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Socialist Alternative | |
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| Abbreviation | SA, SAlt, SocAlt[1] |
| Founded | 1995; 30 years ago (1995)[2] |
| Split from | International Socialist Organisation |
| Headquarters | Melbourne, Victoria |
| Newspaper | Red Flag |
| Membership | ~600[3] |
| Ideology | Revolutionary socialism Anti-capitalism Trotskyism[4] |
| Website | |
| sa redflag | |
| Part ofa series on |
| Socialism in Australia |
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Organisations(Defunct)
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Literature Newspapers/Journals/Magazines Active Historical |
Socialist Alternative (SA,SAlt, orSocAlt) is asocialist political organisation in Australia. Its members have organised numerous campaigns and protests aroundeconomic justice,LGBT rights,climate change,racism andrefugee rights. The organisation also intervenes in thetrade union andstudent union movements. It has branches and student clubs in most major Australian cities and publishes the fortnightly newspaperRed Flag.[5] Members of Socialist Alternative are sometimes referred to asTrotskyists.[6]
Socialist Alternative organises the annual Marxism Conference in Melbourne, a public event featuring discussions on radical history, revolutionary theory, and anti-capitalist politics.[7]
In 2018, Socialist Alternative helped to establish theVictorian Socialists, an electoral project to win federal, state, and local council positions for socialist candidates in the state of Victoria.
Socialist Alternative was established in 1995[2] by ex-members of the formerInternational Socialist Organisation (ISO) inMelbourne, Australia, including Mick Armstrong.[8][9] Following debates over the orientation of the ISO to the Australian political situation, the members were expelled for arguing that the ISO held "overblown" expectations of the 1990s combined with "a super-inflated estimation" of its capabilities.[10] This was part of the debate internationally within theInternational Socialist Tendency over the nature of the contemporary political situation and howsocialists should respond, with the leading organisation in the Tendency, the BritishSocialist Workers Party arguing that the 1990s were like "the 1930s in slow motion".[11] Like in Australia, splits occurred within the IST in other countries, includingNew Zealand,Greece,Germany,Canada,South Africa andFrance. In addition to splits, theInternational Socialist Organization in theUnited States were expelled from the IST.[12]
Socialist Alternative has links with several other groups previously part of the IST, such as the ISO in America, theInternationalist Workers' Left in Greece,Socialisme International in France, andSocialist Aotearoa and theInternational Socialist Organisation in New Zealand. Since 2013, Socialist Alternative has maintained permanentobserver status within the United Secretariat of theFourth International, a worldwide organisation of revolutionary Marxists.
Until 2003, Socialist Alternative was based primarily in Melbourne, when the organisation began establishing branches in other Australian cities following a surge of growth out of theS11 protests against the 2000World Economic Forum meeting in Melbourne.
Socialist Alternative was invited to join theSocialist Alliance in 2001. The Alliance grouped theDemocratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), the ISO, and other Australian far-left groups and individuals. Socialist Alternative eventually declined to join due to the Socialist Alliance's strong emphasis on running in parliamentary elections.[citation needed] Socialist Alternative saw this parliamentary emphasis in the flat political climate as a restriction to building activism on the ground and representing a turn towardsreformist politics. Socialist Alternative entered into unity discussions with theRevolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), which had been expelled from the DSP in 2008.[13] This merger proposal prompted the Socialist Alliance to reopen unity discussions with Socialist Alternative.[14] On 28 March 2013, the RSP voted unanimously to merge with Socialist Alternative.[15]
Socialist Alternative maintains that parliamentary elections are not the key to social change. However, it does not reject voting in elections outright and sees elections reflecting the state of mass political consciousness. Therefore, the organisation promotes whom it votes for and whom it believes the left should support during election periods, for example, calling for the left to unite aroundSYRIZA in the2012 Greek legislative election.
From 2018 onwards, Socialist Alternative has been engaged inVictorian Socialists. Victorian Socialists started as anelectoral alliance withSocialist Alliance and some independent socialists, but in 2020 Socialist Alliance withdrew.[16]
Socialist Alternative has been involved in organising within anti-war campaign groups such as theStop the War Coalition and has participated in demonstrations across the country, including the protests against the2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, the2008–2009 war on Gaza, the2007 APEC Conference, the2006 G20 Summit, the2006 war on Lebanon, the wars onIraq andAfghanistan, and have been involved in theBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign[17] and solidarity actions with theArab Spring.
Since 2004, the Socialist Alternative has participated in theEqual Love campaign – the main campaign group that advocates marriage equality in the country. Many Socialist Alternative members have been elected asNational Union of Students Queer Officers and have used this position to promote Equal Love and attack theRudd-Gillard Government for not repealing John Howard's ban on same-sex marriage. Several Socialist Alternative members are notable for their same-sex marriage activism. MemberRoz Ward co-founded theSafe Schools Coalition Australia, the organisation that organised the Safe Schools Program.[18]
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In early 2009, Socialist Alternative established Students for Palestine, and supported the group's campus activity,[19][20] including the protests against the2010 Gaza flotilla raid and helping fundraise for theViva Palestina 5. In 2011, Socialist Alternative members were among 19 arrested in a Melbourne demonstration targeting Israeli-owned chocolate chainMax Brenner for its donations to the Israeli Defence Forces, as part of the internationalBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign supporting Palestinians against the state of Israel.[21] SA has been calledanti-Semitic by theAustralasian Union of Jewish Students for its rhetoric and protest techniques.[22] SA maintains that Israel does not represent Jews but only claims to do so, and argues that their group takes "a firm stand against all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism".[23]
Socialist Alternative has been involved in the campaign for refugee rights, building campaigns to mobilise opposition to the policies ofmandatory detention and offshore processing.[citation needed] In 2002 they built the protests againstdetention centre atWoomera, which led to amass break-out ofrefugees.[24] Since the election of the Rudd-Gillard Labor government in 2007, they have continued to organise and campaign around the issue.
Socialist Alternative has branches inMelbourne,Sydney,Brisbane,Canberra,Perth,Adelaide andWollongong – branch members attend weekly meetings.[25] In Melbourne, the group has been based atVictorian Trades Hall. SA advertises public meetings through leafleting on street stalls, campuses, at demonstrations, and through bill posters.[26]
The group also hosts the annual Marxism Conference, a public event featuring discussions on radical history, revolutionary theory and anti-capitalist politics.[7] It is the largest event of its kind in Australia.[27]
Socialist Alternative maintains student clubs at many universities around Australia, and their political work often emphasises student-based campaigns. The group is involved in organising student protest actions around several issues which often draw national attention, such as a stunt during a 2014 episode ofQ&A demonstrating opposition to government plans for increased higher education fees,[28] the large nationwide protests in response to the2019–20 Australian bushfire crisis,[29][30] or a protest against former Liberal Party Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.[31]
Socialist Alternative participates in campus student union elections and theNational Union of Students as a faction and claims to be the largest to the left of theNational Labor Students. As revolutionary socialists, the group opposes both theLiberal[32] andLabor parties.[33] It has come under attack from a range of factions in student politics, includingLiberal students,[23] both Left[citation needed] and RightLabor students[34][35] and claims to have been slandered by theAustralasian Union of Jewish Students for its strong support for the Palestinian liberation struggle and consequent opposition to the state ofIsrael.[23]
Socialist Alternative was deregistered as an official club by theMonash Student Association in September 2014, cutting them off from student union funding.[36] The student association deregistered Socialist Alternative because of accusations that it had discriminated against Jews at one of its campus meetings.[37] Socialist Alternative said Jews were welcome at the pro-Palestinian meeting and the event's main speaker was Jewish. It said a particular group of students were denied entry after they refused to sign a petition calling for an end toIsrael's economic blockade of Gaza, and had attempted to disrupt the meeting.[38][39] This occurred in the aftermath of a campus meeting held by SA in support of Palestinians struggling against the Israeli military'sOperation Protective Edge. Socialist Alternative argued that similar meetings took place at other campuses in Australia, at a time when several Australian student unions were passing motions "condemning Israeli war crimes and occupation" and large demonstrations were being held in support of Palestine.[38] Academics around Australia signed an open letter opposing the deregistration of the Monash club as "the most serious attack yet in a nationwide campaign to stifle free speech on university campuses".[40]
Members of Socialist Alternative who are employed are politically active within thetrade union appropriate for their industry. Socialist Alternative's members are active in trade unions, including theNational Tertiary Education Union, in which lecturer and Socialist Alternative member Liam Ward was elected to theRMIT University Branch Committee as part of a left-wing oppositional ticket that replaced the previously established union leadership in 2010.[41]
Socialist Alternative rejects the practice of forming separate 'red unions', arguing that such projects isolate socialists from the organised working class and are premised on a top-down method of artificially substituting a radical union leadership for the rank and file, instead arguing for activists to rebuild rank and file organisation within existing unions irrespective of their conservative leadership. In 2010, Socialist Alternative member and QueenslandShop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association delegate Duncan Hart organised supporters of same-sex marriage within the union in a rank-and-file challenge against the socially conservative SDA leaderJoe de Bruyn.[42][43]
Though one of Socialist Alternative's stated aims is to contribute towards building arevolutionary party that can intervene in – and lead – massworking-class struggles, they do not consider themselves a political party at their current size and influence. Originating in the political tradition of theInternational Socialist Tendency, Socialist Alternative defend the position that a socialistrevolution can only come about through "workers taking control of their workplaces, dismantling existing state institutions (parliaments, courts, the armed forces and police) and replacing them with an entirely new state based on genuinely democratic control by the working class". Describing itself as a "propaganda group" at its current size, Socialist Alternative attempts to relate to its audience primarily on the level of ideas, rather than seeing itself as a party that can be capable of leading mass struggles. While Socialist Alternative supports existingtrade unions as essential components of workers' struggles, it believes that capitalism can only be successfully overthrown if arevolutionary party is built to challenge the hold of the ALP and thetrade union bureaucracy over the working class, in conjunction with similar parties internationally.
In 2012, thePolice Federation of Australia demanded that theVictorian Trades Hall Council cancel a Socialist Alternative public forum on "police racism and violence", asTrades Hall was where the meeting was to take place.[44] The Council complied with the Police Federation's request; however, the meeting went ahead after several people turned up for the meeting and occupied the Trades Hall foyer, causing the Police Federation to split from the Council.[45]
Socialist Alternative seesRussia's October 1917Bolshevik revolution as a genuine socialist revolution. However, it asserts that the following "imperialist" attack on the country and the failure of the revolution to spread toWestern Europe led to its ultimate defeat byStalin's "counter-revolution".[46]
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From 2009 to 2011, members of the organisation edited the annual online theoretical journalMarxist Interventions (MI).[47] The overall aim of MI was to make Australian Marxist writings more readily accessible to audiences.[citation needed]
In 2010, the organisation launched a biannual theoretical journal,Marxist Left Review, edited by Sandra Bloodworth.[48] The journal aims to "engage with theoretical and political debates on the Australian and international left".[48]
