Comrades, this Resistance Conference will prove to be a vital gathering. It comes at a crucial turning point in world politics. The contradictions of capitalism are deepening, yet the old misleaders of the movements of the workers and oppressed have been defeated and discredited, while the new generation has not yet forged the weapons it needs – its leadership, its organisation.

The lack of strong parties and clear leadership is the greatest challenge facing the workers and oppressed around the world. The problems and issues are all too visible:

• The majority of the world’s people forced to live in unspeakable conditions of poverty and squalor;
• The exploitation of the many by the tiny handful of privileged in the imperialist countries;
• The imminent threat to the survival of the planet from the practices of the profit-hungry corporations;
• The ongoing war threats from an increasingly arrogant US ruling class wanting to impose its New World Order;
• The racism, the sexism, the homophobia, the brutality, ugliness and philistinism of a world system that tries to drum into us that its dog-eat-dog philosophy is somehow natural, or god-ordained.

In Australia, the bourgeoisie itself now openly admits there’s an ever-widening gap between rich and poor. No longer the myth that we’re all middle class now. That used to be the favourite refutation of Marxism by tame academics and journalists.

Today the reality breaks into the open too often, as in Los Angeles, so they’ll now earnestly discuss this worrisome phenomenon on TV programs. As though it’s accidental, not part of the setup, and not consciously engineered by both capitalist parties, Liberal and Labor.

There’s a growing underclass, of permanently unemployed, of people who’ve slipped out of the system, people who don’t participate in the conspicuous consumption cycle. An ever-growing proportion of young people are in this situation. Ruling class politicians are oh so concerned about the young unemployed, but they all just propose some form of slave labour – youth wages, a training wage, or work for the dole.

The Labor party and the union bureaucracies not merely provide no solutions, but have been essential in maintaining the rule of capital. And cynics and academic Marxists, now mostly ex- Marxists, and the tired victims of previous campaigns and movements, are increasingly on the side of the status quo. They’ve made their peace, and they are expected to pay the price for their privileges. But even if you’re not actively complicit in the crimes of capitalism, there’s no sitting on the fence today – as Malcolm X pointed out, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

There’s lots of discontent and lots of anger, but as long as there’s no organisation and direction, the ruling class will be able to keep it under control – through their tried and tested methods of repression, censorship, token concessions or cooption.

The problems are very visible, but too few people clearly see the solutions.

“The present crisis in human culture is the crisis in the proletarian leadership,” wrote Leon Trotsky on the eve of World War II. This holds true today as well, 50 years on. In fact, this has been the key political issue of the 20th Century, the crisis of the subjective factor, the question of leadership, which is the question of the party.

We in the DSP and Resistance have been fortunate. We have understood this question. We’ve recognised the importance of building a party, the importance of leadership in organising for fundamental social change.

We’ve also been fortunate in the unique relationship we’ve got going, that close DSP-Resistance collaboration, through 25 years now.

From the beginning, in the 1960s, it was Resistance that built the party. Resistance came first, and it was the early leaders of Resistance who then founded the DSP (formerly Socialist Workers Party).

Direct Action, the precursor of Green Left Weekly, was first published in 1970 as the paper of Resistance, and for 20 years was formally or in fact a wonderful joint effort by the party and Resistance.

The overwhelming majority of the current leadership of the DSP were at one time activists and leaders in Resistance. Time after time Resistance activists have renewed the ranks of the party.

Our collaboration has been unique on the Australian left, and it even stands out on an international scale. We have a history we can very proud of.

And in the last few years, at a time of retreat and demoralisation for most of the left, we’re growing, Resistance is advancing, recruiting. And also against the stream, our other wonderful weapon, Green Left Weekly is significantly expanding the reach of the left press.

1992 has been a great year so far for our tendency. The main campaigns we projected on the environment and Indonesian solidarity have gone well. Unexpected windfalls have come our way with the sex diary campaign and actions on youth unemployment. We’ve forced our way into the capitalist media more extensively than at any time in our history. Green Left’s circulation has jumped. Both the DSP and Resistance are recruiting.

It’s been an unequaled partnership. Without Resistance, the DSP would be a lot weaker and much less optimistic. Without the DSP’s accumulated experience and resources, I’m sure Resistance would have been a lot less successful.

Your task continues, to not only continue to campaign on all the important issues and build Resistance, but to continue to build and support the Democratic Socialist Party.

The DSP, for our part, will continue to do all we can to support and build Resistance. We pledge redoubled efforts to organisationally assist Resistance and to help in the education and training of a new generation of revolutionary socialist activists.

We’re now in a special period of transition, where the old left is dead, dying, at least taking its last gasp. The conditions for a new radicalisation exist, and a new generation is starting to stir.

The exit of the old left, the traditional – Stalinist or social democratic – left, has cleared the debris out of the way. So that even more than the founders of Resistance, this current generation has the chance to make their mark. Because they’re not having to do it over the obstacle of Stalinism, they’re not having to do it against the credibility that Social Democracy once had.

And therefore it seems hard at the moment, because the left seems small, and because those people who we thought of as left are not there anymore, and therefore there’s a field day for the right for the moment.

But we know that while it’s a temporary weakness because of the exposure and collapse of Stalinism and social democracy, it will be to the advantage of genuine revolutionary change in the end. It’s not going to be automatic, because there will continue to be petit-bourgeois fakers, those who want to go half way, who will blend into the past. Hangovers from the past, fake lefts who’ve grabbed a bureaucratic niche and use their position to thwart the development of a new, activist, democratic left alternative.

But there’s something else going for us today. The increased URGENCY for fundamental change in the face of impending environmental disasters. The Earth Summit showed it above all else. You just have to read about it. Just look at the bourgeois commentators. They offer no hope whatsoever. The thing is going downhill as far as they’re concerned, and they will not do the things that upset the rule of big capital, the essential steps that will save our planet.

We can be pretty certain by the time the generation assembled here is the age of the founders of Resistance – like my age – it is going to be an even worse place to live. It’s going to be horrible. But you can be certain there’s going to be a mighty movement of people clamouring for help, clamouring for survival, clamouring for a change, saying, “Enough is enough!”

So this generation has the advantage of learning from our mistakes, building on our achievements, and having an organisation already there.

But it means once again returning to the theme I began on, the question of an alternative leadership, the question of a party. It’s a serious undertaking, it’s an undertaking that means the sort of effort you know you’re already putting in, and the effort of educating and transforming yourself. Add the effort of learning more about your political and social environment. Add the effort of more and more becoming the leaders of mass movements as they emerge. All those are the things that go to make a party.

We have a nucleus of people again, largely renewed for the ‘90s.

And for the moment our struggles seem small efforts, but they’re not on the world scale. We should bring our mind back to the people of South Africa, where the struggle is poised now, as the white reactionaries seek to hang on, not just to their majority rule, but the wealth that they’ve given themselves because of their majority rule.

We struggle with those people because we understand it’s all one struggle, and it won’t stop, it can’t stop while there is repression, oppression, racism, sexism, exploitation, the rule of the profit motive, without any concern for human needs. While that continues Resistance will continue and go from strength to strength.

There have been plenty of struggles in the last few years, some very heroic, some very important. Some not so heroic but also interesting, important, indicating the way politics goes. But often the results that we can expect from a situation don’t live up to our expectations.

The Thai students and workers who revolted against Suchinda in May, are they in power now? No, they didn’t have a party.

In the United States today there are elections coming up. Not many people are going to vote. The traditional parties are unpopular. The great mass of people are discontented, vividly expressed by the LA riots. Do they have a party? No. The whites at least who are jobless, dissatisfied, unhappy… they’re going to vote for Ross Perot, a billionaire. Why? Because they don’t have a party.

Here in Victoria recently, we finally saw the exit from politics of that buffoon Hawke. Phil Cleary’s victory was very good, but is this leading to a reconstruction of politics in Victoria, in Australia? Is the great sentiment of discontent expressed there giving rise to a movement? No, Cleary doesn’t have a party. Why are they scared in South Africa? Because the oppressed masses DO have a party, the ANC and the South African Communist Party.

In Australia, without a party, our struggles will be defeated, our efforts dissipated, and nothing will fundamentally change, except for the worse.

We can raise our voices for women’s rights, and the ruling class can make a few concessions here, coopt a few women there.

We can organise protests against the destruction of the environment, and they can all pay lip service to the environment today, even the big corporations once they figure out how to make a buck out of it.

But with a party to coordinate our struggles and unite the oppressed and learn from our experiences, we can organise a mass movement to take power from the few and put society under the democratic control of the many.

We need a party founded on human solidarity, made up of comrades linked by political conviction, of all ages, all backgrounds, joined in fighting a common struggle. And we need a party of dedicated, committed activists who throw themselves wholeheartedly into the struggle, giving their all for their ideas, their ideals, for the party, for socialism. And I see the nucleus of that party, the future leadership of that party, here in this room.

So once again I pledge continuing support from the DSP in our common struggle, and salute Resistance on its 25th anniversary – Long live the collaboration between Resistance and the DSP!