BY MARCEL CAMERON & TIM STEWART
BRISBANE — More than 50 people attended a lively debate on November 23, sponsored by the Socialist Alliance and discussing the way forward for the left. The meeting was addressed by University of Queensland academic Dan O'Neill, Maria Voukelatos from the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) and Mark Gillespie from the International Socialist Organisation (ISO).
O'Neill argued that, in a certain sense "we are back where we started when the socialist movement began [in the first decades of the 19th century]". Then, as now, the poverty and human degradation of capitalism were evident, but the socialist movement was not a mass force in society. Touching on the current debate about the future of the Socialist Alliance, he said that "talk about returning to the Bolshevik tradition is bullshit", arguing instead for socialist consciousness raising.
Voukelatos argued that the way forward for the left was to strengthen the Socialist Alliance. It was not enough to "raise the flag at the ballot box". The alliance "must become an all-rounded campaigning organisation that people can join and get involved in".
"We have to seize this opportunity with both hands", she said. "Let's see what we can build together. If we do not commit more time and energy to the Socialist Alliance, and do it soon, it will wither. An opportunity to transcend the splintered and marginalised existence of the socialist movement in this country may well have been lost."
Gillespie compared the political situation today with "the 1930s, but in slow-motion". In many countries, he argued, people are looking to alternatives to the mainstream, pro-capitalist parties. They "could go either to the left or to the right, as we saw with the rise of the One Nation party". The main task for socialists, he said, is to work with non-socialists in "united fronts" such as anti-war coalitions and refugees' rights groups.
The ISO considers the Socialist Alliance to be such a united front in the electoral sphere, and is therefore opposed to the alliance adopting a more explicitly socialist platform as this "would cut us off from people", Gillespie argued.
The two and a half hour discussion centred on four main issues: whether we need to organise to change society; the relationship between parties and movements; how socialists should work together to rebuild fighting trade unions and working class struggles; and which way forward for the Socialist Alliance.
Many expressed frustration at being isolated socialists in their workplaces. Phil Monsour, an unaffiliated member of the Socialist Alliance, said that the alliance needs to support "people doing political work in all areas. I never committed to the ISO or the DSP, but I did commit to the Socialist Alliance. Why? To provide a framework for my political work in the teachers union".
From Green Left Weekly, December 4, 2002.
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