As a long-time observer of the Democratic Socialist Perspective (it used
to be Party rather than Perspective) in Australia, I was very pleased to
see them departing from conventional “Leninist” thinking and announce
what amounts to an entirely different approach to the Socialist
Alliance, a formation they have been leading for a number of years.
Their inspiration is the NPA in France, a broad anti-capitalist
formation that was initiated by the LCR, the official section of the
Fourth International that has dissolved itself into the NPA.
The DSP lays out its new relationship to the SA in a document approved
by their National Committee on June 7th. There is much to appreciate in
this document, especially this:
Small socialist organisations operating in relative isolation in the
working class movements, or sometimes substantially outside these
movements because they are composed almost totally of small groups of
“socialist intellectuals” are chronically plagued with what might be
called “Marxist” identity politics. That is they are more concerned
about “proving” to themselves that they are “real Marxists” than
actually applying what Marx, Engels and Lenin taught which is to build
real socialist leadership in the working class. In fact, the further
away such groups are from that objective, the more loudly they assert
their “Marxist” identity. What passes as politics in “the left” as we
have it in this country can degenerate to little more than a ridiculous
I’m-more-Marxist-than-you pissing competition. We’ve all seen this time
and again with various little sects. And we’ve also seen this tendency
in our own organisation.
Read full article at:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/the-revolutionary-party-moving-forward-and-standing-pat/
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