Issue 23

January-April, 2003: Challenges in uniting the left

The united front today

By Nick McKerrell

Regroupment and the socialist left today

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.

Where is the SWP going?

By Murray Smith

CONTENTS

Resolution on work in the Socialist Alliance

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:

Australia: Letter to Socialist Alliance National Executive

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.

Links 23: Editor's introduction

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.