In my experience of factional polemic on the Australian far left I think this perspective below sums up the attitude of most socialist outfits to left unity and regroupment. So I gotta hand it to the Revolutionary Socialist Party for frankness after its two years of disputation within the DSP during which they sharply argued against the Socialist Alliance project.Of course, I have a very different POV.
"However, in today’s conditions of continuing working class retreat the creation of a broad-left party of anti-capitalist resistance is simply not on the agenda. The necessary partners for such a party – substantial new class-struggle forces and leaders – do not yet exist and will not come into existence until there is a sustained mass upsurge of working class resistance...I think the late Jim Percy referred to this outlook as the "our day will come" approach to party building and socialism.
"The only practical steps we can take towards the eventual emergence of a broad party of anti-capitalist resistance are building our own party, the RSP."
- RSP Perspectives Resolution, "Building the Revolutionary Socialist Party" Resolution adopted by First Congress of the RSP, June 6-8, 2009.
The irony is that now outside the RSP -- such local outfits -- local franchises of toy international projects -- as the Socialist Party and Solidarity --- may need to adjust their thinking as their mother parties in the UK , in the light of recent EU election results, are now discussing their options for some form of left regroupment.
Will things change here? And does the RSP realize that it may indeed be going in one direction while the rest of the left, albeit begrudgingly, proceed in another?
