Towards a new workers' party

[The following is the editorial from the September issue of Workers
Liberty magazine. The Workers Liberty group is one of eight organisations
affiliated to the Socialist Alliance.]

Workers' Liberty has been arguing that the Socialist Alliance needs
to become much more than an electoral alliance if it is to succeed at enlarging
and mobilising support for working-class socialist politics.

From its very founding we argued for a platform for the Socialist Alliance
that is far more than a set of dot points derived from current political
campaigns. We have argued for the Socialist Alliance to commit itself to
socialism as nothing like the socialism of the old USSR, but to socialism
based on production publicly owned and democratically managed by workers
and the community. We have argued for the Socialist Alliance to be a voice
for working class struggle, the struggle out of which socialism can be
created.

During the formation of the alliance we argued for a democratic alliance
which would encourage open discussion of ideas about socialism, in the
pages of its own web sites, email discussions, and broadsheet. More recently,
we have put the case for the Socialist Alliance to work towards deeper
left unity, and specifically we have made concrete proposals for mobilising
the membership to build rank and file militant caucuses in unions and a
serious attitude to union work.

Now the DSP leadership has announced its intention to propose to the
DSP conference in December that the DSP should operate as an internal tendency
of the Socialist Alliance and negotiate for the SA to take “as much of
the political and organisational assets we have built up through the DSP
into the Socialist Alliance as is possible”.

Workers' Liberty welcomes the DSP's new allocation of resources to the
Socialist Alliance. This opens up new possibilities which could see the
Alliance make great strides forward. Our proposals for the alliance now
gain greater immediate relevance.

We propose that at its May conference the alliance should commit itself
to:

• 
  a more comprehensive class struggle platform;

a publication that can support the alliance to become a party rather than
a federation;

developing joint work at least in unions, campaigns and on campus; and

a new constitution to support moves from an electoral alliance to a working
class socialist party, and to guarantee free and unfettered discussion
of political issues.

Platform

We take political agreement seriously, and the political basis for left
unity very seriously. The DSP argues that more substantial political agreement
than currently exists as per the SA platform has been demonstrated in practice.
This agreement “in practice” falls a long way short of being a basis for
a cohesive and consciously committed SA membership.

A clear, conscious political agreement must be the basis for
unity, not an organisational swamping that might force out other left groups
without political clarity.

Workers' Liberty will be renewing proposals for a more comprehensive
and explicitly working class and socialist platform for the SA, to be debated
up to and at the May 2003 SA conference. We propose that the platform of
the SA as a party should include:

l<~>A commitment to socialism as the creation of
the working class, self-organised in struggle, overthrowing the power of
capital, and democratically managing production.

l<~>Linking our aim of socialism to the present
by basing ourselves on support for working-class struggle.

l<~>A platform that translates into perspectives
for the SA to put forward for how the union movement and campaigns can
win reforms and demands, and that moves the SA beyond the rituals of protest
politics.

Publication

We propose that the alliance will need a publication that is both agitational
and has space to address deeper theoretical issues. It must guarantee space
for all points of view within the alliance and the editorial board composition
must reflect the variety of the opinions in the alliance.

We are for the alliance to commence its own weekly publication from
the May conference onwards, once there has been time to consider and discuss
the editorial policy and nature of the weekly publication.

Campaigning and branches

We propose that the SA should proceed to immediately discuss the only concrete
proposals for developing a unified approach to trade union work that have
been put forward — the trade union work proposal of Workers' Liberty comrades.

We are also concerned that the DSP (and some others in the alliance)
take a sectarian attitude to the labour movement, especially the ALP, seeking
unnecessary organisational splits from the ALP rather than organising support
for a socialist platform throughout the labour movement.

We also propose that SA branches should be encouraged to shift their
emphasis from organisational details to political discussion and education.

Constitution

We propose that the constitution of the SA should provide for increased
accountability of elected bodies, rights of recall, guaranteed representation
on elected bodies for minority viewpoints and methods for making constitutional
changes.

All tendencies within the alliance are currently guaranteed the right
to organise as caucuses. Additional provision should be made for guaranteeing
caucuses or tendencies within the alliance, the right to publish and distribute
their own material.

The DSP's motives

Whatever the DSP's motives, the alliance has to date operated on a comradely
and democratic basis, and DSP comrades have carried a significant workload
in the alliance. There are hundreds of non-aligned members, many of whom
are relatively inactive, but many of whom could be mobilised and enthused
at the prospect of the alliance becoming a more effective political force.

We look forward to the immediate opening of a vigourous discussion on
the way forward for left unity and the development of working class socialist
politics, and to the May 2003 Socialist Alliance conference taking some
bold steps towards these goals.

From Green Left Weekly, September 25, 2002.

Visit the Green Left Weekly
home page.