minneapolis’ resistance to ICE occupation and have become common in large parts of Minnesota, including Duluth, despite police and ICE intimidation and harassment of constitutional observers.

Rapid response can help fill the gaps of the sanctuary campaign, while most schools are not able to actually prevent ICE agents from entering their campus, establishing a rapid response network covering campus can help keep our communities alert and safe. This can also be a good opportunity to push more demands such as demanding that rapid response networks be able to use the school’s alarm systems to notify students of ICE presence, or using specific private areas of the campus as safe spaces students can retreat to if ICE is on campus.

Getting plugged into the already existing rapid response network in the neighborhood surrounding your campus, or if one does not exist working to expand your campus response network into the wider neighborhood community is also key. Being able to integrate your response network and campaign into the wider community will allow for the campaign to broaden, increase solidarity between students and the community surrounding them, allow YDSA to reach and organize non-college youth and allow for more collaboration and integration with their DSA chapters.

All that being said, while it is true that the more direct nature of rapid response certainly helps mitigate threats and gives organizers more agency than standard pressure campaigns, rapid response will only ever be a temporary defense method rather than a permanent solution to state terror. That is where YDSA and campaigning comes in, whilst rapid response does immediate harm reduction in the community it also should work as a way to embed yourself and DSA into your community, to recruit and develop the masses and forge them into a united, organized class. It is not a choice between campaigning and doing rapid response, the two will only accomplish their aim together, rapid response will allow your members to take direct action and actually materially reduce short term harm, whilst through campaigning they are building out the long term project of DSA and liberation for all.

We want to spotlight your organizing!

SOR is actively seeking and accepting newsletter submissions by network members who would like to see their organizing spotlighted in our newsletter! Everyday, chapters across the country are doing incredible anti-imperialist, abolitionist organizing to advance our priorities and build our movement. If you’re interested in working closely with us to develop an idea for a submission based on your local chapter’s organizing, please submit your idea using this form and we’ll be in touch.

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A Tale of Twin Cities

Growing up just across the Mississippi from the Twin Cities, always made it feel like a second home. There was no choice but to go back and be in solidarity with my neighbors for the 1/30 general strike. I joined thousands of workers in subzero temperatures, warmed by Somali tea and sambusas, in the street to demand ICE OUT. The moment felt truly different from many similar actions in the past, thousands had become radicalized by the terror ICE has waged in our communities; the anger was palpable. The speakers drew upon this anger highlighting its connections to the continuation of colonialism and imperialism, like ICE agents hiding away at Fort Snelling, a US military base initially constructed to ethnically cleanse the Dakota people, the same tactics and technology tested upon and used to ethnically cleanse Palestinians being brought to our streets to enforce a system of white supremacy. But what made this action feel so much different from others is that not only were people righteously applauding their frustration with these systems but what felt like a first to me, was community, and labor leaders calling for workers to harness their militancy to protect their communities, and the willingness of community to do so.

As much as things felt as if they changed over the weekend, they also stayed the same. Just one day later we took to the streets again to mourn the killing of Alex Pretti, to strengthen our bonds, and continue a struggle free ourselves from oppression.

Communities now more than ever are willing to come together to protect each other, there are more of us than them, and we will tear down the Fort.

In Solidarity,

A protester identified as "Andrew" who said he flew in from Colorado to help drive the feds out of the city.

Our Updates

• DSA is made up of 100,000 members in good standing for the first time ever. This historic milestone is the latest juncture in a sustained membership upswing kicked off with the 2024 presidential election and further bumped by Zohran’s election last year. This growth has been bolstered by our big national rapid response mobilizations, from the United States’ abduction of Nicolas Maduro in January to on-the-ground escalations against ICE occupations in Minneapolis and across the country. It has brought thousands of new members into DSA in the last few weeks, and we’re proud to have led in demonstrating what DSA can accomplish if we act together! (Read SOR’s full statement reflecting on the 100,000 milestone on our blog).

• Over the past two months, the people of Minneapolis have shown incredible solidarity and city-wide organizational capacity in responding to the ICE occupation of their city and the attacks on their neighbors. As the largest socialist organization in Minneapolis, Twin Cities DSA has been at the forefront of that response in coalition with others, coordinating patrols and ICE watch, raising money and supporting strike activity, disrupting arrests and developing strategies in real time to answer the terror of fascism descending on our cities. To that end, they are organizing a week of action in partnership with the Melt ICE Coalition from February 25th - March 1st to train people with tactics and plans that can be used everywhere. We encourage network members to attend the week of action to learn about the Twin Cities model from the organizers on the ground who responded directly — in real time — to the ICE threat in their communities and gained invaluable experience in a high pressure, high stakes situation. As ICE continues to threaten Minneapolis and other communities across the country and militaristic police force becomes more common amid social unrest; the open sharing of skills, tactics and knowledge amongst organizers will become a primary tool in the fight against fascism.

  

  Members can reach out to your chapter’s leadership or email us at sor4dsa@gmail.com for details on how to attend including assistance via solidarity housing and logistics.
  

• Since the Cuban Revolution and the fall of the US-backed Batista regime, Cuba and her people have been in the crosshairs of US Empire. Following the kidnapping of President Maduro and Cilia Flores of Venezuela and during a build up of military assets in West Asia in preparation with a war on Iran, the Trump administration has amped up the decades-long strategy of blockade and economic strangulation on Cuba’s people and their socialist project. Not long ago we witnessed firsthand the devastation that the blockade has inflicted on the country and commented on the dire circumstances and the suffering of the Cuban people. Now, conditions are desperate and starvation is imminent as the country struggles to meet the basic needs of their people like food and fuel amid the ban on trade. In response, Progressive International has announced a humanitarian aid flotilla to break the siege, save lives, and stand-up for the cause of Cuban self-determination. We are working with our comrades in national leadership to offer DSA support aboard the flotilla and through chapter organizing around the country. We call on network members to organize Cuba solidarity rallies with your comrades, donate as a chapter to support the flotilla via the Nuestra América Flotilla website, and take this opportunity to educate your newly politicized chapter members on the history of the Cuban project, the revolution and what is at stake if we allow it to fall.

  

Update at the NEC

Big thanks to everyone who voted in the NEC Steering Committee election. With your help, our endorsed candidate, Eric H, was elected with the most first choice votes out of all the candidates running. The election was just the beginning of our work in the NEC. There is a lot to do, and we will need your help to make sure DSA’s electoral work follows the anti-imperialist, partyist direction set by the rest of our organizing.

Final decisions on national endorsements are made by the NPC with recommendations made by the NEC SC. We need principled anti-imperialists to review the endorsement documents and participate in the interviews.

The next item that we need your help with involves fundraising for our endorsed candidates. Last year, the Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash campaign raised $111,000 for our nationally endorsed candidates. Building this fundraising capacity for our candidates is a key aspect of acting more like a party. These phonebanks occur every other Sunday. Please join us for the next phonebank tomorrow, February 22nd at 5pm Eastern/2pm Pacific.

Finally, if your chapter wants assistance with its electoral program, whether it is just starting or you are looking for ways to improve it, please contact us at sor4dsa@gmail.com or on Signal. If you’ve got experience in electoral organizing, we can plug you into this support work. If you or any other comrades you know are interested in electoral organizing from an anti-imperialist and partyist perspective, we always need more people like that to join the NEC!

Join the GDC, Implement Locals First!

After sweat and tears, last month the NPC passed a revised version of one of our signature convention resolutions, Locals First — allocating over $1M to chapters, with $850k in Chapter Development Grants pre-allocated to each chapter to fund campaign work, equity and administrative activities, and events. (You can read more about the odyssey to pass this resolution in our last newsletter.)

As part of the implementation, we are forming a dedicated team under the Growth and Development Committee (GDC) to oversee the distribution of these grants. You can apply to join the GDC through this form (indicate “Matching Funds/Chapter Grants” as your area of interest) and work with Andrew and Francesca to build strong, well-resourced chapters!

From the Organizing Frontlines

Labor Solidarity Against ICE

From John M. - Connecticut DSA

In solidarity with the Minneapolis Day of Truth and Freedom, CT DSA led rallies in 4 cities across the state, engaging hundreds of workers, immigrant justice organizations, socialist militants, and community members. However, the last 2 years of live-streamed genocide and mass mobilizations have taught us that street protests will only go so far. While mass action was possible in Minneapolis under the immediate threat of fascist state repression, the need to proactively prepare for sustained, long term mass community and economic action is clear. That’s why CT DSA has endeavored to begin a new plan - worker circles and a Strike ICE pledge.

Initiated by the CT DSA Labor Working Group, including SOR Network members, DSA members are mapping their workplaces and communities to understand where and how people congregate and move. Getting back to labor organizing basics, members are identifying high-traffic areas, chokepoints, decision makers, and leaders that would be relevant to future ICE raids should they spread to our state. In each worker circle, a single person at a time is selected for the rest of the workers to ask open-ended questions. The expertise comes from the individual’s experience and knowledge of their workplace and the collective curiosity of the group. The outcome of this exercise will be an immediate few with well developed plans and many with the tools to develop their own plan for organizing their coworkers against ICE attacks. DSA labor organizers will hold trainings and resources about how to ask good questions, be curious about local material conditions, and guide toward practical, actionable realizations. This will culminate with a challenge to build an effective plan for organizing their coworkers against ICE attacks, and eventually to take and ask their coworkers to take the Strike ICE pledge, committing to take mass action in the event of escalated repression in their community the likes we see in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

At a recent Mass Meeting called by the chapter, workers in fields as diverse as biomedical research, theater operations, building trades, and baristas (most non-union) zeroed in on potential plans in the event of an encounter with ICE. While the space was largely filled with DSA members with at least passing understanding of the current political moment, it was a clear proof of concept that could be applied elsewhere. The hypothesis is that by establishing and replicating this form of worker-led organizing, workers are empowered to lead where they know best: in their workplaces and communities where ideas regarding ICE response can be identified, and organizing plans of action can be created.

Hartford and New Haven are leading the charge and will have their first meetings by the first week of March. We look forward to reporting back on the results!

FARA For Us? DSA Stands Firm

by T-21C

The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on February 10th to discuss Foreign Influence in American Nonprofits. As was noted by several of the Democratic committee members, the hearing was a partisan sham that fixated on foreign connections to liberal and Left organizations when Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a policy memo last February signaling the Department of Justice would not enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and Trump’s foreign business entanglements and open corruption (including accepting a $400 million jet from Qatar).

The goal is to use FARA to revoke the tax-exempt statuses of left-wing nonprofits. Organizations tied to multi-millionaire Neville Roy Singham (e.g. People’s Forum, Breakthrough News) bore the brunt of the attacks from the hearing’s partisan witnesses (besides Robert Weissman from Public Citizen—the token reasonable witness). Singham has ties to the Communist Party of China, which is what is enabling the fascists in Washington to justify going after organizations he’s contributed financially to, such as PSL. Herein lies a strength of DSA’s organizing model in that we are completely funded by member dues, making us much more resistant to this particular line of attack.

Adam Sohn, one of the partisan witnesses, did attack DSA though during his testimony. While admitting that we don’t receive foreign funding, he did accuse us of defending sanctioned countries abroad and delegitimizing “U.S. enforcement institutions at home, particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.” Sohn testified on how dangerous it is to US Empire that we connect US imperialist violence abroad to US fascist violence at home and are organizing and fighting against both sides of the same evil. And he’s damn right!

We want to spotlight your organizing!

SOR is actively seeking and accepting newsletter submissions by network members who would like to see their organizing spotlighted in our newsletter! Everyday, chapters across the country are doing incredible anti-imperialist, abolitionist organizing to advance our priorities and build our movement. If you’re interested in working closely with us to develop an idea for a submission based on your local chapter’s organizing, please submit your idea using this form and we’ll be in touch.

Follow us:

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For the first time ever, more than 100,000 people are DSA members in good standing. The United States stands at a crucial juncture. Under Trump and his far-right government, unchallenged by a bought and controlled Democratic opposition, we are witnessing an empire in decline lash out with violence and aggression — attempting to starve the people of Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela into submission and subjugate the Palestinian people with a normalizing ‘Board of Peace’, all while re-asserting the control of the domestic ruling class, consolidating more and more capital in the hands of the wealthy at the expense of organized labor, depriving millions of healthcare and public assistance, and retaliating openly with armed thugs in the streets against anyone who resists, from immigrant neighbors standing up against ICE to students calling for Palestinian liberation.

At this juncture, DSA — buoyed by a historic membership resurgence in the last 16 months — has emerged as the leading force on the anti-establishment left, rapidly cohering what is becoming the strongest socialist party in American history.

While many identify DSA as inheriting the ideological lineage of a post-Harrington social democratic politics, burnished by the membership swells foretold by the campaigns of Bernie Sanders and AOC, the DSA of 2026 is an organizing project moving on many fronts, assembling politics that supersede the ballot box, contesting the labor movement and the streets, weaving deep into every corner of working class life. DSA is not only the organization built by the electoral victories of the Squad and its successors, but a project that has synthesized these victories with the George Floyd uprisings, the Gaza solidarity encampments, and the popular resistance against ICE thugs.

DSA is the party that it is today because of its unique ability to cohere these different terrains of struggle under the socialist banner. Its capacity to continue growing, in the face of further spiraling fascism ahead, will rely on our willingness to leave nothing on the table — investing deeply in interventions across the tenant and social movements, a resurgent and militant labor movement — and marrying the social practice we’re scaling in the neighborhood to the disciplined socialist electoral project we’re building within and beyond the legislatures.

For a DSA of the millions. For resistance until liberation.

Springs of Revolution

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new ideas take time to ripen

Less than two days into the new year, we were jolted awake to news of the brazen kidnapping of President Maduro and First Lady Flores. In the span of a few hours, dozens of DSA chapters across the country were on the streets rallying. By the following weekend, over 50 chapters rallied across 47 cities together with a broad united front of left organisations. In the rain and snow, from Boston to O’ahu, DSA chapters came together to stand against US imperialism and ICE terror.

The work and ideas underlying this mobilisation took years to ripen into action. Challenging the orthodoxy of how things have been done will always rouse many opponents. We’re no strangers to this. Past ideas we’ve introduced — like implementing strict anti-zionist standards, or increasing chapters’ share of dues income, or forming a united front with other left and national liberation organisations as we saw last week — have faced vicious internal opposition before becoming organizational consensus. New ideas that fundamentally shift people’s understanding of what is possible demand time, patience, and unrelenting work to blossom. Today, we see the fruits of that labor with new-found majorities.

Our path ahead remains dark and rugged. With ICE’s murder of Renee Good, a new cycle of violence, breakthrough, and resistance has begun in Minneapolis. Our comrades in the Twin Cities are fighting back in the streets and in the workplace with a general strike coming up on 1/23 supported by hundreds of stores, organisations, unions, and politicians. Regardless of how deep it will turn out to be, it is the first attempt at a strike of this kind in the mainland United States in over 80 years. What new majorities and tactical horizons will the strike usher in?

Not unlike the George Floyd uprising or Ferguson or the student intifada, we know every tactic goes stale within weeks, and every breakthrough we make will be contained in months. It is the nature of going up against the world’s most powerful empire. The moment ahead continues to demand working class discipline, creativity, and collective genius. Yet, with new ideas and unrelenting perseverance, we can and will overcome the fascist terror unleashed on our communities. Revolution may just need a little more time to ripen.

Solidarity,

Ahmed

Our Updates

No War on Venezuela!

• DSA’s quick, deep response to the Trump Administration’s imperialist war of aggression on Venezuela was the culmination of SOR coordination across the organization, in close collaboration with 21st Century Socialism (Luisa M’s caucus). We saw many of the best emergency response practices SOR has championed for years come to fruition, backed by a cross-tendency consensus on the NPC: a coalitional communications push in partnership with PSL and PYM, a mobilization of our chapters in dozens of well-organized local rallies on the January 10th Day of Action (see some report-backs in the From the Organizing Frontlines section below), and a marshalling of our electoral and labor projects to Venezuela’s defense, with template communications written by SOR and 21CS leaders being utilized across the NEC and NLC for our socialists in office and rank & file union members.

• The national mass emergency call on January 6, emcee’d by Luisa M and featuring a number of speakers from SOR and 21CS, showcased much of this multifaceted organizing approach in action. Thorough outreach work from the NPC and TARC activated an energized base of thousands of DSA members ready to answer our calls to action.
  

• SOR’s member on the NLC Steering Committee, Martina M, helped co-author a template resolution for union locals providing strong messaging against US aggression on Venezuela and offering concrete opportunities to begin agitating rank & file members around anti-imperialism and to bring labor activists into the anti-war struggle. We encourage all union members to consider taking this up in their local!

• Of course, our response in the aftermath of January 3 wasn’t perfect — structural obstacles to members taking control of political work and an organizational adolescence in DSA’s ability to coordinate mass protest organizing continue to be organizing constraints we must contend with — but thanks to the resilience and grit of our members, DSA is stepping more and more confidently into an increasingly leading role at the nexus of the anti-war movement.

Abolish ICE! Justice for Renee Good! Support Twin Cities DSA!

• SOR brought R26 (Fight Fascist State Repression and ICE) to the 2025 Convention because we recognized that state terror against immigrant communities would continue to escalate. We correctly identified the struggle against ICE as a potential source of rupture that DSA needed to urgently get ready for, and we were the only tendency to present a proposal to proactively scale-up DSA’s organizational infrastructure to meet the moment.

  The January 7th murder of Renee Good comes at a time where daily videos of ICE terrorizing communities have already brought working class people of this country close to a breaking point. In response, Twin Cities DSA and other chapters around the country have mobilized to demand justice for Good and the abolition of ICE, but as an organization we are already late on building a broad and robust national strategy. Now is the time for chapters to develop emergency response protocols learning from the frontlines in Minneapolis, build local coalitions, participate in ICE watch programs, demand that your electeds support policies of non-collaboration with ICE, and experiment with new tactics — and for DSA as a whole to synthesize advanced local experiences into a national plan to train and support chapters.

  While we race against time to establish a national Abolish ICE Committee to carry out this work at the national level (see the next section below), we call on Springs of Revolution members and supporters to use this moment to build your chapter’s capacity and make use of SOR spaces to share successful tactics with comrades in other chapters.

• There are several ways that you can throw your support behind the working class of Minnesota and our Twin Cities DSA comrades. Organize a fundraiser event or ask your chapter members to donate to Twin Cities DSA to cover costs like running neighborhood patrols to monitor ICE activities, providing mutual aid to neighbors who need to shelter at home, printing Know Your Rights materials, and rental spaces for training and community gatherings. Or join recurring NLC phonebanks over the next several days leading up to the January 23rd city-wide general strike to raise strike support money — the first one was a huge success and raised over $5,000 in just a couple of hours!
  
  RSVP for the 1/21 phonebank here & 1/22 phonebank here.

Thank you for joining our first Fireside Chat!

• On January 18th, SOR hosted our first ever quarterly Fireside Chat where SOR network member Chris delivered a fantastic presentation on the strategy and progress of the Elbit Out of South Carolina campaign; Luisa M briefed us on updates from Venezuela and how we can continue to agitate against war; our NPC members shared report-backs including the passage of our revised Locals First resolution with an overwhelming majority; and we discussed lessons and challenges from our local organizing with 40+ attendees from a diverse range of chapters.

• We plan to continue with a quarterly cadence for these calls to highlight the incredible organizing that SOR members and supporters are doing around the country, and to keep our network abreast of the progress we are making to advance our priorities in DSA at the national level. If you would like your chapter’s anti-imperialist and abolitionist organizing to be spotlighted on the next Fireside Chat call, reach out to us in the SOR network chat or email us at sor4dsa@gmail.com.

Join the Arms Embargo & Abolish ICE Committees

A few weeks ago, the NPC announced that it was opening applications for the Arms Embargo Committee and the Abolish ICE Committee, as mandated by Convention’s passage of SOR’s flagship resolutions R22 (For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA) and R26 (Fight Fascist State Repression and ICE). Recruitment season for these bodies is in full swing, and SOR is working to ensure that both committees will be well-equipped with effective, capable comrades prepared to hit the ground running and build up national coordination for DSA’s Palestine solidarity and immigrant justice organizing.

If you are interested in applying, don’t hesitate to reach out — and if you know anyone in your chapter or national body who would be a qualified applicant, pass them the application links! In addition to the at-large seats for each of these committees, which will be selected by the NPC using an STV ballot after the upcoming January 27 application deadline, several national bodies will also get to appoint representatives as liaisons, so if you are a member of the International Committee, Abolition WG, Mutual Aid WG, and NEC, keep an eye out for application notices.

From the Organizing Frontlines - Hands Off Venezuela!

DSA North Texas

From Saya C.

The North Texas chapter does not yet have the most robust history of anti-imperialist organizing that other DSA chapters have to offer. Slowly over the past two years we’ve been playing catch up and building our capacity alongside other anti-imperialist organizations like PYM, PSL, DFW Anti-war Committee, and others.

With that has come a core of extremely dedicated comrades who can be relied upon to plan rallies, speak eloquently to a large audience, and work alongside other organizations doing security, liaising, legal observing, etc. After some time on break, we came back from the holidays with a renewed sense of pride for the work we are doing and love for the community that we have built while doing it.

When we were called upon to mobilize for a day of action in solidarity with Venezuela in such a short period of time, we immediately got to work planning our DSA-led rally and reached out to our partners in other organizations for help which they were more than happy to oblige. We met every day, filling roles, building a speaker list, creating signage, and doing outreach. It was thrilling–as good organizing usually is and I was overwhelmed with pride to see comrades, some newer to the chapter, some more experienced than myself, come together with such focus and care for the work.

In the end, our rally in downtown Dallas went off without a hitch (okay just a few hitches), we drew a sizable crowd for such a cold and windy night and the Dallas Morning News covered our rally where I was cited by the reporter, calling out the Trump admin for the crimes against the global south and this deadly attempt at propping up a dying empire.

The news of President Maduro, First Lady Cilia Flores’ was jarring in its boldness but we were inspired by the immediate response of Venezuelan organizers on the ground demanding the return of their elected leaders and the pace at which DSA and other organizations took to the streets to demand consequences for those responsible for yet another imperialist crime. I’m proud of what we pulled together on such short notice and of my comrades who continually humble me and remind me what it means to fight for justice, not just for the US working class but for all working people of the world.

Philadelphia DSA

From Jordan D.

300 people braved the rain Saturday to show up to our Venezuela Rally!

Our march took us from City Hall to the Federal Detention Center building, where speakers highlighted the connection between the use of ICE in cities and the US’s bloody interventions into Latin America.

We had a wide range of speakers, from elected officials such as Philly DSA’s endorsed State House representative Rick Krajewski, to our NPC member Francesca, to myself from our Local Political Committee, Jelly from the Venezuela Coalition, and Talia from Philly PSL!

It was a great show of solidarity, with 30 organizations co-sponsoring our march, ranging from PSL to a local queer small business! Final shout out to Delaware and South Jersey DSA who came out in force — Delaware DSA even brought tarps which kept our speakers and sound system dry!

News from the NPC

• We did it! A revised version of Locals First passed 21-2 at the last NPC meeting, earmarking over $1 million in new funding for chapters! After learning that we would not be able to increase dues-share rates outside of convention due to the Democracy Commission package passed by the 2025 Convention, we racked our brains to find a way to fund chapters as straightforwardly as possible. After months of meetings, pouring over spreadsheet math, drafting multiple versions of the resolution, and talking to every single political bloc on the NPC, we managed to pass a version that broadly maintains the political intention of the original resolution — to allocate money to chapters proportionally to their size, as easily as possible, with leeway to decide what to use that money on — while meeting legal and compliance requirements and negotiating the maximum amount that could gather a majority. The final result is within the error margins of the original amount that chapters would have gotten in 2026 had our original Locals First resolution passed at convention!

  How will chapters get the money? $850,000 are allocated in Chapter Development grants — each chapter will be able to apply for a grant of a fixed amount, determined by their membership size at the beginning of 2026. For the grant to be approved, the chapter just needs to demonstrate they have a plan to use the money toward a wide range of purposes that advance DSA’s mission, including campaign work, membership engagement, equity programs, and administrative activities — if this basic requirement is met, 50% of the grant will be disbursed up front and the remaining 50% after submitting an initial grant report. We also allocated $150,000 in Growth Bonuses, which will be automatically distributed at the end of each quarter to chapters that grew above national average in that quarter — no action needed! Additionally, we replenished the Office Matching Funds back up to $100,000, adding $35,700 to the $64,300 amount previously in the fund.

  What are the next steps? What can chapters do to plan? We have to first convene a subcommittee of the Growth and Development Committee to implement the Chapter Development grant program — we are hoping to open applications within the next month, and to be able to distribute the first disbursement by early Spring. In the meantime, start having conversations in your chapter to decide what you want to use the grant toward: you can expect to receive roughly $9.6 per chapter member as of January 1, 2026 (e.g., a chapter with 200 members on Jan 1 will receive around $1920). Look out for further announcements in the forums!

• The SOR NPC members are doing chapter visits! Interested in one of our NPC members visiting your chapter to report back on our trips to Cuba or Honduras or to speak on organizing around Venezuela, Palestine, or ICE? Reach out to us in the SOR network chat or email us at sor4dsa@gmail.com to schedule a date and time.

  

We want to spotlight your organizing!

SOR is actively seeking and accepting newsletter submissions by network members who would like to see their organizing spotlighted in our newsletter! Everyday, chapters across the country are doing incredible anti-imperialist, abolitionist organizing to advance our priorities and build our movement. If you’re interested in working closely with us to develop an idea for a submission based on your local chapter’s organizing, please submit your idea using this form and we’ll be in touch.

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They are Afraid of Us Because We are Not Afraid of Them

When I traveled to Venezuela for the 2024 presidential elections, I met a sweet older comrade from Zambia. We discussed many topics, from marriage and children to the different ways global north hegemony can imperialise one’s mind, especially living in the US. I explained how DSA comrades still mentally struggle with Venezuelan & Palestinian solidarity. He told me, we do not choose our battles where we are (US, Zambia, etc). We fight them & we do our best. He is an elder comrade in a country plagued by poverty from corruption imposed by international corporations. He did not choose any of these circumstances under which to struggle politically, he just serves the public with the message of justice, socialism and peace the best he can.

Honduras is a poor country as well, often hovering as the third poorest in America after Haiti and Guatemala. It is difficult to succinctly explain how this level of poverty expresses itself in day-to-day life as a Honduran. However, one way life has measurably been improved is by organized political will, namely that of Libre (Partido Libertad y Refundación), the party of democratic socialism. I had the opportunity to visit Tegucigalpa as an electoral observer for the November 30th presidential elections along with SoR comrades Andrew T. and Francesca M. Honduras is effectively the Colombia of Central America (the latter which is also known as the Israel of Latin America), a tropical paradise where the US decided to build an enormous military base to terrorize and control both the country and the region, the largest U.S. military base and occupation in the region. This has weighed heavily on Honduras’s ability to develop basic infrastructure such as highways. These are only built if in service to empire. That is until Libre’s Xiomara Castro came along and won the 2022 presidential elections. Despite having a minority in every chamber, Libre was able to build thousands of schools, eight hospitals, and a highway system that greatly improved the daily life for rural campesinos traveling to sell what they’ve grown. The minimum wage was increased between minimally from 5.5% to 7% depending on the size of the business, and poverty was improved from 74% to 60% during this same time period.

However, rudimentary improvements to the lives of poor brown people are generally intolerable to the US government, be it domestically or internationally, which is why just ten days before the elections Congressperson Maria Elvira Salazar called a special meeting of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. This is where she proclaimed without blinking once, “The voters of Honduras are at a crossroads. All I am saying is do not elect a communist. The eye of the United States is upon Honduras this November 30th.” Also present and testifying at that meeting was lobbyist and former US ambassador to OAS Carlos Trujillo, a man who also worked for a firm named ZEDE Próspera — a corporation characterized by Progressive International as “an “anarcho-capitalist” attempt to carve out a corporate colonial enclave in defiance of Honduran law and sovereignty, backed by US investors such as Peter Thiel.” Add to all this Trump’s unsolicited tweets endorsing narco-candidate Nasry Asfura of the National Party and we can see why the US government feels threatened by our comrades in Libre.

Now, despite a week after election day, all three parties are proclaiming fraud during an election that was objectively stacked against the left presidential candidate, Rixi Moncada of Libre. While our time in Honduras was short, we all felt the heavy shadow the US government casts on this small country in Central America. Our last two days were sad and frustrating to know that over 1,800 miles from Washington DC, Hondurans were forced to calculate the oppressive weight of the US government in their political decisions.

But as my Zambian friend told me, the Honduran left did not get to choose these battles. Nor do those of us in the US who choose to take on empire, to decry genocide, get to pick our fights. We just do the best we can and know in our hearts we have the solidarity of our comrades in the global south. And our role is to organize within DSA so we can proclaim proudly we are in solidarity with them too. Because we are not free until they are free.

Amor y lucha,

Luisa

Our Updates

DROP TISCH!

• Springs of Revolution, along with Emerge, Liberation, LSC, R&R, and MUG NYC, have signed onto Within Our Lifetime’s movement letter, supported by 100+ organizations, calling on Zohran Mamdani not to re-appoint billionaire heiress and career Zionist Jessica Tisch as NYPD Commissioner.
  

  Tisch’s record is inseparable from the NYPD’s direct collaboration with the Israeli occupation. At home, Tisch’s tenure has revived Broken Windows–style policing that has long terrorized Black and Brown New Yorkers. The Tisch family is also a pillar of the NYC Police Foundation, which created and funds the NYPD’s international liaison program and its satellite office in Kafr Saba, occupied Palestine. These connections place Tisch at the intersection of the billionaire class, the NYPD’s global footprint, and Zionism, revealing how local repression and settler-colonial occupation are structurally linked.
  

  Read the full letter: https://tinyurl.com/DropTisch

  

• NYC-DSA held chapter elections in November, and Springs of Revolution, alongside Emerge and other caucuses, supported the Brick by Brick slate for branch and chapter leadership. We warmly congratulate all BxB candidates who won their elections, including three members of the SoR network! As NYC-DSA faces tasks of huge importance to the movement for socialism – from navigating Zohran’s first days in office to considering key questions of chapter democracy and an electoral project committed to Palestinian liberation – we know that BxB chapter officers will lead the way.
  

• In November, DSA officially reached the 90,000 member milestone. This is without a doubt, in large part due to the successful campaign of Zohran Mamdani, a campaign that many SoR members and allies were proud to have volunteered for. Not only is Mamdani the first Muslim Mayor of NYC, for SoR, the Mamdani election is significant because it is a bellwether for the massive shift in public opinion about the state of “Israel”. Despite fair criticisms that can rightfully be made of Mamdani, the simple fact that he spoke openly of the genocide while facing relentless attacks by the Zionist lobby and politicians at the highest levels of government – and won – offers hope for a reversal in the near unanimous mainstream political support for arming and aiding the Zionist entity. While we believe that Palestinian Liberation will ultimately be won by Palestinians themselves, we welcome any cracks in the decades-old, bipartisan US support for the Zionist entity.
  

• We want to give a special shout out to and express solidarity with DSA comrade, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib who has introduced a bill alongside 20 other congresspeople in the House (HR.876) that would officially recognize the genocide of the Palestinian people, compel the US to comply with international law and use every political tool at its disposal to intervene and stop the genocide. This would include the “cessation of relevant arms and equipment transfers; the investigation and prosecution of individuals and corporations in the United States implicated in the crime of genocide; compliance with the orders of the International Court of Justice and the investigations of the International Criminal Court; and targeted, lawful sanctions with respect to the State of Israel and individuals or corporations involved in or facilitating the commission of genocide.” While we recognize the current political realities preventing this resolution from passing, we commend and applaud Tlaib for continuing to fight for the dignity, lives and self-determination of Palestinians; and using her voice and vote in office to stop the genocide and hold those responsible accountable.
  

• The Abolition Working Group is hosting a Deescalation and Marshall Training on Wednesday, January 7th at 7:00P CT. Learn from experienced DSA members about how you can help to keep marches and actions safe and inclusive. Get concrete skills for how to de-escalate conflict situations, especially with counter-protestors and other hostile actors at DSA events. We are unable to link the training here but we highly encourage SoR members to seek out, attend this training and carry the skills learned forward into your local organizing and campaigns. If you need help finding the sign-up link, please reach out to us.

Race for the NEC Steering Committee

Springs of Revolution is running Eric H on an internationalist, chapter-building platform for the DSA National Electoral Commission Steering Committee. Eric serves in the Springs of Revolution core, has led the Tacoma chapter’s electoral work for the last three years, and is currently a Co-Chair of the Washington Legislative Socialists in Office Committee. He joins comrades from Marxist Unity Group for a cross-endorsed group of four candidates in the on-going election that closes at midnight Pacific time tonight, December 7th. One of the MUG comrades, Curtis R, has done amazing work in the past term improving the national endorsement process, making it more transparent and responsive. In the next term, he plans to prioritize building out the rank-and-file portions of the Endorsements Subcommittee. The other two, Chanpreet S and Morgan R, led the Socialist Cash fundraising project, which raised $111k for our nationally endorsed candidates for local office across the country, including SoR core member Zev C in her race for Tacoma City Council. In the next term, they plan to expand the Socialist Cash project and raise $250k for our endorsed candidates in 2026.

While our MUG comrades continue improving the endorsement process and support for endorsed candidates, Eric will be focused on improving our SIOC structures and helping chapters to run class struggle campaigns and clearly articulate our steadfast solidarity with Palestine.

If you are a member of the NEC and haven’t voted yet, please vote and follow this ranking order:

1. Eric H

2. Curtis R

3. Morgan R

4. Chanpreet S

Submit your ballot by midnight PT tonight!

From the Organizing Frontlines

• In the face of newfound saber-rattling by Trump over plans to wage a regime change war against Venezuela, SoR has been proud to support the NPC in taking a strong position condemning prospective American intervention. DSA endorsed Saturday’s No War on Venezuela Day of Action, which saw rallies in more than 40 cities, several bottomlined by DSA chapters. We’ve also supported firm, clear messaging coming from the IC and a number of chapters denouncing the remilitarization of Puerto Rico as part of Trump’s aggression on Venezuela. As socialists in the imperial core, we have an obligation to stand in unflinching solidarity with the working class of a country that has been devastated by US sanctions and imperialism. We’re proud to see DSA helping lead the charge.

  

  If you’re interested in organizing to prevent a war in Venezuela, register for the next Venezuela Solidarity Working Group meeting on December 9th at 6pmPT/9pmET.

  ---

News from the NPC

• Following our trip to Honduras, Luisa, Andrew, and Francesca are actively seeking chapters who would like to schedule a visit either in-person or virtually to deliver a report back. If you’re interested in scheduling a report back visit, please email us at sor4dsa@gmail.com or reach out to us via Signal.

• We were proud to work with and support our NPC allies at Marxist Unity Group by voting affirmatively to pass their resolution establishing the Red Rabbits Security open-commission body. Expectations and standards for security in DSA have for far too long been slapdash, inconsistent, and insufficient to meet the moment and the threats we are facing from fascist currents in the US. Palestine Solidarity organizers have frequently been targeted by the state in both the Biden and Trump administrations, solidarity encampments were attacked by Zionist mobs, and outlets like Canary Mission continue to dox well-known figures in the movement for Palestinian Liberation. We look forward to working with comrades across tendencies to strengthen DSA’s security standards and protocols.
  

• Members of the NPC were recently assigned and confirmed by vote for liaisons positions across national bodies and we’d like to take this opportunity to announce our assignments:
  

  • Ahmed - Abolition WG, National Electoral Committee, Editorial Board

  • Luisa - International Committee

  • Andrew - National Labor Commission, Political Education Committee, Mutual Aid WG

  • Francesca - Housing Justice Commission, International Committee, Queer & Feminist Commission

  
  We are excited to serve alongside the leadership of these bodies and increase the effectiveness and scope of DSA’s organizing across the country!

  ---

  And one last thing…
  

Going forward, SoR will be actively seeking and accepting newsletter submissions by network members who would like to see their organizing spotlighted in our newsletter! Everyday chapters across the country are doing incredible work to advance our priorities and build our movement. If you’re interested in working closely with us to develop an idea for a submission based on your local chapter’s organizing, please fill out this form and we’ll be in touch!

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This month I travelled home to Italy, just ~10 days after a historic wave of protests including two general strikes for Palestine that mobilized an estimated 1 million (September 22) and 2 million (October 3) people to withhold their labor and shut down critical infrastructure like train stations and highways, demanding an end to all commercial and diplomatic relationships with Israel; a national march on October 4 that brought an estimated 1.5 million people to Rome; and countless smaller rallies, assemblies, and disruptive actions in solidarity with Gaza and to protect the Global Sumud Flotilla.

Watching the mobilizations from the US, I worried that I was somewhat romanticizing them and over-estimating their magnitude and energy. But when I got home, everyone I talked to, regardless of the degree of politicization - my parents, a member of Giovani Palestinesi d’Italia (Palestinian Youth of Italy), a progressive but unorganized high school friend, militants from a left party, trade unionists - said the same thing: we have not seen anything like this in decades.

There’s a lot to say about what made it possible - the vanguard role played by the Autonomous Dockworkers Collective of Genoa, the Flotilla, the nascent coalescing of second-generation Arab immigrants as a political subject - as well as what made it qualitatively and quantitatively a break-through moment, but one remark made by a family friend during a rally I attended really stuck with me. “I’ve never seen a square like the ones during those weeks,” he said, “they were afraid of nothing”. When lines of cops blocked off access to sensitive targets like train stations, protestors without hesitation pushed against them. When police kettled the October 7 rally in Bologna to prevent them from moving, they broke through and marched anyway. They didn’t care about getting beaten, teargassed, or dispersed with hydrants.

When Springs of Revolution put together our platform for the 2025 convention and beyond, we wrote: “our movement grows through ruptures that emerge from the anger of the working class … decisive action taken at the right moment ignites each spring of revolution and expands the political imagination of the working class.” And I think the political process we were trying to describe is captured so beautifully by this sentiment: they were afraid of nothing.

May a thousand more springs bloom for Gaza.

With Love and Solidarity,
Francesca

Our Updates

• We are proud to have sent two Springs of Revolution comrades, Andrew (NPC) and Katy on the delegation to Cuba this month. This delegation, the second such undertaking by DSA, offered our members the opportunity to engage in critical party-to-party diplomacy, learn from our Cuban comrades in their socialist project, and bring urgently needed medical supplies to the island. They were able to witness firsthand the effects that decades of economic strangulation and blockade by the US and its allies is having on the country. Conditions have become desperate and it is clear that the people of Cuba are suffering immensely even as they continue to back the government and guard the revolution passed down to them by Castro’s generation.

  

• Springs of Revolution was also repped by Francesca (NPC) and Nell at the UK leftist convening The World Transformed. Francesca spoke on a panel titled “Lessons from the DSA” together with comrades from Communist Caucus, Bread & Roses, and Groundwork, and emphasized SoR’s analysis on the need for DSA to be embedded in social movements ​​resisting racial violence and war; the importance of developing anti-imperialist practices that can have material impact, from mass boycotts to labor action, learning from the Italian general strikes example; and reflections on electoral discipline and why DSA has struggled with keeping our electeds aligned with our platform.
  
  We also attended panels and connected with other organizers, particularly Palestinian formations and union members who have recently been involved in labor action for Palestine. We hope these connections will help grow our own organizing for an arms embargo through exchange and coordination with allies in Europe.

  

  We were particularly impressed by the daily 2 hours-long assemblies where hundreds of attendees gathered to discuss questions related to both the founding of Your Party and the broader political moment. The assemblies featured a mix of pre-submitted statements in response to questions and prompts shared by the organizers in the lead-up to the festival; “guest speakers” from movement organizations; and contributions from the floor, all facilitated extremely well and responding to clearly defined questions – a good model of conjunctural analysis. One the last day, the assembly approved a proposal for democratic party-building drafted by seven nascent factions of Your Party, which they will bring to the founding conference.
  

  This is inspiring SoR to think about the practice of assemblies (What makes for a well-facilitated assembly? What are decision-making practices that allow assemblies to avoid the tyranny of structureless-ness, while maintaining mass democracy?) and how to incorporate it more into DSA’s toolbox: what if every time a major political event happened, the first response by DSA chapters was not to phonebank politicians but rather to get together with our neighbors?

  

Race for the NLC Steering Committee

Springs of Revolution put forward an International Labor Movement Slate for the DSA National Labor Commission Steering committee. Our candidates, Martina and John, both serve as Springs of Revolution core and have been organizing in the Labor for an Arms Embargo campaign within the NLC. They joined comrades from Marxist Unity Group and Libertarian Socialist Caucus for a cross-endorsed group of five candidates for the election that ran from 10/26 to 11/1. Martina and MUG comrade Lavender were elected to serve on the NLC SC alongside thirteen other comrades across caucuses.

Having representation on the highest decision making body for DSA’s Labor organizing will make the implementation of R22 and R26 all the more successful. We encourage every SoR network member to organize in their workplace, join or form a union, and join the NLC so we can fight for a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA and against ICE and Fascist Repression with an internationalist labor theory of change. We congratulate our newly elected NLC SC members Martina and Lavender, and look forward to building our labor work alongside John, Suraj, and Forrest.

From the Organizing Frontlines

• In our last newsletter, we mentioned solidifying DSA’s commitment for the Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) New York Times boycott campaign, but we could not share more details just yet. We’re happy to announce that a renewed effort to target The New York Times over its complicity in the Zionist occupation has now officially launched, and we’re repping DSA in the coalition! The campaign is calling for changes in the “paper of record” after decades of harmful practices that have intentionally prioritized the narratives of Zionists over the lived realities of Palestinians.

Our demands are:

1. The newsroom must conduct a review of anti-Palestinian bias and produce new editorial standards for Palestine coverage.

2. The newsroom must retract the widely debunked investigation “Screams Without Words.”

3. The Editorial Board must call for a U.S. arms embargo on Israel.

   In the meantime, we’re committed, alongside our coalition partners and countless writers and public figures who have cosigned our call, to boycotting the Times’ opinion section, which has for years given an illusion of a “fair, balanced” open forum. We’re calling on others to avoid contributing until the New York Times meets our demands and ceases to be the unfettered Zionist rag it has happily been for so long. You can read more about this boycott from SoR member James (commiecorner.substack.com) here.

Genocide is not a matter of opinion.

• We were excited to see the inspiring organizing win coming out of Connecticut DSA as Avelo ends all operations out of Bradley International Airport. While it’s unclear to what extent organizing efforts relative to other external factors contributed to this decision, it is nevertheless an electrifying victory that confirms what we already knew — that the working class is outraged at Avelo for its complicity in the Trump Administration’s mass deportations, and it is vulnerable and a strategic target that other chapters should take up. As we move to finalize the first steps of the Abolish ICE campaign sanctioned by R26, this is exactly the sort of work we want to see coming out of chapters across DSA.

News from the NPC

• At the upcoming November NPC meeting, Springs of Revolution will bring ‘R43: Locals-First DSA: Increase Dues Income for Locals and Stabilize National Budget’ as a resolution referred from our 2025 convention. Locals First – which would gradually increase dues share to chapters by 40% – is a cornerstone of our vision for the future of DSA. Under the current disbursement formula, chapters are bearing the weight of budgetary constraints that limit their potential to grow, campaign, retain membership and more. DSA has become what it is today through the sheer determination and grit of our volunteer members and we are certain that with a significantly greater share of our collective resources behind them they will be empowered to propel DSA forward into a truly revolutionary force capable of challenging Capitalism on the national stage. Read more about LF in Washington Socialist, Partisan and previously on our Substack.

  What could your chapter accomplish with double the resources? Let us know here and we might publish your testimony on our social media (anonymously if you wish).

• In the weeks leading up to the announcement of the Gaza “ceasefire”, we drafted a statement and successfully pushed for its passage by DSA National. Since then, the Zionist entity violated the agreement over a hundred times, continued daily killing of Palestinians and has now announced a formal continuation of their genocidal campaign. We are unwavering in our support for the resistance, for Palestinian liberation and will continue to faithfully organize in the imperial core to grind the gears of Empire to a halt.

• In light of the ongoing government shutdown and the suspension of SNAP benefits and other assistance programs starting on November 1st, we drafted a statement for DSA National condemning the government’s malfeasance. The loss of these programs primarily impacts disproportionately nonwhite and immigrant poor people without consistent and affordable access to food. We are firm supporters of the mutual aid organizing taking place across the organization, and will continue to support that work.

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In a few days, DSA’s National Political Committee will meet for the third time since the start of the term. Among the agenda items is a resolution referred to the committee by the 2025 convention — R43: Locals-First DSA: Increase Dues Income for Locals and Stabilize National Budget. If you are reading this blog post, you are likely already familiar with Locals First (LF). Springs of Revolution members have written from multiple perspectives about LF, detailing important aspects of the resolution, its impact on DSA’s budget, and the benefit we believe it will have for chapters and their organizing. We stand by those words. LF is a platform resolution authored by Springs of Revolution and we believe in its potential to shift the organizational paradigm of DSA. With little time before the votes are cast, we’d like to once again present the full scope of our vision for DSA and how LF is necessary to fulfill that vision.

DSA in the Trump Moment

A criticism is often levied at the revolutionaries of DSA — “the left doesn’t have a plan to fight fascism”. On the contrary, we do have a comprehensive organizing plan for bold campaigns to Abolish ICE and fight the right — one that relies on unleashing the full potential of our chapters all across the country to build, grow and retain membership, sustain regular and effective campaigns, and bring Socialism to the masses with the full weight of our collective resources behind them.

The hard work of recruitment, campaigning, and demonstrating the revolutionary potential of the socialist movement to working class people happens face-to-face. We have written previously to say, “Our national organization is only as strong as our locals.” Our members volunteering their own time and capacity while working to stay alive during the death throes of capitalist deterioration have built DSA into what it is today. Some of DSA’s greatest accomplishments have been won in locals running tight, small dollar ships, off of public library printing and meetings in church basements. Their continued dedication to our cause combined with a greater share of our collective resources will shepherd our locals — and DSA as a whole — into a new phase increasingly capable of upending the two-party status quo and fighting back the scourge of fascism that seeks to destroy our movement.

A Chapter Empowered

Over the past year, we have spoken to members all across the country to hear about their challenges, their needs, and how LF would be a boon to their organizing. They speak of “expanding mutual aid efforts and outreach” to alleviate suffering in their communities; increased funding for “accessibility structures, disability accommodations, childcare, transportation and translation services”; “supplementing priority campaigns in a flurry of ways”; “securing office space”; its potential to “supercharge chapters big and small” and many more concrete examples. But across all of our conversations with members a pattern emerges that can no longer be ignored. Many chapters are bearing the weight of budgetary constraints, members feel hesitation to spend or creep into insolvency, forced to spend limited capacity on fundraising and are unable to realize their high ambitions for successful organizing and growth. A chapter’s capacity and ability to chart ambitious and creative paths forward is both material and psychological. This array of challenges falls disproportionately on small to mid-sized chapters outside of major metropolitan areas, precisely where DSA chapters with a strong organizing presence are needed the most to build our movement. They need “breathing room”. Members intuitively understand the dramatic effect LF would have in their chapters and see over the horizon a new organizational status quo that would allow them to effectively contest the grip of Capital’s power over their communities. At the time of writing, tens of thousands of working class people are facing food insecurity due to austerity-driven cuts to the SNAP program, a pattern likely to continue in the coming years. This critical moment demands of us to step up and meet working class people’s needs and be an expression of working class anger, whether by serving as meeting spaces or safe harbors building community resilience through community-driven mutual aid such as free breakfast programs or pursuing ambitious political interventions. LF is the key for chapters to become truly embedded in and representative of the neighborhoods in which they exist.

How Do We Pay For It?

Since LF was written, DSA has continued to experience a significant period of growth. As predicted, the dramatic increase in revenue generated by this membership bump has led to a surplus that makes LF’s implementation an eminently realizable goal coverable by our revenue actuals, not shakily staked on imagined fundraising like prior investments. According to figures from the Budget & Finance Committee, the thousands of members who have joined DSA since January have pushed our projected dues income for 2025 up to $7.9 million, up from $7.5 million earlier in the year. This $400,000 in newfound revenue single handedly covers nearly half of the funds needed for the first year of dues share increases, and the size of DSA’s projected surplus for 2026 ($2.1 million) significantly exceeds the total cost of doubling dues share to chapters ($1.8 million). A gradual increase over a two year period from 20%-40% of increased dues share to chapters — double the current formula — is not only realistic and overdue but, we believe, a bullish investment in the flourishing of our organization. We’ve learned from our previous membership bumps and budget crises’ that we must always be prepared for future downturns and we can’t rely on national moments to sustain our growth. If we truly believe in DSA as a member-run organization and that the most impactful work happens at the chapter level, then LF is a material investment in that philosophy.

The most common and most widely debated myth about LF is that doubling dues share to chapters will limit the national organization’s ability to maintain our national programs. This is simply untrue. LF mandates an increase to our critical reserves policy to a minimum of 9 months of planned expenses and introduces safeguards tied to the reserves policy defining the manner in which budget cuts are made that preserves both our national organization and our chapters ability to organize. We will set aside additional savings for rainy days. The bills will be paid. The staff will remain. Nothing that the national organization does today will stop after passage of Locals First.

The Success of National Relies on Strong, Interwoven Chapters in DSA for the Long Haul

We want to be clear: DSA National has and always will have an important role to play. Without the national organization and the comrades who dedicate time on top of their local work to sustain bodies like the National Electoral Commission, International Committee, National Labor Commission, etc., and of course, our trusted staff members, our organization would not exist. But the success of National will not come from funding — it will come from the dedication and grit of our members, and from chapters well-positioned to contribute to the National project.

The prospect of doubling finances to locals is not, as some have suggested, reflective of a crude localism, but of an earnest and sincere commitment to the success of DSA. For many members, National has long felt disconnected from their organizing work. In reality, smart, incisive tools to tie together local and national projects, from the NEC’s campaign grants to leadership intensives and GDC trainings, have long existed but been terminally underutilized due to a lack of visibility and engagement between local and national leaders.

Exciting new developments, such as the NEC’s Socialist Slate fundraising phonebanks, have massively scaled up National’s ability to offer chapters clear, tangible resources for their work, not from significant additional dues revenue, but from an influx of committed leaders seriously contending with how to bridge this divide. As previously mentioned, LF does not cut a single dime from these programs, nor does it call to abandon them — it asks us to shift our thinking away from incentive structures that judge the cohesion of our National project on the basis of how many dollars it receives and towards the extent of membership involvement.

By offering incentives, such as more frequent disbursements, to engage on a more consistent basis with national staff and political leadership, such as by submitting up-to-date Treasurer information, LF encourages a deepening of the relationships between National and chapters, building local buy-in to National and demystifying the National organization.

Locals First works to align local donation drives with national recruitment. Many of our largest chapters maintain local donation programs. With the current 80-20 national-local split in dues sharing, chapters have a perverse incentive to exclusively focus on local donation drives for fundraising efforts instead of contributing their efforts towards national recruitment drives. It’s understandable – chapters with ambitious, expensive time-bound projects often need cash fast and a lot of it. Any effort put towards national dues drives at the chapter level would take 2-3 months to reflect in a chapter’s budget and, with only 20% of dues going towards locals, even the most ambitious recruitment efforts show only relatively minor increases in the chapter budget commensurate with the chapter’s effort.

Our solution is to increase the frequency of disbursements to monthly, with a long term goal of automatic daily disbursements, and doubling chapter’s share of dues to 40% so that the effects of national recruitment and dues drives are immediate and responsive to the chapter’s efforts on the ground. As it stands, there isn’t sufficient “skin-in-the-game” for chapters to engage National regularly outside of limited trainings, resources, or high-stakes situations. Creating material two-way incentives would encourage chapters’ positive engagement to build up and grow the National organization and national leaders to take active interest in the success of each of our chapters.

Springs of Revolution’s vision for DSA is not one where chapters act roughshod as autonomous organizations over a weakened National body — our prior interventions, pushing for adherence to national political lines set by our national convention demonstrate that nothing could be further from the truth.

Our vision for DSA is one where National is a true, mass rank and file membership organization, rooted by strong political interventions made by locals in their communities with the resources to back them up and coordinated by robust National bodies with hundreds of members, working diligently to stretch every dollar. We must build strong local chapters bound by shared coherent national standards so that wherever people engage with DSA, they know what we stand for and what we fight for.

Pass Locals First

There is something unique and distinct about implementing LF during the current political moment. ICE has become the most well-funded secret police force in the history of the world as they brutalize and deport thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been slaughtered at the hands of the US and its puppet Zionist ethnostate, trans and queer people are being criminalized and erased from history and society, millions rot away in for-profit prisons, and every working class person in the US is experiencing a dramatic decline in their quality of life. In this world, LF would empower our chapters to effectively fight this scourge of fascism and ramp up the revolutionary pathway towards Socialism. LF is the change that meets the current moment. There has never been a better time for us to put our money where our feet are.

Locals First!

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Two years ago today, Palestinians held captive in Gaza broke free from the world’s largest open air prison and into the occupied colonies beyond. The West had largely forgotten the Palestinian struggle, if they even knew it at all. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood manifested as a courageous break from a concentration camp in an attempt to once again train the gaze of the world on the people of Palestine and their struggle for liberation. The occupying Zionist entity, responsible for decades of forced displacement, blockade, and subjugation in Gaza, immediately responded by exacting collective punishment and depraved genocide on the Palestinian people. With the full backing of the United States, European countries, and leashed Arab nations, the Zionist entity has reduced Gaza to rubble. They have murdered Palestinians by the hundreds of thousands and ensured that those who have remained steadfast and alive suffer in unimaginable ways. We have watched the brave doctors of Gaza fight to save thousands with no medical supplies, we have read the words that Palestinian journalists gave their lives to deliver, we have seen the mothers and fathers weeping for their lost children, we have witnessed all this and felt the pain in our hearts and the rage in our bones towards a political class that enables a genocide and cowers in the face of resistance.

But something has changed. With the weight of history behind them, Palestinians have demonstrated to the workers of the world a generational struggle for liberation — an injustice so abhorrent that it bonds people in solidarity to fundamentally change a world that could allow it to happen. As the Palestinian struggle has sharpened, the flanks of the entire movement for Palestinian liberation — amongst them a fighting anti-Zionist DSA — have swelled with politicized people of conscience who see the international system of imperialist capitalism for what it is: an existential threat to the working class. This has changed our organization itself, forcing a confrontation with DSA’s history and reckoning with the global effects of imperialist domination.

Springs of Revolution owes its project to the people of Palestine, our moral compass and the fire that burns within us. We are a part of a tidal wave of love and solidarity that the people of Palestine have inspired across the world. That eternal hope springs forth in our hearts; it motivates us; it guides us. On this two year anniversary of their historic act of liberatory resistance, we once again affirm the principles of al-Thawabit as decided by the 1977 Palestinian National Council — the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, their right to resist, their right to return to their homes from which they were forcibly displaced, and that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of a Palestine from the river to the sea. We know every day when we wake up that we will see a free Palestine in our lifetime.

For Palestine, Always

Springs of Revolution

We want to launch our very first newsletter with a message to all our supporters at every level of the network: Thank you for the incredible support you have given and the hard work you have contributed to make Springs of Revolution an organizing force to be reckoned with. Since we launched our platform in April, Springs of Revolution has bloomed and grown to heights we couldn’t have imagined. And it is only the beginning. With your continued support and Palestine as our compass, we’re confident we will fulfil the mandate given to us by convention — we will push the internationalist line across the country, and transform DSA into a bold, revolutionary, anti-imperialist organization, that moves swiftly with the working class and fights back when the moment demands it.

With Love and Solidarity,

Springs of Revolution NPC
Ahmed, Francesca, Luisa, & Andrew

Convention and Beyond

At DSA’s 2025 National Convention, Springs of Revolution was proud to elect four of our members — Ahmed H, Francesca M, Luisa M, and Andrew T — to the National Political Committee, and pass two of our platform resolutions — R22: For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA and R26: Fight Fascist State Repression & ICE. These wins represent an important step forward in DSA’s development as a fighting mass organization grounded in the struggles for immigrant justice and Palestinian liberation, and are the collective victory of all of you — hundreds of delegates and leaders that spent the last two years engaging thousands of members on our positions and winning over your chapters to our priorities and vision of change.

But there is more work to be done. We are currently inviting applications to the Springs of Revolution Network, where DSA members can stay engaged in our collective organizing work and support the implementation of SoR priorities in their chapters and in the national organization. If you know an internationalist comrade who should be involved in SoR projects, invite them in!

Additionally, we have formed a Kitchen Cabinet to help coordinate SoR’s work on the NPC, composed of members from the following chapters:

• Philadelphia

• Richmond

• Denver

• Connecticut

• New York City

• Metro DC

• North Texas

Our Updates

• NPC member Luisa moderated a two-part exchange series with MORENA: Solidarity Without Borders. Guests included INFP president Rafael Barajas, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Alderperson Anthony Quezada (Chicago), and Councilmember Hugo Soto Martínez (Los Angeles) who spoke about their challenges in office as progressives, the material conditions in both countries, and a brief history of the origins of each organization.

• We got a DSA table at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, and crowd-sourced campaign material from chapters all around the country to highlight the diversity of organizing work for Palestinian liberation that DSA members are engaged in. Crucially, passing R22 at convention made DSA’s participation and tabling possible — we did not have a table nor an official presence at the first edition of the conference last year!

• We co-authored a national statement and call to action, “The Global Sumud Flotilla Does Not Sail Alone: A Call for Solidarity Mobilizations“ and released a toolkit for chapters to utilize and organize their local actions. Chapters around the country are already taking up the call, including Tacoma, Tampa, Maine, Denver and Houston. You can too!

• On September 22st, we had the opportunity to interview José Nivoi, the spokesperson for Genoa’s Autonomous Dockworkers Collective sailing on the Global Sumud Flotilla, about the strike and bringing internationalism into labor. José told us about how CALP’s militant organizing against arms trafficking, willingness to engage a broad coalition in the working class, and deep commitment to fighting fascism at home and abroad helped it mobilize a mass base capable of coordinating a general strike. Listen to the full interview at the new blog section of our website.

• Together with our comrades on the International Committee, we organized the panel discussion “Struggling Against Genocide without International Institutions” with our movement partners about the failure of the United Nations to impose meaningful pressure on Israel for its ongoing genocide on Gaza; the attempt by imperialist powers to capture international institutions; and ongoing campaigns by Palestinian Youth Movement and Progressive International building pressure from below to push the UN to act, facilitated by SoR NPC member Francesca.

Join the IC…

One of the most important bodies in DSA is the International Committee, which houses much of the national coordination on Palestine solidarity and anti-imperialist work in the organization. Over the next two years, the Palestine WG will be a pivotal body for implementing R22 campaigns like No Appetite For Apartheid and Labor For an Arms Embargo across the country. If you are a SoR network member, the Palestine WG, housed within the Africa/West Asia division, is a body you should call home. The IC Migrant Rights WG will also play a significant role in the implementation of R26 and the Abolish ICE campaign sanctioned by convention. Member applications are now open. If there is one thing you do after reading through this newsletter, let it be joining the International Committee while indicating interest in Africa/West Asia in the application.

…And the NLC…

Build Springs of Revolution in the Labor Movement! Join the NLC!

To enact the priorities we won at convention, we need workers pushing the line of international solidarity in their workplaces and the DSA National Labor Commission. If you are involved in DSA labor work or the labor movement at any level, join the NLC today and help us build out a worker enacted Labor For an Arms Embargo campaign geared towards the rank & file and organized workplaces free of fascist repression!

…And the NEC…

All around the country DSA is running principled anti-Zionist socialist candidates and a lot of the coordination to support those campaigns takes place in DSA’s National Electoral Commission. With the passage of R22, we will need to build the NEC’s capacity to help chapters scale up strong electoral campaigns deeply grounded in community organizing and accountable to DSA, and support DSA electeds in pushing legislation that advances the Palestinian struggle, such as divestment resolutions. Join the NEC.

While you’re here, support the campaigns of two of our Springs of Revolution member candidates!

• Donate to Zev’s campaign for Tacoma City Council, POS 5

• Volunteer for the campaign

• Donate to Abdul’s campaign for Hamden Legislative Council

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News from the NPC

SoR’s NPC members have hit the ground running, working on a range of important mobilizations on the new body, including electing Andrew T to the NPC Steering Committee. We have championed several initiatives since our term started:

• We had our first NPC meeting, supporting the process of seating a Steering Committee, passing the YDSA Consensus Resolution, and solidifying strong commitments for the Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) New York Times boycott campaign.

• The NPC also determined work committee assignments! Our NPC members are serving in: Luisa (Personnel), Ahmed (Communications, Tech), Francesca (Organizational Security, Growth and Development), Andrew T (Budget & Finance, Fundraising)

• We also obtained national endorsement of PYM’s national rally at the UN General Assembly on September 26, on the day that Netanyahu was slated to speak, and represented DSA on the rally coordination committee together with local comrades from NYC DSA’s Anti-War Working Group.

  Check out Francesca’s speech.

• In October, SoR NPCers will represent DSA and bring SoR’s politics to two important international events: Andrew on DSA’s delegation to Cuba, and Francesca on DSA’s delegation to the UK left conference The World Transformed! Stay tuned for report-backs in the next newsletter.

• We’re pushing and building cross-tendency support for and an NPC endorsement of the Palestinian Youth Movement’s October 4th “Rise Up for Gaza - International Day of Action” and calling on chapters to mobilize with their local coalitions for this action.

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