By Brian T. Carey
The surviving members of the New Left Party have called a special conference, on March 20-21, to consider winding it up as a left political/electoral party, and replacing what remains by some loose form of network. To a large extent, this will be a formality, as in most areas the organisation has all but ceased to exist already.
Despite high hopes of some of its founders, the NLP never really got off the ground. The uncommitted left failed to flock to its banner; most of the signatories of the Time to Act statement failed to join; a majority of the dissolved Communist Party, one of its initiating organisations, did not take out membership; nor did most members of the Association for Communist Unity.
Most of those who did join have since left, so that the organisation has shrunk in size in all centres, and ceased to exist in many. It has functioned at all only because of substantial financial injections derived from the former CPA funds.
Nevertheless, some significant work has been done in some areas, such as around urban ecology in Adelaide, local government issues in Sydney, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian group, and solidarity and peace work in several centres. Some activities, such as against the GST and Fightback, have been conducted anonymously, for no apparent sensible reason.
So, despite enthusiasm and a potential, what went wrong?
One of the favourite alibis is the existence of "various objective circumstances". This excuse is flawed by the presence of the most acute economic crisis in capitalism for the past 60 years, embedded in a renewed system-wide general crisis ridden with contradictions and crises upon crises, which in Australia has fed a political hiatus more acute than anything at least since the period of the anti-red bill and bank nationalisation 40 years and more ago.
Furthermore, in this crisis the Liberal Party has abandoned its traditional conservative liberalism for 19th century "Gekkoism", while the ALP has given away Social Democracy and differs from the most reactionary representatives of big capital only in degree, not fundamentals. This set of objective circumstances should be favourable to the aim of socialist mobilisation.
In the writer's view, the CPA, among many socialists, failed to recognise and analyse the crucial changes to capitalism at the end of the long boom in 1974-75, and the implications for new approaches to political work, in many cases because they turned their collective backs on a Marxist analysis of modern capitalism and replaced it with utopian "new left" waffle. Similar objective economic circumstances in the '30s led to a major upsurge of the left and particularly the Communist Party, which was leading the class and popular struggles of the time.
Crisis of Stalinism
The second major "objective circumstance" often quoted as explanation for failure on the left, is the crisis of socialist ideology arising from the collapse of the Stalinist and post-Stalinist commandist/bureaucratic regimes of east Europe and the former Soviet Union. Here the basic problem lies in the acceptance that those regimes in any way constituted a"socialist" system.
If you believe that, you are driven either to conclude that socialism has failed (as many communists trained in Stalinist precepts have done) or adopt the wildly reactionary restorationist position of, for example, the CPUSA, which defies reality and Marx in trying to justify the anti-democratic and anti-socialist crimes of that bastardised state bureau-capitalist system.
The collapse of these command economies called socialist, and the discrediting of Marxism by its Stalinist inversion, has left a difficult but urgent need to gather the scattered and disarrayed forces for the regeneration of socialism and Marxism, with democratic, feminist, ecological and other infusions. The NLP chose not to fill this role in practice despite clauses in its statement of aims (Time to Act).
The leadership of the CPA and other non-party people pulled out of the earlier Charter process which involved the Socialist Workers Party, after deadlock at the 1987 Melbourne conference where a clearly Marxist socialist platform was emerging. A proposition from Canberra to merge and unite the alternative documents, maintaining the Marxist essence, was offhandedly dismissed by the CPA leaders.
Utopian reformism
There seemed a utopian belief in some minds that people would romp to an NLP banner and deliver electoral goodies, once it turned its back on communist and socialist ideas and the Soviet Union. The politics of reform within capitalism and electoral advance was in the ascendancy. But expectations were rose-tinted,
and strategy and ideology were confused and ill thought through.
The NLP had embraced an idealist soup of concepts, involving two sets of contending thoughts and ideologies among the members and supporters. There was contradiction in the formation and objectives of the party. It did not decide whether it wanted to be a New Labour Party or a New Socialist Party, and as a result the NLP fell between the two stools without achieving either aim. Even if each were possible options, to be both at once was impossible; each has its own different constituency, philosophy, and political strategy, even if they might overlap.
Presentation of the NLP as a"Social Democratic" party, seeking to reform capitalism (with a human face?), with or without a nominal commitment to socialism in the distant future, had some fundamental difficulties. The crisis in the ALP is not a matter of personalities, nor even policies, but arises directly from the nature of the ALP, and the impossibility of Social Democratic-type reforms to capitalism in periods of stagnation and crisis. Tinkering with leaders or policies can have no significant effect.
As a matter of history, reforms within capitalism never have and cannot solve the main problems facing people. And no reform will be entertained if it challenges capital's power. Further, in periods of general contraction such as that since 1974, there is an economic limit to reform, because those with the power will not suffer an avoidable cut in profits. So the agenda of reforms must be severely limited, as long as they are confined within capitalism, and no important reform is possible outside the periods of substantial profit growth. The "New Labour" or "Left Democrat" choice is therefore possible only in the short run, but is ultimately self-defeating.
It follows that left reformist politics and alliances will always be inconclusive, unless the lack of social analysis and socialist perspective is overcome. That would mean adoption of a socialist perspective.
The NLP, however, did not reach a consensus for a radical alternative political and economic system and failed to develop a clear NLP commitment to a socialist change in society with policies and processes based on Marxist theory and analysis, clearly distinguishing the NLP from non-socialist and non-Marxist forces. Without this, the NLP had no justification for existence.
Capitalism, as long as it exists, will always remain fundamentally as Marx described, and in the current situation of late capitalism there is no prospect of returning to full employment. Yet the content of Marxist analyses was not officially discussed or accepted in the NLP, and it was therefore
not able to explain the present crisis.
Its economic and industrial policies remained imprisoned in conservative economic theory and Accord experience — without any reassessment of"award restructuring" or the conformist, collaborationist and incorporatist policies of the ALP and ACTU, which have institutionalised reduction of living standards and expansion of profits and economic exploitation for the past decade.
In the writer's belief, there is a pressing need for a socialist forum or alliance in Australia, a vehicle for development of modern Marxist analyses and a lead towards a federated or umbrella grouping of Marxist socialists working together on common strategies while tolerating their differences. It remains to be seen whether NLP members will stand up as Marxists and socialists distinguished from the non-socialist left as radicals/socialists within broader left alliances.
[The writer holds a PhD in economics and industrial relations, is a member of the National Organising Committee of the NLP, was a union activist in the postal industry until retirement, and was a member of the CPA for 43 years until its dissolution.]