Ok so this is my current understanding, please correct me where I err and supplement where I omit needed information.
Historically the Mensheviks and chartists inspired social democracy whereas the Bolsheviks inspired Marxism-leninism.
They (demsoc and socdem) are extremely similar but have some key differences. Social democrats are to the right of democratic socialists and they are both centre-left parties slightly to the left of social liberalism.
left-ish------Center-left----Center
---------Demsoc-----Socdem Libsoc Lib
Where they differ is usually on imperialism and capitalism.
Social democrats typically support imperialism continuing so long as a slice of the spoils support a welfare state. In that sense they're just capitalist reformists. It also appears that the DSA and the "Democratic-Socialist" movement in the United States is simply social democracy with no intention of seizing the means of production.
Democratic socialists do advocate for seizing the means of production and want the end of imperialism but believe this can be accomplished democratically -- however naive that may be.
As far as I can tell social liberalism appears to be almost synonymous with social democracy but with an added emphasis on the "freedom" to own private property and a more laissez-faire role of the state.
Please fill in my understanding :)
It's the exact same thing.
Where did democratic socialists ever succeed? What do they actually ask for?
Exactly. Same outcome as social-democracy.
Would you count Venezuela?
Not necessarily, for two reasons:
1 is that the PSUV has never considered themselves democratic socialist, their official movement is '21st century socialism'. Chavez had also attempted/participated in a coup in 1992, and though it failed and he eventually won the election in 1998 he allegedly was only convinced of the electoral route on practical purposes.
2 is that I am wary of outsiders trying to fit a mold onto existing movements. We saw this with the Black Panthers (they were apparently every possible shade of marxism) and the EZLN (that anarchists claim are anarchist, and the EZLN saying "no we're not anarchists").
Of course, I support Venezuela in the path they chose. But we still see several contradictions of a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in the country, and I am not aware that PSUV is trying to overcome them, i.e. making their socialism a transition stage to communism.
fair points. i often hear of democratic socialism in refence to latam elected socialist governments, like Venezuela, or even Allende's Chile.
what's your take on salvador allende?
I support Allende and what he tried to achieve was amazing, but he failed nonetheless. And spectacularly too. Even Castro was telling him to be tougher on the opponents. He was in power for 2 years and 10 months, and ruled by emergency decrees, a power afforded to the President to bypass Congress approval on new laws, because Congress was controlled by the opposition and hostile to him. He also had to issue states of emergency, which temporarily promulgated martial law in a region.
This is not a criticism of Allende of course, it was his attempt at enacting socialism in a hostile world, not only internally but externally as well. The US ran thousands of articles against Allende every year, and bankrolled protests and opposition against him.
But what he shows is there is no path to a socialism promulgated on the basis of elections in the bourgeois state. He validates the theory of the vanguard party. He won the presidency, but not state power.
does this not constitute full state power? i definitely don't understand the nuances of chilean law in the early 70s but could the allende administration have defended itself from the coup in any meaningful way? like was 9/11/73 an inevitability or could allende have taken castro's advice and kept power?
The military was disloyal to him, which is how they came to coup him in turn. They'll obey orders for a while, but they won't defend the revolution.