UPDATE: Palestine protests resources & actions

Socialist Alliance media release Pics of Sydney rally in solidarity with Gaza Pics of Brisbane rally in solidarity with Gaza Download placards here, here and here. Upcoming rallies and meetings:

* Perth protest: Wednesday,December 31, 12.30pm, West Church, Cnr Hay and Murray Sts - organised by Friends of Palestine, Western Australia.
* Newcastle protest: Wednesday December 31, 4pm at the Clock Tower in Hamilton. Contact Niko on 0406 296 141 for more information.
* Sydney:Public Seminar on background to the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza Saturday January 3, 2pm, Sydney Resistance Centre, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale. Organised by Resistance & the Socialist Alliance. Info: 02 9690 1977 or 0448 605 203
* 2nd Brisbane protest: - Saturday January 3, 2pm, Queens Park.
* 2nd Melbourne protest: Sunday January 4, 2pm, State Library.

This Week in Palestine: Gaza news reports

This Week in Palestine is a link (in the box above)on this blog that offers a pop player presenting latest audio from IMEMC.

Arabic-language statement from Socialist Alliance (Australia) condemns Israel's Gaza massacre

Socialist Alliance on Israel's Gaza massacre in Arabic, Dec 29 2008

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Politics australia arabic

Population control:myth and reality

This is a very thorough review of the "population debate'" and Connelly destroys the assumptions and fears that the population controlists utilize to relegate "population" as a workshop for many technological fixes in regard to resources.

Source: Background Briefing.

Are you worried about the future of the environment, or war, or hordes of refugees? The solution is not to manipulate population growth. Past results have been tragic, and ineffectual. Historian Professor Matthew Connelly of Columbia University proposes some alternatives.

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Original audio source

• New York Times Review of Fatal Misconceptions by Matthew Connelly
• Matthew Connelly's home page

How should we respond to Israel's latest attack on Gaza?

Click to Play

Interview with Paul Benedek from the Socialist Alliance conducted at the Brisbane rally in support of Palestine, December 29th, 2008.

The rally was called to respond to the latest attack by Israel on the people of Palestine and was one of several organised protests held in capital cities across Australia. There were similar protests internationally. More protests and public meetings have been scheduled locally.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

Most Wanted for 2009

by Dave Riley

One of my favorite blogs is A very public sociologist, anchored by Phil BC (that's all I know) and Phil has a "meme" dedicated to the most wanted for the pending year -- the current one being for 2009.

While we hope that Phil completes his PhD this coming 12 month -- the question is what would our political "most wanted" be? (Apparently I'm allowed to be fanciful.)

1. For the Australian trade union movement to break from subservience to the ALP and really get serious about ripping up all of Work Choices and abolishing the ABCC.
   
2. For the Socialist Alliance to grow and expand geographically with new branches chartered in the coming 12 months. Along with branch growth, for the SA to achieve more affiliations from various sectors it is consolidating ongoing alliances with.
   
3. For the Socialist Alliance's electoral returns in any local, state or federal poll to replicate some of the trends indicated in the recent Victorians local government polls.
4. For whatever it takes to finally get the wherewith all together to form a SA branch in my own neighborhood on the northside of Brisbane and as part of that run a real people's champion against the ALP incumbent at the soon to-be-called state election.
5. For the Qld Murri community to win a victory in the festering relentless campaign against black deaths in police custody with justice being won in regard to Palm Island.
6. For my own Brisbane branch of the Democratic Socialist Perspective to continue to put behind it the bitter (but ineffectual) dispute that had preoccupied the DSP for almost three years until May this year. My branch and the party are recovering faster than I could have imagined and my respect for my comrades as we enter 2009 is massive indeed.
7. That things continue to move ahead in Latin America and that elsewhere on the globe our side begins to advance on a very broad front. Indications are very good that that may indeed happen.
8. For the youth to return to activist politics with a zeal and commitment that we haven't seen in massive numbers for some time. For a burgeoning growth in Resistance this year as a consequence.
9. For a real mass based climate change movement to take off in hundreds of thousands.
   

Israel’s killing must stop! Stand up for the people of Gaza! End ties with the racist Israeli state!

Socialist Alliance statement

The Socialist Alliance condemns the Israeli massacre in the Gaza strip, which has left at least 280 people dead and 800 more injured. We call on the Rudd government to also condemn this slaughter and to break Australian economic, diplomatic, military and cultural ties with the Israeli apartheid state.

While Israel claimed that it targeted “terrorists”, the 100 bombs were mostly aimed at police stations in the middle of densely populated civilian areas. The attack, which was carefully planned at least several days in advance, also took place at the same time as children were going home from school, leaving many dead or injured.

The massacre comes on the back of two years of blockade imposed by Israel in an attempt to topple the democratically elected Hamas government. Many Gazans have already died due to lack of basic medical treatment, food, clean water and electricity.

The killing looks set to continue with large numbers of Israeli armored vehicles massing on the border of Gaza. Israel has called up 6500 reservists and has announced that it will call up more over the next few days.

If the massacres are to stop international public opinion needs to let Israel know that its actions are unacceptable. In particular, Israel’s traditional supporters , who have clearly sanctioned this bloody operation, must be forced to withdraw their support.

The Australian people need to stand up for the people of Gaza by making the Rudd government end its support for Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Socialist Alliance urges its members and supporters to join all emergency protests that are being organised around the country against this latest crime of the Israeli state.

Groupuscule politics: Can the old left become the new left that's needed?

by Dave Riley

The plethora of groups makes for a rather quaint cottage industry on the Australian far left which this year was expanded with the addition of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.

There's an interesting discussion thread appended to this post by Jim Jepps (since republished in LINKS) which seems to be trying to attack the LCR's NPA package in the same terms as the Socialist Alliance is criticised and was related to (and not related to) here.

The same sort of barrage was thrown at the Scottish Socialist Party for a long time.

It doesn't take much to recognize a sort of far left mindset in play.

There's this chronic schematism that simply by repeating often enough that you are revolutionary and by inserting the correct POV into any exchange then you really and truly must be what you say you are.

That's the far left's curse because in one way it's a sort of substitutionism. Sort of "INSERT PROPAGANDA HERE" approach.

There's nothing wrong with propaganda of course but real world politics has to deal with the benchmark that, outside the religions, it's not just what you say but what you do that counts.

While it's true that for a long period the doing if active at all, can seem at least very restrained. That was "the long march" of the Trotskyists that bears down upon the many branches in that current today. It was primarily about what the US SWP called "revolutionary continuity".

The question is, of course, whether that time is over. That's the judgement being asked. This is why a lot of the discussion on the far left stretches across a pessimism to optimism axis. The debate is whether there is political motion you can relate to or not.

I think that's the core debate in the UK SWP dispute at the present time despite the organisational distractions. If there is motion how do you relate to it.

And to some degree that prospect is obscured by the organisational question. There are those that want to push an anti-Leninist wheel barrow as though all there is to Lenin was a formatted party structure passed on by formula -- while ignoring the fact that at Lenin's core advocacy is the methodology of dialectical materialism.

The complication is that if you only see issues of party structure you cease to analyse contemporary politics in the same potential light as Lenin did. Trotsky's handicap -- and the burden of the Trotskyists -- was a certain timelessness that relied on a Felix like "bag of Tricks" toolbox of options: often formulated either "allowed" or "not allowed" . That was this legacy in a way, a DIY package that supposedly fitted all occasions.

I find the SWP discussion about the united front very much contained by this sort of formalistic thinking and I can remember similar exchanges in like manner in the DSP going back to 20 + years ago where the nomenclature of Trotskyism was standard discourse.

So thinking outside the square can be a hard ask for this left. That's certainly my impression after the three years of debate -- 2003-2006 -- in the Socialist Alliance with the small affiliates.

You may be able to lead a horse to water, but....

But to see the same arguments replicated in the exchange around the French NPA suggests a sort of universal political culture,almost a lingua franca that all these groups share. It's almost a moralism when you look long and hard at it, and ironic given that they are still so keen to remain separate from one another.

Letting go

The problem is letting go. I think that's the correct term as there is a sort of catharsis at stake. There's a knee jerk response that presumes that if you let go an inch you are surely going to go all the way and before you know it, there's your revolutionary perspective flying out the window and everything you spent years preserving in way of political modus operandi is spent in a twice.

I don't make light of such dangers as we all know our history lessons. But it seems to me that a generic wastage of revolutionism is oftentimes buoyed up by major shift rightward in key sectors of the working class or petti bourgeoisie. A move rightward should have a social base to consolidate a broad subjective shift. It happens. That's what history tells us anyhow.

But is it happening now? And is there a danger of the far left trialling along behind whatever currently is moving in that direction?

We know for instance that those Trotskyists who joined the ALP -- and Bob Gould is a good example of the ilk -- preferred to stay there and moderate their politics to fit the milieu. But that tendency -- this pressure to adapt -- is standard for any one revolutionist or any number of revolutionary groups. The problem with the groups is that they adopt a bunker mode to protect themselves from the ideological barrages of the bourgeoisie and tend to so often freeze their all in a programatic timelessness as they try to preserve their Real McCoy politics until their day in the sun comes around.

Of course that's not absolute as I'm being general rather than group specific. However versions of this proclivity are shared by all the Trotskysist groupuscules. So while it is correct to argue that sectarianism is a product of isolation from the working class, you can rationalise that isolation in a way that is sure to chronically deepen it and even make it a badge of honour: your raison d'etre. Soon enough you begin to believe that that isolation is the way the world was meant to be and there is no way around this seeming reality in front of you. So what you do in your cul de sac is work at perfecting your program because sustaining that becomes your major focus.

This is why you can have groups in Australia who number less than 20 members and all of these few think they rather than someone else are the true Marxists. And like Socialist Alternative you chart a propagandist course convinced that from little things big things grow.How they supposedly grow isn't necessarily something that you should be too concerned with. After all with the right program your day will surely come.

I think the right word for this is passivity -- a passivity born upon a certain pessimism that all we lefties can hope for is survival and the now and then primitive accumulation of cadre.

If you have spent years playing around with ideas and perspectives as you try ever so hard to get your viewpoint (and less often your dopoint) just so, it is disconcerting to relate to a prospect where political academe like that may not be so important. I admit that I am torn myself between the thrill of political discovery and inquiry, of debating out conflicting points of view in order to arrive at a 'correct' position -- and the often mundane business of , I guess, networking, rooting for and negotiating alliances with people who in the main don't give a fig for the theory.

The former seems so safe and cosy in comparison to the free form of the latter. Where's the friggin rules!? Where's Marx supposed to sit?

The complication is that it can become so very difficult to notice the difference between the circle spirit milieu of the far left and the everyday reality of the rest of the population. This failure to note the divide has been obscured I think by the buoyancy of movement politics these last 40 years. So there's been an outer defence perimeter that has protected the far left in a the way that a moat protects a castle. But as that wave of movement growth recedes -- as it has done over the last decade -- the difference between the groupuscules and the pressing political reality seems sharper as there's less veneer in place to dampen the contrast.


Party politics

The irony is that there's this massive deference to the potential role for party, as distinct from movement, politics and this determined disinclination of most the far left groups to seize the day and do anything about it. Surely their day in the sun has arrived, hasn't it?

The complication is that the party that people will relate to is not like the many varieties/one clone on offer from the groupuscules. And therein exists not only a problem of practice but a problem of theory because the historical debate is whether the groups have misread their Bolshevik histories. I think that is indeed the case.

There's a interesting commentary by the late Peter Camejo where he takes up the dedicated inadequacy of the far left mindset:

The idea that a group of a few hundred people who are not in the leadership of any mass movement, much less integrally involved in leading the working class as a social force, can be referred to as a Leninist party and having a “correct program” would never have crossed Lenin’s mind. In 1918 Lenin would refer to such an idea as clowning.

By the 1940s, however, within the Trotskyist movement a conception had taken root that no matter how small or disconnected from the workers movement a group might be, if it had the “correct” program and a cadre, it was a Leninist Party and would eventually “win”.

Of course there's a problem inherent in just surviving politically under capitalism -- but what has happened I think is that the sentence that all groups face is inevitably the Alice in Wonderland ruling that you have to run very fast in order to stay in the one place. And that survival mode has warped the ability of the groups to think outside where they're at.

This is a very serious mistake that only becomes evident in the present context that the far left is trying to deal with. In places where there has been a strong history of woking class fightback against neo-liberalism the what is to be done? question is a little easier for some groups to relate to and begin to answer. But the general trend has been to fight tooth and nail against the tide toward broader, more user friendly party formations for the 21st Century's version of socialism.

The problem may be that if this stand off is persevered with, given time, the far left could be more marginal than it is now.

Massacre in Gaza

There are pickets and rallies around Australia. Check GLW or your local Socialist Alliance branch for details

The late Harold Pinter and I

by Dave Riley

Way back in 1968, flushed with a mission to transform Australian theatre I was involved in a production of one of Harold Pinter's plays, The Dumb Waiter. I was at the time the president of the La Trobe University theatre group and this was the the fourth production I was involved in that year.

While I was 'producing' Pinter I was involved in theatre at the local mental hospital. So I was a busy bee.(No wonder my university studies collapsed that year).

Directing the Pinter play was Ian McDonald (pictured right) now a minister in the NSW Labor government; and Louis Nowra who later became a succesful playwright(pictured below left) was its 'designer'. The boorish university activist character in Nowra's play, Cosi, is based on McDonald.

Aside from the two actors -- whose names I've completely forgotten -- in our team was the late Rod Foster who died in a house fire in the 1980s. (At La Trobe the Rod Foster Memorial Wetland is named after him.) And Steve Butyn, now a Victorian high school principal.

But for a moment we were all very Pinteresque -- and we did a very good job of it too.

We were so proud of our effort that we took it on tour.

When you get into the nitty gritty of doing a play you so densely work through the material and the subtleties of every line of dialogue and most especially when doing Pinter, every pause.

How long is a Pinter pause? (Now that's a question!)

At the time Pinter was playwright Number #1 in anyone's almanac and if you caught the Pinter bug it was your entree to the exciting world of the British ' kitchen sink' drama -- a genre that revolutionised theatre dialogue and subject matter from the 1950s.

In Pinter's case what may seem natural dialogue was rooted in an inspired rendering of the prose rhythms in the works of Samuel Beckett who along with Franz Kafka was Pinter's major influence.

But I think Pinter always injected more meaning into his discourses and carried his plots a long way away from the chronic existentialist nihilism & angst that always seem to overburden Beckett's plays and novels.

Not that Pinter was Beckett lite. The Kafka connection gave his plots a horrifying absurdity that was soon enough labeled as "comedies of menace". Yes, they are funny plays.

If you read through his plays -- or better still, sit through performances of them -- it's a fascinating journey from subjective menace -- the threat posed by other human beings -- to a broader political context, as unlike so many writers Pinter became more overtly political as he matured and aged as a playwright.

When asked once about how political his plays were, he replied that they were all political. I think he's correct, because his major theme is oppression -- a relentless and unacknowledged oppression that warped and scarred all his characters whether they were performing the role of oppressor or oppressed.

Of course if you haven't actually experienced Pinter then you are missing all this. As an option, his plays (and poems) read extremely well. It's also hard to convey how much of a craftsman he was , how really skilled his writing, and how solid were his plays. I'm sure today every would-be playwright spends some time trying to write like Pinter so that they can capture some of his technique.

But it was the conviction in his work I guess that bore it up so much. He was one of the 20th century's greatest playwrights and his influence has permeated most significantly in film -- a medium he often wrote for.

A man with such stature, a British national treasure -- never tolerated the world as he found it. From the nuclear arms race to apartheid, Thatcherism and the Iraq invasion, Pinter would never shut up. His 2005 Nobel laureate address, Art, Truth & Politics was a bold protest against the Iraq war that spitefully denounced a brutality & cynicism that the playwright could never tolerate:

Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory [of the artist] since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.

As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al-Qaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11, 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.

The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.

It may be a long time since The Dumb Waiter closed its run in suburban Bundoora. But it is real nice to know that someone like its author, Harold Pinter, spent a lot of his time while alive doing his damdest to articulate the argument for our side of politics.

The Dumb Waiter sampler

• "He might not come. He might just send a message. He doesn't always come."
• "…you come into a place when it's still dark, you come into a room you've never seen before, you sleep all day, you do your job, and then you go away in the night again.
• "THE KETTLE, YOU FOOL!
• "BEN: If there's a knock on the door you don't answer it. GUS: If there's a knock on the door I don't answer it."
  

Jingle coins

French & Scottish Activist Video Make

by Dave Riley

It's that time again. The end of the year time again.

So I've ben in catch up mode adding bits and pieces to my web footprint.

Since we are in video mode so often the internet TV section on The Activist Toolkit has had an update. It's just notes really. Envelope pushing as I know there are others with their noses pointed in the same direction.

The knack, I reckon, is to make the DIY straightforward as well as simple and cheap -- maybe even very free.

With gadgetry and consumables a plenty it's quite a trick to go at it low tech.

I predict a good future for simple video on the left in way of documenting activism and activists. Whether its digital cameras, cell phones or the cheaper end of the camcorder market -- theres' a niche there I reckon we can collectively fill.

In France

Look how the French JCR does it in the lead up to the launch of the new anticapitalsit party.

Tagv-tv n°11 (Manif du 10.12.08 Bordeaux)
by Talenceagauchevraiment

Tagv-Tv n° 9 (Poste Robespierre Talence)
by Talenceagauchevraiment

As long as you've got passion and conviction going for you (and your video) it's going to likely work rather than not.

Inasmuch as I know anything, what videography I've seen generated from an activist POV works very well indeed so long as it's edited. By that I mean cut. The unbearable YouTube syndrome of putting more rather than less content together is ruination of a good opportunity to reach out.

And I'm not talking about pretty vids or techncially sophisticated vids but of deploying politics in a different language -- a different visual and sound language.

So these French don't just have a great hand with web layout -- but they've got a ready attack mode in their video language that explodes from the page regardles of whatever your fluency is in French.

And in Scotland...

In Scotland, Neil Scott has been exploring video as an adjunct to the work of the Scottish Socialist Party. SSP TV is a fine aggregation of SSP moments and advocacy enriched, I think, by the mixture of themes.

Canada too...

And in Canada, The Socialist Project uses a mix of audio and video to showcase its forum series. I think video-ing a lecture isn't the best way to share a talk before an audience -- but the collection is a very detailed and complete rendering of a range of important discussions held under their auspices.

Activism in the clouds

by Dave Riley

I'm very addicted to the web as place for work and recreation. I am also a keen explorer of the web's utility in way or activism and organising. While I'm a Web 2.0 junkie I always suffer from the occasional doubt that maybe this web stuff isn't all what it is cracked up to be.

But Cloud Computing makes a lot of sense to me.

To me the 'cloud' is a absolute confirmation that the Web 2.0 sharing universe is here for good or bad and our best course is to harness it.

I'm not talking about willy nilly harvesting of seeming ethereal substrate but since I use Google Mail and Google Reader and Google Calendar daily to orchestrate my personal and political lives this makes a lot of sense. The new integration being offered for all three is a great way to travel in the clouds.

Combined with the Better G stable of Firefox addons you get yourself a very powerful interface that can organise...even me! Regardless of the computer you are using and where it is. Add that to Remember the Milk task facilitation and you are on top of a lot of the stuff that needs doing and reading or monitoring or scheduling or whatever.

What interests me at the moment is how these tools can be harnessed for political activism.

I facilitated a web publishing workshop at the recent Socialist Alliance conference and the discussion honed in on this possibility in order to organise collectively without all the duplication we may now be prone to in day to day work. In effect you move that wherewithall off one computer's desktop out into the web so all your activists can access the information and input their share of it.

For me, the self evidently useful tool is Google Calendar but once you start adding other stuff to the mix you end up with a page as useful as this one of mine:

1. GMail on top.
   
2. Below that: GReader
   
3. At the bottom: GCalendar .

I've also integrated Remember the Milk. Both Google Calendar and Remember the Milk can be set to send you reminder emails automatically.

So whether you allow yourself to be organised cannot be excused by thinking you -- or some web oriented management team -- didn't try.

Background Briefing on Cloud Computing

Google's Chrome, and others, offer easier, smoother, faster servers into their gated internet gardens, where all things are known. It's the Petabyte Age, and there be beasties. Reporter Stan Correy.

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Richard Wolff: real wages and the current economic crash

from Tribeca Radio Podcasts » Steal This Radio

Marxist economist Richard Wolff explores the underpinnings of the crisis the capitalist system is facing today.

Tune in to STEAL THIS RADIO, hosted by Mitchel Cohen and broadcast only over the internet at NYTalkRadio.net (Click on “Listen Live”) on Friday, December 19th at 11 am, and repeated Tuesday, December 23rd at 8 pm.

Rick Wolff explains that real wages have not increased in the U.S. in almost 40 years, and that the capitalist class offered easy credit to compensate for that, which was a key factor in leading to the current crash. You can also read one of Prof. Wolff’s recent articles online

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Original audio source

Liquidationism

by Chris Slee

Below is a talk I gave to the January 2007 DSP educational conference.

When I was doing research for the talk, I was struck by certain similarities between the situation at the time of the January 1912 conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and the situation in Australia's Socialist Alliance at the time of its 2006 conference.

In 1912 there was a broad socialist party (the RSDLP) within which there was a revolutionary Marxist cadre organisation (the Bolshevik faction).

A conference of the broad party was called on the initiative of the Bolshevik faction. The leaders of other tendencies in the RSDLP (Plekhanov, Trotsky, etc) were invited, but did not turn up.

Nevertheless the conference took decisions in the name of the RSDLP. It elected a new Central Committee. It decided on campaigns for workers rights, for democracy, etc.

The Bolsheviks invited the members and leaders of other tendencies to join them in building the RSDLP. But they made it clear that if the others did not want to be involved, the conference decisions would be implemented without them.

The leaders of the other tendencies rejected the legitimacy of the conference, and accused Lenin of splitting the RSDLP. But many rank and file RSDLP members were willing to work with the Bolsheviks to build the RSDLP as a broad party. Lenin described this as "unity from
below".

Lenin's approach in 1912 was similar to that taken by the DSP at the 2006 Socialist Alliance conference. Other socialist groups were welcome to participate in Socialist Alliance, but if they didn't want to do so we would go ahead without them.

Of course, this historical analogy does not prove that the DSP's policy today is correct. Many things are different between Russia in 1912 and Australia today. But it does show that the RSP's claim that we are departing from Lenin's approach to party building is incorrect.

--Chris Slee

Liquidationism: 2007 DSP conference talk

By Chris Slee

(This is a slightly edited version of my talk to the January 2007 DSP conference)

Liquidationism was a trend that arose within the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party in the years following the defeat of the 1905 revolution. The liquidationists said that the RSDLP (which was an illegal party with a revolutionary Marxist program) should be dissolved (or liquidated), and that socialists should work solely through legal organisations.

Some of the liquidators advocated setting up a legal labour party. But in order to have any chance of legal recognition in the repressive climate of Tsarist Russia, such a party would have needed to drop key aspects of the RSDLP's program, including its call for the overthrow
of the tsarist monarchy.

Liquidationism arose within the Menshevik faction of the RSDLP. The division of the RSDLP into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions went back to the second congress of the party in 1903. The immediate cause of the formation of factions was a dispute over the composition of the
editorial board of the newspaper Iskra. But there were also political issues involved.

The 1903 congress adopted a program that outlined a longer term perspective of socialist revolution, but defined the "immediate political task" in Russia as being "the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy and its replacement by a republic based on a democratic constitution..." (Lenin Collected Works, vol. 6, p. 27-28). The program also included reforms to benefit workers, including the 8 hour day, and measures aimed at "eradicating the remnants of the old serf-owning system" (LCW, vol. 6, p. 30).

The congress was able to arrive at agreement on the main features of the program, despite differences on points of detail. Nevertheless, the discussion at the congress revealed the beginnings of a difference on how the "immediate political task" of overthrowing tsarism would be carried out. Should the working class, in alliance with the peasantry, aim to lead the democratic revolution (as the Bolsheviks said), or should it merely support the liberal bourgeoisie which would lead the revolution (as the Mensheviks said)? (Zinoviev, History of
the Bolshevik Party, p. 49-50)

In 1905 there was a revolutionary upsurge in Russia. Workers carried out political strikes and formed soviets, which were city-wide councils of representatives from factories. The soviets began to play the role of an alternative government to the tsarist regime. Workers began to form their own armed self-defence groups, and in Moscow armed workers fought against the tsarist troops. There were also revolts by sailors, and the beginnings of peasant revolt.

The rebellious workers and sailors were crushed, partly because of the lack of political consciousness amongst the peasantry. This meant that the tsarist regime was still able to use the army, which was largely recruited from the peasantry, against the workers. (Zinoviev, p. 69)

As well as using repression, the tsarist regime offered some concessions. It called elections for a sort of parliament called the Duma. However the election rules were very undemocratic, with the votes of the upper classes being worth more than those of lower classes: one landlord vote equalled 3 capitalist, 15 peasant or 45 workers votes. Women could not vote, and students, soldiers, agricultural workers and unskilled workers were also excluded from voting. (Lenin Collected Works, vol. 18, p. 622, note 89). And the parliament had little power anyway.

Nevertheless, the concessions were sufficient to persuade the liberal bourgeoisie to reach an accommodation with tsarism.

When it became clear that the 1905 revolution had been defeated, there was debate in the RSDLP on the implications for the party's strategy and tactics.

The Bolsheviks argued that new outbreaks of rebellion could be expected sooner or later, and it was necessary to continue arguing for a democratic revolution and preparing the party to lead a new revolutionary upsurge to victory.

Some Mensheviks, on the other hand, had no confidence in a new upsurge, and thought it was necessary to work within the limitations imposed by the "reformed" tsarist monarchy. They wanted to dissolve the RSDLP and work solely through legal organisations such as unions and workers' social clubs. Some of them hoped to be allowed by the tsarist regime to form a legal workers party. To gain legality they were prepared to water down the politics of such a party. These people were called the liquidators.

Lenin summed up the ideas of the liquidators as follows:

"Liquidationism in the narrow sense of the word, the liquidationism of the Mensheviks, consists ideologically in negation of the revolutionary class struggle of the socialist proletariat in general, and denial of the hegemony of the proletariat in our bourgeois-democratic revolution in particular...

"In respect of organisation, liquidationism means denying the necessity for an illegal Social-Democratic Party, and consequently renouncing the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, leaving its ranks." (Lenin Collected Works, vol. 15, p. 454)

However, there was a section of the Mensheviks who thought it was still necessary to maintain the RSDLP as an illegal party. These people were known as the pro-party Mensheviks. Their most prominent leader was Plekhanov.

At about the same time as the liquidationist current was emerging amongst the Mensheviks, differences also arose amongst the Bolsheviks.

An ultraleft current emerged that rejected the need to take advantage of the opportunities, however limited, that existed for legal work.

One of the opportunities for legal work was participation in elections for the Duma.

I have mentioned the undemocratic nature of the Duma. When the plans for the Duma were first announced in 1905, the Bolsheviks called for a boycott of the elections. They called for political strikes and an armed uprising to obtain real democracy. This resulted in the plans for Duma elections being abandoned for the time being.

After the crushing of the uprising, the government was able to hold elections for the Duma. The RSDLP (both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) boycotted the first Duma elections in March 1906.

The Mensheviks soon decided they had made a mistake and wanted to participate in new elections called later in 1906 (after the tsarist government had dissolved the first Duma). The majority of Bolsheviks wanted to continue the boycott.

Lenin however favoured participation in elections for the second Duma. He argued that the Bolsheviks had been correct to campaign for a boycott in 1905, when a revolutionary upsurge was occurring. However, conditions had changed following the crushing of the 1905 uprising. By August 1906 Lenin had concluded that that: "The time has now come when the revolutionary Social-Democrats must cease to be boycottists". (LCW, vol. 11, p. 145)

As the revolutionary wave ebbed, Lenin, while remaining optimistic about the prospects for revival of the revolutionary movement, realised that this was likely to be delayed for a number of years. He concluded that it was necesssary for socialists to make use of any legal opportunities, including the use of Duma election campaigns, and speeches by socialist members of the Duma, for propaganda.

Some Bolsheviks disagreed. They wanted to boycott future Duma elections and to recall the RSDLP representatives who had been elected to the Duma. They became known as "recallists" (or "otzovists" in Russian).

This ultraleft current was also opposed to participation in legal trade unions and other legal workers organisations.

Lenin advocated a combination of legal and illegal work, believing that this was the only way to maintain and strengthen the party's links with the mass of workers and peasants.

Lenin referred to the ultraleftists as "liquidators on the left", because if their policies were followed socialists would be cut off from the masses and the party would decline and eventually collapse - i.e. it would be liquidated.

Lenin waged a struggle within the Bolshevik faction against theultraleftists. He eventually succeeded in persuading the vastmajority of Bolsheviks that his views were correct. The hardenedultraleftists were expelled from the Bolshevik faction. They formedtheir own faction which came to be known as the Vperyod group (Vperyodmeans Forward in Russian).

Lenin's tactics proved very successful in winning increased supportfrom workers, whereas the Vperyod group remained isolated from theworkers and fell apart after a few years.

Pro-party Mensheviks

I mentioned earlier that some Mensheviks were opposed to the liquidators. Lenin welcomed this, and was willing to work with thepro-party Mensheviks.

Zinoviev, in his History of the Bolshevik Party, speaks highly ofPlekhanov's role during the 1907-1909 period, saying that "his voice proved a great support to the Bolsheviks...", and that his support was"extremely important in the atmosphere of that period". (Zinoviev, p. 78; What is Liquidationism? Classes and Readings, p. 47)

At that time Lenin did not view the Bolsheviks as a party, but as a "section" (we would say a faction) of the RSDLP. While polemicising against Menshevik ideas, Lenin was willing to work with the pro-party Mensheviks in building the RSDLP.

For example, Bolsheviks and pro-party Mensheviks worked together on Zvezda, a newspaper produced between December 1910 and April 1912.(LCW, vol. 17, p. 588, note 24) But over time the leading pro-party Mensheviks pulled back from participation in this project, and it became effectively a Bolshevik paper. (Zinoviev, p. 83-84)

January 1912 conference

In January 1912, the Bolsheviks took the initiative to convene a conference of the RSDLP.

It was not intended to be an exclusively Bolshevik conference. Menshevik-led local party organisations participated in the preparations for the conference. Pro-party Mensheviks, Vperyodists (ultraleftists), and Leon Trotsky were amongst those invited.

However, only two non-Bolsheviks came to the conference. Both of them were pro-party Mensheviks. But Plekhanov, the most prominent pro-party Menshevik, did not attend.

The conference elected a new central committee, composed entirely of Bolsheviks. (Cliff, vol. 1, p 312)

The conference is often said to have marked the final split between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. But Lenin, in the resolutions and reports he drafted for the conference, said nothing about a split with the Mensheviks in general. Rather he drew a line of division between the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and the liquidators.

He moved a resolution declaring that the liquidators were no longer party members, saying that "the Nasha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni group has definitely placed itself outside the party". (This was a reference to two magazines published by the liquidators) The resolution called on
"all Party members, irrespective of tendencies and shades of opinion, to combat liquidationism, explain its great harmfulness to the cause of the emancipation of the working class, and bend all their efforts to revive and strengthen the illegal RSDLP". (LCW, vol. 17, p 481).

Lenin still wanted to keep the door open to the pro-party Mensheviks, and anyone else who might be willing to help build a united party with the Bolsheviks. A conference resolution drafted by Lenin said that:

"Everywhere in the localities without a single exception, Party work is being conducted jointly and harmoniously by the Bolsheviks and pro-Party Mensheviks, as well as by Vperyod supporters in Russia wherever there are any, and by all other Social-Democrats who recognise the need for an illegal RSDLP". (LCW, vol. 17, p. 465)

The implication was that Lenin hoped this joint work would continue.

Why did the Bolsheviks take this approach? Why did they project the January 1912 conference as being open to the whole RSDLP (not including the liquidators, who were deemed to be outside the party), rather than making it a conference of the Bolshevik faction alone?

Firstly, they wanted to involve broader forces than just those who identified as Bolsheviks at that time. They wanted to draw RSDLP members who might consider themselves as Mensheviks, or as non-aligned, into joint party-building work together with the Bolsheviks.

Secondly, they wanted to show rank and file RSDLP members that the Bolsheviks were for unity, and make it as hard as possible for their opponents to blame the Bolsheviks for any split that might occur.

Paul Le Blanc states that there were "a significant number of RSDLP members who favoured the combination of legal and illegal tactics, who maintained a revolutionary class struggle orientation, but were unalterably opposed to a split in the RSDLP". He quotes one such person as saying "...I, like many others...am not a Bolshevik, I am not a Menshevik, I am not an Otzovist [ultraleftist], I am not a Liquidator - I am only a social-democrat". (Le Blanc, Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, p. 113)

Lenin had to relate to this sentiment. The fact that all non-liquidator elements of the RSDLP were invited to the conference showed that the Bolsheviks were not sectarian. The fact that most of those invited didn't turn up showed that they, not the Bolsheviks, were opposed to unity on a principled basis. As Lenin noted in a speech to the conference: "All have been invited and only those who refused to help the Party are absent". (LCW, vol. 41, p. 246)

In effect, the invitation to attend the conference, and the invitation to participate in carrying out the decisions of the conference, were a test for the pro-Party Mensheviks. Were they serious about building the party or not? Plekhanov failed this test.

However, the Bolsheviks' efforts to bring about unity were not wasted.

In the period after the conference there occurred a process which Lenin referred to as "unity from below". Writing in February 1913, he said:

"The workers have already started of their own accord, from below, on the solution of the problem of unity....

"Worker Social-Democrats everywhere are re-estabishing integral illegal organisations of the RSDLP in the form of factory nuclei and committees, district groups, town centres, Social-Democratic groups in all kinds of legal institutions, etc". (LCW vol. 18, p. 454)

It is important to note that Lenin, in offering to work in a united party with the pro-party Mensheviks, was not proposing to water down the politics of the party. The January 1912 conference adopted a clear political line.

A key question was that of overthrowing the tsarist monarchy.

Although the call for a democratic republic had been included in the 1903 RSDLP program, the majority of prominent Mensheviks, especially the liquidators, had in practice dropped that demand. The conference resolved that: "Propaganda for a republic, and against the policy of the tsarist monarchy, must be given special prominence to counteract, among other things, the widespread propaganda in favour of curtailed slogans and of confining activity to the existing 'legality'". (LCW, vol. 17, p.468)

The conference decided that the main election slogans for the coming Duma elections should be: a democratic republic; the eight hour working day; and confiscation of all landed estates. (LCW, vol.17, p. 468)

The party which emerged from the January 1912 conference was officially known as the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. But because its political line was that which had come to be associated with the Bolshevik faction, and because its central leaders came from the Bolshevik faction, it was often referred to as the Bolshevik Party.

August 1912 conference

In August 1912 there was a conference of groups and individuals who rejected the authority of the January 1912 conference. The August conference brought together liquidators, ultraleftists, Trotsky, etc.

This conference could not agree on anything except opposition to the Bolsheviks. The so-called "August bloc" soon fell apart. Trotsky, who played a leading role in convening the conference, was later to cite it as a classic example of an unprincipled combination.

Growth of the Bolsheviks

Following the January 1912 conference the Bolsheviks deepened their roots in the working class. They launched a daily paper (called Pravda) in April 1912. The liquidators also launched a daily paper (called Luch). However Pravda had much more support from the working class. This was indicated by the act that four times as many workers' groups made donations to Pravda compared to Luch. (What is Liquidationism: Classes and Readings, p.97) Mass working class support for the the Bolsheviks was also shown when they won 6 seats in the Duma from working class electorates in the 1912 elections. (LCW,
vol. 18, p. 515)

War and revolution

The real test for all groups claiming to be socialist came with the outbreak of the first world war.

The Bolshevik Party (which was still officially known as the RSDLP) took a principled stand against the war. They called for "the conversion of the present imperialist war into a civil war" (LCW, vol. 21, p.34) - i.e .for the workers in all countries to overthrow the governments which had led them to war. This actually happened in Russia in 1917, with first the February revolution, then the October revolution.

The Mensheviks either became social chauvinists, supporting the Russian state in the war, or at best took a pacifist approach, opposing the war but being unable to organise a real struggle against it.

The liquidators generally became social chauvinists. But Plekhanov, the former "pro-Party Menshevik", also became a social chauvinist.

This was a sad outcome for one of the founders of Russian Marxism. Since 1903, he had vacillated between revolutionary and reformist politics. His failure to accept Lenin's invitation to help build a united party in 1912 was an important step in his degeneration.

On the other hand, Trotsky moved in the opposite direction. Seeing the sellout by the Mensheviks, and the anti-war position of the Bolsheviks, Trotsky began to move closer to the Bolsheviks. During 1917 Trotsky and his supporters joined the Bolshevik Party. This fusion was based on agreement around the key political questions which had come to the fore in the new situation, including opposition to the imperialist war, opposition to the bourgeois provisional government, and the need for the soviets to seize power.

Conclusion

The fight against liquidationism was crucial in building a revolutionary party in Russia. At the same time, the fight against ultraleftism was also very important, to prevent the party being cut off from the masses. These two inter-related struggles helped create the mass revolutionary party that was able to oppose the war and lead the revolution to victory in 1917.

Judge accused of attacking freedom of speech

Paul Austin (The Age)

THE chancellor of Victoria University has been accused of undermining free speech after using the State Government solicitor to threaten to sue a senior academic for defamation.

Government solicitor John Cain jnr has sent a letter on behalf of the chancellor, Supreme Court judge Frank Vincent, to James Doughney, a member of the university's governing council, demanding he withdraw and apologise for an attack on Victoria University chiefs over their plan to slash hundreds of jobs.

Justice Vincent last night defended his decision to engage the government solicitor, and dismissed Dr Doughney's assertion that his academic freedom was under attack.

The Age revealed in October that Dr Doughney, an economist and state president of the National Tertiary Education Union, had sent a six-page paper to state and federal MPs accusing the university's vice-chancellor, Professor Elizabeth Harman, of manufacturing a cash crisis to justify cutting about 270 jobs. Mr Cain's three-page letter to Dr Doughney, dated December 12, says his statements were false and defamatory.

He accuses Dr Doughney of breaching the council's code of conduct, which requires members to "desist from intimidation in any form in connection with the role of the council".

"My instructions are to require you to publish an apology and withdrawal of the false and defamatory allegations that you have made, directed particularly against the vice-chancellor," Mr Cain writes.

"Otherwise, I am instructed that the chancellor and the vice-chancellor reserve their rights."

Dr Doughney, the elected academic staff representative on the council, said yesterday it was extraordinary that the chancellor had engaged the government solicitor in a bid to "gag" an academic expressing legitimate views about university governance.

"This action is at odds with any concept of critical inquiry, debate, argument, logic and freedom of speech that you would think is associated with places of learning like universities," he told The Age.

"If you disagree with each other, argue the toss - don't throw attempted legal gags at your critics."

Dr Doughney said it was critical that debates about community institutions such as universities be conducted in public.

"They are not private corporations and they are not personal fiefdoms," he said. "They are public assets."

He said Justice Vincent needed to recognise the university was not a court of law, but a "learning community where you are going to get arguments and different interpretations".

"My view is simple: get used to it," he said.

Asked whether he would withdraw and apologise, as demanded by the university chiefs, Dr Doughney replied: "They have got to be joking. I stand by my criticisms and I'm prepared to fight this all the way."

Justice Vincent said last night the legal letter was sent on advice from senior counsel that Dr Doughney's statements were defamatory.

"The action that was taken reflects the concern occasioned by the nature of the attack made upon the vice-chancellor by Dr Doughney and the responsibility of council members," he said.

"Victoria University unequivocally supports and upholds the fundamentally important principle of academic freedom. However, it is patently clear from Dr Doughney's comments themselves and the context in which they were made that no question of the restriction of its expression arises in the present situation."

Dr Doughney's attack on Professor Harman was prompted by her announcement in October of a six-month program of forced and voluntary redundancies to "rebalance" the budget and "future-proof" the university.

[Pictured: Jamie Doughney addressing the 6th Socialist Alliance national conference.]

--

Day 11 of the Revolt in Greece: Occupation of State Television

From Rustbelt Radical.
Listen to an interview with the author Savas Michael on Suzi Weissman’s Pacifica radio show Beneath the Surface. This morning started with a very unpleasant surprise for the riot police, the special force against popular mobilizations, which is busy all these days of popular revolt in Greece to attack and brutalize13-14 years old kids.

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Original audio source

Play Sock and Awe, inspired by Muntadar al-Zaidi

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Five percent

That's all folks!

5%

Mr 5%>

Rudd’s White Paper shows we’re still not serious about climate change

The Rudd Government’s emissions reduction target of 5 -15 % by 2020 and its decisions to accept a target of 450 ppm CO2e (parts per million, carbon dioxide equivalent) and to give free permits to the worst industrial polluters, are appalling and disgraceful. It must be roundly condemned by the 80% of Australians who realise that immediate and emergency action is essential if we are to save our environment for future generations.

Global warming poses the gravest threat to human existence since remote prehistory. Unless science, industry and political forces work together successfully to combat climate change within the next few years, warming processes already occurring are likely to become impossible to stop. If climate change is not stopped, most plant and animal species will become extinct and advanced civilisation will perish.

If it were to be adopted globally, Australia's 5-15% reductions and 450ppm targets would ensure that the planet passed tipping points for large sea-level rises, temperatures rises of more than 2 degrees and ocean acidification that will destroy the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu. It would also be an economic and humanitarian disaster for hundreds of millions of people without proper food, water or shelter.

If high per-capita emission nations like Australia commit to very modest reduction targets by 2020, the developing world will reasonably argue that their emissions can continue to increase. Australia's position is likely to undermine all the small gains that have been made internationally. At the recent climate talks in Poznan, 49 of the least developed countries advocated a target of 350 ppm, knowing that their countries will be devastated by any higher target.

A target of 450ppm is not even a firm +2°C target, as statistically there is a 78% chance of exceeding 2°. The Socialist Alliance says that GHG emissions must peak by no later than 2015, then fall by at least 5% annually, to achieve a target of 300-325 ppm CO2 and have any chance of stopping the most severe impact of climate change.

The laws of science aren't interested in political compromises and steering "a balanced course". Climate targets must be set according to the scientific imperatives, and putting them through political filters can only imperil the planet.

Socialist Alliance also opposes the government’s reliance on carbon trading as a key tool for reducing carbon emissions. Market mechanisms—which subject emission reduction measures to the short-term pressures of the marketplace—are unsuited in principle to the complex, unquantifiable requirements of preserving the environment.

In the absence of leadership by government, the task of forcing the changes needed to preserve nature and humanity falls to citizens organising, protesting and mobilising independently of the conventional political process. Lobbying politicians with the facts of climate change is necessary, and may at times score successes. But reliable impacts can only be made by demonstrating that large numbers of people are alarmed by climate change, and that they expect governments to act decisively.

Socialist Alliance will continue to campaign for the Government to set stronger and realistic targets next year.

Sixth National Conference strengthens Socialist Alliance for challenges ahead

By Duroyan Fertl and Dick Nichols

Over the weekend of 5-7 December, more than 150 people attended the Sixth Socialist Alliance national conference, held in the Geelong Trades Hall. The conference opened against the backdrop of the Alliance's promising results in the November 29 Victorian local government elections, in which its candidates scored up to 18.9%.

The conference began with a special public seminar, "Financial meltdown: what working class response?", addressed by David Spratt, from Carbon Equity and co-author of Climate Code Red, economist and Victorian National Tertiary Education Union president Jamie Doughney and Pip Hinman, from the Socialist Alliance.

For this forum Alliance delegates from around Australia were joined by Geelong locals, environmental and Aboriginal activists, and trade unionists.

Basing his commentary on former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's book The Age of Turbulence, Doughney charted the 2007-08 collapse of free market ideology and the new economic battleground on which the struggle for socialism will now take place.

Doughney told the conference that – despite the challenges the economic crisis poses to working people – he had "not felt so excited since he was a teenager" about the new openings for socialists in the struggle to transform society along equitable and sustainable lines.

David Spratt painted a condensed and powerful picture of the multiple environmental crisis, scoring the utter inadequacy of the measures being proposed against global warming by the Rudd government, and calling for the federal Future Fund to be used "to actually insure our
future".

Pip Hinman laid out her perception of how the triple crisis might be expressed socially and politically, and particularly how it would impact on imperialism's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—potentially sparking a revival of the anti-war movement.

The next session, on "Building the worker, community and environmentalist alliance against the crisis" featured Dave Kerin, from Union Solidarity, John Rice from the Adelaide Ecosocialist Network and Melanie Barnes from the socialist youth organisation Resistance.

Their talks touched on different strategies needed to confront the crisis. Kerin stressed the importance of worker cooperatives as a way of both building up the social sector of the economy and of workers realising in practice that they are the bearers of the alternative to
the waste, pollution and inequity of capitalist production.

John Rice focused on the need for ecosocialist networks as an "intersection set" where socialists, Greens, ALP members, politically unaffiliated people and people of different religious background could meet on neutral ground to discuss the vital issues of the day, and so develop their understanding of policy, strategic and tactical options.

Mel Barnes spelled out the main ingredients of the Tasmanian campaign against the Gunns pulp mill—community organisation, mobilisation and protest focused on uniting the very different constituencies opposed to the mill.

Discussion at the forum was oriented by a series of discussion points under the heading "What are the core elements of an anti-crisis program?". These combined with the presentations to provoke a lively plenary discussion on what demands the socialist, left and progressive movements need to put forward in response to crisis. These demands should cover both the immediate, emergency defence of working people against corporate plans to make labour pay the cost of capital's economic meltdown, as well demands aimed at transforming the system in the longer term.

After the discussion was lucidly summarised by Ballarat University's Jeremy Smith, the forum agreed to ask the incoming National Executive of the Socialist Alliance to draft a "dot point" action plan as the forum's contribution to the development of an anti-crisis program, as well as further developing other proposals aimed at advancing anti-capitalist transformation.

Alliance building

The speakers who addressed the conference reflected the Socialist Alliance's successful work in building alliances with a broad range of socialist and progressive activists and organisations around Australia and abroad over the past few years.

Aboriginal Australia had a strong presence at the conference. David Tournier from the Wathaurong people of the Kulin nation gave a welcome to country, while the conference heard from Aboriginal activists Sam Watson and Pat Eatock in the session that adopted a new Socialist Alliance Charter on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights and condemned the federal intervention into Northern Territory communities and the jailing of Lex Wotton for "rioting" during the 2004 Palm Island protest.

Sam Watson was also re-elected as the Alliance's national Indigenous Rights Spokesperson, while donations were collected during the conference for the family of Lex Wotton.

Noel Washington – the senior vice-president of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) in Victoria who has to date successfully defied the Australian Building Construction Commission (ABCC) – thanked the Socialist Alliance for its support in the campaign against the ABCC, and spelled out how the building industry unions saw it continuing in the new year.

Cam Walker (Friends of the Earth, Victoria) urged the Alliance to continue to play the leadership role in climate change policy that it had begun with the 2007 edition of its Climate Change Charter. He stressed that in a period of recession, when environmental issues can
seemingly recede in political importance, it was all the more incumbent on the Alliance to speak the truth about the global warming challenge and maintain its active and committed role in the climate change movement.

Dr Brian Senewiratne, long-term internationally known fighter for Tamil rights, gave a compelling account of the violent war being waged on Tamils in Sri Lanka, and criticised the use of "anti-terror" laws against the Tamil community in Australia.

Soubhi Iskander, a revolutionary Sudanese activist for over fifty years, also addressed the conference, stressing the need for socialist and working-class activists who have migrated to Australia to get involved in struggles for justice in this country.

Iskander, who stood on the Alliance ticket in the September NSW local government elections, also announced the formal affiliation of the Sudanese-Australian Human Rights Association to the Socialist Alliance.

Turan Ertekin from the Turkish Labour Party, and a candidate for the Alliance in the recent Victorian local government elections, also underlined the need for closer collaboration between the Alliance and migrant communities, stating that working with the Alliance was a
valuable way for migrant communities to expand their political horizons and participation.

Both speakers referred to the experience of breaking with the ALP as the self-proclaimed "natural" party of working-class migrant communities, and of their relief and pleasure at discovering a real working-class organisation in the Alliance.

The conference also heard from Oscar Fuentes from the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front of El Salvador.

The conference received greetings from Grant Morgan of the New Zealand Residents Action Movement, who urged closer collaboration between the New Zealand and Australian socialist movements. Venezuelan Charge d'Affaires, Nelson Davila, who addressed a special conference session on "Latin America's struggle for a new world", outlined the latest
victories and challenges of the Bolivarian Revolution while applauding the leading role played by the Alliance in building solidarity with Venezuela.

Written greetings were received from Chris Cain (Western Australian branch secretary of the MUA), the Socialist Party of Malaysia, the Saharawi Journalists' and Writers' Union, and from the General Union of Saharawi Workers.
New wave of policy

The conference was a big step forward for the Socialist Alliance in developing and adopting its policy. Major steps taken were:

• The adoption of a new target for greenhouse gas concentrations of between 300 and 325 parts per million of atmospheric carbon dioxide (in line with the indications of the latest climate science);

• A comprehensive Charter of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights;

• An energy policy framework that sets the organisation on the road to developing a practical and detailed policy for energy sustainability;

• Commitments to publish a booklet on socialism, a plain language question-and-answer guide to the Rudd government's Fair Work Bill and a new edition of the Worker and Union Rights Charter.

Other resolutions in the area of worker and union rights covered the campaign against the Australian Building and Construction Commission, ALP-inspired attacks on Electrical Trades Union Southern Branch secretary Dean Mighell, NSW electricity privatisation and the Pacific
Islander "guest worker" scheme.

The area of international solidarity produced new policy on Bolivia and Palestine, as well as in opposition to the attacks on the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. A perspective of ongoing campaigning against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was also adopted.

The resolution on "Socialist Alliance Perspectives and Tasks in 2009" committed the organisation to continue to strengthen the campaigns in which it has featured, to build new branches (such as in Northern Queensland and Blacktown), and to continue to stand in elections while being open to joint tickets with other left activists.

A specific resolution on the Alliance attitude to worker and union candidates in future elections said that the Alliance "would engage with any serious attempts to run progressive union-supported candidates".

Officeholders

The conference elected the following National Officeholders:

• National Co-conveners: Bea Bleile, Margarita Windisch, Dick Nichols
• National Trade Union Coordinator: Jim McIlroy
• National Environment Coordinator: David White
• National Arabic-speaking Communities Liaison Coordinator: Soubhi Iskander
  

These National Officeholders will serve on the incoming National Executive with State and Territory representatives, whose number was expanded by one each for New South Wales and Queensland because of Alliance growth in those states.

Also elected were two National Spokespersons, Sam Watson for Indigenous Rights and Pip Hinman for Anti-War and Civil Liberties.

Finally, the conference wasn't just endless work. Delegates and observers were also privileged to attend a "Great Socialist Middle Eastern Feast", prepared by comrades active with the Afghan community in Rural Australians for Refugees. The delicious food combined perfectly with rousing and witty speeches from Margarita Windisch and well-known civil liberties defender Rob Stary, along with videos and a slide show capturing the highlights of the past two years of Alliance members' activism.

All in all, a conference that strengthened Socialist Alliance and its activists for the serious challenges ahead.

People before profits, planet before profits

www.socialist-alliance.org

Slideshow: SA National Conference

Made with Slideshow Embed Tool

The 2008 Socialist Alliance national conference was held in Geelong over the weekend 5-7 December. The conference reflected SA continued attempts to build alliances with a broad range of socialist and progressive activists and organisations.

Highlights included the new affiliation of the Sudanese Human Rights Association which was reported to the conference by Soubhi Iskander - a Sudanese communist with five decades' experience in the revolutionary movement.

Noel Washington (CFMEU organiser who successfully defied the Australian Building Construction Commission) spoke at the conference to thank Socialist Alliance for support for his campaign and to urge continued struggle against the ABCC.

Other speakers included: Cam Walker (who told the conference that Socialist Alliance's climate change policy had a real impact on others in the environment movement); Dave Kerin; David Spratt; Brian Senewiratne; John Rice; Grant Morgan; Rob Stary and others.

Video:Building the people's answer to the capitalist crisis

A short report on the 6th National Conference of the Socialist Alliance held in Geelong, Victoria, Australia -- December 5-7, 2008.

The video features the main sessions & presenters but not the workshops.

Video:The Socialist Alliance 6th National Conference

Socialist Alliance 6th national conference was held in Geelong, Victoria December 5-7, 2008. This interview with Margarita Windisch (SA co-convenor)charts the significance of the gathering.