re: DSP and Socialist Alliance

["Alan Bradley" <abradley1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

For those who are unaware of who Bob Gould is, he is essentially a
paleo-Trot, who considers the ALP to be "the workers' party" and has been a
member of it for ages. In essence, then, his comment on the DSP proposal
represents a pro-ALP position. More such positions can be expected.

From: Bob Gould
> Nigel Irritable raises some legitimate questions about the DSP's proposal
> to dissolve into the Socialist Alliance: two important questions are why
> now and why the haste?

The timing question is an interesting one. It may actually be premature, and
represent the impact of impatience. "Haste" isn't a problem: no decision is
going to be made by the DSP until January, that is, in four months' time,
and that is only the beginning of a process of negotiation with the rest of
the Socialist Alliance. This "hasty" process could well take the best part
of a year.

> Everything in the internal life of the DSP up to the present underlines
> that ultra-Cannonism is their organisational model and their practice. The
> DSP is pretty well homogeneous, and organised from the top down, and the
> way they sketch out how their tendency will operate in the alliance has to
> be considered in this Cannonist spirit. Is this leopard really about to
> change its spots, and with such speed?
...
> Everything in the DSP comes from the top down, based on the caricature the
> DSP leaders have in their heads about how Lenin and the Bolsheviks used to
> operate. The DSP hasn't changed in that respect.

Yawn.

Well, for starters, the point is that the DSP will not _exist_ if their
proposal is passed. That is, its former members will be bound _only_ by the
discipline of the SA, and not by the discipline of the DSP. (And that will
be something worth watching, as they try and work out what that means...)

The top down stuff is demonstrable nonsense. The first public suggestion
that a Socialist Alliance should be formed in Australia came from a rank and
file member in Brisbane. At the same time, I was also speculating along
these lines. When we got together to compare notes, it turned out that we
both had the idea of seizing an opportunity we both saw to form an outfit
like the Scottish Socialist Party, into which the DSP would organisationally
liquidate and build into something a little bit more like a real
revolutionary workers' party. At the same time, many other DSP members, both
rank and file and in the leadership were thinking along the same lines.

This current proposal stems from a general political line that was every bit
as much a creation of the DSP rank and file as it was of the leadership. All
that has really happened is that the national office has decided that the
time is ripe to take another step in implementing what is the accepted,
understood and very, very _public_ political line of the DSP. Taking such
decisions is, in fact, the role of the national leadership - that's why they
exist.

The step that needs to be taken will entail very radical changes to the way
the DSP's members operate. For that reason, if for no other, the DSP needs
to ensure that it achieves consensus that the step is necessary. There is no
room for bullshitting here: this _must_ be a real democratic decision, or
they will simply split. So you can trust that the process will be
democratic.

The DSP's "ultra-Cannonism" is quite an interesting thing. In fact, what it
actually means is that the DSP takes its democratic processes seriously.
That is, when they decide to change how their tendency operate, they mean
it, because it is a democratic political decision that they took. If they
"cheat", they will only cheat themselves.

But, in any case, the DSP aren't the kind of self-caricaturing fools Gould
portrays them as. In fact, they are actually flexible and imaginative
_Leninists_. They are perfectly capable of making political judgements,
amending their tactics and organisation forms accordingly, and taking the
whole party with them without needless splits. _This is what revolutionary
leadership is about!!!_

Gould, on the other hand, is what I called a paleo-Trot. He has his dogmatic
schema about the role of the Labor party, and you wouldn't shift him from it
if you used dynamite.

Alan Bradley
abradley1@xxxxxxxxxxx



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