CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Research Online AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 21 Life Beyond The Fragments

Left renewal or pragmatic regroupment? The left is in a quandry. And the agenda continues to slip from our grasp. But Adam Farrar sees light at the end of the tunneL

hese are beginning to feel like marginal support outside of SWP hand, were attempting something far heady times again. The Soviet members, to bloc vote to prevent the more difficult. They were trying to T Union is breaking out of its more open critical alternative create a new political form by shell. School students are on the receiving the required two-thirds fostering a process outside of the march in Sydney streets. Even the majority. This tactic shattered the, by CPA into which, if the process was federal government has rediscovered then already tenuous, trust between successful, the CPA might then social justice in an attempt to win participants and led to a debilitating choose to be dissolved. back support. So why does it seem so process of mutual recrimination. As an aside, in this the CPA hard for the left outside the ALP to But behind this lurked a much seems to have shown more emerge from this with a new, more significant confusion about the understanding than the ALP Left effective organisational form? Why is Charter process itself. In a recent which, at its pre-conference meeting the new party or movement — which article in Arena examining a with left unions, marred the is so widely seen to be necessary — conference held by the Rainbow otherwise very important decision to experiencing such a difficult birth? Alliance in March this year, Alan invite community groups from Roberts described two processes around the country, by all too often which have marked attempts haranguing them about the need to That there is a difficulty is there internationally to construct new help build the ALP. A rather more for all to see in the short-lived hursts forms of political organisation. One innovative approach has been the is the approach, exemplified in of enthusiasm for this or that option very successful Politics in the Park from one group or another. In the Australia by the Rainbow Alliance, series of discussions at Sydney’s middle of all this turbulence a few which bypasses existing political Harold Park Hotel, organised by more long-term attempts are still on groups “to unite under one political some ALP Left members. All of this their feet, but arc clearly finding it umbrella those already committed to is evidence that the ALP, too, sees very hard to wade forward. oppositional activities through the need for renewal. But back to the The New Left Party Charter the various movements”. (The Charter. Process is one of these which shows Rainbow Alliance is the only project just how hard the task has been. which seems to be moving ahead This clash of conceptions Since its disastrous conference in reasonably smoothly despite a few between the SWP and the CPA was, Melbourne last November (see ALR doubts and difficult patches. But of course, a recipe for disaster. 104) the process has been struggling more of that later.) Caught in the middle were the 50 to find a new firm footing. Held Roberts’ other process is a percent of those involved in the seven months after the circulation of “regroupment of the Left” forging Charter and the conference who were the Charter for a New Left Party, links between existing groups or in no party at all. In the eight months that conferencc lyid been intended to since the conference they have been parties. He then goes on to describe assess whether enough support the target of a bewildering paper war the Charter as just such a existed for a definite launch late this as the Charter began to move along regroupment between the year. The irony is that, if nothing two separate paths. Communist Party of Australia else, the conference showed that the (CPA) and the SWP. On the one hand, the most active support did exist. It also showed that It's a pity that such complete independents, particularly in NSW, support alone was not enough. misunderstanding of the Charter and the CPA (for the first time taking There seems little doubt that the process still has currency. But it is no a decision as an organisation about immediate cause of the conference’s real surprise becausc. underlying the the Charter) decided not to work on failure was the Socialist Workers SWP approach, was a belief that, the Charter with the SWP. This Party (SWP) decision to try to push despite the rhetoric, regroupment meant a slow and uneven process of through a doctrinaire statement of was precisely the'real agenda. The disentangling local groups from the aims; and, when this received only CPA members involved, on the other activities and forums involving 22 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW

SWP members. To add to the Charter groups in April proposed Association of Communist Unity confusion, most groups continued to another national conference to do (ACU) [a breakaway from [he SPA participate in an uncertain way in the job last year’s Melbourne based mainly in the BWIU]and the national Charter teleconferences conference failed to do. But this CPA have well established joint organised by those (principally the time, a sense of urgency has meant industrial metings and have begun a SWP) who did not publicly accept that the conference will probably series of joint seminars on that the Melbourne conference had only go ahead if a clear statement of developments in the Soviet Union been a complete failure. the aims of the new party can be and principles of socialist The culmination of this second agreed on and can attract enough organisation. path was a national meeting at which endorsements to demonstrate its While the latter may have little the SW P argued successfully that a viability. more than symbolic value, many in new left party was no longer possible This sense of urgency does not both organisations see the joint and that a coalition of the left was the only apply to Charter members. industrial work as the real test of only option. This proposal Within the CPA a growing number whether there is a solid basis for dovetailed neatly with the recent no longer believes the party can wait unity. This is what might be called revival of talks between the SWP and around for the Charter, and that the the pragmatist position in socialist the main pro-Soviet party, the experiment with those outside the reformation. Their opposition to Socialist Party of Australia (SPA). A organised left should be given up. regroupment proposals such as the launch of this coalition is planned for They, too, are beginning to feel that SWP-SPA "coalition of the left” is later this year. “regroupment" may be the only way a b o u t styles of w ork, not While this decision may have to go. regroupment as such. In particular, made the task of disentangling The regroupment option is they are opposed to the marginalised the two threads of the Charter easier, certainly on the agenda. Every left and oppositional approach of those the remaining active independents political organisation has now talked groups. But if these pragmatists are and CPA participants were faced with a number of others, and co­ to see the CPA and the ACU with the task of reactivating a process operated on particular activities. As embrace more closely, they will have which had all but stalled. An well as the SWP and the SPA to overcome the resistance of strong informal regional meeting of NSW “coalition of the left”, the groups within both organisations,

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Within the ACU there are those exhaustion, rather than any synonymous with this “externalist” who believe that the majority of the pioneering spirit. Equally approach. The main one is CPA have so ctearlv abandoned reasonably, a good many people are institutional rigidity. First, as can be marxism-leninism anti democratic asking whether, after all this time, seen from the competing views centralism that unity is impossible. this path is leading anywhere. discussed so far. any attempts to At the recent ACll conference they Perhaps more important, the build a coherent new approach from (irmly put the brakes on any pragmatists argue, given that the the ground up within an existing headlong rush towards the CPA. pendulum of social responsiveness party, will not only be confronted Some of this group have their eyes, seems to be swinging back to the left, with political or theoretical instead, on attracting members of yet can we afford to let it swing by while differences but with a history of another group looking for a renewed we search for the right formulations? old attachments which cannot be socialist presence to an avowedly This is a strong point. But what abandoned without serious marxist-leninist party. This other seems implicit in the position of the organisational damage. group is the Socialist Network, a proponents of a “new vision" and And these aren tjust theoretical loose organisation somewhat smaller here we should include those in the attachments. As many of the young than either the Charter or the CPA (including some supporters of new left activists and intellectuals Rainbow Alliance, the majority of the Network), independents in the who flooded into the CPA in the late whose members belong to a minority Charter, and the members of the 70s found, a coherent radical project grouping within the CPA. Rainbow Alliance — is a concern (at that time a self-consciously The Network was formed by that judging the moment is a marxist one) is also subject to people concerned that the search for notoriously risky business; and we organisational pressures, the a new party would abandon both an might do better to build a secure and demands of a “realism" built of a explicitly socialist identity and a long-term basis for radical social particular history of political and marxist analysis. Some Network change into the future. organisational experience. At the members have supported the SWP [t would be a mistake to draw same lime, this tension is not position in the Charter and the these lines too sharply. While many altogether absent in the externalist proposed Left Coalition; others are of these pragmatists active in the strategy. A concern on the part ot members of both the CPA and the union movement base most some from political organisations ACU; while still others would prefer judgments more on the common- that some proposals don't to sec the CPA “rebuilt” sense of union or traditional left acknowledge practical constraints On the CPA side, the caution practice than on radical vision, this has played a role in adding to about regroupment with the ACU commonsense has proved itself well the frustrations of the Charter comes from those who are most able to extend to building important process. concerned that the left needs a new and creative alliances such as the A more obvious point is that political vision and organisational BWIU’s work with community such a project must draw on ideas form. In this they are following a organisations and the Aboriginal which, precisely because they are path which began with the adoption movement. But the point remains different, exist outside the party. of the current CPA program in 1979, that a left political organisation Finally, new ideas are not enough. That program stressed most of the should be thinking far more seriously There is more chance of new people ingredients which have become the about a strategy for overall social joining an obviously new building blocks of most alternative change. Perhaps the most striking, organisation, than of their joining a left programs, from the left of the and depressing, aspect of discussions revamped old one, whatever the ALP to the Rainbow Alliance. In among the orthodox left about the substance of the changes. Probably particular, it placed great emphasis changes taking place in the Soviet too much weight shouldn’t be placed on democratic participation in all Union and elsewhere in the on this last point because the jury is areas of life including, of course, socialist world, is that there has been still out on whether the problem of workplace self-management. It also absolutely no attempt to tease out tiny membership, which has dogged recognised the central place of their implications, either for our all left organisations, is to be solved radical movements - most notably understanding of socialism or for our by a more united left presence the women’s and environment strategy for social change. (regroupment), or bya more effective movements. So onee again we must ask why organisational form or new vision. For the past decade, the CPA the left — those committed to a has doggedly followed wherever “new vision" have made such But even if it is agreed that such this path led — from debates about heavy weather of launching a new an externalist strategy is needed, it is the prospects for socialism, through party? The answer can only be found much less clear how to go about it. arguments (and initiatives) for if we ask what is involved in building The Charter strategy may have socialist renewal, to a search for a a new party outside existing left stalled because it expected all those new socialist party. Not surprisingly, organisations. who answered the call for a new party many in the CPA see the There are a ffumber of reasons to decide collectively what sort of regroupment option as the result of why the new alternative is party they wanted. If it is absurd to 24 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW

Over the Rainbow markets: indeed, the stress is on indexation. And there are a few their limited significance (p. 8). In places where the puritanism of this, paradoxically, itexhibits less some economic thinking on the “new thinking” than some older Up until now the new left bursts through (for instance, parts of the left. alignments on the left have an odd proposal to ban market The short and medium term produced little in the way of research for its alleged effect on proposals are far more detailed. election results [p-53]). practical rethinking on They include full employment programmatic and policy Overall, however. New over ten years; a Guaranteed questions. An exception is New Economic Directions is easily the Adequate Income (GAI) of 120% Economic Directions for most sustained piece of economic of the poverty line, targetted at the Australia, a discussion paper thinking to come out of the new poorest 30 percent of the produced by a number of leading trends in the left. This makes alt community; equal pay and members of the Rainbow the more curious the absence of universal access to child care; a Alliance, which appeared in any sense of a strategic perspective radically progressive tax system April.1 such as might outline some of the (with a 65 percent top rate for responses to the economic The document takes on the personal incomes over $50,000); destabilisation certain to ambitious task of outlining a quite reregulation of the finance sector; accompany an economic program detailed set of proposals for a left and the abolitionof ecologically even half as ambitious as this one. economic policy over the short unsound industries. Borrowed Early on (p. 3) the authors and medium, and long terms. But from Australia Reconstructed is disclaim this as independent of the it also does more than this. It tries the National Investment Fund task of developing an economic to outline a new vision of social (although, like other borrowings, vision: but it is difficult to see how provision and of the principles of this remains curiously unack­ the two can be separated. society, involvings a “new nowledged). This same strategic vacuum structure”. In this, understand­ The document acknowledges lends a certain shapelessness to ably, it remains sketchy, although and tries to face up to some of the the proposals as a whole, since it undoubtedly takes much more contradictions inherent in any set there is no yardstick (or set of seriously the question of values of proposals of this kind. For them) for determining priorities than most left economic isntance; it advocates full within the grand plan. And it leads documents. employment concurrently with a too to an eerie otherworldliness in The authors declare at the reduction in economic growth trying to visualise their outset their intention to get along ecological lines; settling for implementation: what are the beyond “the usually fragmented the compromise that this will be a wider social coalitions, and where or poorly thought through different kind of growth. And it are the best lines of advance, shopping list of desires” (p. 1) acknowledges that its hefty and which can bring such a program to which characterises much left detailed tax package and the light of day? How can the thinking on economic and social "massively increased public unions, for instance, be won to a transformation. Thus “the expenditure” will surely be met by program which seems to use them proposals must be seen as an strong political pressures” only in a very instrumental way? interconnected package rather In many respects the To attempt an economic than a shopping list from which document has a surprisingly vision without an equally well- specific items can be selected in Keynesian flavour, and its authors thought-out political vision might isolation” (p. 4). are careful to outline a package of be construed as putting the cart The long-term vision is responses to expected inflationary before the horse. The document is, strong on principles: equality pressures. Yet they have not much however, an important attempt at without uniformity; cultural to say on the international yoking the two, too often isolated, diversity without structural constraints upon public-sector- realms together. inequality; ecological balance; led recoveries as exhibited in the David Burchell democratic participation and French experience, and the planning. The economy is document retains an ambivalent I New Economic Directions for Australia: A visualised in terms of four sectors: posture towards increased Discussion Paper, prepared by John a “democratically controlled consumer demand per se. At one Wiseman, Lorrie Read. Joe Camilleri, Peter public” sector; a co-operative one; point (p. 24) it raises the question Christoff, Bob Reid-Smilh, Ian Ward, Rob small business; and a “non-money of wage restraint as a trade-off for Watts and Boris Frankel; with comments and the massive social package; suggestions from Belinda Probert. Contact; exchange sector" (which remains John Wiseman, C/- Department of Social somewhat vague). There is little or elsewhere (p. 13) it advocates an Work, Phillip Institute of Technology, Plenty no thinking about the role of immediate return to full wage Rd, Bundoora 3083. All All these points are fairly well The only useful judgments certainly is significant thatIt the radical members of organisations which attractedhas somemostthe of like the CPA to work in them. illustrated by the Rainbow Alliance. managed path. invited were Activists among movementa activists, feature The Alliance chose a very carefully from selected particular expertise. As a result, areasthe Alliance has and gone public with with a movements, some suspicion about package of policies nearly developed,packagenearly ofpolicies and a potential much members to clearer assess. There project for paid box). has is (see seen The it price the motives and aspirationsplayers, of key and tapping a some broad difficulty enough range in movement of expertise seems in short be made retrospectively. But not all can also be little socialist doubt orientation about of those the so far some impatience from those day-to-day with a involvement in various expertise. Significantly, supply. labour aboutjostling all these strategies will the cards are playedThe yet. CPA at least is having a shot at bringing players. months will next few the In it try to build some consensus between some order certainly, best it is placed to act as a into broker all between this some of and, the key individuals including somethe many (like andethnic political organisations, groups) who been have scarcely so involved, far as well as the existing Charter organisation. CPA organisational is resources process now rather into than the throwing waiting to see its what evolves. It chance provides of the matching best (and complementing) hopefully development theAlliance that has managed so the much far harder achieved. question Rainbow The able to balancebe a will find between is whether it organisations and targetthe group of independents in without the regroupment. movements, tipping into mere dealing with both existing ADAM FARRAR is a policy officer with the Council of Social Service of NSW. AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 25 Within the Charter and CPA understandings and strategies of their movement with those of movements,other target identifying group terms immediately suchthe of political, theoreticaland sets the a politics is for many members of organisational decisions that have to be reached. this sort of question has irony that is socialismmuch of is less been movement activists than movement socialist organisations. the immediate Moreover, concern with social radical change is often stronger sidetracked how theherringby red of socialist a new party might be. The a problem for most radical In the 'twenties, the left's upward march seemed inevitable.halting Nowa downward it is spiral. a question of

But But too attentionlittle was also

impossible collectively to draft a who who are committed both to radical

been been proposed is those activists, tighter target group which has also

new new party really was. The usual paid paid to who the constituency for a

well underwell way. be be achieved before the Charter was

political program. Too tittle social social change and to integrating the

might be developed. A much which which the project of a new party provide any political focus from search search of a party, but it doesn’t who are disenchanted with Labor

formula “those on the notleft, in attention was paid to how could this

draftcommittee, by a leaflet is then it across all progressive movements,

and in that a sense constituencyis in any party " those might all include Picture: Monument 10 the Third International, Vladimir Tallin. 1919