By Ben Reid

CONTENTS

By Francois Duval

Francois Duval is a leader of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire.

CONTENTS

By Murray Smith

CONTENTS

By John Rees

CONTENTS

By Nick McKerrell

Nick McKerrell is a leading member of the International Socialist Movement platform in the Scottish Socialist Party. This article is reprinted from issue 8 of Frontline, the ISM's journal in the SSP.

CONTENTS

By Alex Callinicos

Alex Callinicos is a leader of the Socialist Workers Party in Britain. His most recent book is Against the Third Way: an anti-capitalist critique.

CONTENTS

By Murray Smith

CONTENTS

by John Percy

CONTENTS

from the Democratic Socialist Party

This resolution was adopted by the Twentieth Congress of the Australian Democratic Socialist Party [DSP], held in Sydney from December 28, 2002 to January 1, 2003. For an explanation of its background, see Peter Boyle's article in this issue.

This Twentieth Congress of the Democratic Socialist Party:

September 3, 2002

1. State of the Socialist Alliance
2. The international context
3. The potential for and constraints on the Socialist Alliance
4. Political basis for greater unity
5. The Democratic Socialist tendency and the Socialist Alliance

Dear comrades,

I am writing to you on behalf of the National Executive of the Democratic Socialist Party to advise you that we have initiated a discussion in our party about making a radically bigger commitment towards left unity within the Socialist Alliance.

By Peter Boyle

• Leninist approach
• Politics of the Socialist Alliance
• ISO ultimatum
• Lessons from previous regroupment attempts

In September 2, 2002, the Democratic Socialist Party [DSP] national executive adopted the perspective of making the Socialist Alliance the party its members build by transforming the DSP into an internal tendency within the Socialist Alliance. The sole purpose of the Democratic Socialist tendency (DST), as it was to be called, would be to complete the process of left regroupment while preserving for the Socialist Alliance our main political gains (such as a popular weekly newspaper, our nationwide network of activist centres, and a politically educated cadre). Apart from carrying out this transition, the DST would not seek to be a permanent political tendency.

Challenges in uniting the left

Previous issues of Links have frequently discussed internationalism and internationals, or the question of how socialists should collaborate on an international scale. This issue is devoted to the closely related matter of left regroupment, or how socialists can collaborate at the national level. It discusses the challenges of left regroupment through concrete experiences in Australia, England, Scotland, France and Brazil.

In Australia in 2002, the Socialist Alliance, grouping nearly all the far-left organisations, was able to overcome difficult electoral registration requirements in several states and attract as new members a significant number of activists who were not members of any of the component groups. In September, the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), the largest member organisation of the Alliance, proposed to spur the process of left regroupment by becoming an internal tendency within the Alliance and carrying out all its public political activity through the Socialist Alliance.