Appendix A: Prioritising cadre renewal in Resistance

[This appendix to the LPF party building report is a youth work position paper by Stella Riethmuller (Brisbane branch) and Shua Garfield (Sydney branch).]

Resistance has not recovered since the crisis in membership and activity three years ago.The Democratic Socialist Perspective has been unable to provide support and back-up to Resistance to aid the recovery because it is weighed down by trying to implement an impossible line on building the Socialist Alliance as our party. We are still suffering from the cadre crisis we identified at the May 2005 NC – a crisis resulting from the DSP masquerading as Socialist Alliance. We have over-estimated the objective political situation, turning a blind eye to the objective reality – continued working class retreat and a downturn in movements.

Problems in Resistance

The DSP’s current party-building line has led to contradictions in our youth work. For instance, despite Resistance’s larger periphery coming out of APEC, there remain some fundamental problems:

These problems in Resistance indicate that our youth work has not sufficiently recovered from the cadre/membership crisis from 2004. But improvements such as the new layers of semi-active membership scream out for the DSP’s renewed attention on Resistance. Resistance would be in a stronger position if the DSP as a whole refocused its attention on how to rebuild Resistance as a Marxist youth cadre organisation, rather than the current distraction of trying to build the Socialist Alliance as a party project.

Marxist education and decadreisation

The decrease in Marxist education in Resistance, thinking through, and practice, is both a contributing factor and a result of the cadre crisis in the DSP. We’ve seen on an inconsistent basis, proof that when the DSP does provide sufficient back-up and support in this realm in the last two years, we go some way in developing Marxist politics and political confidence in Resistance comrades, for example with the Resistance training weekends and camps helping to integrate O-Week joiners.

Marxist education has been deprioritised as a result of substitution and having to maintain the SA facade. We are dumbing-down our politics to those of left-reformist Socialist Alliance. We are no longer providing the forums for study or discussion to think through how to carry out revolutionary work.This is having a detrimental affect on prospective DSP members because there are fewer opportunities to stimulate thought or inspire Resistance comrades to become life-long revolutionaries.

The Young Workers’ Rights campaign

Although at the 2006 Congress, both the youth work report and the counter-report by the NE minority endorsed activity around workers’ rights/Work Choices, the prioritisation given to these areas of activity differed significantly.This was demonstrated in the June 1 “student strike” initiative, which was a consequence of the majority line adopted by the 2006 DSP Congress. The then NE minority, in the youth counter-report presented by Comrade Zoe Kenny, disagreed that the “young workers rights” campaign was “the “decisive” means for Resistance to rebuild” [i].

Despite the lack of a Young Workers’ Rights Campaign to relate to, and little objective basis to give the June 1 initiative a high priority, this DSP line led Resistance spending hours leafleting high schools, universities and train stations, building this rally at the expense of other priorities such as sales, education and Venezuela solidarity work.

The June 1 Student Strike was a moderate success in terms of numbers, with some 1600 attendees nationally. However, these numbers came from an almost mono-focused building effort spanning up to seven weeks in some cities, eg Sydney, prior to June 1.

In comparison, previous successful high school walkouts that Resistance had called, including the anti-Hanson walkouts and Books Not Bombs, were able to mobilise tens of thousands, because they related to sharp upsurges in youth sentiment around these issues.In these instances, calling a high school walkout, and devoting significant resources to it, was a correct tactic.

The justification for this strike was based on an inaccurate assessment that Resistance would be able to relate to the ACTU anti-WorkChoices campaign through a youth angle and put pressure on the ACTU. There was little objective basis for initiating the Young Workers’ Rights Campaign – there was insufficient existing sentiment around this issue amongst young people, and very few organisations to collaborate with in practice. The DSP majority and hence Resistance were swept up in the desire for a mass mobilisation around WorkChoices, rather than actually analysing the real forces in motion, sentiment, partners etc.

The DSP not only over-projected the objective political basis for the campaign, but also over-projected what was going to come out of it [ii]. Beyond the raw attendance – numbers at this single action – lies the bigger test of the projected Young Workers Campaign – what did Resistance gain out of it?Did we experience a lasting growth? No. While the membership figures grew and had a flow on effect reflected in the significantly larger delegation to the 2006 Resistance Conference, only one year later the conference size was back down to levels similar to those of the 2004 and 2005 conferences.Its 2007 levels – only some 108. In other words, we were unable to retain the members who we had initially been able to draw around.

The DSP majority overestimated the ability of Resistance, when it was weaker than it had been since the early ‘70s, to initiate and lead a campaign that had very little political basis.At the 2006 Resistance National Conference, June 1 was hailed as a success, but proposals for further activities and initiatives were downplayed and the campaign subsequently died without explanation or analysis as to why.In fact, the Young Workers’ Rights Campaign hasn’t been seriously motivated since mid-2006.

The Young Workers’ Rights Campaign and June 1 were about holding up the “class struggle at home” on a pedestal, and downplaying international solidarity. The young workers’ campaign marked a distinctive point at which Resistance deprioritised international struggles out the window and joined SA in its drift away from internationalism and towards more left-reformist politics.

Resistance and APEC – relating to the advanced layers of young people

Unlike June 1, the Walkout Against George and the resources we devoted to it were not based on an overestimation of the objective situation and related to young people who were conscious of political issues such as anti-war and climate change. Resistance activated a large periphery around building the walkout. However, this raises the need for an increased DSP back-up role in integrating, educating, and convincing these new layers of becoming life-long revolutionaries. Instead, Resistance’s need for back-up in even the most basic tasks, such as profiling its contingent at the September 8 anti-APEC demonstration, was neglected by the rest of the DSP, intent on substituting for the Socialist Alliance at all costs. While Resistance members were drawn into working-bees to put together hundreds of Socialist Alliance placards in the lead-up to the APEC demonstration, there was not a single Resistance placard to be seen at one of the most significant demonstrations of the year.

This has been part of a pattern of failings on the part of the DSP in giving proper back-up to Resistance in its outreach and profile tasks. For example in Brisbane, in many significant campaigns throughout the last two years, such as Stop Black Deaths in Custody, Talisman Sabre Peace convergence, and Justice for Haneef, Resistance has played merely an auxiliary role by attending rallies, holding banners, and selling Green Left. At the same time, DSP members (masquerading as Socialist Alliance) are profiled as the campaign leaders. Where Resistance has done good united front work, such as those cities where it pulled together broad youth contingents for Walk Against Warming, and therefore had its cadre occupied by tasks related to leading those interventions, non-Resistance DSP members have not stepped in to help support basic Resistance tasks like holding stalls. This is indicative of a pervasive ignorance amongst non-Resistance DSP members about the actual state of Resistance, its organisational weaknesses, and its need for support, an ignorance that is due to the poverty of discussion about our youth work on DSP bodies such as branch meetings and execs.

Venezuela Solidarity – the key to radicalising young people and developing cadre

Radicalising young people through solidarity with 21st Century socialism.

Our International solidarity work is crucial in winning young people to life-long revolutionary work.

The DSP has long-identified that in the political situation of generalised working class retreat we have faced in Australia for the past 25 years, characterised by the absence of sustained mass struggle, many of those who are won to revolutionary consciousness begin understanding revolutionary politics through studying and actively supporting revolutionary mass movements in other countries. What better example of revolutionary mass movements in the present time than those struggles in Venezuela? We can use Venezuela Solidarity as a weapon – a powerful example and inspiration – which the sects do not have.

We have seen from the propaganda work that Resistance has done – the sporadic film screenings and forums on Latin America solidarity (for example post O-Week forums), that there is potential in convincing young people and existing activists of becoming life-long revolutionaries. The quality of discussion in these forums has been high and as a result, the people who have become active in Resistance over the last few years were turned to socialism through our solidarity with Latin America.

But with the pressure and huge responsibility of being the only youth organisation actively building solidarity with Venezuela, and little experience in international solidarity, Resistance needs support from the DSP – in the form of guidance, direction, and time.In 2005, Resistance suffered from a total lack of DSP back-up in carrying out Venezuela Solidarity. Resistance at that time was inexperienced in international solidarity and lacked direction.However at this time, the very little work in Venezuela Solidarity happens almost exclusively through the DSP with little priority or mentoring for Resistance.This is a severe waste of potential.Resistance needs DSP back-up (not substitution) to make Venezuela Solidarity successful and to fulfil its potential in developing cadre.

Not only are we failing in our revolutionary duty to build solidarity with international struggles, but we are missing great opportunities to bring young people closer to revolutionary politics and develop leadership in the new layers who are already active in Resistance.

The DSP cannot begin to devote sufficient resources to building both AVSN and Resistance until we stop trying to build Socialist Alliance as our party.

Sales and Resistance branch life is stagnant

If the majority is claiming that Resistance has already sufficiently re-strengthened, let us look at the facts. Sales figures and participation is perhaps the best indication of the cadre situation in Resistance and the DSP. However, sales and participation figures remain low and stagnant, and branch life indicate that Resistance continues to be greatly weakened despite discourse that this period has passed. Resistance national sales have stayed the same over the last three years at between 300 and 400 sales per week, with 40-50 sellers. In Brisbane, which is one of the largest Resistance branches today, sales participation stays at an average of six sellers – the same as it was three years ago.

We’ve lost ground on many campuses to Socialist Alternative, including Bankstown, Melbourne Uni, Latrobe, and Sydney Uni.

The state of Resistance branches around the country is uneven:

A plan for re-prioritising cadre renewal in Resistance

Despite all of this, Resistance remains the best source of cadre replenishment for the DSP. The LPF want to discuss how to re-train cadre and resolve the cadre crisis. We can begin by institutionalising Marxist education, studies of 21st Century socialism, carrying out sales, and promoting an active collaboration between Resistance and the DSP. We can help develop confidence and leadership in Resistance by encouraging and training up comrades to participate in movements – to intervene and argue our line. We need to re-establish Resistance-DSP fractions as forums for discussions and training on how to intervene and participate in movements. Through this, we will help to train up a new layer of leaders in the party.

At the end of the day, we want to convince young people of becoming life-long revolutionaries. But the political line of the DSP is at the crux of Resistance’s problem of weakness.

LPF proposals for re-building Resistance:

The weakened foundations in Resistance have not yet been addressed – merely band-aided. Yet we are failing to take advantage of our powerful weapon of 21st century socialism in recruiting and integrating members by reprioritising this as a campaign area. The signs of the cadre crisis are very evident in Resistance’s lack of movement interventions and leadership, and our inconsistent Marxist education and study in our tendency is both a result of our cadre crisis and worsening the situation in Resistance. Resistance in its recent state has potential, but it can only be strengthened through reprioritising cadre development – through studying and practising revolutionary Marxism. And we can start to achieve this when the DSP properly assesses its political trajectory over the last few years and recorrect its line on Socialist Alliance. We will not be able to re-build Resistance and develop life-long revolutionaries until we ditch SA as the party we build, and resurface the real Marxist cadre party – the Democratic Socialist Party.

Historically, the DSP has provided back-up and support to Resistance to grow, partly because it has also been a sterling example of Marxism to Resistance – organisationally and politically. Throughout the previous two and a half decades of generalised working class retreat, the DSP and Resistance have maintained higher levels of membership, activity, and campaign leadership than it does now.However now we are burdened with the organisational tasks and political confusion of trying to build Socialist Alliance as a party – when we should be devoting the more attention and resources to Resistance.

“Student strike – While the student strike will be before June 28, it could play a major role in building June 28, especially if some unions are still cold on June 28. If the student strike gains a lot of publicity, it could also give some workers more confidence with striking to attend the June 28 mass protests.” Quite a few GL reports endorsed these two expectations:

Comrade Stuart Munckton wrote in the May 10, 2006 edition that “the example of France helped convince the socialist youth organisation Resistance to initiate the June 1 student strike against Work Choices.” How a student strike in another country on the other side of world “convinced” Resistance to call a national student strike in Australia is not explained. In the May 31, 2006 issue, Comrade Brianna Pike compared June 1 to the Books Not Bombs student strikes in 2003. “The Books Not Bombs student strikes against the Iraq war inspired many people, including older people, to be part of the struggle. Pike told GLW that Resistance is hoping June 1 can help play a similar role.” The article ends with a quote from Comrade Fred Fuentes: “On June 1, we can demonstrate our real value, show what young people are ‘worth’, when we lead the fight-back against WorkChoices.”

Footnotes

[i] From the NE minority “Youth work counter-report to 22nd DSP Congress”, 1st page of report.

[ii] For instance, in Comrade Sue Bolton’s report to the 2006May NC on Australian Politics on behalf of the NE majority, (2006 Activist p.9), she wrote: