Comparison To Other Forms of Socialism
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| DeLeonism |
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| Daniel De Leon |
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| Socialist Industrial Unions Syndicalism |
| DeLeonists |
| Arnold Petersen Olive Johnson Eric Hass |
| Organizations |
| Industrial Workers of Great Britain Socialist Labor Party (U.S.) Socialist Labour Party (UK) Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance Workers' International Industrial Union |
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De Leonism lies outside the Leninist tradition of communism. It predates Leninism as De Leonism's principles developed in the early 1890s with De Leon's assuming leadership of the Socialist Labor Party; Leninism and its vanguard party idea took shape after the 1902 publication of Lenin's What Is to Be Done?. Its adherents are generally opposed to the policies of the former Soviet Union, and those of the People's Republic of China, and other communist states, and do not consider them socialist, but rather state capitalist or following 'bureaucratic state despotism'. The highly decentralized and democratic nature of the proposed De Leonist government is in contrast to the democratic centralism of Marxism–Leninism and what they see as the dictatorial nature of the Soviet Union.
The success of the De Leonist plan depends on achieving majority support among the people both in the workplaces and at the polls, in contrast to the Leninist notion that a small vanguard party should lead the working class to carry out the revolution. De Leonism's stance against reformism means that it is referred to by the label 'impossibilist', along with the Socialist Party of Great Britain.
De Leonist political parties have also been criticized for being allegedly overly dogmatic and sectarian. Despite their rejection of Leninism and vanguardism, De Leonism also lies outside the 'democratic socialist and social democratic tradition. Daniel De Leon and other De Leonist writers have issued frequent polemics against democratic socialist movements, especially the Socialist Party of America, and consider them to be reformist or "bourgeois socialist". De Leonists have traditionally refrained from any activity or alliances viewed by them as trying to reform capitalism, though the Socialist Labor Party in De Leon's time was active during strikes and such, such as social justice movements, preferring instead to concentrate solely on the twin tasks of building support for a De Leonist political party and organizing Socialist Industrial Unions.
Read more about this topic: De Leonism
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