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Socialist Alternative (Australia)

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This article is about the activist organisation. For the similarly named political party, see Socialist Alliance (Australia).

Socialist Alternative
Founded1995; 29 years ago (1995)[1]
Split fromInternational Socialist Organisation
HeadquartersMelbourne, Victoria
NewspaperRed Flag
IdeologyTrotskyism
Anti-capitalism
Political positionFar-left
National affiliationVictorian Socialists
(Victorian branch)
International affiliationFourth International (permanent observer status)
Website
www.sa.org.au
Part of a series on
Socialism in
Australia
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Socialist Alternative (commonly abbreviated as SA or SAlt) is a Trotskyist organisation in Australia. Founded in 1995[1] after its founding members were expelled from the former International Socialist Organisation.[2] The organisation has branches across Australia,[3] their membership operates within the trade union and student union movements, as well as grass roots campaigns.

The party participates within the Victorian Socialists electoral alliance in Victoria. On an international level, the Socialist Alternative is an observer of the Fourth International. They publish a fortnightly newspaper, Red Flag.

History

Campaigns

Membership routine

Theory

Though one of Socialist Alternative's stated aims is to contribute towards building a revolutionary party that can intervene in – and lead – mass working-class struggles,[4] they do not consider themselves a political party at their current size and influence.[5] Originating in the political tradition of the International Socialist Tendency, Socialist Alternative defend the position that a socialist revolution can only come about through "workers taking control of their workplaces, dismantling existing state institutions (parliaments, courts, the armed forces and police) and replacing them with an entirely new state based on genuinely democratic control by the working class".[4] Describing itself as a "propaganda group" at its current size, Socialist Alternative attempts to relate to its audience primarily on the level of ideas, rather than seeing itself as a party that can be capable of leading mass struggles. While Socialist Alternative supports existing trade unions as essential components of workers' struggles, they believe that capitalism can only be successfully overthrown if a revolutionary party is built to challenge the hold of the ALP and the trade union bureaucracy over the working class, in conjunction with similar parties internationally.[5]

Socialist Alternative has over the years tried to establish unity talks with both Solidarity and its predecessor organisation, the International Socialist Organisation, (the group from which Socialist Alternative's founders were expelled) yet have remained unsuccessful.[6] This could be in part to do with Socialist Alternative's perspective of currently identifying as a propaganda group, which has been controversial within the Australian far left in general.[7][8][9]

In 2012 the Police Federation of Australia demanded that the Victorian Trades Hall Council cancel a Socialist Alternative public forum on "police racism and violence", as Trades Hall was where the meeting was to take place.[10] The Council complied with the Police Federation's request however the meeting went ahead after a number of people turned up for the meeting and occupied the Trades Hall foyer,[11] causing the Police Federation to split from the council.[12]

Socialist Alternative sees the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia as a genuine socialist revolution but assert the following "imperialist" attack on the country and the failure of the revolution to spread to Western Europe led to its ultimate defeat by Stalin's "counter-revolution".[13]

Australian parties

Socialist Alternative's red bloc contingent at an anti-WorkChoices demonstration in Melbourne, shortly before the federal election in 2007

SA are hostile to the conservative Liberal Party and are highly critical of the Labor Party (ALP) for its perceived rightward shift and acceptance of neo-liberalism. SA classifies the ALP as a "capitalist workers' party" – seeing it qualitatively different from the Liberal Party due to its organisational relationship with the trade union bureaucracy – that still governs in the interests of the capitalist class. Socialist Alternative are critical of the ALP's Fair Work Australia, which they see as a similar version of the Liberal's WorkChoices, alongside its maintenance of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Socialist Alternative moreover hold that the Greens are not a left alternative to Labor, and consider it a middle-class party[14] equally committed to the maintenance of Australian capitalism as the two major parties[15] and accuse them of "populist left nationalism".[16] Socialist Alternative reject reformism outright and defend Rosa Luxemburg's position in her work Social Reform or Revolution that reformism is "not the realisation of socialism, but the reform of capitalism".[17]

Elections

Socialist Alternative maintain the position that parliamentary elections are not the key to social change. However, they do not reject voting in elections outright and see elections reflecting the state of mass political consciousness. Therefore, the organisation promotes who they vote for and who they believe the left should support during election periods, for example calling for the left to unite around SYRIZA in the 2012 Greek legislative election.[18] They have also run members as candidates and supported Stephen Jolly for the Victorian Socialists political party in Victorian elections.[19]

In the 2018 Victorian state and 2019 federal elections Socialist Alternative campaigned alongside the Socialist Alliance to support the newly founded left-wing political party, the Victorian Socialists.[20]

Publications

From 2009 to 2011, members of the organisation edited the annual online theoretical journal, Marxist Interventions (MI).[21] The overall aim of MI was to make Australian Marxist writings more readily accessible to audiences.[22]

In 2010, the organisation launched a biannual theoretical journal, Marxist Left Review, edited by Sandra Bloodworth.[23] The journal aims to "engage with theoretical and political debates on the Australian and international left".[23]

Socialist Alternative also hosts an annual far-left political conference named Marxism, which is the largest conference of its kind in Australia.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/biogs/E000506b.htm
  2. ^ What's left of the left soldiers on The Age, 1 May 2002. Retrieved 10 June 2007.
  3. ^ Contact Socialist Alternative Socialist Alternative. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
  4. ^ a b General principles Socialist Alternative. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
  5. ^ a b Is there an easier road? From Little Things Big Things Grow, 14 December 2007. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference defensiveness was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Whither the Propaganda Perspective Solidarity, 30 June 2004. Retrieved 31 July 2010.
  8. ^ "Socialist Alternative gets the balance wrong on propaganda and action" Links – International Journal of Socialist Renewal, 2007. Retrieved 31 July 2010.
  9. ^ "Report of debate between SP and SA" Socialist Party, 30 March 2008. Retrieved 31 July 2010.
  10. ^ Brutal treatment: union split after speakers 'put the boot' into police The Age, 4 July 2012. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
  11. ^ Good riddance: Police Assoc. splits from Trades Hall Socialist Alternative, 3 July 2012. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
  12. ^ Trades Hall ties cut by police association The Age, 45 July 2012. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
  13. ^ Sandra Bloodworth, "How Workers Took Power: The 1917 Russian Revolution", Socialist Alternative, Melbourne, 2008.
  14. ^ The Greens shifting to the right Socialist Alternative, 2 April 2010. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
  15. ^ Right-wing consensus makes for an election about nothing Socialist Alternative, 2 August 2010. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
  16. ^ A Marxist critique of the Australian Greens Marxist Left Review, Spring, 2010. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
  17. ^ Reform or Revolution Marxists Internet Archive, 1900. Retrieved 19 August 2010.
  18. ^ SYRIZA, the elections and class struggle in Greece Socialist Alternative, 28 May 2012. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  19. ^ [1] Green Left Weekly, 6 February 2018. Retrieved 22 May 2018.
  20. ^ Who are the Victorian Socialists? Red Flag, 5 February 2018. Retrieved 22 May 2018.
  21. ^ "Marxist Interventions". Socialist Alternative. 28 April 2017. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
  22. ^ The case for Marxist interventions Marxist Interventions, 2009. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
  23. ^ a b "About". Marxist Left Review. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
  24. ^ Broad Marxism 2012 conference is a welcome step Green Left Weekly, 14 April 2012. Retrieved 15 April 2012.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Socialist Alternative (Australia).

Further reading

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