Re: Replying to Alan was Re: The speech that Barnes should have given

["Alan Bradley" <alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Gary MacLennan
< Good news and stuff I agree with snipped. >

>Thank you for this Alan.  NO I am not depressed, well not more than
> usual.

The truth is that I was really just suggesting that your assessment was a
little negative in the present, rather interesting, situation.

> I am incubating a piece about Australia but thought I would wait until
> after the World Forum to see what happens. I have of course great hopes
> for the Melbourne protests.  I have been very impressed with the numbers
> of young people heading down.

My brain says that the WEF protests are just another short-lived struggle
of the kind we have seen every year for the last few years.  Something else
(hopefully, another part of my brain) says that maybe it is a signal that
we are moving towards another, higher, more sustained period of struggle.
Either is fine, when it comes to making projections for what to do next.
The only possibility that seems unlikely is that the series of limited
struggles will end.

We don't really need to batten down the hatches.  The prospects for the
Left are not really getting worse at the moment.  They may be getting
better.  We can risk a little audacity, and try to probe out beyond our
perimeters.

Now, what does this mean in organisational terms?  Frankly, I agree with
you that a party like the DSP isn't the thing for you.  A larger, if not
mass, party might be a different case.  But your situation is not the same
as that of one of the current and future radicalising teenagers.

What should we say to them?  Join/form a discussion group?  Sometimes, the
answer will be yes.  That is precisely what I would suggest in Toowoomba,
although it wouldn't exactly be a discussion group.

The depressing thing is that what we need in the current situation is
something very much like Resistance!  What we need is Resistance minus its
errors and its vices, and without a new set of errors and vices.  What we
need is something that will never exist.

Of course what we really need is a movement, and not just an organisation.
But as Marxists, we need the biggest and most influential and effective
organisation we can get, which can become part of a mass party.  In the
current situation, Resistance is the closest thing we have, and frankly,
they seem to be coping reasonably well.

This isn't quite what I intended to write.

The Left (and you know to what extent I mean the DSP and Resistance when I
write "the Left") faces fairly reasonable prospects at the moment.  We
shouldn't get carried away, but we shouldn't get too negative either, or
else we will become obstacles to those that seek to struggle.

I look forward to seeing your article.

PS:  S11 is an alliance of disparate forces, of course, of which DSP/Res is
only one.  The ISO and Socialist Party seem to have done fairly good work
too, although we have fought with them like cats in a sack.  I'm not sure
what role Socialist Alternative has played:  they haven't got many members.

Alan Bradley
alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx