If we had won (was: Re: marxism-digest V1 #4759)

["Alan Bradley" <abradley1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Steve Painter
> By the way, what was the plan if the DSP had won?

You were in a better position to tell us that than I was, but as far as I
was concerned, we would, indeed, actually have liquidated the DSP into the
kind of outfit we were trying to set up.  We would have kept some kind of
looser affiliation, though.

This outfit, which would have been the Greens, would have been a campaigning
organistion, and it would have campaigned on all the stuff which needs to be
campaigned on.  (This would have provided a basis for its electoral work.)

On the level of parties, its main opponent would have been the ALP.  It
would have continually found ALP members and supporters standing in its way,
and would have had to fight them.  That would really have been the reason
for its existence - Social Democracy is incapable and uninterested in
defending the environment, or doing much of anything else that is
interesting or useful.

At some point, it probably would have been necessary to reconstitute a
Marxist party, but that was a question for the indefinite future.

Think of it like this:  what if the NZ Alliance had had several hundred
committed Marxist activists on the ground and in its leadership?  It would
still have failed, unfortunately, but it would have been a much more
interesting outfit.

The sad fact, though, was that the DSP never was going to win.  In that
sense, we probably shouldn't have been there.  On the other hand, the rank
and file (like me) would have gone in as individuals if we hadn't gone in as
a tendency.  You, as a DSP leader, had no choice but to follow us.

Alan Bradley
abradley1@xxxxxxxxxxx



~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.