Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 13:09:43 GMT
From: Steve Wallis <S.Wallis-AT-mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Conservatives win Australian election


"Marcus Strom" <MSTROM-AT-nswtf.org.au> wrote:

> I find Steve's response somewhat puzzling.

Marcus seems to have misunderstood me somewhat, perhaps due to me
being brief.

I'll start with what we agree on.  We agree that there is a need for a
mass revolutionary party capable of leading a successful socialist
revolution.  [I'm sure we also mostly agree on what would happen after
a socialist revolution too.]

We agree that some sort of socialist federation (which may be called
an "alliance" or "party") would be "a step forward" in the current
objective situation.  We also agree that it would need the active
involvement of revolutionary socialists (Marcus prefers to use the
term "communists") for such a federation to succeed.

In Marcus' opinion, there isn't much prospect of building such a
federation at the present time.  He may well be right - I asked this
question in order to try to find out if this is the case - but perhaps
the situation will improve fairly soon.

Militant Labour and the CWI are not as dogmatic as Marcus implies.
There are different objective situations in different countries, and a
tactic that is correct in one may not necessarily be correct in
another.  Whereas building socialist alliances is feasible in Britain
at the present time, it may not be in Australia.

Similar arguments can be used about the name of an organisation -
different terms are understood in different ways by the masses in
different countries.  This certainly applies to the term "communist"
which in Britain is synonymous with the Stalinist dictatorships that
have disintegrated in the former USSR and Eastern Europe.  The
situation in Italy is rather different due to the history of the
Communist Party there.  I do not claim to be an expert on Italy or
Australia (or Britain for that matter), but I suspect that the term
"communist" is understood by the mass of the working class in much the
same way in Australia as in Britain.

It is clearly ridiculous to dogmatically insist on using the term
"communist" in any country at any time - even if doing so erects a
massive hurdle in the way of building the mass revolutionary party
needed for a successful socialist revolution.  This seems to be what
Marcus is suggesting, but maybe I am misinterpreting him...

Finally, to clear up some other misunderstandings:

I am not saying that the defeat of a social democratic government
"overseeing the disintegration of post war keynesism and welfare
state...creates the best space for working class fightback".  What I
am saying is that there will be a favourable objective situation in
many countries in the coming period, and that the defeat of such a
government is not a calamity for the working class.  As Gary McL (and
Marcus) pointed out, the shift to the right of the social democratic
parties has created a big vacuum - the challenge for Marxists is to
fill the vacuum rather than allowing racists and fascists to.

Marcus' suggestion that Militant Labour/the CWI are social democrats
is just plain silly.  It is quite amusing the way some people dredge
up statements from several years ago (in the days of entrism within
the British Labour Party, and admittedly phrased rather badly) in
order to try to prove what they would surely know to be false if they
had any real knowledge of Militant Labour.

Steve.

-- 
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   /----------+ Centre for Policy Modelling,         Email: S.Wallis-AT-mmu.ac.uk
   \/\  Steve | Manchester Metropolitan University,    Tel: (+44) 161 247 3884
\    / Wallis | Aytoun Building, Aytoun St.,           Fax: (+44) 161 247 6802
 \/\/---------+ Manchester M1 3GH, UK.        http://www.fmb.mmu.ac.uk/~stevew


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