[Marxism] The DSP's fresh approach to applyingdemocraticcentralism

[Peter Boyle]

Tom O'Lincoln wrote:

> What happened is that after the 
> British SWP moved into the British Socialist Alliance, the DSP approached 
> the ISO - publicly and privately - and negotiated the creation of such an 
> alliance in Australia. Then they drew in other elements.
>
> Upon which a layer of independents understandably thought: "Hey look, they're 
> setting up a broad party for us." It was attractive. Hell if I'd been 
> unaffiliated I'd have been attracted too.[*]  But the independents could 
> never have sustained the alliance on their own. They lacked the political 
> momentum and solidarity, and also a large proportion of them were somewhat 
> older (yes, like me) ex-members of cadre groups who lacked the energy to 
> build the alliance effectively. This is no criticism. To build such a thing 
> took major inputs of energy.
>
> They could join something propped up by the DSP apparatus (and to a lesser 
> extent that of the ISO) and jog along within it as long as everyone was 
> being nice to each other, but they didn't want to live with the consequences 
> as it emerged that the DSP had effective control.
So after 2005, with the combination of the withdrawal of the ISO and 
other small affiliates, reduced DSP substitution in Socialist Alliance 
organising, and the divisions in the DSP, would any of these 
independents remain in the Socialist Alliance? The answer is most did. 
All the militant trade union leaders who joined the Socialist Alliance 
have remained in and more have joined since. Indigenous leader Sam 
Watson remains proudly Socialist Alliance and is part of a new 
indigenous leadership which has called the first national demonstration 
outside the convening of the new parliament on February 11 to protest 
the Liberal-Labor supported racist military intervention into Northern 
Territory remote indigenous communities.

500+ of these independents have stayed with Socialist Alliance even 
though it was clear since 2004, if not before, that the Greens would 
take up most of the electoral opening left by rightward moving Labor - 
so they saw Socialist Alliance as something other than an immediate 
electoral vehicle.

Indirectly, the fact that the "independents" have stayed with Socialist 
Alliance underlines the relative isolation of the ISO and other small 
affiliates from the actually existing movement. It is extraordinary that 
not one of these groups had any intervention (I mean a 
building-the-movement-type intervention) into the anti-Work Choices 
campaign.

The sweeping election victory of the Rudd Labor government came on the 
backs of a real mass movement of the working class against the Howard 
government's "Work Choices" industrial relations laws (even the 
bourgeoisie and the defeated Liberal leadership now concede that this 
election was a virtual referendum on Work Choices). This real mass 
campaign would not have had the same character if not for a conscious 
intervention by Socialist Alliance comrades working together with other 
militant minority leaderships and activists in the trade unions (some of 
whom are in the Socialist Alliance and others still members of the Labor 
party or independents).

In January 2005, national trade union leadership in the Australian 
Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) insisted on no mass actions and no 
industrial action but we started a push for the same starting through 
mass delegates meetings in Victoria. The Victorian example spread and 
the rest is history. 

The small DSP could not do this by itself - DSP comrades it needed to 
work with a broader, actually existing militant section of the trade 
unions. This militant section was significant enough to take this 
initiative but not strong enough to resist the conservative trade union 
officials from dominating the mass platforms once the campaign got going 
(though there were a few exceptions dues to bureaucratic incompetence!).

Socialist Alliance was critical to bringing together this collaboration 
with the militant unions (which resulted in the June 2005 National Trade 
Union Fightback Conference 
<http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=433>) and as a result 
has earned more respect from that section and broader layers that 
followed the process.

This earned respect was expressed in the form of donations to the modest 
Socialist Alliance 2007 federal election campaign from the following 
trade unions: WA Electrical Trade Union (ETU), Victorian ETU, Queensland 
ETU, Tasmanian ETU, Victorian Australian Manufacturing Workers Union 
(AMWU), Victorian Construction, Forestry, Mining & Energy Union 
(Building division), NSW CFMEU (Building Division), WA Maritime Union of 
Australia (MUA) and Victorian MUA and the Victorian postal workers 
union. These donations were made in the knowledge that the Socialist 
Alliance would not win a significant vote in the ballot box and most 
progressive voters would be voting Greens or Labor. Since the 
dissolution of the old Communist Party of Australia, no other socialist 
group has received this amount of public support from trade unions.

This is why Richard Fidler does post a valid question (in response to 
Joaquín) about the political reasons why unity with the ISO and other 
small affiliates formerly in the Socialist Alliance fell apart after 2005:

> Sure, but you also have to ask yourself why this has not happened,
> or why the few attempts to form a "one big tent" party have been
> unsuccessful. Among the reasons, I would suggest, are inability to agree
> politically on even a few central tasks or demands, sectarianism on the part
> of small factional groupings within the broader formation, bureaucratism on
> the part of larger forces (unions, other mass organizations), etc. and above
> all the low level of political consciousness in almost all the major
> imperialist countries, as you yourself have repeatedly stated.