Expulsion from the DSP : Melbourne Indymedia

On Sunday, August 29, at a meeting of about 40 people in Sydney, LF was expelled from the DSP for disloyalty.

The following emails provide some background.

Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 14:45:36 +1000
From: Resistance National Office <nationaloffice@resistance.org.au>
To: jp, pb
Subject: Why I think L should be expelled

The more I think about it the more convinced I am that LF should be expelled from the DSP.

There is no doubt that his actions would justify such a course of action, the only arguments against it could be tactical ones (as it was pointed out in the discussion earlier in the year his letter he put out provided justification for explusion, that course wasn't taken for
tactical reasons - he was given one last chance to operate as a loyal DSP member and he has failed to do that).

LF is campaigning against Resistance in the student movement by pushing for a new organisation in direct violation of the decisions of the last DSP congress. He quite clearly no longer agrees with democratic centralism. However, he does not raise *any* of this inside the DSP, despite the fact that the Activist is open for contributions. He campaigns for his views outside the DSP amongst our political opponents. His posting of internal Resistance discussions are particularily horrendous because D's contribution contains unsubstantiated and false allegations about the lack of democracy in Resistance and other absurd charactatures about our internal life. While this goes public the replies remain internal. Talk about punching someone with their hands and feet bound. And the person punching us is not a former member turned bitter, but a *current* DSP member!

T said to LF after the student left meeting on Friday that it was a problem to have DSP members argueing different positions. After clarifying the different positions, LF said he thought given the differences there would be no point having a fraction. He said more or less the same thing to me on Saturday. He has made it abundently clear he sees no reason for him to act as a loyal DSP member.

The only alternative would be to censure him, direct him not to attend any more student left meetings or participate in student left e-lists and start to immediately the discussion on the political differences inside the DSP. And, once the congress makes a decision, to submit to the decision. However, it is quite clear already that LF has NO intention of doing any such thing, and even if he did it would only be putting his leaving the DSP off. The value of such a discussion would be its educational value for our membership, but we also know full well that anything we say in such a discussion will be used against us publicly once he inevitably leaves. Expulsion is what he wants, but if some one really wants to be expelled then we can't stop them. It is more dangerous not to take firm stand now and expel him. Not to do so risks spreading confusion and demoralisaiton amongst Res comrades engaged in the student movement at a time when we are especially susceptible to pressure from the non socialist left because of the intensive red baiting against SAlt (which puts a lot of pressure on us to lower our heads to avoid getting caught up in it). A tough stand now, knowing LF will use it against use amongst this milue, will help stiffen our backs.

I think we can defend it to best of the people in this milue - who we want to maintain a dialogue with - on the basis that DSP is a totally voluntary organisation, we don't want to, and couldn't even if we did, silence LF from saying whaterver we wants whereever he wants to whomever he wants. That is entirely up to him, but he knows full well that his actions are not in accord with the democratically worked out rules of DSP membership. The principled thing for LF to do would be a) bring up his difference inside the DSP to convince the rest of the membership and get our position changed according to the rules b) if he didn't want to do this, or didn't think he could convince the rest of us, then he should voluntarily leave. Plenty of others have taken that course. We don't force people to agree with us, there is no gun against LF's head keeping him a member of the DSP when he has no intention of operating as a DSP member. We can't force people to agree with us on Leninism and we will work with anyone constructively in struggles against injustice regardless of their views on our internal operating methods. LF clearly agreed with the politics and organisational methods of the DSP when he joined. Over time he has come to disagree. It is obvious and easy to show that he only hung around in order to get himself expelled so he could cause the maximum fuss and damage.

I think LF has had enough chances to act as a loyal DSP member and there is no reason whatsoever to think anything will make him start now. The only prelude to his expulsion should be an attempt by one of the two of you to convince him to leave voluntarily.

comradely, SM

Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2004 20:48:08 +1000
From: Resistance National Office
To: jp, pb
Subject: LF
Fwd: Re: [nbl_rebel] Political Basis for Rebel]

Hi,

PR has forwarded this post by LF to "NBL Rebel" - a list set up by the anarchist/anarshist influenced milue in the NBL (an attempt by the bureacratic right wing elements of hte NBL to group the non socialist left around themesleves in order to win them to their opportunist politics using ultra-radical anarchist rhetoric as corver – PR finally got accepted on this list after sparking a big debate by asking if he could be included.

I have already spoken to J about an item on LF at next PC. We are coming across a problem of having him argue a different line in student left meetings from Res comrades - he has no doubt been argueing things informally differently, but on Friday he did it for the first time in a meeting. The "NBL rebel", who call themselves the "swampy left" in an ironic reference to SAlt's label of them, have started meeting as part of a cold split in the NBL. SAlt are barred from attending but they are yet to kick us out. The most opportunist elements are argueing for a new "Love and Rage" style organisation to group together all the non socialist left (and do a deal with NOLS to give NOLS the NUS ed officer position instead of SAlt). T argued that we need to keep meeting as the NBL in order to provide a united challenge to the ALP and that there is n political basis for a new organisation but it is being used as a cover for opportunist deals. LF was argueing in favour of a new youth organisation, a pluralist organsitsation. In this context a new organsiation could only be a challenge to Resistance and would be led by unmistakable political enemies (even LF is forced to aknowledge the political character of these people).

According to T, LF also explained to the meeting that he wasn't in Resistance because he had been kicked out prompting others in the meeting to start chanting "purge! purge! purge!". As well as posting D and K and S's Res PCD's to this list (in the attachment) he apparantly also made a snide remark about lack of democracy in Res in another post to this broad list that includes political enemies. One of the leading participants on the list is DL, who is former Banlstown SRC President and Queer office this year. D is leading the charge against M out there attempting to force her to resign, using attacks on Res as part of the basis. This could only assist him.

I spoke to LF before the DSP meeting today and told him it was a major problem to have DSP members argueing a different line in student meetings and suggested some kind of tendency wide student fraction to discuss what position we take in to such meetings. (There is the of course the question of whether we want him even attending, but I left that aside as this was the first time it had been discussed with him and I hadn't spoken to anyone else - in some ways we can't keep him out of the student movement completely because he is very active in the education camapign on his campus). He said he didn't see the need, didn't see it as a problem that two competing lines were being put forward by DSP members etc. I also had a go at himn about making a snide remark on a public list set up by political enemies, he didn't really have much defence. I spoke to him not long before the start of the meeting so there wasn't time to talk much more.

This is just so you know what the situation is so we can work out exactly what to do about it. From talking to LF I can't see any hope that he will stop doing what he is doing - the line he is purseuing is very counter-posed. I can not see him decided to abide by a caucus decision. Given this, he would be thinking that his time in the DSP is pretty much up, and he will probably want to force it to explusion.

We probably also need sooner rather than later to have a discussion on the PC about our student movement perspectives, Res is trying to nut it out in a relatively difficult tactical situation.

comradely, S

From: rebel_hobbit pr
To: nationaloffice@resistance.org.au
Subject: Fwd: Re: [nbl_rebel] Political Basis for Rebel Sent: Saturday, 7 August 2004 7:11:47 AM

You might want to forward this the pb or jp - it's very not cool to include this anti-res stuff and a DSP debate on an open list.

In nbl_rebel@yahoogroups.com, LF wrote:

OK, a few more cents from me.

I tentatively agree with M that we (as in swampy left) need a political basis if we want to do something. As others have said, just being anti-SA is not really enough to motivate people to do much and certainly not a basis on which to involve new people.

However, I think we need to define this basis practically, not in terms of ideology or 'programme' (even one which "does not view any political theory or tradition as sacrosanct" (M).

The number one fact which we have to base any perspective on is that the student left has shrunk (or remained the same size, or not grown much) in a context where there is an increased support for left-wing ideas on campus.

I would argue (although I am very much open to other ideas and would like to hear them) that this is principally because the left is (rightly) viewed "to be hopelessly divided, and to be caught up with sectarian feuds or the sanctity of their own programmatic details" (D in the article linked below).

This obviously affects those of us not in organisations in different ways than those of us in them. While those out are extremely unlikely to declaim themselves to be the true descendants of Trotsky (as opposed to the Stalinists, liberals and assorted riff raff in the Judean People's Front) I think sometimes the non-party left can be equally impenetrable to those who don't know what words like autonomism, anarchism or the 'disruption of business as usual' mean.

So, what kind of left will be attractive? (Obviously I don't know but I have a couple of ideas and am interested in hearing others'.)

Firstly, the student population (as with the broader population) is increasingly non-homogeneous. Working vs non-working students, sandstone vs red brick students, local vs international students, students in vocational courses vs students in academic courses, etc. Obviously these are not binary opposites and many students are in both simultaneously, most will shift between categories. All will develop different ideas and emphasises based on their different experiences.

Secondly, the Internet means students (probably more so than any other sector) have access to a plethora of views on any topic under the sun. Frequently they put forward their own. No one will want to be involved in an organisation that is qualitatively less encouraging of diversity than the Internet. (Incidentally I think this is a major reason for the decline of the socialist organisations.)

So, on these bases, a commitment to pluralism must be the core of any new organisation ('organisation'?).

What does that mean exactly? I guess I agree with M's points about viewing no theory as sacrosanct and not viewing ourselves as having all the answers. I think it also extends to the realisation that different people will come to different conclusions as to action, and that this should be respected.

Also, in this context, 'being nice' is a political statement as much as one of politeness.

Beyond that I'm way more uncertain. I think one of the major things we need to do is work out how to be coherent in a way that respects our plurality. That is, we need to actually be out 'recruiting' people to the left. There does not have to be a contradiction between pluralism and recruitment if we see recruitment as essentially an organisation issue (the swampy left is a good place to develop politics and for the left to work together) rather than a political one (swampy left are the real Marxists / swampy left are the anti-authoritarians / etc / etc /etc).

I don't think this has to be cliquey provided we are actually having the political discussions and the group has a purpose beyond us all being friends.

I still think we need to think about what we actually do on campus to do this though. Tallace came up with a few things earlier like reading groups and meetings and some other stuff, but I haven't heard of anyone actually doing this stuff (although I'm sure some people have). I know I haven't done anything specially lefty vs general campaign stuff. Maybe more cross campus discussion amongst the existing swampers on campaigns / issues / politics / etc. would help to embolden people / give people ideas as to what they could do on the ground (I know it would me).

What's everyone think? LF

PS - Here's a few articles that have had an influence on my thinking on these questions if people are interested.

Murry Smith - Notes on the Workers' Party A 'Troty' article that introduced me to the idea of a party built on a political rather than ideological basis and I highly recommend.

DF - Pluralism and Left Youth Unity An article written last year in the context of a discussion in Resistance about what type of organisation it should be. I think D's analysis of what the problems of the left are is spot on.

SM Creativity, Initiative and Pluralism. A practical discussion of pluralism in a different context (Resistance in Melbourne), but still with relevance to us.

No one gets the false impression from any of this bilge that I am mixed up with any red fascists even if it were only to expose them.

I would only ever go undercover to infiltrate the young Liberals, everyone knows they have the best catering and the sluttiest sheliahs.

As far as the Twighlight of the Left goes well thats easily explained. Voting is a rigged game with diminishing returns - only a fool would indulge in such counter-productive behavior as representational politics.

There is a great future for NON LEFTIST socialism, that relies on self- management, open source praxis and radical egalitarian utilitarianism. Libertarian Socialism.

The Left is dying because representational hierachial, patriachal and predominantly white pyramidal politics is dying and so I say, good riddance to bad rubbish.
The Brown fascist holocaust deniers cant get back in to any political game and neither should the Red fascist holocaust deniers. LIBERTARIAN SOCIALISM demands it's day in the sun - it never had fair trials in the Ukraine and Spain but it will now - now we have free speech online all the time. Open source socialism is anarchistic or not at all. Let anarchy rain - all power to the anarchists!

Talk about a flogging a dead horse, how many members does the dsp have now 50 - 100?

I assume who ever posted this is getting there jollys off,
All it shows to me is yet an other "left" group having a spat being more concerned with having fun with arguing that actually trying to make a difference in the world.

Even MIMs own Pr is involved...

Pretty Pathetic, it really is......

Well it was all pretty inevitable once Pr got involved... He has that effect on groups (remember that Italian Effect thing). That's why were getting him to join the Young Liberals now... Though he will probably find the Young Lib "sluts" aren't as attractive or as slutty as he imagins.

Wednesday Aug 18, 2004

Dear Comrade LF,
This is written notice of charges against you from Comrade RR. In accordance with the DSP constitution, the DSP branch executive of Monday August 16, which received these charges, voted to set up a commission to investigate the charges. The commission voted upon is made up of Comrades PB, SH and SM. As detailed in the DSP constitution, every DSP member in Sydney shall be obliged to furnish the commission with any information it may request. You have the right to submit oral or written statements to this commission in response to the charges. The commission shall make a recommendation to the DSP branch, which will decide upon any action to be taken. The commission plans to report its findings to the DSP branch on Sunday August 29. You have the right to submit a written or oral statement regarding the charges to the meeting that will consider the charges. If you require any clarification, please contact me.

comradely PB, on behalf of Sydney DSP branch executive.

Comrade R charges that you have made continued breaches of the following sections of constitution of the Democratic Socialist Perspective: ARTICLE 4. RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF DSP MEMBERS Paragraph 2. Members of the DSP shall have the following obligations: (a) To be loyal to the DSP and its aims. (b) To place all of their political activity under the direction of the DSP and to engage in the work of the DSP to the best of their ability (c) To carry out their political activity to the best of their ability in accordance with the decisions of the national and local governing bodies of the DSP. (e) To conduct themselves in a manner which does not bring the DSP into public disrepute. Comrade R has supplied as evidence of constitution breaches the following: 1. An email written by yourself dated Mon January 12, 2004, entitled "A letter to comrades", sent to DSP members in Sydney, which included the declaration: "I do not accept that I should `loyally implement' (and cease discussion of) any perspectives agreed upon by a majority of party members regardless of their consequences. Should I consider such a perspective to be detrimental to the process of left unity and refoundation I consider it not only my right but my duty to take a stand against it. In doing so I forthrightly state that my loyalty foremost lies with the ideals of socialism and not with any particular organisation." This email was written shortly after the DSP congress, the highest decision making body of the DSP, which democratically decided upon a direction and resolution for the work of the DSP, and specifically for DSP members with regards to Resistance. As a result of your stated unwillingness to abide by decisions of the DSP congress, the DSP District committee of January 20, 2004 voted to de-assign you from Resistance. 2. You continue to work outside the framework of DSP perspectives. In particular, you breached the constitution continually through your email postings to the National Broad Left Rebel list, a grouping involving and led by anti-socialist students. Forces in the NBL Rebel list are hostile to socialism and to Resistance and the DSP. Yet, as a member of an organisation committed to building socialism, your posts (on July 15, 2004; August 3, 2004; and August 4, 2004 - full transcript attached): a) Agree with anti-socialist characterisations, including describing the existing socialist organisations as "a barrier to people getting involved in the Left." b) Argue, without any discussion or direction on any DSP bodies, and in contradiction to the perspectives of the last DSP congress, for the extension of the anti-socialist Rebel NBL grouping as "a pluralist left on campus beyond the 50 odd people on this list". c) Denigrate Resistance, the youth organisation the DSP is in solidarity with, and which DSP members are obliged to build, support and defend. You state, to a group already hostile to socialism, that your "oppositional group" in Resistance was "crushed", and deride the "democratic decision making bodies" of Resistance. Resistance is a key and vital project of the DSP. The fact that you, or any comrade, are not assigned to Resistance, does not in anyway make the undermining of Resistance acceptable. d) Include internal pre-conference discussion documents of Resistance, including one which was also an internal discussion document of the DSP. Posting minority internal documents which attack DSP and Resistance structures, to a hostile list, is particularly disloyal. Posting such internal documents on a list of people hostile to socialism and Resistance and the DSP, can only be designed to bring the DSP and Resistance into disrepute. Disloyalty to Resistance is not acceptable for comrades whether they are assigned to Resistance at the time or not - Resistance is an organisation the DSP seeks to build and support. One example of the composition of NBL Rebel grouping is DL, former president of UWS Bankstown and current Queer officer. L has been the main person involved in attacks on DSP and Resistance Comrade MC that included attempting to pressure Comrade C to resign from her role as UWS Bankstown Education officer. Your contributions, instead of defending your fellow comrade, and the DSP and Resistance in general, assisted L's anti-Resistance attacks. 4. This intervention into student politics disregarded clear direction from the DSP membership through the congress, and subsequent direction from party leadership bodies, in breach of our constitution. You have persisted in acting in a manner that is disloyal to the DSP, that goes against the direction of the DSP and decisions of DSP bodies, and is calculated to publicly bring the DSP into disrepute.

Who would have thought?

Though looking back it does fit.. I mean all those posts supporting nuclear warfare - he does sound a lot like Hitchens...

Oh well we better recall those honey trappers we were sending round.

The reign in Spain
by In defence of dictionaries Wednesday September 01, 2004 at 03:09 AM

Let anarchy rain??

What kind of rain to anarchists favour PR? Drizzle, downpour, hail??

Who cares anyway. You are all red fascists.

Another few for the collection.

Thanks.

Noah's dead and all you can think about is a split in the DSP.

This has all been quite interesting.

Is this all there is to your organising structures and methods?

It sounds so pretentious. Was Stalin and his 'party discipline' the real model to follow? Do you think you could ever get away with it here? Is the 'DSP' and 'Resistance' filled with people who obey directions like this ('direct him not to attend any more student left meetings or participate in student left e-lists'). or what about the hide of this ('in some ways we can't keep him out of the student movement completely because he is very active in the education campaign on his campus').

You wont get revolutionaries like this you know (or else you will have to have the evil genius of Stalin and get rid of them - highly unlikely amongst THIS little lot - with willing followers who take such 'direction'). If you succeeded, anarchists would be in for the same old stuff and disappear.

As I said very interesting.

But the model is not yours and you do not have the evil talent to carry it off.

M Ryutin

My birdwatchers club is more "Stalinist" than this! Some of the pious bullshit about democracy from the socialist watchers and baggers party is really pathetic. These people wouldn't know a fascist or a stalinist if they were bitten on the bum by one!

"Stalinist?
by Awestruck Monday August 30, 2004 at 10:04 PM

My birdwatchers club is more "Stalinist" than this! Some of the pious bullshit about democracy from the socialist watchers and baggers party is really pathetic. These people wouldn't know a fascist or a stalinist if they were bitten on the bum by one!

add your comments

Stalinist?
by Awestruck Monday August 30, 2004 at 10:06 PM

My birdwatchers club is more "Stalinist" than this! Some of the pious bullshit about democracy from the socialist watchers and baggers party is really pathetic. These people wouldn't know a fascist or a stalinist if they were bitten on the bum by one!"

Thanks for that-are you a new recruit to Trotskyism?

Has it occurred to any of you cop agents, fascists, zionists, anarchowankers and headcases that one person leaving or being expelled from an organisation as large as the DSP is not a split?
And it doesn't make any of you any the less irrelevant either.

Again that ' PR' in this rubbish ' article' is not me, professor rat but the real question here is where do these counter revolutionary red fascist scum and red holocaust deniers get off dictating who is or isn't a real socialist!?

They would not know a freakin' SOCIALIST if one bit them on the bum.

DSP= LENIN = RED FASCIST = TROTSKY = DSP

You know, I really hate this kind of stupidity.

When the German Communist Party labelled the Social Democrats as "Social-Fascists" it sabotaged any possibility of unity against Hitler.

Result? 26 Million people killed in an imperialist war.

Anarchist-socialists and Marxist-socialists come from the same tradition and we have a common enemy.

Here's news you idiot - it's not each other!

I deeply resent the ongoing sectarian viciousness that characterises so-called "libertarian" postings here,

I'm not a fascist - my grandfather was part of the contingent that liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He was a Marxist. I am a Marxist, Neither of us is a fascist!

Get a sense of history.

Many Marxists, anarchists, unionists and anarchists joined Jews, Romani, lesbians, gay men and disabled people in fascist concentration camps and ovens.

I can't convey properly the sense of outrage I have in what you posted.

But I'm probably wasting my time. This is a place for self-centred ranting - not for rational debate.

Red Fascists?

Grow up!!!!

pr, you nutjob, where do you get off with in the one sentance calling socialists names such as fascists, counter-revolutionary and scum, then accusing others of " dictating who is or isn't a real socialist".
You're the one attempting to dictate. As authorutarian as you are insane, as insane as you are authoritarian, what a sad case you are.
BTW. the DSP has every right to democratically decide who is or isn't in the DSP. that's their business.

the only socialist 'split' that ever mattered occured in the 1st International. Organisations like the DSP are irrelevant.. just reclaim the word 'socialism' to its original meaning. the sham has gone on long enuff.

"If therefore Marx and his friends of the German Socialist Democratic Party should succeed in introducing the State principle into our programme, they would kill the International." [Bakunin: 'The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution.' ChapterIII ]

long live socialism
long live the (anarchist) International!

Anarchist International? what planet is that on?

Assuming yr a real person and not just another troll moron pretending to be one I accuse LENINIST's of red fascism - LENINISTS and there are libertarian marxists who feel exactly the same way.
I have nothing against most council communists, autonomist marxists and libertarian marxists or democratic socialists for that matter, just red fascists whose crimes against socialists need to be exposed and condemned - thankfully we now have the web to expose these red fascists who stand condemnend by their own words and crimes.

Fascism is as fascism does and when it comes to holocaust denial the red fascists outdo even the Brown.

Why do these red fascists hate socialists and peasants so much they would kill them off by the million?

The red fascists killed more and in worse ways than the brown fascists - face facts - we have the web now.

Gee I wonder if Bob Downe would do a three hour special on the DSP!

What a flamin' hoot that'd be!

"I have nothing against most council communists, autonomist marxists and libertarian marxists or democratic socialists for that matter"
your opinions don't matter. you are irrelevant. this site exists solely as recreation for bored Trots

If you don't like being called a red fascist then complain about their rubbish being published here as ' news'

This is a site for free thinkers and INDEPENDENT thinkers - not red fascist scum.

And you know if DSP garbage gets dragged in then all the other sectlets and zombie clones will follow as surely as night follows day.

It's got to be nipped in the bud, bud. ...like all fascism.

Some of these red fash sound like they want to emulate their nazi brethren and gas a few ' nutjobs ' and lumpen elements. Thats how Vlad and Adolph got their start.

Peeps can reasearch now on Lenins gold that he used to hire mercenaries and the Hitler- Stalin pact. They can hear how Emma Goldman, an eye witness, said that..." Stalin did not fall from the sky..." to the red criminal murderer, Leon Trotsky's red face. DIE Red fascist scum

It's all over Red Rover.

no doubt in pr's paranoid delusions he thinks the first thing that Marxist-Leninists would do after a succesful revolution is come looking for him. which is actually the essence of his nuttiness: a vastly exagerated view of his own importance.

When it comes to counter revolution it's a fact that the red fash established the CHEKA in late 1917- re-established the Death Penalty for crimes as low as Bill Posting ( ! ) in Feb 1918 and then started arresting and shooting anarchists in the back in APRIL 1918.

All anarchists should know this although very few seem to for some reason. G Maximoff - " The guillotine at work."

The ML scum know where I live and I know where you live ...under a slimy cold rock with no friends.

Troll tool two says we are for bored trots - well how does that explain the bored nazi's? I know they are similar but they are not exactly the same.

They're all the same when it comes to courage tho. RED and BROWN = YELLOW

>Who the fuck is LF?>

LF = Leon Frotsky, would-be leader of the Rebel-NBL(LF faction), soon to split to form the Rebel-Rebel-NBL. But that too will soon split to form the Rebel-Rebel-NBL and the Real-Rebel-Rebel-NBL, according our political predictive program Cointelpro.

wow... what a totally not interesting discussion

meanwhile some of us are organising for the up-coming federal elections including nationwide anti-war protests. so to find out more check out these sites...

http://www.socialist-alliance.org

http://www.greenleft.org.au

thanks for the publicity ;)

Look at this - cosy as lice...

REPEAL terrorism laws now!
Green Left - Australia
... the powers of its police and secret service agencies, particularly
the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian
Federal Police. ...
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/596/596p7b.htm>

An SA article featured in the GLW ...

Naturally as principled libertarian marxists I expect the SA to vigourously protest the inclusion of their non Leninist correct line council communist or autonomist marxist article in such an unholy red fascist rag as GLW.

SA?

Since you're advertising DSP propaganda, me, here's another bit. DSP insiders are fond of referring to their social club for the authoritarian ultraleft as the Good Ship DSP. Seems it has sprung a few leaks.

Health warning: attempting to read this article to the end may result extreme social disorientation or coma.

DRAFT PARTY BUILDING & SOCIALIST ALLIANCE REPORT TO JUNE 2004 DSP NATIONAL COMMITTEE

Presented by Peter Boyle

Introduction

1. The main problem we need to consider under this report has presented itself very persistently over the last few months. We have been made sharply aware that the DSP is straining under the pressure of building two parties.

The current state of the movements in this country (cf. discussion on movements at the last DSP congress) does not make it easy to quickly grow a consciously revolutionary activist layer. So there are huge strains on DSP cadre and other resources. Leading comrades around the country worry that they may be not be building either SA or the DSP as best we can.

2. In April, before the SA national conference we were confronted with a new financial crisis in the form of a $60K deficit, which had opened up in the first four months of the year because of persistent shortfalls in GLW fundraising, FOGL pledges and sustainer payments from branches.

3. About this time last year, comrades remember, we confronted a $40K deficit and were then forced to carry out a 3-month emergency campaign to fix it. We cut that in half by the end of last year but four months later a new and $20K bigger deficit had built up. We were forced to run another emergency finance campaign. All this time we have been cutting down our expenditure (indeed real expenditure has halved over the last decade, even while we have paid off all the party's commercial debts) so if we do not succeed in patching the latest deficit we can only cut GLW and/or our ft assistance to the SA NO.

4. As you can see from the finance charts, the response to the emergency finance appeal has been spectacular. By the end of May - after just three week's effort - our operating deficit had been reduced by $19,000 and the shortfall on our branch income targets has been narrowed by $9000. This tells us that the DSP membership is responding seriously and there was also a good response from supporters. Donations came in from GLW supporters in Australia and abroad. However, we are not out of the woods yet.

5. The two financial crises confirm other evidence that our current operation is unsustainable politically, financially and in terms of the available cadre. If we carry on like this we will be forced to lurch back and forth between prioritising building SA and the DSP and we will risk burning out our limited cadre while not developing new cadre.

6. We knew about the financial crisis more than a month ago. Usually the first two months of the year is patchy in income terms but when income does not pick up in March and April then that spells trouble. However, we wanted to see how the 2004 SA national conference went before we decided on what to do about this problem. We could see that it was not a one-off problem but a reflection of a more fundamental contradiction arising out of our transition into SA. A kind of "scissors effect". There were two ways to try and resolve this contradiction: a) we could retreat back into rebuilding the DSP as our party, allowing SA to roll back to the loose electoral front that the ISO and some other affiliates want; or, b) we could push forward more strongly with building SA as our party, and making the DSP more as just a political tendency in that party. That's our basic choice at this NC and the main decision you have to make today. If we go for option (a) then we are deciding to make a temporary tactical retreat or to abandon the turn we embarked on in late 2002. If we go for (b) then we are aiming to push forward in a way that we can reasonably expect to unlock more resources to build the new party.

2004 SA conference assessment

7. The conference demonstrated once again the strong links that SA has built up with the militant trade union current. The conference's intersection with the Skilled Six campaign, the broader participation of militants from WA, the $500 donation from the Victorian ETU, and Dean Mighell's casual enquiry about affiliating the ETU to SA underlines the dramatic potential for further development that this link has (cf trade union report).

8. The links we have built with the militant trade union current and the reputation SA now has for providing leadership in the anti-war movement (especially when sections of that movement retreated after the invasion of Iraq) provides SA with a much larger potential membership and support base than it currently is able to organise.

9. These openings are not adequately filled by the Greens, despite their dramatic rise in electoral weight. There isn't the political unity in the Greens to assimilate militant unionists, like Mighell. And there isn't even enough political unity in the Greens to agree on a clear anti-occupation position on Iraq. There are indications that the "troops out now" stance of Senators Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle are actually ahead of positions agreed by the membership.

10. This is a real opening for a new party with a certain character: a party that unites class struggle forces with a conscious socialist leadership.

Not all the members of such a broad party will be strongly convinced of socialist ideas or even know what these are, today, but our assessment is that there is great potential to close this ideological gap in the process of engaging in common struggle and in building the new SA leadership teams that will be required for this purpose.

11. The 2004 SA conference also showed us that there is still a strong case of support in the SA membership for building SA into a multi-tendency socialist party. The critical votes on SA involvement in the GLW project and on leadership restructuring were won with 70% of the vote. Indeed, the final leadership restructure vote may have been more like 80% (there was no call for a count). A big majority of non-affiliate delegates voted with us on these points.

12. The SA conference also elected a stronger pro-MTSP national leadership team, Especially at the National Convenors level. However, this has come at the price of the further consolidation of the most pro-MTSP non-affiliate leaders in SA as a "non-aligned" faction - at least temporarily. It has also further entrenched the idea that so-called "non-aligned majorities" are the guarantee for further progress towards a MTSP. This is both unsustainable and too great a restraint of democratic leadership selection in SA.

13. Our objective is to move as rapidly as possible to a situation where most key leadership bodies of the SA see themselves first and foremost as loyal SA members. Ultimately SA cannot develop democratically elected and accountable leadership unless that leadership can be selected by the ranks on the basis of their ability and willingness to build the Alliance. We should develop and start promoting a plan for more democratic leadership structures well in advance of the next SA national conference.

14. However, the conference also revealed that not one of the other revolutionary socialist affiliates has been really won to building SA as a MTSP. We had heard that the last ISO NC had conceded that they had made a mistake in how they related to the NAC's MTSP resolution at the 2003 SA conference but the ISO performance at the conference suggests that this meant that they simply thought that they had made a "tactical" mistake at the 2003 conference. They repeated this mistake at the 2004 conference by lining up once again with the anti-MTSP minority.

15. There are differences in the approaches of some of these other socialist affiliates that allow for some tactical engagement in building SA. The ISO, for instance, is very keen on a big and bold federal election campaign (at least in Wills) and that provides us with an opportunity to enlist them in greater effort in building SA and its profile. Workers Liberty has indicated that it wants to build SA - and they have even criticised the ISO for not being constructive with SA - but of course this is more notional than real given their small numbers and the limited energy of their members. But fundamentally none of these groups really support building SA into an MTSP.

16. The main factor which contains the smaller revolutionary socialist affiliates is the clear links with the militant trade union current. If they break from SA they won't be taking those links with them. And the demonstrable presence of the militant trade unionists at the conference also boosted the confidence of the non-affiliate delegates.

17. The ISO's decision to tie themselves in with the minority attempt to water down the trade union resolution's clear support for the militant union current damaged its standing at the conference.

18. Chris Cain's agreement to re-stand for the SA national executive was an important victory and we should aim to get more leading members of the militant trade union current into the leadership bodies of SA.

19. The greater involvement and integration of the militant trade union current does not only off-set the sectarian tendencies but it can also be an importance balance against the more individualistic and liberal tendencies of some of the pro-MTSP independents. E.g. recent Sydney Central spat over branch organization.

20. After the SA conference, it is clearer which direction we should take at this new crossroads in party building. Because of the huge potential political gain, especially in relation to the militant trade union current, we have to drive harder in the direction of building SA into a MTSP. We also know that we still have the required support among the non-affiliate majority in the 1074-strong SA membership.

21. But we cannot make this choice and simply proceed to increase the pressures on the already strained cadre and branches by pushing on with ever more ambitious SA campaigns and projects.

22. In the last year we have dramatically increased SA initiatives and responsibilities, including the SA-GLW engagement, an ambitious federal election campaign, Seeing Red and we have proposed city-based Socialist Ideas conferences. Each of these are important initiatives that seek to fill political gaps left by our political competitors (particularly the Greens).

We have drawn on broader layers (especially in the Seeing Red and SA-GLW editorial boards) but we have stretched ourselves thin. Several SA national trade union caucuses are operating in some fashion now as is a national anti-war steering committee. And the last SA conference endorsed a plan to tour Venezuelan trade union leaders. In addition, we maintain a dynamic SA website (which is increasingly an organising tool), publish a monthly Socialist Campaigner national newsletter and the Alliance Voices discussion bulletin.

23. Not surprisingly, there has been little extra energy for a serious SA recruitment or finances campaign (and until the latter makes ground the DSP has directly or indirectly to pay most of the bill for more SA activity).

24. The pace at which new leadership and activist forces can be gathered in SA depends largely on the political situation, and in particular the tempo of ongoing movement activity and organization. With both the trade union movement and student movement largely in retreat and the other social movements in a phase of episodic and semi-spontaneous mobilisation, we cannot count on a more rapid accumulation of such forces in SA today.

25. This in turn, throw more responsibility and weight on the cadre of the DSP, making it more difficult for that cadre to cope with both SA building needs and tendency responsibilities. We are aware that similar pressures are faced by ISM comrades in the SSP. A number of ISM members fear that the systematic winning of new SSP members over to Marxist politics has largely been abandoned by the ISM. Comrades in the IST have gloated that the ISM risked expending its historically accumulated cadre in the SSP.

26. We need to find a way, with the resources that we have available today, not just to build SA, but to take forward the "two transitions" we discussed at the last DSP congress. If we don't deal with all these challenges, we will run out of money, burn out cadre and then be forced into a retreat into just building the DSP. In other words we can end up with Option A (that is a retreat from building SA into the new party) simply if we carry on as we are. This is not just "scarifying" it is quite a real - and not at all remote -- danger, as our latest financial deficit indicates.

The "two party problem"

27. So we have returned to the "two party problem" outlined at the beginning of this report. We want to progress the "transition" to SA as the new party we build but until SA actually begins operating as a party at all levels, the DSP branch structure is forced to substitute. So that is the key to speeding up the first transition (i.e. to build the Socialist Alliance and progress its transformation into a united, multi-tendency socialist party and integrate as much of the resources of the DSP into the Socialist Alliance as possible). SA has to develop more into a real party in order that the DSP's transition into a political tendency in that party - rather than a second party - can proceed.

28. Despite some restructuring of SA leadership at the national level, the SA branches are still generally poorly and unevenly developed. Indeed many are straining simply to cope with the weight of communications from the Socialist Alliance national office, let alone organise an effective intervention in the movements.

29. Most movement intervention is still being organised through affiliate organizations rather than through Socialist Alliance.

30. SA branches cannot be expected to quickly develop into adequate units for organising an effective political party a) because of the thinness of leadership cadre (now spread over 30+ branches); b) because of the heterogeneous political consciousness and activity levels of the SA membership; and c) where branches are suburban, movement intervention is largely city-wide.

31. Before we initiated SA, the DSP's leadership cadre was struggling to cope with 17 branches. SA has doubled the branch spread, given us three times a bigger financial membership to try and organise but it has not released a lot more cadre resources.

32. Furthermore, at the current average level of political consciousness and activism of SA members we need a much larger SA membership to provide a financial base for the current activities of SA. SA needs to increase its financial membership by much more than the 100 that we achieved in the last year. We need another 500 financial members at least to provide a base for what SA is already trying to do.

33. DSP branches have made space for SA branch building (mostly by reducing meeting cycles) but more often than not DSP branches are not functioning as well as they once did nor are SA branches functioning as well as they should.

34. More and more load is falling back on fewer DSP comrades and the most active DSP comrades are drowning in a permanent overload of "tasks" and political analysis and leadership is often a casualty. There is often not enough politics in branch meetings of either organization, and the DSP executives - which should be the most political body - are often just hasty meetings to shuffle tasks.

Concentration of resources at the city/regional/sub-district level

35. Where you don't have enough resources to spread around, the best choice (where there is no "cavalry" to rescue you from outside) is to concentrate those forces where they will be the most effective in unlocking more resources for Socialist Alliance.

36. The politics we are interested in, i.e. the politics of mass mobilisation against capitalist attacks, has long being organised at the city-level in Australia. Politics at the suburban level is thin, uneven and a lot less radicalising. That is why the DSP successfully built up and maintained a network of activist centres in the 10 biggest cities. They served a real role as activist centres for the party and the movements.

37. So the DSP should concentrate more of its over-extended leadership cadre and resources at the city/regional rather than at the SA branch level.

SA organisers needed to build SA

38. Look at this simply from the perspective of building SA into a real party. The Socialist Alliance needs a cadre of organisers at the city level in order to operate as a party and to grow decisively. This is even more the case because it is a broad class-struggle party (rather than a selective revolutionary socialist party) - see SSP experience. Without a cadre of organisers, real political interventions remain largely organised mainly by the largest affiliate groups and progress to MTSP is held back.

39. Interestingly, a recent Lismore SA executive began drawing this conclusion independently. This objective need is already forcing certain developments in all cities where there is more than one SA branch.

40. In Perth, where there are three branches, practical necessity has already forced the "districtification" of SA finances. The branch leaderships in two out of three branches couldn't cope with the financial administration involved in dealing with the material produced nationally for the federal election campaign so far, let alone with Seeing Red and Manifesto distribution. This process was conducted through the SA state executive/committee.

41. In Brisbane, the state conference has already moved to establishing what is effectively a city-wide structure and in Sydney and Melbourne, the absence of SA city-wide structures means that the DSP steps in and substitutes at this level. Sydney Central already functions as a de facto "district branch" while the existing SA State Campaign Committee remains pretty ineffective.

42. In Melbourne and Sydney there is the basis to divide these cities into sub-districts (e.g. Melbourne & Melbourne West; Sydney into Sydney Central, Sydney West and Sydney South-West), with an office and organiser for each.

43. The proposal is to find the ways to build such structures from the bottom up, in the form of a response to real needs, relying on the authority of aggregate meetings of SA members in the respective cities or regions.

We think the spearhead of this restructuring should be the appointment of locally elected and fully recallable SA city, regional or sub-district organisers.

44. DSP should try and make available organisers - initially on a part-time voluntary basis (but with a view to SA paying them an honorarium as soon as a big enough financial base can be built) - in the following cities/regions/districts: Adelaide, Brisbane, ACT, Darwin, Geelong, Hobart, Tasmania (non-Hobart), Northern Rivers, Melbourne, Melbourne West, Hunter/Newcastle, Perth, Sydney, Sydney West, Bankstown and Illawarra.

45. We should propose that SA organisers be elected by aggregate meetings of members in the city/region/sub-district every six months after an initial three-month trial period. They should be recallable and accountable and charged with organising SA building (recruiting campaigns/establish new branches) and facilitating SA interventions at the city/district level.

46. Movement intervention and SA building working groups could be established at these levels and our offices re-organised to facilitate this, i.e. We should make office space available for these organisers and working groups as a priority. Then all branches in a city/region can then take advantage of the available offices.

47. These are our ideas for moving forward and comrades must remember that we will need to work out how to win support for these in SA, i.e. it is not simply a task of moving some motions after this NC. There are many tactical considerations in each city and a specific plan should be discussed with the NO before we proceed with the proposal in any city.

Re-imagining Socialist Alliance branches

48. While the idea of organisers becoming city/regional/sub-district organisers may not seem to make much immediate difference in cities where there is still only one SA branch, it is important that we start seeing our deployment of organisers and offices in this way. In addition to the better use of our limited resources, it forces us to imagine what SA has to become in order for the DSP's integration to proceed - i.e. a substantially bigger and broader party. It should also open us to new different style and method of branch organization - one that is both less intensive and more extensive and inclusive of the broad class-struggle left-wing that we seek to organise into SA.

49. One-branch cities should look to establishing multiple branches and we should experiment with industry branches where this becomes practical. Further we have to build SA branches in a form that is suitable to draw in the broad layers of class struggle forces, including militant workers who are totally unused to party political activity and individuals with a range of activity levels and political experience. Mere identification with the broad political course of Socialist Alliance will be the most prevalent membership criteria in such an "all-inclusive socialist party" - to use Lenin's term.

50. Pushing for more SA branches might seem ridiculous since we have already conceded that we are spread too thin with the current number of SA branches.

Yet, if we don't stretch here, there is a real danger that many SA branches will simply tend to become just more wishy-washy, re-badged DSP city branches. This can come about almost by default. First, there is the natural pressure of relating to city-wide politics that pushes us in this direction.

Then there is impatience and habit: DSP members can continue to work the way we are used to working, the independents can drop back from activity and DSP members soon forced to do it all. Well the easiest - and probably the most efficient way of doing just this - is to do it the way we did things in DSP branches. So before we know it we could be back basically to where we were say in the late 1980s when the DSP "loosened up". We got a slightly bigger but less cadre-ised party. But we don't want to go there. And further, we don't want to use SA to simply do what we can do more efficiently simply with the DSP.

51. This is certainly not exactly what we are doing in every SA branch but we must use this NC to ask ourselves frankly: what are we doing in SA branches? There is an urgent need to assess the operation of all SA branches to check if: a) the branches are functioning at an administrative level; b) if decision-making systems are democratic, effective, transparent and accessible to members with varied political consciousness; c) that broader branch leadership teams are being built; and d) that branches are reasonably politically effective and that they are not engaging in "make work". The first two of these tasks can be guided through the SA Finances and Membership Working Group - and already a manual of how to operate an SA branch is being finalised. But the rest of it will be up to local leaderships.

52. SA branches should not be built by default along the model of DSP branches because we are dealing with a different sort of party - one that is broader and not as politically united.

53. SA branch meetings and the stalls in themselves cannot be expected to do this. In fact, comrades in several cities are noting that most SA members (including a number of DSP members) don't really see much value in branch meetings and hence don't attend. Now it is to be expected that a majority of SA members will not come to any meetings, under current political conditions. Also various SA members might be more easily involved in particular projects and working groups or caucuses that directly advance such projects.

54. But it is hard to organise SA members into activity in these variety of forms of activity without SA organisers at least at the city-wide level, without offices where these can held, etc.

55. Our decision-making methods in SA need to be different too. DSP decision-making methods rely heavily on deep political consensus and on a conscious political leadership selection. Most of these are not at this stage present in SA branches and so the decision-making methods have to be different. All decisions need to be presented and recorded in the form of written resolutions/motions in clear terms. Simply voting for a report is not an effective method in SA (as Adelaide comrades have discovered in relation to SA contribution to the costs of the office).

56. SA branch executives cannot presume on having a lot of political authority. The political authority of DSP leadership bodies has been won through years of collective struggle and this does not transfer over automatically to SA. It is only over time that SA branches will develop the ability to politically select leadership and those leaderships will also only win trust and authority in the eyes of the membership over time and only by consistently demonstrating that such authority is warranted.

57. The building of leadership and intervention teams (working groups) at the city, regional or sub-district level of SA where most political activity takes place provides us with better opportunities to develop cadre within SA. This is because a kind of informal political selection is encouraged and also because the mutual confidence of SA members (affiliate or independent) can be built by working together to play a more effective role in the movements. We can see this happening already at the national level with the various TU caucuses.

Re-organising the DSP apparatus

58. The DSP's Marxist education work needs to be better organised and it needs to be more outward focussed. Resistance Books could be developed into a sort of "Institute for Marxist Education", running classes that are linked to its publications. This combination allows this part of our tendency's apparatus to become self-financing. Resistance Books-based education programs should prioritise the recruitment of more Marxist youth cadre from Resistance but education programs around the Marxist classics that we are publishing need to be promoted to radicalising elements in SA and in the movements.

59. DSP branches should further rationalise where possible and cease directly organising movement interventions through the DSP branches - beyond caucusing where necessary to further our perspectives in SA caucuses and working groups. If more interventions are organised through SA then SA will be acting more like a real party. This should be mirrored on the national level.

60. The key new political teams we want to build with others in SA will mostly be developed through these caucuses and working groups. Our priority objective here is forging the closest ties with other pro-MTSP forces. We may be forced to make concessions to some of the affiliates opposed to MTSP but we seek to minimise these concessions to what is absolutely necessary.

61. The DSP organisation should shift focus more to winning other SA members to our revolutionary politics, and to deepening the revolutionary consciousness of DSP members. Residual organisational tasks can continue to be coordinated by existing finance, GLW and fundraising committees - though a greater effort should be made to involve non-DSP members in the latter two activities. For instance, we could experiment with more open Friends of Green Left Weekly committees. However, at this stage, at the core of all such campaigns will have to be a DSP team.

62. DSP branch pledge system should still be used (via block pledging, except where otherwise negotiated with the NO) to promote transition of offices and organisers. Any individual pledges to SA by DSP members should be done only with the approval of DSP leadership bodies. A controlled transition of DSP finances is necessary to prevent even greater financial crises (which in turn will jeopardise greater integration into the new party).

63. Importance of individual commitment of DSP members to the process. There is no magic route that allows us to by-pass this difficult transition stage and every move we try out to advance the transition also comes with significant risks. The recent response to our emergency finance appeal indicates that there is still a strong reservoir of commitment in the DSP membership. But DSP comrades will lose heart if SA does not begin to "feel more like a real party" (as one DSP organiser has put it). So a necessary consequence of us choosing to speed up the first transition is that we will have to set ourselves some ambitious targets for SA growth and development between now and the next SA national conference.

Conclusion

64. In summary, the continuing progress of SA - even in the face of the "Greenslide" - demonstrates that there is a real space for a broad socialist party that seeks to draw in the forces for a class struggle alternative in Australia today. Therefore, we are prepared to take the risks associated with relinquishing the DSP's party-like organization in favour of more fully building the SA as our new party. But we recognise that a precondition for such a step is the better organization of the SA at the city and regional level so as to become the vehicle for the sort of political interventions that build the reputation of SA and draw in the best activists from the movements. It is also a necessary higher level of organization that can facilitate the building of a much bigger broad, multi-tendency socialist party that can unite as much of the class struggle forces in Australia today as possible.

65. In this report, certain proposals are being made about what to do next. But there is a lot of detail left out. This detail needs to be worked out in each city, where there are specific conditions that dictate exactly what needs to be done and how we have to go about persuading others in the Socialist Alliance that this is the way forward for progress to MTSP. As we work this out we must keep in mind the sort of party we want SA to develop into. Go back to the Congress resolution on the DSP and SA. In particular, absorb what we say in there about the character of the new party we seek to build: "The Democratic Socialist Perspective sees building the Socialist Alliance as a united, multi-tendency socialist party as an important stage in the struggle for a mass revolutionary party in this country.

"We are confident that, while the Socialist Alliance begins with an incomplete class struggle platform and a broad socialist objective (i.e. does not have an explicitly revolutionary program), in the course of united engagement in mass struggles, it will steadily and democratically develop its program in a more explicitly revolutionary direction. With tendency rights protected within the Alliance, revolutionary socialists should be confident that they can win other comrades in the party to the revolutionary perspective.

"Others in the Socialist Alliance may not share this orientation but this is our perspective as revolutionary socialists. We are totally open about this perspective and seek to win others in the Socialist Alliance to it. Those comrades with whom the Democratic Socialist Party now works - and the many more who will join the Alliance in the future - will always know where the Democratic Socialist Perspective is coming from. It will not seek to trick them into collaboration by hiding its revolutionary perspective."

COINTELPRO is an acronym for a series of FBI counterintelligence programs designed to neutralise political dissidents in the USA. between 1956-1971. The US Senate's Church Select Committee into Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities found "that covert action programs have been used to disrupt the lawful political activities of individual Americans and groups and to discredit them, using dangerous and degrading tactics which are abhorrent in a free and decent society."

See:

<http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm>

<http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/cointelpro.html>

<http://mediafilter.org/mff/USDCO.idx.html>

Today, in Australia, especially in the midst of the "war on terrorism", one has to wonder if state seciurity agents might be up to similar tricks. Technically, the widespread use of the internet by activists will make the spooks' job much easier. So the leaking of correspondence, documents (real, doctored or forged) becomes an easy way of spreading division and distrust.

Couldn't you find ANYTHING worse than these irrelevant and dull emails? If this is really the worst dirt you can dig up on the DSP then they must be pretty fucking harmless.

I think someone's a bit paranoid. I really doubt whether ASIO could be bothered.

Some of the leaked documents are emails between a couple of individuals in the DSP. It would seem the only way these could have been obtained by electronic surveillance. This raises a number of questions about Indymedia.
Is Indymedia part of, or being manipulated by, some COINTELPRO type secret police operation?
Why does Indymedia leave up documents obtained by illegal electronic mail snooping, quite possibly by government agencies?
Do libertarians support a surveillance society? If not, what are you doing to stop this use of secret police methods?

<http://www.indymedia.org/or/2004/08/111732.shtml>

Sounds like the oh so democratic DSP favours censorship.

No cops involved notpara, DSP documents routinely circulate around the left. It's not just the web, but the easy availability of photocopying and other technology, the same sort of stuff that made samizdat possible in the USSR.

Isn't it fair enough that members of the Socialist Alliance should know what the DSP really thinks of the project, and where better to get that than from the horse's mouth?

You are lying "me too". The things at the top of this thread are not just documents, but emails sent between a couple of people. Could have only been obtained by electronic interception. The same sort of stuff that made samizdat necessary in the USSR.

It's unlikely. You've been watching too much TV.

The cops regularly infiltrate left organisations so why is it inconceivable that they would monitor DSP emails? The cops are fairly clueless about the left in many ways - when they send in people undercover they're so often the biggest stereotype of a lefty you've ever seen, ie. mandatory pair of green militant pants to be worn at all times, long hair, sneakers etc. So, though some people know the DSP to be relatively harmless, the cops probably see them as blood thirsty revolutionaries!

<http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/15/1079199157315.html?from=storyrhs>

It's true, watcher, electronic surveillance of email, telephony, etc, is possible, but that's not what happened.

The facts is, cracks are opening up in your Brezhnevite party structure, and attempts to paper them over won't work.

Nor will your attempt to draw a red herring across the DSP's rather smell trail.

Aren't you proud of the democratic processes that led to the expulsion of LF and of the brilliant political analysis in Peter Boyle's report?

If you are, why not share all this with the world? After all, you want to build a new society, you should tell us as much as possible about how you intend to do that, and not just the theory but the practise.

Why the secrecy, watcher?

By the way, in the history of the left, cops have usually found conditions most congenial in secretive, conspiratorial organisations.

It's obvious LF is a traitor, and expulsion was letting him off lightly.

He was discussing stuff with people outside the DSP, posting things to email lists and all sorts of other treacherous activities.

If we allowed that sort of stuff to go on, where would it all end?

We might have to start thinking for ourselves and stop waiting for decisions to be passed down from the duly elected leadership. Just thinking about it scares me silly.

DSP, why pussyfoot around with this talk about cops?

Are you denying that the documents are genuine? I was on the list that some of these posts are taken from, and they all had names in them. Why would cops go through and change all the names to initials?

Tell it like it is, DSP. LF is a despicable traitor. He went around discussing things with people not in the DSP, and posting stuff to email lists that the DSP leaders don't like.

Anarchists, and even Greens and ALP members might be able to do that, but that sort of thing's not on in the DSP.

The DSP has an elected leadership of people experienced in sitting around at Abercrombie Street talking to each other. They do the thinking and the grunts do the doing. That's how a revolutionary party works.

Expulsion was too good for him.

The people who start talking about cops are often cops. It's their job to create suspicions and break up solidarity.

I know it's hard concept to grasp for some, but when DSP members vote by a majority that something should be done, its members agree to do so. Those that disagree have have every right to argue their case for a change of position within the party's structures, but until they succeed in changing the majority's viewpoint, then they must abide by it.

It's called democracy. That is the majority decides and all abide by the decision. Simple.

Damn right, this bloke was a danger to the revolution:

"Should I consider such a perspective to be detrimental to the process of left unity and refoundation I consider it not only my right but my duty to take a stand against it. In doing so I forthrightly state that my loyalty foremost lies with the ideals of socialism and not with any particular organisation."

That's an open and shut case of independent thought. Out he goes on that one alone.

"you breached the constitution continually through your email postings to the National Broad Left Rebel list, a grouping involving and led by anti-socialist students. Forces in the NBL Rebel list are hostile to socialism and to Resistance and the DSP."

It gets worse, this criminal was talking to people he didn't agree with. Anything could have happened, but at the very least he ran the risk of contamination. Out, out, out!

He agreed the existing socialist organisatiosn were "a barrier to people getting involved in the Left."

Revealing party secrets. Out.

" b) Argue, without any discussion or direction on any DSP bodies, and in contradiction to the perspectives of the last DSP congress, for the extension of the anti-socialist Rebel NBL grouping as "a pluralist left on campus beyond the 50 odd people on this list".

Pluralism? Bourgeois liberal rubbish. There is, and can be, only one party. Out.

BTW. The documents used by the FBI in COINTELPRO were mostly fake.

No one in the DSP has denied that the explusion documents and Boyle's report are genuine.

A few months ago I posted an email that had been sent to me from someone here. The email was sent to me and I posted it under my real name. The email was taken down and deleted repeatedly (probably fair enough too), and my IP was blocked.

Yet, here MIM has left up private emails (not dsp documents) between three individuals in an activist group, posted by an anonymous person. It appears that they were not posted by any of the individuals involved and that the emails were obtained without their knowledge.

If the dsp was actually in government or even a major party I wouldn't care. But they are just a small activist group and I don't see how this kind of internal correspondence can be of any interest to anyone here. The only purpose that publishing this can have is either a) for someone to show off or b) to spread paranoia.

To all the activists here I think that you should consider how you would feel about it if MIM were to publish private emails between anarchists or members of movement groups. You would probably consider it a total violation of privacy and extremely suspicious. In some movements (like refugees stuff) it could actually put people in danger.

Spying on activist groups and spreading sectarianism and paranoia really is not the kind of thing that a supposed activist site should be used for. It discredits Indymedia helps to destroy the pathetic amount of solidarity that still exists in the left.

I would like a response as to why this has been left up.

1. Any organisation has a right to set the criteria of who is, and who isn't, a member. There is nothing in any of the leaked documents or intercepted emails to suggest any lack of democracy. Democracy means majority rules.

2. Someone has been intercepting emails between individual DSP members. Leaked documents is one thing but it doesn't explasin how the emails got here. Whether it was a secret police agency or someone using software (which I'm told you can buy on the internet) to do their own amateur Stasi operation is irrelavent. Mail snooping is anti-democratic in the extreme. The fact that not one libertarian or anarchist on this thread condemns it proves what bunch of democracy-hating hypocritical wankers you all are.

Also, to explain my interest in this...

I was a member of the DSP but resigned in 2001. I am not a member of the DSP or SA anymore.

But over the last few years I, along with other people who were involved in Network Against Prohibition, have experienced almost constant police harassment and surveilance. The purpose of this was to spread paranioa and division, as well as to destroy individual activists. Anybody who has experienced this will know how effective it can be even when you know what is going on and why.

Whether this has actually been done by the police or an unthinking or pissed off activist; I am absolutely disgusted to see Indymedia complicit in these kind of activities.

I have posted this under my name and stated my reasons for doing so and I think that you should respond.

The great revolutionaries are pissed off because their nasty, sordid little organisational goings-on are exposed to the public gaze, as they should be.

This outfit claims to be the Democratic Socialist Perspective, yet its practise doesn't look very democratic. An organisation claiming to be democratic deserves to have its claims tested. This one seems to be coming up short.

And don't try to blame technology or cops for your leaky boat. It's your politics, stupid.

Democracy means if a majority vote for something it happens. So tell me one undemocratic thing revealed in the leaked documents or Stasi interceptions.

And politics does not explain how an email between a couple of people becomes read by other people. They were not documents but emails.

If the ALP booted out its dissidents in the way you have, you'd probably be protesting.

All you've shown is that you can organise 30-odd hand-raising drones. That's not very impressive. The ALP right can wheel out hundreds if it needs to.

Tell us about the wonderful principles behind this organisational master stroke, and it'll have to be better than majority rule.

Stalin always claimed majority support for his actions, and in fact he probably did have a majority in his degenerate party, once it was stacked out with opportunists and apparatchiks. Hitler won a parliamentary majority, of sorts, and used that to justify all kinds of crimes.

Real democracy is also about how you treat minorities. The DSP, obviously, doesn't tolerate them. Almost invariably, serious disagreements in your outfit end in splits or expulsions.

Peter Boyle writes about a multi-tendency socialist party. All talk, obviously.

Your conception of democracy is as primitive as the rest of your politics.

1. the vote was taken by highly intelligent, commited and thoughtful activists, not hand-raising drones.
2. the person was not expelled for having dissenting views. minorities (or, as in the case, a solitary individual) in the DSP have a right to dissent, but if they actively do things to undermine the democratically decided decions of the DSP, and refuse to stop doing so, other DSP members have got a right to democratically decide that they are no longer a member.
2. while "me too" and other authoritarians would like to tell the DSP how it is and isn't allowed to organise, the DSP has right to refuse such dictats and democratically decide how organises itself.
3. no one is forced to join the DSP, if you want to be a bourgeois individualist and see yourself as the font of all wisdom who knows more than everyone else, then don't join a democratic organisation like the DSP.
4. the decision taken was to expel the person from a voluntary organisation, not beat them up or kill them.
5. the Socialist Alliance is working towards becoming a multi-tendancy part, the DSP isn't one, nor does it pretend to be.
6. YOU SUPPORT MAIL-SNOOPING WHICH SHOWS THAT YOU HAVE THE SAME ATTITUDE TO DEMOCRACY AS STALIN DID

Hey 'me too'....I'm not in the DSP, but besides whining and trying to sow anymosity and division amongst socialists and the left - do ya have any positive ideas about internal democracy for socilaist parties? Or do you just get into demoralising everyone and then walking away?

All you are doing is providing caricatures of members of the DSP. I'm sure they've got problems they need to deal with in the way they organise - but miserables like you certainly don't provide any revelations.

Why don't you just get on with pursuing whatever wonderful method of political organising you're into rather than spending your time promoting negative stereotypes? (and siding with people who invade others privacy).

Delila,

Nothing is more demoralising to the left than authoritarian behaviour by left parties. It goes against everything the left should stand for, in particular an expansion of democracy.

The behaviour of the DSP in this matter seems to fall well short even of the very limited standards of democracy that we have in Australia now.

Failing to speak out against such behaviour is to approve of it, in my opinion. Well done to those who have brought this matter out into the light of day.

It's refreshing to see you admit that the DSP is not a multi-tendency socialist party, despite claims I have seen elsewhere that it allows right of tendency. I presume that you mean it is not multi-tendency, and not that it is not socialist.

As for the rest, I have nothing to answer. It's the DSP's intolerance of dissent, and its organisational response to political questions, that's bringing discredit on itself and the left in general.

When you push people into doing things that they're ashamed of, it's inevitable that you will get leaks and other acts of dissent happening.

Dear Comrade LF,

This is written notice of charges against you from Comrade RR. In accordance with the DSP constitution, the DSP branch executive of Monday August 16, which received these charges, voted to set up a commission to investigate the charges. The commission voted upon is made up of Comrades PB, SH and SM. As detailed in the DSP constitution, every DSP member in Sydney shall be obliged to furnish the commission with any information it may request.

Could this information that the investigating commission "may request" include mail and emails, cop watcher? Would it, for example, include: diaries? notes in the possession of DSP members? computer files?

"3. no one is forced to join the DSP, if you want to be a bourgeois individualist and see yourself as the font of all wisdom who knows more than everyone else, then don't join a democratic organisation like the DSP. "

Sound like this LF is a bit of an independent thinker with strong opinions and no respecter of authority. Not the sort of stuff revolutionaries are made of.

you think you are the first to predict the doom of the DSP? i mean it's probably been happening during the organisation's entire existance.

yet the DSP is still here, doing it's thing. i dont think anyone will be embarressed by this leak. what's embarressing is that anyone associated with MIM could possibly think this has been a useful contribution to the causes of peace, social justice and human solidarity.

keep it up and see how often MIM's viewers keep coming back... apart from the regular trolls who seem to live in front of thier computers

meanwhile activists, including those in the DSP and Socialist Alliance, are building anti-war protests to be held around the country on October 3

Adelaide: 1pm, Victoria Square

Brisbane: 'Time for a change' rally, 1pm, Roma St Forum

Canberra: Noon, Garema Place, Civic

Darwin: 5.30 pm (October 1) Raintree Park

Hobart: Noon (October 2) Rose Gardens

Melbourne: 1.30pm State Library, City

Sydney: 1pm Town Hall Square, City

for more info check out:

http://www.greenleft.org.au

and for those looking for an alternative to the parties of corporate greed and war check out

http://www.socialist-alliance.org

have fun :)

p.s. the CPA posts are hilarious!

Now why would a small fanatical sect that heils from a well known murderously sectarian counter revolutionary tradition be concerned about something as petty as this?

These socialist hating capitalist fascists have the hide of a rhino - this is illustrative of their red fascism but they don't care about that. Psychopathic criminals and liars often don't care about being exposed for what they are.

All this is probably a red herring for these red fascist holocaust deniers to further advertize their perverted and fanatical creed.

( just my 2c )

Who's predicting doom, me? Sects like yours have been know to hang around for many decades. There are, or were until recently, still De Leonists in the US and Britain, for example.

I've just pointed to a bit of a gap between theory and practice.

If you want to champion democracy, which is quite a bit more than majority rule, it would be a good idea to practice it.

I notice that you want to change the subject. I would too, if I were in your shoes.

"i tell you comrade, our problem today is that we didn't kill them all off at cronstadt...these nasty little beasties with their pseudo critiques of our operational protocols are a pain in the bum. i tell you i can sympathise with Marx when he took his pristine International from their dirty, black hands. can these pretenders build anything at all!? all we get is a whinging and whining. all they do is nag! i tell you what anarchism stands for...you know what its driving force is? hue and cry. like some standup routine that passes off old fart jokes, thats' what anarchism stands up for. why don't they simply get on with their lives and lifestyles. it's moralism fed by a new gospel and its new antichrist is Karl Marx." -- O.S. Smirgin "Is their Political Life on Earth? " ISBN 79800. Larkin Publishing.

What a shame!
by bewildered observer Monday September 06, 2004 at 12:14 AM

Three things strike me about this discussion:

1) If someone joins an organisation, knowing about its rules and agreeing to follow them before they join then they should. If that person than wants to a)break the rules which they agreed to follow and b) undermine that organisation because they don't like the rules being applied to them then c) its logical that they either leave or are politely told to leave (as it turns out by the members who they work with everyday in a branch not by a leader or national leadership)

2) It's a shame that there is so much discussion over such a boring topic - its usually the way on Oz Indymedia.

3) It's a shame to see such a great instument of activism and media (indymedia) to be taken over by what basically seems to be a sect of anarchists who are obsessed with the socialist groups.

For example, the ALP who would hate these socialist groups and believe them to be irrelevant would act on such beliefs by not wasting too much time thinking or talking about them but the anarchists who apparently have the same beliefs on the socialists seem to make it thier life mission to shit on them. This says more about the anarchist sect then those who they critique in my mind.

It's typical of DSP apologists to dismiss the whole of Indymedia because the DSP leadership cops a belting in a discussion now and then.

It's not used to this sort of thing because there's next to no discussion in the DSP. In fact, I hear that DSP and Socialist Alliance meetings are so short on discussion, and so taken up with organisational minutiae that people are not turning up and branches are being closed down.

Most of the content on Indymedia is very similar to the content in Green Left Weekly, for example. Plenty of good information about social justice, the environment, trade union matters, etc. In fact, much of it is better than you'll find in GLW.

The occasional discussion between different currents on the left is a good thing, and necessary, and the balance is pretty good on Indymedia.

The DSP just can't handle a discussion in which it doesn't control the rules. It's on the run in this discussion because its position is indefensible. Its apologists are falling back on boasting about all their hard work, postering, etc, as if they're the only ones who do that stuff.

I'm not an anarchist, by the way.

Putting up intercepted personal emails between activists is NOT discussion. It is a disgusting violation of privacy intended to spread paranoia and hate.

Of course your not an anarchist "Not bewildered". The kind of stupid dissinfo you spread suggests that you are probably a cop.

Btw that I am the ONLY person here to post under their name, which means that I am the ONLY person who is willing to openly stand behind their statements. The rest of you are ALL TOO FUCKING PATHETIC AND GUTLESS.

You'll notice, Ema, that the DSP has not answered the questions on this thread about the powers of its investigating commission.

DSP members were required to supply information that would assist this commission.

How was this commission to go about discovering such information? Did it have the right to look at DSP members' notes from meetings, search their bags, enter their homes, perhaps?

What information was this commission entitled to request/demand: emails and mail, diaries, computer files, other papers?

These questions have been asked before, and so far there's no answer.

The emails you object to being published, however, were leaked, presumably by disaffected DSP members who wanted this information made public.

As has been pointed out before, these emails are entirely political, and there is no private information in them. Political leaks are common, and are part of the political process. They are made necessary, unfortunately, by the fact that so much of politics is conducted in secret.

The DSP has published internal material from its political opponents in the past. Why should it be exempt from practises that it obviously considers legitimate for others?

"Putting up intercepted personal emails between activists is NOT discussion. It is a disgusting violation of privacy intended to spread paranoia and hate."

And of course Trot bullshit-artists love it. As long as we profit from it fool.

-----------------------------Shut up....

pls

The DSP has NEVER published political material from any other socialist or anarchist group.

THe DSP, or any other group does NOT have to answer question put up by ANONYMOUS childish sectarian dissinfo spreaders.

Just ONE of you have the guts to put your real names up and youd have SOME credibility.

ANd Simon... My name is not "Emina". I am an activist. You are an inactive right wing stooge. Now you shut up and fuck off.

What started off as a good story ended up a slagging match. a questron to the anicists and a statment to the lenninists.

Anicists: If the "Red Fashists" don't meen shit and the only way is thro Anicary then.. Why comment on storys about them?

Lenninists: Don't rise to the bate. there are more pepole out there then in here... go and talk to them and let the Anricists sit on-line and bitch.

I'm a former DSP member who split and is now working within an anarchist collective. As much as I now disagree with Marxism-Leninism, I really have to say that I admire the level of democracy in the DSP, espeially for an M//L group. I believe the expulsion was just. The DSP is a revolutionary organisation, not a stamp collecting club and I have seen worse examples of expulsions in the anarchist movement.

Perhaps many anarchists here should concentrate on criticising the DSP's ideology instead of shit-flinging about any old thing it can find- or better yet, why not actually criticise the capitalists and the *real* Nazis? Both are infinately more worthy of attack than the DSP.

So what is the place of political violence on opponents on the left

(lest we forget the Maoists who used to bash Trots and put an anarchist through a window at la Trobe Uni....)

Not a lot of discussion opinion about this... just becuse it is a Spartacist and not one of your own cliques/fractions perhaps ?

Whne it happens to your own will you ask for and get solidarity ?