[Marxism] A debate with Links over the revolutionary party

[Louis Proyect]

Patrick Bond wrote:
> 
> I met some of the comrades in Sydney three weeks ago and don't recognise any 
> of these traits. 

Other people do.

===

More significantly perhaps has been the transformation of the Alliance. 
The goodwill that accompanied the foundation of the Alliance heralding 
an era of co-operation between the Left has been replaced by 
manoeuvrings that have created a multi-tendency party in name but an 
Alliance persona that has made it an incarnation of its major affiliated 
organisation, the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP).

Rather than three years of collective experience and open discussion and 
debate, the political life of the Alliance has been dominated by 
internal machinations to establish what couldn't and wouldn't be agreed 
to in the founding discussions ie that the Alliance is now an exercise 
in left regroupment not primarily an electoral alliance.

Simply put, the Socialist Alliance of 2004 is not the Socialist Alliance 
of 2001.

Since 2003, it is now a multi-tendency party and the DSP have become the 
Democratic Socialist Perspective, an internal tendency of the Alliance. 
Despite the rhetoric of growth there is no significant independent 
membership. Indeed the claim to have a 1000 members hides the fact that 
the Alliance is smaller than it was after the first round of 
registrations. There are only a handful of individual independents who 
play any real role in the political life of the group. A number of 
ex-lefties did join in the early days of the Alliance, but it is no 
longer the case that people are joining the Alliance because "they see 
the left uniting and the 80 per cent of common agreement creates hope” 
(ISO internal bulletin, March 2004). It would be useful for the 
convenors to produce a breakdown of Alliance recruitment and their 
subsequent involvement in the group.

With the DSP becoming an internal tendency, the blurry distinction 
between the DSP and the Alliance has become even blurrier. Anecdotal 
reports from both city and regional branches indicate that any new 
people in the Alliance branches are unaware of the distinction and those 
that do stay for any period usually become members of the DSP or are 
drawn into DSP activities such as selling the GLW.

full: http://members.optushome.com.au/spainter/Lookingclass.html