[Marxism] The DSP's fresh approach to applying democratic centralism

[Alan Bradley]

From: Louis Proyect 
> I am all for realistic perspectives, but these
> comrades impose artificial limits on their growth
> and influence by sticking to these kinds of formulas
> that smack of a small proprietor mentality:

Much of the time, Socialist Alternative's "realistic
perspectives" seem to boil down to "concentrate on
recruiting students". That actually works up to a
point, especially since Resistance seems to have
messed up badly in the early days of the Socialist
Alliance project.

In fact, the rather exaggerated claims of the
importance of Venezuela solidarity work in both DSP
platforms reflect, I suspect, a consensus that
Resistance needs to be rebuilt in order to put the
DSP's house back in order and replenish our cadre
base. Cadre, of course, are necessary for the left to
do anything at all, so a concern for developing them
is not, in itself, sectarian.

I had already at least looked at Mick Armstrong's
article
(http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1530&Itemid=152
), but it's actually a lot worse than my initial
impression suggested. Quite useless, in fact.

I can't be bothered discussing it in detail, but it
goes into considerable length about the near-total
collapse of the Bolsheviks in 1909-10, and uses this
as a positive argument for making building a
propaganda group a generalised tactical approach,
which, of course, is presumably correct for Australia
in 2007-08, (and will presumably still be correct in
2009-10, one hundred years after Lenin's day, and on
the other side of the world). Thus, the unavoidable
consequences of a catastrophic defeat become turned
into a model we should aspire to...

Alan Bradley


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