As has become the pattern in PCD contributions by members and supporters of the NE majority, Comrade Paul Benedek ("From minority to majority support", The Activist Vol. 15, No. 14), defends the majority position in the debate on what party-building perspective the coming DSP Congress should vote for by misrepresenting the NE minority’s position. However, he takes misrepresentation to a new level by attributing a position to the whole party that it never had.

The SA as ‘little more than an electoral alliance’?

Comrade Benedek claims that the NE minority’s report to the October national committee meeting "implies that we need to draw back to little more than an electoral alliance" in our perspective for building the Socialist Alliance. He bases this misrepresentation upon the claim that the minority report "confuses and combines" different stages of the SA’s development. He writes:

"The minority report outlines two stages of the SA experience, describing them as:

"* ‘Firstly … our initiation of the process … approach[ing] the local ISO for joint electoral campaigns, and a regrouping of the left… We were excited about the prospects for left unity in the first years…

"* ‘Second[ly] … (from 2003) when we started to think SA might be able to become a new, broader party, and the big step in that process, our gamble of changing our name to ‘Perspective’, becoming an internal tendency in the SA, hoping to push the party process along."

"This ‘two-stage’ analysis of SA’s development – by combining the general development of SA beyond a mere electoral alliance and our congress decision to become an internal tendency in SA – confuses rather than clarifies what it is that ‘we have to draw back from, rewind’.

"Isn’t it more accurate that:

"* yes, there was the initial electoral proposal.

"* then there was a period of SA growing beyond the electoral sphere, becoming more than an electoral alliance, of becoming more an activist organisation, more like a party, although far from a party.

"* Then more recently our move to throw our weight completely into becoming an internal tendency and trying to move SA to be a party.

"It’s clear with this understanding of SA’s development ‘we have to draw back from’ the final stage – i.e., integration of the DSP into SA, which we agree has stalled.

"The minority report, by confusing and combining stages, implies that we need to draw back to little more than an electoral alliance. The majority line sees us drawing back to where SA has developed into a campaigning organisation, more party-like, but without the DSP being merely an internal tendency."

It’s certainly true that there was an initial proposal for the formation of a Socialist Alliance as a purely electoral formation presented by the ISO’s national committee in the ISO’s pre-conference discussion for adoption by the ISO’s January 27-28, 2001, national conference. The document presenting that proposal – titled "Socialists and elections" – was reprinted in The Activist Vol. 11, No. 6, February 2001 (along with all the other ISO NC draft conference documents). It stated (in part):

"We [ i.e., the ISO] want to use the [2001 federal] elections to build a socialist current in working-class communities and work places. We want to mobilise a much wider range of activists than those already committed to revolutionary socialism.

"That is why, ideally, we want to intervene in the election by building a Socialist Alliance. The rising movement rightly puts a premium on unity. The impact of an alliance of socialist groups and activists would be much greater than what the ISO could achieve alone…

"We want a Socialist Alliance that includes shop stewards and delegates, refugees, S11 and student activists and so on. The basis of the Alliance, i.e., the campaign grouping, is not the alliance between existing socialist groups but the numbers of people mobilised to actively support a socialist candidate."

However, our party did not regard the Socialist Alliance that was launched (by public meetings that we jointly organised with the ISO in Sydney and Melbourne in early April 2001) as "little more than an electoral alliance". We regarded it as a vehicle for regrouping the existing socialist groups and newly radicalising workers and students into an alliance for united campaigning in the social movements (including the trade unions). The report on our party-building perspectives adopted by the DSP’s April 2001 NC meeting ("M1, Socialist Alliance and our Party-Building Perspectives", The Activist, Vol. 11, No. 5) stated:

"The Socialist Alliance is a better vehicle [than the ISO’s proposed Global Action student network -DL] to attract and organise the new radical left that is forming/regrouping within this movement [i.e., the anti-corporate movement – DL]. It brings in the existing left groups and yet looks to involving others outside, building on the attraction of left unity. It will operate democratically and be inclusive. And it is attractive to many as the large Melbourne (270) and Sydney (220) launches on April 10 showed. And we have only just begun to organise the Alliance.

"We want to make another public splash with big colourful and loud Socialist Alliance contingents at the official May Day marches…

"One proposal in this report is that the NC ratify the general line of the report on the Socialist Alliance and M1 that was adopted by the NE in March. That report made it clear that we are looking at the Socialist Alliance as more than an electoral tactic, though contesting elections is its formal focus at present. We want to use the Socialist Alliance to take left regroupment as far as possible in Australia today."

The party-building perspectives report adopted by the DSP NC in January 2002 ("Party-Building Perspectives and Tasks", The Activist Vol. 12, No. 1) observed:

"Socialist Alliance offers the potential to be more than just a left electoral alliance. The formation of Socialist Alliance has the potential to significantly build the movements. This potential can only be realised if all of the parties and active independents can reach agreement on the political direction of key movements of the day. If this could be achieved it would have a powerful impact on the movements.

"At the moment, our moves in this direction have often been stymied by the ISO, but not always. We should continue the tactic of using Socialist Alliance to seek agreement between the revolutionary left on building the anti-war, refugee rights, union rights and anti-corporate globalisation movements, as well as one-off events such as International Women’s Day marches and rallies."

Thus, contrary to Comrade Benedek’s misrepresentation of the SA’s development, there was never a stage in its development when the DSP had the perspective of building it as a "mere electoral alliance". And, contrary to Comrade Benedek’s attempt to confuse comrades as to what the NE minority report to the October NC plenum proposed, it did not propose that we rewind the SA back to "little more than an electoral alliance". Immediately after the sentence that Comrade Benedek quoted from the report referring to "the period (from 2003) when we started to think that the Socialist Alliance might be able to become a new, broader party, and the big step in that process, our gamble of changing our name to ‘Perspective’, becoming an internal tendency in the SA, hoping to push the party process along", the report stated: "It’s this second period, especially the last two years, with our major turn at our last congress, that has clearly failed, and which we have to draw back from, rewind."

The report went on to argue that we are "now in yet another stage of our Socialist Alliance experience, which will be different from those earlier ones", adding that "SA’s failure as a party does not mean we’re only confronted with two choices: to shut it down or reduce its work down to pure propaganda for a new party [this was a reference to earlier misrepresentations by members of the NE majority of the NE minority’s position – DL]. The correct choice is to firstly recognise its reality, but to then use the best of SA’s achievements to continue alliance-building, collaborating, etc., in order to bring about the fightback conditions that are necessary for a new party."

Such a position is completely consistent with the perspective for building the SA set out in the NE’s draft congress resolution, e.g.:

"21 ‘The Socialist Alliance will have to go through a more extended period of united campaigning and regroupment with broader left forces that are generated by a new upturn of resistance to the capitalist neoliberal ‘reforms’ before it harness the leadership resources and political confidence to take a significant step to creating a new socialist party… By championing the need for a broadly based anti-capitalist party or a ‘new mass workers’ party’ (as Craig Johnston put it at the Melbourne 2005 National Trade Union Fightback Conference) the Socialist Alliance can continue to win the respect of and recruit broader layers of militant workers to its ranks."

"34 [first bullet point] To build the Socialist Alliance as a campaigning alliance in the social movements (particularly the trade union movement) that seeks to build a new mass workers’ party. Such a campaigning alliance should remain open to standing candidates in local, state and federal elections under the Socialist Alliance name in order to advance its campaigning work in the social movements and to promote the need for a new mass workers’ party, and should therefore seek to retain electoral registration."

When Comrade John Percy and I put forward this latter formulation on August 13 (see "Proposed amendments to Peter Boyle’s 2nd draft of a resolution", The Activist Vol. 15, No. 4), we made the motivation: "We need to project a different perspective and orientation for the Socialist Alliance from the ‘SA into MSTP’ one… we should also indicate that while we are saying it isn’t and cannot ‘for an extended period’ be transformed into a ‘new party’, we are not proposing that the SA give up electoral work, but that this should not be the priority for the SA’s activities." (emphasis in original).

Building the SA ‘in a more effective and realistic manner’

Comrade Benedek argues in favour of the DSP adopting the NE majority’s perspective for building the DSP and the Socialist Alliance on the grounds that the "general line set forth in the majority report" presented to the October NC plenum by Comrade Peter Boyle "is the best trajectory for our work in the current political situation". According to Comrade Benedek, this "trajectory" is to "build on our May NC turn to increase DSP organisation and consolidate recadreisation, while building SA in a more realistic and efficient manner" than the perspective we adopted at our last DSP congress, i.e., "the course of ongoing integration of the DSP into SA". He argues that the political line of the report on party building endorsed by the majority of the NC "supports abandoning the failed integration plan, but maintaining, nurturing and developing SA as a new party project (draft resolution, pt 33), a campaigning alliance in the social movements that seeks to build a new mass workers’ party (draft resolution, pt 34)"

What does the NC majority report actually say regarding these two paragraphs in the draft congress resolution on "The DSP and the Socialist Alliance" adopted by the NE on August 15 (The Activist Vol. 15, No. 4)?

Paragraph 33 of the draft resolution states: "While the Socialist Alliance has adopted the perspective of transforming itself into a multi-tendency socialist party, this is just the beginning of such a new party project. If there is a new rise in the class struggle, new potential partners will be drawn into the project for a new party project and the Socialist Alliance may have to become part of or be transformed into or be supplemented by new structures for best organising the strongest political voice for neoliberal resistance".

After stating that "We are building two organisations today as part our struggle to build a single mass revolutionary party", the NC majority report quotes this paragraph, but makes no further comment on it.

With regard to paragraph 34, the report states that the "NE majority accepted the formulation John and Doug proposed" for the first bullet point of paragraph 34. It then quotes the formulation, and makes the comment that the paragraph "makes the point that SA is more than an electoral alliance, it seeks to collectively campaign in the social movements (particularly the trade unions) and build a new mass workers’ party". But when it comes to what this will concretely mean, i.e., how we will deploy our cadre resources to build the SA as "a campaigning alliance in the social movements (particularly the trade union movement) that seeks to build a new mass workers’ party", the majority report puts the emphasis on building the SA branches – precisely because this is a more party-like form of organising – rather than on organising through campaigning caucuses oriented to the social movements (particularly the trade union movement). The majority report argues that we must "work out how many SA branches can be sustained" by DSP members and of those we can "sustain" DSP members must "keep them alive" by having each of these SA branches adopt a "modest campaign such as an open-letter campaign" (such as the campaign initiated during the Marrickville by-election to collect signatures on a letter calling on NSW Labor Premier Morris Iemma to commit his government not to comply with Howard’s new IR laws).

Keeping SA branches "alive", something we have tried but in most cases have only been able to do over the last two years through an unsustainable level of DSP substitution, is the majority report’s key proposal for building the SA, which Comrade Benedek endorses as the way to build the SA "in a more effective and realistic manner".

By contrast, the NE minority report argues that "there should be no forcing of regular [SA branch] meetings where they play no role in organising others. Where appropriate, city-wide aggregates might be more useful". It argues that "SA trade union caucuses could be maintained where they exist", but that "[w]hat would be more useful is SA organising caucuses around specific purposes, such as fighting the IR laws, or defending specific unions under attack", i.e., seeking to organise non-DSP SA members to collaborate with us in carrying out the major national campaigning priority set out in the Australian political situation report adopted by the October NC plenum.

The NC majority report on party building states that "where the NE majority see this as a positive statement of SA being an [sic] campaigning organisation, the NE minority simply see it as a device to further their argument that we should build the DSP, not the SA, as our party". It is true that the NE minority argues that the coming DSP Congress should vote to abandon the mistaken and failed party-building perspective that we adopted at our last congress of attempting to build the SA, not the DSP, as our party and adopt the perspective that "we should build the DSP, not the SA, as our party", and build the SA as "a campaigning alliance in the social movements (particularly the trade union movement) that seeks to build a new mass workers’ party". This goes beyond the unanimously agreed upon decision we made at the May NC plenum to recognise that our plan to integrate the DSP into the SA (so as to make the SA "the party we build") had "stalled", that the "current level of substitution in our work in SA is unsustainable" and was indicated by "a new financial crisis", "a deepening GLW sales crisis" and "falling DSP membership" and, therefore, we had to reprioritise strengthening the organisation of the DSP.

The May NC report on party building set us "a major challenge in the second half of this year", namely "to identity what might be a reasonable perspective for [the] DSP and Socialist Alliance in the next period", i.e., in 2006. The report posed that challenge in terms of the question of what is the party we build, asking: "If SA cannot become our new party – without new external political developments – what can it be? What must the DSP be?" (see "The DSP and Socialist Alliance – An urgent reality check on our party-building perspective", The Activist, Vol. 15, No. 2, p. 6.)

The implication of the accusation made in the NE majority’s October NC report that the amendment put forward by Comrade Percy and myself on August 13 – that the DSP should have the objective of building the SA "as a campaigning alliance in the social movements (particularly the trade unions) that seeks to build a new mass workers’ party" is simply a "device to further" our "argument that we should build the DSP, not the SA, as our party" – is that we don’t really want to build the SA as such a campaigning alliance. What we supposedly really want to do with the SA is not spelt out in the report.

Comrade Benedek appears to have found the explanations (misrepresentations) of what we supposedly really want to do with the SA made by other supporters of the NE majority – that we want to abandon it, or withdraw the DSP’s leadership from it, or let it die from "benign neglect", or reduce its activity to pure propaganda for a mass workers’ party – unsatisfactory and therefore concocts his own misrepresentation, i.e., that we want to "rewind" the SA’s development all the way back to the initial proposal put forward by … the ISO, to "draw" the SA "back to little more than an electoral alliance".

Later in his PCD article, Comrade Benedek argues that the "majority line sees us drawing back to where SA has developed into a campaigning organisation, more party-like [than what, Comrade Benedek doesn’t tell us – DL], but without the DSP being merely an internal tendency" and that the "position of the majority now (and since May) is that we don’t continue this collective risk" – of the loss of cadre – "by remaining merely as an internal tendency in SA – that instead we build on our May NC turn, improve the organisation of the DSP, and build SA in a more effective and realistic manner".

This is the only positive argument Comrade Benedek makes in his whole PCD article in support of his claim that the majority line "is the best trajectory for our work in the current political situation". All the rest of his arguments for supporting the NC majority’s perspective are based on arguing against the allegedly "simpler perspective" that is put forward in the report on party building presented to the October NC plenum by Comrade John Percy on behalf of the NE minority, including the deliberate misrepresentation of its perspective for building the SA as "little more than an electoral alliance".

Does the NC majority report reject the ‘old line’?

Comrade Benedek seems to think that the "old line", i.e., the party-building perspective adopted at the last DSP congress, amounted to nothing more than the "perspective" of attempting to integrate the organisational resources of the DSP into the SA, and that if we recognise that this has "stalled" and set ourselves the task of strengthening the organisation of the DSP, then we have adopted a new party-building perspective. But the plan to integrate the organisational resources of the DSP into the SA was predicated upon a perspective of making the Socialist Alliance – rather than the DSP – our party, the party we build.

The NE’s draft congress resolution goes further than simply recognising that the "integration plan" has "stalled" (something we formally recognised at the May NC plenum). It makes the assessment that the "attempt at integration has failed because the conditions to build the SA into a new party did not exist" at the time we embarked on this course (i.e., it was a mistake), do not exist today and will not come into existence until after a more extended period – more extended than we have been through to date with the limited forces that have existed up to now in the SA, i.e., four years – of united campaigning and regroupment with broader left forces that that are generated by a sustained upturn of resistance to the capitalist neoliberal "reforms".

Comrade Benedek claims that the NE minority is mistaken in arguing that the majority report is a "defence of the essence of the line we adopted at our previous congress" because that line was "the course of ongoing integration of the DSP into SA" and this is "clearly rejected throughout the majority report". He goes on to write:

"Indeed, the majority report begins by agreeing with our May 2005 NC that: ‘a) The perspective adopted by the last congress (of trying to integrate as much of the resources of the DSP into the Socialist Alliance) was stalled.’ (The Activist, Vol. 15, No. 12, p. 20)

"The report utilises sections of the draft resolution to make its arguments, agreeing that integration has stalled, that we need to turn to strengthening the DSP, while building SA in a more realistic and effective way.

"Even though the majority line clearly opposes the old ongoing integration plan, the minority continues to incorrectly attribute this old course to the majority."

It is true that the majority report repeats the May NC report’s recognition that the course adopted by the last DSP congress of "trying to integrate as much of the resources of the DSP into the Socialist Alliance" was "stalled‘ and the May NC’s decision to strengthen the organisation of the DSP and that this would necessarily mean allocating less DSP resources to building the SA. But the May NC report’s proposals did not set a new perspective for building either the DSP or the SA. The report set working out a new party-building perspective as the challenge for the period leading up to our next DSP congress in January 2006 ("So a major challenge in the second half of this year is to identify what might be a reasonable perspective for [the] DSP and Socialist Alliance in the next period. If SA cannot become our new party – without new external political developments – what can it be? What must the DSP be?")

In the discussion of the report at the May NC plenum comrades began to discuss this issue, as is clear from the printed summary on the discussion: "We have begun to discuss on questions such as whether we remain an internal tendency in the Socialist Alliance or become the Democratic Socialist Party" again, but correctly pointed out that "we are not voting on these questions today", i.e., they were questions to be taken up in the PCD and decided on at the next DSP congress.

What is the October NC majority report on party building’s answer to the crucial question of what party we are to build after the DSP congress in January? It says we are building two "organisations: The DSP and the Socialist Alliance." Is the DSP to be the organisation we build as our party? No, we’re to build the DSP as "a revolutionary organisation with a high level of political unity and discipline", and we’re to build the SA as "a broad left party project around a more limited ‘class-struggle’ program that can only move forward with revolutionary leadership". So the SA will remain our party-building project, the party we are committed to build, after the congress.

This is made even clearer by the report’s rejection of the party-building perspective advocated by the NC minority, i.e., that we adopt the perspective of building the DSP as our party, both in practice and in name. The majority report argues that "[b]ecause of our leading role in the Socialist Alliance renaming ourselves the ‘Democratic Socialist Party’ and declaring that is ‘the party we are building’ we will send the signal far and wide that we are abandoning this specific new party initiative", i.e., abandoning the "initiative", the perspective, we adopted at our last congress of declaring that the SA, and not the DSP, is "the party we are building". If the DSP is not going to abandon that specific party-building perspective, despite having tested it out for two years and found it impossible to implement, then the DSP is going to continue with this failed perspective. That is the line of march that the majority of the NC, including Comrade Benedek, voted for.

– The Activist was as the internal discussion bulletin of the Democratic Socialist Party