The Activist - Volume 15, Number 4 – August 2005
By Doug Lorimer and John Percy, Sydney Central branch

The National Executive’s draft resolution for the 22nd DSP Congress on "The DSP and the Socialist Alliance" provides the political motivation for a new party-building orientation in which the DSP ceases to operate as an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance and returns to functioning as a public revolutionary socialist organisation that recruits members from within and outside the membership of the Socialist Alliance, while continuing to be affiliated to the Socialist Alliance, to build it as a campaigning alliance in the social movements (particularly the trade union movement) that seeks to build a mass workers’ party.

The DSP’s previous party-building perspective – set out in the resolution "The Democratic Socialist Perspective and the Socialist Alliance" adopted by the 21st DSP Congress in December 2003 (printed in Links No. 26) – was predicated upon the decision by the 2nd National Conference of the Socialist Alliance (May 2003) to "adopt the perspective of transforming itself into a single, multi-tendency socialist party and to accept and welcome a strong revolutionary socialist stream as an integral part of our vision of a broad socialist party". This decision, the resolution stated, opened "the door for the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) to become an internal tendency within the alliance". At the time, the DSP was one of the affiliates of the SA; in fact, the largest affiliate.

The resolution motivated the proposal for the Democratic Socialist Party to become an "internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance" on the grounds that the "Socialist Alliance will be able to win over more militant trade union leaders and work more closely with a wider layer of working-class militants – winning their respect and confidence – if we are organised as a united socialist party". It argued that the "sooner we move to implement the perspective adopted at the 2nd National Conference of the Socialist Alliance, the greater the chance of winning valuable working-class leaders to our ranks and to socialism".

After noting that "[t]hree-quarters of the delegates at the May 2003 Socialist Alliance National Conference, including nearly all the delegates who did not belong to a revolutionary socialist organisation, voted to ‘progress towards a single, multi-tendency socialist party’ and to ‘accept and welcome a strong revolutionary socialist stream as an integral part of our vision of a broad socialist party’," the resolution stated that the DSP "agrees with this" and "advocates that the affiliate groups in the Socialist Alliance pool their resources and experience and build the Socialist Alliance as the new multi-tendency party for socialism in Australia", adding: "We seek to lead this process through example", i.e., by converting the Democratic Socialist Party into an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance with the following purposes:

"● to build the Socialist Alliance and progress its transformation into a united, multi-tendency socialist party;

"● to integrate as much as possible of the resources of the Democratic Socialist Party into the Socialist Alliance as possible;

"● to promote internationalism and comradely collaboration between the Socialist Alliance and socialist organisations in other countries on the basis of solidarity and mutual non-interference;

"● to win other Socialist Alliance members to revolutionary socialism;

"● to educate and train Socialist Alliance members in all aspects of Marxism;

"and

"● to provide revolutionary political leadership and direction within the alliance."

While politically motivating the decision to convert the DSP into an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance, the resolution also affirmed that this tendency would be "a revolutionary socialist, Marxist organisation".

The decision by the 21st DSP Congress to convert the Democratic Socialist Party into an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance involved the adoption of the resolution "The Democratic Socialist Perspective and the Socialist Alliance" (politically motivating this proposal) and the adoption of a series of amendments to the DSP’s constitution that put the decision into actual effect (see appendices 1 and 2 below).

As an expression of our ceasing to be a public revolutionary socialist organisation and becoming an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance we changed our organisation’s name from Democratic Socialist Party to Democratic Socialist Perspective. We also changed our statement of aims from:

"(a) To abolish the capitalist social order in Australia and, in collaboration with the international working-class movement, to eliminate poverty, national inequality, sexist oppression, racist discrimination, war and ecological destruction, through the construction of a classless, socialist society.

"(b) To achieve this by educating and organising the workers and other oppressed social groups, on the basis of the party’s Program, for a revolutionary struggle to replace the capitalist government with a working people’s government.

to: "(1) to build a revolutionary socialist party that is capable of organising the Australian working class to bring into being a socialist society through replacing the political rule of the capitalist class with a working people’s government, (2) to convince the membership of the Socialist Alliance to adopt and act on this perspective and (3) to transfer the political and organisation acquisitions of the Democratic Socialist Party to the Socialist Alliance."

In nearly all other respects, with one important exception, we retained the organisational structure and the rules of functioning of the Democratic Socialist Party. That exception – making it clear that we were ceasing to operate as a public organisation and were going to operate as an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance – we made membership of the Socialist Alliance as a constitutional condition of membership of the DSP that: "Members of the DSP are members of the Socialist Alliance who have been admitted to membership of the DSP by either its local or national leadership bodies".

The NE’s draft resolution "The DSP and the Socialist Alliance" argues that "the DSP has not been able and cannot afford to operate as an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance", and 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’, that is, the DSP needs to return to the organisational relationship that existed between the DSP and the Socialist Alliance prior to the 21st DSP Congress. In particular, the draft resolution argues that "[w]e need to recruit to the DSP from within and outside the Socialist Alliance and, primarily through Resistance, win, educate and develop a new generation of revolutionary youth cadre".

To put the new party-building perspective motivated in the NE’s draft resolution into practical effect will require amendments to the DSP constitution. In our opinion, the coming DSP Congress should rescind the constitutional amendments adopted by the 21st DSP Congress.

Rescinding these amendments would mean that the DSP once again becomes a public organisation, in both practice and name, i.e., it would mean rescinding the change in the DSP’s name made at the last congress, i.e., we would once again call ourselves the Democratic Socialist Party.

Of course, we should not spring any such decision on our close collaborators in the Socialist Alliance. The NE has already taken a decision to inform our close collaborators in the Socialist Alliance of the change in the DSP’s perspectives proposed in the draft resolution for the coming DSP Congress, adopting a motion that authorises branch secretaries, in consultation with the NE Secretariat, to make the NE draft resolution available to our close collaborators in the Socialist Alliance and to explain its political line to them.

If the October National Committee plenum endorses the political line contained in the NE’s draft resolution and the proposal that the coming DSP congress rescind the amendments adopted at the last congress, we think the NC should authorise the NE to communicate these proposals to the membership of the Socialist Alliance as a whole via the SA NE. This would be consistent with the approach we took prior to 20th Congress (when the DSP NC first proposed that the DSP cease to function as a public party and convert itself into an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance) and the point made in the 21st Congress’s resolution on "The Democratic Socialist Perspective and the Socialist Alliance" : "Those comrades with whom the Democratic Socialist Party now works – and the many more who will join the alliance in the future – will always know where the Democratic Socialist Perspective is coming from. It will not seek to trick them into collaboration by hiding its revolutionary perspective."

In our opinion, it does not make sense for the coming DSP congress to rescind only those constitutional amendments that made us an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance, but to retain the name Democratic Socialist Perspective. We abandoned the name Democratic Socialist Party in favour of the name Democratic Socialist Perspective in order to publicly express that we had ceased to operate as a public organisation and were going to operate as an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance, aiming to "transfer the political and organisation acquisitions" of the DSP to the Socialist Alliance in order to progress its transformation into a new socialist party. The NE draft resolution argues that the DSP needs to cease functioning as an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance and again operate as a "public revolutionary socialist organisation". To do so, but to retain the name we adopted when we became an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance (Democratic Socialist Perspective) will send out a confusing message about what the DSP is doing – reverting to being a public revolutionary socialist organisation with all the attributes of a Leninist-type revolutionary socialist party but which, for some unexplained reason, does not want to call itself a party.

There are, of course, political circumstances in which a Marxist organisation with all the attributes of a party does not call itself a party. The most common one is when the organisation is carrying out an entryist operation intoanother party that prohibits its members from being members of any other public party organisation. We are not projecting to carry out any entryist operation into any other such party organisation. What reason then exists for us not to publicly call our party organisation a party?

It has been argued that rescinding the change of name to Democratic Socialist Perspective, and readopting the name Democratic Socialist Party, would send the "wrong signal" to our allies in the Socialist Alliance – that we are giving up on building the Socialist Alliance as a broad left party project. That would, of course, be true if we did not provide any explanation of why we were proposing to do this and what our perspectives are for building the Socialist Alliance.

This political explanation is relatively straightforward. It can be summarised as follows: At the 2nd national conference of the Socialist Alliance (May 2003), the DSP supported a resolution proposing that the Socialist Alliance "become a single, multi-tendency party" and that "a commitment from affiliates to building the Socialist Alliance through increasing integration needs to be demonstrated, in word and deed". That resolution did not require any of the affiliate groups to cease being public organisations and become internal tendencies in the Socialist Alliance. However, it did encourage them to move in that direction, stating that "conference recognises the organisational and programmatic integrity of its affiliate organisations and welcomes their continued existence as tendencies within the alliance"

While our 20th Congress, held in January 2003 authorised the DSP National Committee to put into effect the constitutional amendments adopted by the Congress that would have enabled the DSP to become an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance, we waited until our 21st Congress, in December 2003, to convert the DSP into an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance, and to symbolise this change, replaced the world "Party" in our organisation’s name with the word "Perspective".

The resolution on "The Democratic Socialist Perspective and the Socialist Alliance" adopted by our 21st Congress explains that we were taking this decision in order to put moral pressure on the other affiliates to "pool their resources and experience and to build the Socialist Alliance as the new multi-tendency party for socialism in Australia". We sought to do this by leading "this process through example", i.e., by ceasing to operate as a public organisation, by converting the DSP into an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance, and by seeking to rapidly "integrate as much of the resources of the Democratic Socialist Party as possible".

The NE’s draft resolution for the coming DSP Congress argues that the "attempt at integration has failed because the conditions to build the Socialist Alliance into a new party did not exist"; that our previous party-building orientation was based on "over-estimation of" these political conditions to transform the Socialist Alliance into a new socialist party. It further argues that the Socialist Alliance "will have to go through a more extended period of united campaigning and regroupment with broader left forces that are generated by a new upturn of resistance to the capitalist neoliberal ‘reforms’ before it can ... take a significant step to creating a new socialist party".

The draft resolution argues that the "DSP has not been able to and cannot afford to operate as an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance"; and therefore "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 not with the false perspective of rapidly trying to transform it into a new socialist party. Rather, the draft resolution argues, we have to "build the Socialist Alliance as a campaigning alliance in the social movements (particularly the trade union movement) that seeks to retain electoral registration and remains "open to standing candidates in local, state and federal elections ... to advance its campaigning work in the social movements and to promote the need for a new mass workers’ party".

In the meantime, while building the Socialist Alliance as a campaigning alliance that champions the need for a mass workers’ party, the DSP cannot continue to function as an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance. The DSP needs to function as a public revolutionary socialist organisation, recruiting people to its ranks from within and outside the Socialist Alliance. Changing its name back to the Democratic Socialist Party publicly expresses this change in the DSP’s party-building orientation.

In the content of this explanation of our new party-building orientation, including our new perspectives for building the Socialist Alliance, why would changing our name back to the Democratic Socialist Party send the signal to our allies in the Socialist Alliance that we are giving up on building the Socialist Alliance as a broad left party project? Wouldn’t it simply and publicly signal that what we are giving up on is the DSP continuing to operate as an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance?

In his report to the August 15 DSP NE meeting motivating the adoption of a draft of the resolution "The DSP and the Socialist Alliance" incorporating most of the amendments that we had circulated several days earlier to the members of the NE, Comrade Peter Boyle claims that "because of our leadership role in the Socialist Alliance" the mere act of changing our name back to the Democratic Socialist Party would "be as good as killing" the Socialist Alliance. Why? Because "[a]ll 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".

So, even before there has been any discussion of the political motivation for such a proposal with any of these better forces in the Socialist Alliance, Peter knows what they will think of it. He claims to know today, no matter what arguments are presented to them in the next four months, what they will think if the DSP Congress next January votes to restore the word "Party" to our organisation’s name.

Peter further claims to know today, without there having been any discussion in the DSP membership as a whole of this proposal and the political motivation for it, that "much" of the DSP’s membership will see a decision by the DSP Congress in January to change the DSP’s name as saying the DSP is giving up on the SA as a new party project. Perhaps Peter can give us a list of these comrades, so that we can devote special attention to convincing them that it would not mean any such thing. Or are "much" of the DSP membership so ingrained with latent sectarianism that this would be pointless – that no matter what arguments we present to them, as soon they see the word "Party" instead of "Perspective" after the words "Democratic" and "Socialist" in Article 1 of the DSP constitution, their dormant sectarian desires will kick in and they will clamour for the DSP to disaffiliate from the Socialist Alliance or move to dissolve it?

In his report, Peter makes the correct point that "Lots of socialists say they support a ‘new mass workers party’, but the DSP has committed serious resources to taking a step in that direction together with others in the Socialist Alliance. That’s a difference between us and Stephen Jolly’s Socialist Party that Craig Johnston homed in on at the Fightback conference! We have won broader support and respect for this commitment and it would be a mistake to abandon this project now." He then makes the claim that "If we rename ourselves the "Democratic Socialist Party" at the coming Congress we will send out the signal far and wide that we are abandoning this specific new party initiative and we will pay a price for it". He then adds: "One part of this price is to risk squandering our historic opportunity to work more closely with important leadership elements in the militant trend in the trade unions." Two paragraphs earlier in his report, Peter told us that it was a certainty that these elements, regardless of what political explanations we gave them in advance, would see a decision by the DSP to rename itself the Democratic Socialist Party as us giving up on the Socialist Alliance as a new party project. Now, he’s a little less sure of what they will think – we’d be taking a risk of squandering the opportunity to work more closely with them.

We agree there’s a risk involved. There are risks involved in every change of political perspective. For example, there’s a risk that the leadership elements that Peter refers to will think that the new perspectives for the DSP set out in the NE’s draft resolution – in which we say that the political conditions do not exist for transforming the Socialist Alliance into a new party and will not come into being without a new upsurge in the class struggle, that the integration process between the DSP and the SA has failed, and that the DSP has to cease to operate as an internal tendency of the Socialist Alliance and revert to operating as a public organisation – means that we are giving up on the Socialist Alliance as a new party project. They may think that all our assurances about us continuing to build the Socialist Alliance and to provide political leadership to it are not sincerely meant, that we are only retaining the name Democratic Socialist Perspective to disguise our abandonment, in practice, of the SA as a new party project.

However, we are confident those who have worked with us know that – unlike the ISO, for example – we do not say one thing and do another. Furthermore, like us, they are practical working-class activists, not middle-class literati – they, like us, judge people not by what they say (including what they call themselves), but what they do, by their actions. To think that they will stop working with us simply because we change the label we put on our organisation, greatly underestimates their practical, fundamentally proletarian, approach to politics.

In his report, Peter takes issue with the argument made in the Notes that Comrade John Percy circulated prior to the NE’s discussion of the draft resolution that we cannot build two parties for an extended period. Peter argues that "we can and need to build two ‘parties’ at this time: The DSP and the Socialist Alliance". He adds the clarification that "they are two different kinds of ‘parties’." Further clarifying what he means by this, Peter states that the "DSP is a revolutionary party", while the "Socialist Alliance is a broad left party project". We completely agree. But this means we are not actually building two actually existing parties – we are building an actually existing revolutionaryparty (the DSP) and a broad left party project (the Socialist Alliance).

The NE’s draft resolution recognises this reality in relation to the Socialist Alliance. It points out that "[w]hile the Socialist Alliance has adopted the perspective of transforming itself into a multi-tendency socialist party, this is just the beginning of such a new party project". It argues that the Socialist Alliance will have to "go through a more extended period of united campaigning and regroupment with broader left forces that are generated by a new upturn of resistance to the capitalist neoliberal ‘reforms’ before it can harness the leadership resources and political confidence to take a significant step to creating a new socialist party". Furthermore, the draft resolution points out that if this occurs, it does not automatically mean that the Socialist Alliance will become the new socialist party: "If there is a new rise of the class struggle, new political partners will be drawn into the project for a new party and the Socialist Alliance may have to become part of or be transformed into or be supplanted by new structures for best organising the strongest political voice for anti-neoliberal resistance" Finally, taking the existing political situation and real possibilities for building the Socialist Alliance into account, the draft resolution sets out the DSP’s new perspective for building the Socialist Alliance – as a campaigning alliance in the social movements (particularly the trade union movement ) that champions (including in the electoral arena) the need for and seeks to work with others to build a new mass workers’ party.

However, when it comes to what the DSP is, the NE draft resolution is not as forthright as Peter is in his report. It does not say that the DSP is a revolutionary party. The DSP is described as "revolutionary socialist, Marxist, organisation" that has attempted since December 2003 to operate as an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance, but which "has not been able" to do this, "cannot afford" to continue attempting to do it and therefore must "function as a public revolutionary socialist organisation".

Peter, in an internal DSP report, frankly acknowledges that the DSP is a revolutionary party. But in the same report, he urges the party to vote to publicly conceal this fact by continuing to officially call itself a "Perspective" (a standpoint, an outlook). Doesn’t this make a mockery, Peter, of the last two sentences in the draft resolution we are asking comrades to vote for?