BY PETER BOYLE
As the possibilities for deeper left unity is being debated within the Socialist Alliance, the Socialist Alternative (SAlt) group has written to the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) to suggest unity talks between the two organisations.
(The letter can found at .)
SAlt was formed from a 1995 split in the ISO. It is primarily based on Melbourne University and Queensland University. SAlt pulled out of the Socialist Alliance several months ago.
On November 21, Tom Barnes of the ISO's national executive wrote that the ISO had agreed to "discuss the various questions posed by our interventions in current struggles". He added that, "Discussion and clarification of our respective approaches is an essential pre-cursor to any question of organisational fusion".
However, Barnes questioned the sincerity of SAlt's proposal because "several ISO members were given a document ... by leading SA members" which is a "lengthy one-sided rehash of events in 1995 and a diatribe against the ISO rather than a positive attempt to analyse the tasks facing revolutionaries (and the basis for common action) in the present period".
(This document is available at .)
Diane Fieldes of the SAlt national executive wrote back to the ISO on November 23 calling for a meeting before the ISO national conference on December 7-8. Fieldes acknowledged that "a number of important political differences clearly do exist between our two organisations and we agree that these differences should not simply be brushed under the carpet".
"Nevertheless", she added, "we don't feel that the scale of the differences is so great that they should rule out unity. We feel that a range of opinions on the issues you raise is quite compatible with membership of one united revolutionary organisation"
Which raises the question: why is Socialist Alternative opposed to broader socialist unity through the Socialist Alliance? SAlt has argued that Socialist Alliance's electoral interventions divert energy from anti-war work. However, there is broad agreement in the Socialist Alliance to step up united non-electoral work.
On November 22, the Socialist Alliance national executive unanimously endorsed perspectives for the Socialist Alliance's work that included:
* an open-ended discussion about the nature of the alliance, and around key political questions like the nature of reformism, the nature of the trade union bureaucracy;
* a further strengthening and expansion of the Socialist Alliance's trade union activity;
* strengthening collaboration in campaign work, in particular in anti-war and refugees' rights campaigns;
* initiating or building protests around pressing issues, such as the recent ASIO raids on Muslim families;
* a higher alliance profile at all rallies and at other public events;
* holding alliance public meetings on key topics and debates on the left; and
* an understanding by affiliated parties that such persepctives require making greater resources available to the alliance than they do at present.
[Peter Boyle is a member of the national executive of the DSP.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, December 4, 2002.
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