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The Connecticut DSA Handbook is the onboarding guide for new comrades of the state's chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest socialist organization in the country, having reached 120,000 members nationwide.

According to the handbook, CT DSA is organized into six regional branches, a youth group, and eight statewide working groups based on key issues.

The membership model encourages "Solidarity Income-Based Dues," meaning budding socialists are expected to contribute 1% of their income in monthly dues for “organized money to support our organized people,” though dues waivers are offered to anyone without question.

Now "1,200 members strong," the CT DSA says its current membership surge stems from the "post-2016 election reality" and recognition of numerous crises: healthcare, immigration, police brutality, climate change, housing, and the "rise of fascist, white-supremacist, and nationalist movements."

The handbook frames capitalism itself as the root problem, stating plainly that “capitalism has nothing to offer except debt, depression and a dying planet.”

Basic human needs—housing, healthcare, education—are cast not as goods produced through markets and incentives but as inherent rights that must be removed from profit motives entirely. This sets up a zero-sum worldview in which “bosses, landlords, and political elites” are adversaries to be confronted through organized working-class power.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the handbook's Housing Justice Working Group section. It calls for “guaranteed housing for all and a world without landlords,” alongside “democratically controlled, decarbonized, decommodified, abolitionist housing” that must be “decoupled from the violent forces of racism, policing, displacement, and extraction.”

Of course, historical attempts at large-scale decommodification have repeatedly produced shortages, declining quality, and heavy state bureaucracy rather than abundance, but don't tell that to the socialists.

The handbook further treats private property in housing as inherently oppressive rather than a mechanism that has driven massive increases in housing supply and living standards in market-oriented systems.

The International Working Group section is equally revealing. It centers on “campaign-based work in the Palestinian liberation movement to end the Zionist occupation.” The document notes rapid mobilization “post-Al-Aqsa Flood”—adopting Hamas’s own terminology for the October 7, 2023 attacks. This language, paired with the rejection of “Zionist occupation,” goes well beyond criticism of specific Israeli policies. It aligns with positions that question Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, a stance that has drawn sustained criticism for its one-sided framing and potential to alienate Jewish communities and supporters of negotiated two-state outcomes.

The Ecosocialist Working Group endorses solidarity with the “Stop Cop City” movement and frames opposition to the “greedy politicians and the global fossil fuel industry” as central to climate justice. They are working to build a Transit Rider Union to advocate for fare-free buses, and to tackle "environmental racism" in Connecticut, whatever that means.

The Education Justice Working Group is composed of a "cohort of socialist educators" — mostly in K-12 public schools, but also librarians, higher education workers, students, and others — invested in promoting education justice, supporting unions (along with the Labor Working Group), and advocating for an "ecosocialist transformation" of public schools.

Reproductive Justice, also known as the Bodily Autonomy Working Group, is focused on the "worst crises for LGBTQIA+ Americans since [the] AIDS crisis" and getting "equal treatment at every hospital" — which apparently includes "free abortions on demand without question."

The Political Education Working Group holds monthly, in-person meetings so comrades can discover the "path to ending our own oppression."

And the Electoral Working Group works to elect CT DSA-endorsed socialists like Maryam Khan for State Senate, and Nick Gauthier and Justin Farmer for State Representative. Note that Rep. Laurie Sweet (D-Hamden), previously endorsed by CT DSA, is reportedly seeking re-endorsement.

Above all else, a good CT DSA member must "keep it comradely" by remembering that their comrades are teammates in the revolution, not necessarily their best friends.

"Long-haul solidarity can be gentle, but it should not be mistaken for weakness," explains the CT DSA. "We seek to overturn a system that tells us we’re worth less if we’re not white, not a man, not cis-het, didn’t go to college, or any of the countless ways we are told we are less because of who we are."

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