To be … Or not to be … The DSP
By Ray Fulcher, Melbourne branch
I agree generally with the draft resolution “The DSP and the Socialist Alliance” in The Activist Vol 15, No 4, August 2005.
That SA has “stalled” is clear to all. That the DSP has been drained as a result of our attempt to a) force the pace towards a MTSP and b) build SA and maintain the DSP is also pretty clear. That we need to restrengthen the DSP is obvious.
Squirreled away inside SA
We have, since our decision to become an internal tendency of SA, faced a rather peculiar conundrum.
We had resolved to squirrel ourselves away inside SA and only build that party. As the best builders of that party and promoters of Marxism we would recruit new cadre to the Democratic Socialist Perspective from within SA.
Unfortunately, in the MTSP we were keen to build, only one tendency was interested in playing – us. That meant more and more the organisational and financial burden of SA fell to our comrades as the most experienced and committed activists (the opposite effect of what we had hoped for).
At the same time we tried to do all our public outreach and socialist education through SA. This meant at times restricting what we could say as it was not SA policy. When we did want to step outside the confines of SA we did so through other vehicles – Resistance, GLW, Latin American solidarity – everything but the DSP. It was as though the DSP had vanished from the face of the Earth.
Although we were supposed to recruit to our perspective from within SA, we didn’t quite know how to do it. How to broach the subject that “Hey! Hi, I know you’ve joined this wonderful MTSP but if you want to be a real revolutionary-socialist then you should join this faction of it. The DS Perspective!” “What’s that? Why’s it different to the rest of SA?” We didn’t do it, we couldn’t do it.
The nett result was that we lost cadre and were unable to replace them. So we end up with the conundrum that the only tendency committed to pushing the SA project forward, and on which SA depends for its existence, weakens itself and its ability to build SA through a bizarre act of self-negation.
The DSP v The DSP
When I first heard of the debate about renaming ourselves a Party again and junking the term Perspective, part of me thought great – get rid of that idiotic word. Another part said well obviously we need to keep “perspective” because we have made this commitment to SA and calling ourselves a party again will be seen as a retreat from that.
After reading the various contributions on the topic so far I now think that comrades Percy and Lorimer have got it right.
The draft resolution says that we made a mistake with our “Perspective” perspective. It says that we should, in effect, re-emerge and rebuild the DSP. I agree. But how to do that and cause minimum impact on the relations with the “non-aligned” allies within SA?
Comrade Boyle contends in “Report on draft SA & DSP resolution to DSP NE August 15, 2005” in The Activist Vol 15, No 4, August 2005 that renaming ourselves a “Party” would be a mistake.
For SA, he says:
“…it would be as good as killing it. All the better forces in the Socialist Alliance – including the trade union militants who have joined the alliance or who have come to respect it – and much of our membership would see it that way.”
Why would they see it that way? Perhaps they would see that we were making a necessary adjustment in the face of reality. Perhaps we could explain it to them in those terms. Surely the “better forces”, especially the experienced trade union militants understand the need to shift and adjust your position as the struggle develops. They would all have done so themselves in union or other struggles.
Comrade Boyle claims that reverting to calling ourselves a Party would:
“…send out the signal far and wide that we are abandoning this specific new party initiative and we will pay a price for it.”
But as comrade Boyle indicates earlier, it is not the name “DS Perspective” that has gained us respect and support in SA. Rather it has been that we “committed serious resources to taking a step” in the direction of a “new mass workers’ party”. We began committing those resources as the DS Party, we continued and deepened that commitment (too much) as the DS Perspective. There is no reason we cannot continue the commitment (with necessary adjustments as the report outlines) as the DS Party again.
It is what we do in relation to the SA, our commitment of resources, that will ultimately determine SA members’ attitude to us, not what we call ourselves. Remember that our opponents in SA used our name change to “Perspective” and our commitment of resources to try to beat up a “DSP takeover” scare. It didn’t work because those we were working alongside could see the nonsense of it.
We were open about our position, our name change, and our shift of resources and what it all meant for us and for SA.
And therein lies the danger inherent in the draft resolution and comrade Boyle’s preferred approach.
Paragraph 25 of the resolution states:
“In short, the DSP has not been able to and cannot afford to operate as an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance. Therefore, this resolution proposes that the DSP function as a public revolutionary socialist organisation, while continuing to be affiliated to the Socialist Alliance, to build it and to seek to provide political leadership to it.”
But we will no longer persist with our position of integrating as much as possible of the DSP resources into SA.
Operating as an “internal tendency” within SA, integrating ourselves into an MTSP was what the “Perspective” perspective was all about.
If we are going to do what Paragraph 25 says (and the rest of the resolution) then we should do so openly and honestly – the way we moved into being a tendency – should be the way we move out. Does anybody seriously believe that simply by keeping the name “Perspective” we can avoid all the explaining, arguing, accusations, confusions, backbiting and name-calling that implementing this new perspective entails?
Of course not, we are going to re-emerge as a “public revolutionary socialist organisation” and people will notice. Those we work closely with will understand because we work closely with them. Others will need it explained. All will look to what this new reality means in terms of the resources we continue to commit to SA.
Final points
In their contribution ‘The Socialist Alliance is a vital part of our party-building project”, The Activist, Vol 15, No 5, September 2005 comrades Miller and Windisch state that:
“We support maintaining the DSP as a Perspective because it more accurately reflects our current political orientation.”
This is true.
Unfortunately “our current political orientation” is that adopted at the 21st Congress in the resolution “The Democratic Socialist Perspective and the Socialist Alliance”. That is, the “failed” orientation of integrating as much as possible into the SA that the draft resolution for the forthcoming Congress – “The DSP and the Socialist Alliance” – is designed to supersede.
Comrades Miller and Windisch have inadvertently put a compelling argument as to why we should revert to “Party”. That is because “Perspective” “accurately reflects” the failed attempt at integration. “Perspective” was intended to orient comrades to our goal of integration and an MTSP. Now that that has “stalled” and we are re-emerging as a public organisation we need to re-reorient comrades to our new perspective and a reversion to “Party” will assist that.
Comrades Miller and Windisch also argue that rather than call ourselves “Party” we can “hide” behind any number of fronts and more effectively do our work. In the ‘90s, they tell us, we “effectively hid behind GLW”. It is true that we have used many different vehicles to put a face to the public – GLW, DSEL, CISLAC, even Resistance or “Marxism Forums” we have used as public faces for our politics. But behind them all has stood the Party, ready to recruit and provide the hard Marxist education and training that is essential if any of this is to continue. Even Resistance exists primarily as a tool to funnel new young recruits to the Party.
But the point is not what particular tactic is best to reach out to a wider audience at any given moment. The point is how do we orient our comrades to a changed perspective and how do we integrate, educate and train those that do want to go further than one of our “fronts”.
Do we offer them a “Leninist-type revolutionary socialist party” that is clear in its politics and at the same time functions within a broader Socialist Alliance. Or do we offer them a “Perspective” that sits somewhere within an Alliance but newcomers are not quite sure of its role. Which would you join?