The entire article is very good and gives a solid reasoning (for baby leftists, not anyone here) of why we need to support Cuba. It also highlights the weakness of both the DSA and the DSA IC from within that allowed this to happen + the steps they need to take. Give it a read. (The more I read stuff like this plus the history of real movements I realize why things like DemCent and other hardline ML things are needed but that’s not a discussion for here).
I’m highlighting just the parts relevant to the title.
Multiple delegates chose to skip out on parts of the programming, including declining to meet with the president of Cuba, who held a frank conversation with the delegates who did attend for more than two hours.
Throughout the trip, members of the delegation from the Reform & Revolution Caucus (R&R) and the Socialist Majority Caucus (SMC) criticized the Cuban government both to our Cuban hosts and other DSA members, and skipped out on multiple delegation events. Most shamefully, both Maria (representing R&R) and Renée (representing SMC, and a member of the current NPC) skipped out on meeting with President Díaz-Canel, who spent more than 2 hours in a frank discussion specifically addressing the critiques these very same DSA members brought up to their Cuban hosts earlier on the trip. This means that the Cuban hosts were listening thoughtfully to the critiques and relayed them back to the President. That our Cuban comrades would care this deeply and thoroughly about our critiques is a sign that they honor us as equals and truly want to make ties with U.S. socialists, as relatively powerless as we are.
Maria in particular met with anti-government opposition groups while on delegation, which when taken together with the fact of her skipping the meeting with the comrade President suggests a goal of undermining the Cuban socialist state, not defending it against U.S. imperialism. Furthermore, R&R declined to follow what few guidelines the International Committee offered around discussion of the trip after returning. Delegates were instructed to keep news of the conversation with President Díaz-Canel private until an official reportback; R&R decided instead to discuss this at their caucus panel, pre-empting the official reportback.
If Lenin were alive today all his arguments against Kautsky ,Martov, Plekhanov Kropotkin or anyone would be just “newspaper slap fights” which is what he and other Marxists including Marx himself were accused of back in there day. The internet is the modern day newspapers the modern day public forum of course it should be treated with seriousness if we believe that the cause we are advancing is serious. https://www.neac.gov.cn/seac/c103372/202201/1156517.shtml
"Forming a consensus is no easy task, and so we all need to work harder. To attain our goals, we will need to form concentric circles both online and offline. What do I mean by concentric circles? I mean rallying all the people of China under the leadership of the CPC, and motivating people of all walks of life to engage in a concerted effort to bring about the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
The ancients used to say, "The person that knows a leaking roof is the one who is under that roof; the person that knows an error of the court is the one who is not in power."1 If netizens are the “grassroots”, as many of them refer to themselves, then the internet is today’s “grassroots” platform. Netizens are members of the general public. If members of the public go online, so does public opinion. Our officials need to go wherever the public goes, otherwise how else are they expected to maintain ties with them? "