Perspective/Socialist Alliance, Australia and KAREN O TOOLE from Socialist Resistance. These are edited extracts from their contributions. between the strength, enthusiasm and engagement taking place on the social level and a great weakness on the political level -both in terms of joining parties and even electorally. In Italy there have been huge demonstrations and strikes but a party like Rifondazione Comunista has only grown modestly. In 1968 students and young people turned to the working class and to socialism for building new parties. That isn't happening today and that's a big problem.
Social democracy is in a historical crisis. Twenty years of neo-liberalism has broken the allegiance between political parties and the people. Social Democratic Parties have
Our current came out of the youth radicalisation and protests against Vietnam. From the 1970s until 1985 we were a section of the Fourth
In the 1980s in Australia we attempted to reach out and unite with other forces - with the Nuclear Disarmament Party and the Greens in New South Wales.
We knew that building left unity and broader parties was needed but we didn't have any real success. The collapse of the Soviet Union was an additional blow.
In Asia new parties were emerging and some of the old Communist parties were beginning to change. In the early 90s we began assisting revolutionary activists in Indonesia, who eventually formed the People's Democratic Party - the main left force in Indonesia today.
The Communist Party in the Philippines was a Maoist party, with many members engaged in guerrilla struggle. In the 1990s some of its leaders began developing an antiStalinist line. Unfortunately when the party split the anti-Stalinists weren't able to keep united and it also divided on a regional basis. But recently there has been a partial reunification of some of these forces.
We have been trying to collaborate with a broad range of forces internationally, producing a journal called Links with contributions from comrades in parties in Asia, the Pacific and the Fourth International. We organise conferences to bring these people together.
At the end of the 90s the mass movement began to rise again - with campaigns against racism, in favour of independence for East Timor and against attempts to smash the waterside union.
Another important change was in the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) in Australia, aligned to the British SWP. They decided that it was alright to stand in elections, which they hadn't done for twenty years. So we proposed a Socialist Alliance as both an electoral alliance and a campaigning body. This was able to attract many new activists as well as many former members of left organisations. In two states the leaders of militant trade union currents joined too.
The anti-war demonstrations in Australia were very big. Half a million marched in Sydney. The DSP and the majority of nonaligned comrades wanted to push ahead and build a united, multi-tendency socialist party. The ISO thought that it should be a united front of a special kind", focus only on elections rather than become a party
The Socialist Alliance agreed at its last conference to become a broad, multi-tendency party and is increasingly involved in organising trade union and anti-war work.