[Marxism] Uniting the Socialist Left

[Ian Angus]

******************************************
SOCIALIST VOICE
Marxist Perspectives for the 21st Century

June 6, 2009
Web edition: www.socialistvoice.ca
******************************************

UNITING THE SOCIALIST LEFT: THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE

An interview with Peter Boyle, Democratic Socialist Perspective

Peter Boyle is National Secretary of the Democratic Socialist
Perspective (DSP), a Marxist tendency in the Socialist Alliance in
Australia. He was interviewed last month for Socialist Voice by
co-editor Roger Annis.

SV: The Australian left founded a project of left unity and activism
in 2001. Can you describe the early years of that project and what it
achieved?

PB: The Socialist Alliance was formed in 2001 on the back of great
optimism about the prospects for left revival in the wake of the rise
of a movement at that time against capitalist globalization. Some
20,000 people had participated in a three-day long blockade of a
summit of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne the previous year.
That was Australia’s “Seattle” and it was followed up on May 1, 2001
with mass blockades of the stock exchanges in all the capital cities
of the country.

The formation of the Socialist Alliance was just one of a number of
initiatives at the time to take this political momentum forward. While
it has not had a smooth road since then, the Socialist Alliance is the
only one of these initiatives surviving today in Australia.
Regroupment projects inspired by anarchist ideology and attempts to
create local social forums all proved short-lived.

Complete article: http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=400