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As announced on Marxmail (http://www.marxmail.org/msg105641.html) the Revolutionary Socialist Party and Socialist Alternative have been in merger talks for some time. My sources tell me that the negotiations have been going smoothly and a merger will be announced sometime next month. Given the relative size of the two organisations (about 15:1 in Socialist Alternative's favour) some RSP members are concerned that what is being described by both sides as a merger would really amount to the RSP being absorbed by SAlt. Such concerns have been addressed by the remarkably generous concessions offered by Socialist Alternative. RSP national secretary John Percy will be coopted onto Socialist Alternative's national leadership body, Doug Lorimer will run their Marxist cadre school in Melbourne and develop the class curriculum, and Jorge Jorquera will head up the group's Latin America solidarity work. Socialist Alternative will announce the formal abandonment of state capitalism, the theoretical basis for their separate existence as a current in the socialist movement. According to Socialist Alternative sources they will, however, retain their conception of "revolution from below", on which basis they'll continue to call for the overthrow of the Cuban and Venezuelan governments while at the same time stepping up their solidarity work, assigning Tom Bramble and Sanda Bloodworth to the Free the Cuban Five political prisoners campaign and organising a national speaking tour of Mariela Castro to highlight Cuba's progress on LGBTI rights. These concessions by Socialist Alternative go some way to addressing the RSP's principled rejection of a merging of the two organisations, as explained in an article for the RSP's website, Direct Action, by Allen Myers in May (http://directaction.org.au/issue22/why_are_there_so_many_socialist_groups): "According to the Victorian [Socialist Alliance] leaflet, the SA believes that “the differences which do exist [among socialist groups] can be contained within a single organisation”. This ignores reality. For example, the Socialist Alternative (SAlt) group while formally opposed to US threats against Cuba, considers Cuba to be a capitalist state and advocates a mass armed uprising to overthrow the Cuban government. The SA has policy of solidarity with Cuba against US threats, but it hasn’t adopted a position on supporting Cuba’s socialist revolution. Perhaps, therefore, the SA could co-exist with SAlt in a united organisation in regard to its policy toward Cuba. But how could the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), which regards the Cuban Revolution as an inspiring example to the working people of the world of socialist politics in action, get along in the same party with socialists who advocate the overthrow of the Cuban government?" However, some RSP members would like to see Socialist Alternative embrace the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutions more consistently and wholeheartedly before signing on. As one RSP member who prefers to remain anonymous put it to me: "We were expelled from the DSP on the basis that we allegedly broke party discipline by seeking to establish the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network on campus. As the RSP, we made Cuba and Venezuela solidarity work our priority. It was a point of contrast with the Socialist Alliance. "Now we're negotiating to merge with an organisation that goes around saying that these two societies in which the socialist movement has actually taken state power aren't the real thing, that they're Stalinist or state capitalist or whatever. It's great that they're actually going to do some solidarity work, rather than just adopting resolutions saying they oppose imperialist intervention then doing nothing. Deeds are worth more than empty proclamations. "Still, I'd like to see them come out in support of the Venezuelan and Cuban governments. I don't feel comfortable distributing a magazine that gives the false impression that nowhere in the world today has the revolution taken power. That's blinkered, bleak and deeply sectarian." John Percy declined to comment until the negotiations are over, citing a number of outstanding issues that need to be resolved. He's hopeful Socialist Alternative can be persuaded to re-launch the RSP's Direct Action as a monthly paper, with himself as editor. He described the whole process as refreshing, an example of real left unity on a principled basis, unlike the Socialist Alliance. He said the merger was very much in the spirit of Jim Percy, who never considered such things as support for the Cuban Revolution to be a line-in-the-sand issue when it comes to party building. I don't care about their politics, he said, I just want to be where the youth are, and I love their red flags. All this would be wonderful news, I thought, if only it were true. Marce Cameron ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
