At Marxism 2013 - Contributions

I attended workshops on women's and queer liberation at Marxism 2013. Both workshops were given in-depth presentations on Marxist understandings of gender and liberation, followed by a thorough, ranging and generally comradely discussion afterwards. These are notes from two contributions I drafted on my phone before I spoke (the latter I got to give in the session), which I have slightly polished.

From Gender Construction and Capitalism

A comrade raised concerns about the attitudes towards trans* people and one particular contribution which got quite crudely biological about it. I agree, and I think that this was an issue I felt wasn't addressed enough; several comrades also repeatedly used the phrase of "same sex marriage". This is the kind of demand the Tories, Clover Moore & Alex Greenwhich can support; what we should remember we are fighting for is equal marriage, inclusive of all gender identities.

Recently we've seen footballer Robbie Rogers publicly come out shortly after retiring from Leeds - something that the progressive sporting world certainly should take note of, given the role sport plays as a bastion of reinforcing gender identities. The last footballer to do so committed suicide shortly after, alienated from the football community. Robbie has stated that he needed to step away from the sport to do so, but the fact that he felt he could now do so and seems to be recieving much more positive support for it, to me, reflects that something has changed since the turn of the millenium - and the most obvious answer is the equal marriage movement, which has totally shifted public opinion in Australia and overseas.

This is why independent movements of both lgbti people & women is so crucial to ensure we begin to challenge oppression now; the effect that victories, or even just higher levels of struggle, has on popular consciousness is significant, even if it feels as activists we're shouting into the wind.

Most people in the room seem to have different ways of putting it when it comes to feminism, current tasks or demands to emphasise, and I have an opinion on those things, but I think there is common enough opinions amongst socialist that could forms a basis for united work - against the oppression of women today, seeking to win demands like equal pay, reproductive rights or others, in the same way that we have worked together in the equal marriage movement.

From Festivals of the Oppressed - Women in Revolutions from Russia to Egypt.

I think it's a very pertinent topic to consider and thank Julia for the talk. I think we can all agree that so long as we live in a society based on class oppression then we cannot talk about full liberation for anyone.

To build on what Julia raised about how struggle inspires women to find a greater courage and dedication even than many leading male revolutionaries - Michael Lebowitz said in Socialism for the 21st century:

Rather, we change only through real practice, by changing circumstances ourselves. Marx’s concept of “revolutionary practice”, that concept of “the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change’, is the red thread that runs throughout his work.

This is very true for the process of struggle, particularly at revolutionary peaks, undermining sexist ideas, and other ideologies underpinning oppression. Julia identified women's oppression is a barrier to women getting involved in the class struggle already. I think this means if we want all people to be involved in our movement we should struggle against women's oppression and to challenge sexist ideas and behaviours today - the muck of the ages.

This us a big challenge for the revolutionary movements in the Arab world. Julia mentioned that women have played a key role in protests in Tahrir, leading the chants in the square - this was certainly my experience, even in November still the case!

Tahrir Square, 27/11/11

But women and men have also had to challenge sexual assault in Tahrir; there have been many documented cases of assault against women since January 25, by both by forces of the state and others in the street, and that's an ongoing struggle which has come to the fore again today. But the overall success of revolutionary struggle has meant that independent feminist struggle has grown massively since the downfall of Ben Ali and Mubarak.

A key example is the struggle over the constitution in Tunisia - feminist activists led struggle against a constitutional reform being proposed by Nahda which would define women as "complimentary" to men.. That particular struggle has been a key component, along with union struggle in both cities and interior regions, of rebuilding class struggle to the point where it is now - arguably at a higher level than when Ben Ali was overgrown. The lesson is that independent womens struggle is key, not only for the class struggle as a whole but also building a movement to challenge oppression today and lead to a society where we can be rid of it.

At Marxism 2013

Watch "Peter Boyle: Long live left unity" on YouTube

So i'm here at Marxism 2013. Sofar the conference is pumping; it's perhaps the largest left conference I've been to (although I did miss the last World at a Crossroads conference, which took place while I was in the middle east. #excitement is the word.

This session i'm in now, the Australian political situation today, has been sofar the best for me. It's packed out the room. Why? It's one of the only sessions raising the question of, not only why we need to fight, but how it is to be done in the concrete here and now.

What are our differences on this question, how do we organise to beat this system? We're not yet having out this question formally, so this session is being framed in the most immediate ways - so the process of hashing out such differences needs to expand from here. But from my experience here and the positive exchanges, it sofar seems there is the good will to do so.

Socialist Alliance 9th Conference

Further end-of-month catch up. Views are my own, etc.

The Socialist Alliance recently held its 9th national conference in Geelong Trades Hall. Geelong is one of the smaller towns and cities where the Alliance has been able to build a branch and other major left forces active today have not, like my home town of Wollongong; this was my first time in Geelong, and I was impressed by the ability of the comrades there to pull of organising such a major and successful decision-making conference. I stayed in Melbourne for most of the month, including the conference, helping with local promo, participating in politics, and organising the Resistance Camp.

Over the [second] two days, delegates discussed international and domestic politics and campaigns, Socialist Alliance's plans for this year's federal election, reflected on the achievements and challenges in building the Socialist Alliance today and the prospects for greater unity of the left in Australia.

Taking place in the context of discussions about prospects for greater unity of the left, the conference adopted proposals to strengthen the Alliance's work in building local and national campaigns and movements, including the labour, environmental and women's movements, and the importance of convincing youth and students of the need to organise for fundamental social change.

Delegates reaffirmed the need to strengthen the Alliance and to seek greater unity in action, while defending the democratic rights of affiliates and tendencies of thought within the party. The conference reaffirmed the decision to participate in the upcoming Marxism conference, and to taking further steps in exploring prospects for unity.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/53160

I participated in the pre-conference discussion with a piece about democracy, transitional demands and a mass action perspective for today, based on this earlier post. Many of the issues debated in PCD were discussed at the conference, particularly around the proposed constitutional amendments of Liam Flenady, Ben Peterson and Emma Bacon, which were partially amended on the conference floor and combined with those of Pip Hinman.

Delegates voting in a session at the Socialist Alliance national conference. (Photo: Alex Bainbridge).

I found one of the most interesting aspects of the conference discussing left unity and organising today. Hashim bin Rashid gave a very interesting talk on the process of three Pakistani left parties merging into the Awami workers party, driven by the youth of the three parties who joined after the wave of struggle around lawyers stuff. Hashim got right into the thick of things in Melbourne too - he even wrote an article for Green Left on a local protest commemoration!

Advancing on our own left unity front, the Communist Party of Australia (a former split from the old CP) and Socialist Alternative both participated in the conference with official delegations. I found the input of the Alternative comrades, while held up within the present framework and the tensions that go with it, a good step for building trust. Although a formal uniting of those organisations sends a long way off, i'm confident we can work together in a more constructive way to build a stronger alternative to the pro-capitalist parties this year.

A delegation from the national leadership of the Socialist Alternative and a representative of the Communist Party of Australia also attended the conference, and Mick Armstrong (Socialist Alternative) and Andrew Irving (CPA) both gave presentations on Australian politics today.

In particular, I was enthused by informal discussions about the party, movements and mass action between our activists, in which some comrades raised Camejo and a perspective on mass action which I found, at least on the surface level, to be basically the same as mine. In my PCD piece I raised that this is a point we need to brush up on, since it seems to me the most significant real difference in perspective on how we should organise today amongst the Australian left. Hopefully I am wrong.

Interview: Australian Hazara Youth speak out

Originally published in Green Left Weekly, Sunday, January 27, 2013

 

I spoke to Sahema Saweri, president, and Shoaib Doostizadah, public officer, of the Australian Hazara Students Group, at the January 15 vigil in Melbourne for the victims of the Quetta bomb blasts. ***

Can you tell me what these vigils have been about?
Sahema: The Hazara community has lost about 110 lives in the twin bomb blasts in Quetta, Pakistan, which took place on January 10; these vigils were arranged to stand in solidarity with the people in Quetta. Violence [against Hazaras in Pakistan] started off in 1999 or 2000, with targeted attacks on our leaders, and then it continued to leaders, doctors, teachers, students, and now any Hazara is being targeted. It has worsened in the last two years and this most recent attack on January 10 is the worst that has ever taken place.

What is your feeling in terms of response of the community?
Sahema: We need more people on the street. We've had protests in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth, there will be one in Brisbane, as well as the vigil in Melbourne. But we've had quite a big number of our non-Hazara friends stand in solidarity with the victims of the attack in Quetta with us. They have been writing about it, spreading the word amongst their friends.
Shoaib: We've been very pleased to have a lot of people see us, look at our posters, ask us what the vigil is about, [ask] what is the incident, why are we protesting. Overall the reaction of the public has been not only sympathetic, but supportive.
For the Hazara community in Australia, a lot of us have close family or friends who still live in that part of the world. So directly and indirectly, we have been affected by this incident. We have felt the very pain that all the families and relatives of the victims have felt, and indirectly as well. That sense of community and solidarity among us is what has driven us to come here today, to show our sympathy for the Hazaras [in Pakistan], that we are with them, we haven't forgotten them.

How does this issue impact on Australian politics, particularly the issue of asylum seekers?
Sahema: I think it should have a great impact because it basically is a demonstration [of] why people take asylum and come to Australia. Especially the Hazara people. Many of the asylum seekers coming by boat are Hazara people from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Attacks like this are the reason people come to Australia. The government wants to stop people from coming to Australia; the best way to do that is provide them safety back home, so they don't need to take asylum, so people don't put themselves on "leaky boats" and risk their lives to come here.
I think we can do this by putting pressure on the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to provide protection to their citizens, and give them the most basic right, the right to live. They don't want anything else, they just want to live peacefully. The Australian and European governments have a big role to play in this. They must put pressure on those governments so the Hazara people and all other communities can live in peace.
Shoaib: The Australian government has been quite harsh with the asylum seekers and refugees recently. The government likes to say people are coming "illegally", [but] incidents like the one on January 10 shows why people chose to come by whatever means necessary.
The Hazara community requests the Australian government to reconsider the approach they have taken to asylum seekers. I truly believe the government does know, does understand the misery the Hazara people suffer in Pakistan but the political debate stops them from doing what they should actually be doing, which is considering the rights of all human beings.

Do you think the Australian government is doing enough for the Hazara people?
Sahema: To be honest, no. I think Australia is actually making it worse for the Hazara people. When they come here we put them in detention centres, sometimes for indefinite periods of years. Why do we do this? They have not done anything wrong. According to Australian laws it is legal to take asylum and come to Australia.
The Australian government has done a lot for us, but right now, they need to be putting pressure on the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan to defend our rights, that is the message we want to get across. We don't want all the Hazara people to come to Australia and take asylum, that's not possible and obviously not what we want, to start our lives over from scratch. The best solution is to provide us safety back home.
Shoaib: There are a couple of initiatives the Australian government could take, given these incidents frequently occur in Pakistan. Firstly, our ministers, particularly our foreign minister [Bob Carr] should have a conversation with his Pakistani counterpart and raise this issue.
We also request the government to take this issue to the UN; now we have secured a seat on the Security Council, we need to take the voice of the besieged Hazara community in Pakistan to the UN in order for a lasting solution to this crisis.

Does the Australian government have a particular responsibility on this issue because they have committed troops to the occupation of Afghanistan?
Sahema: Definitely, as an Australian citizen, I don't want any Australian soldiers to die in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Pakistan. Why should they die for a cause, the "war on terror" that's not even ours?
We want our Australian brothers to be safe. We have to do something but the Australian government, instead of sending soldiers to Afghanistan, could be applying pressure to Pakistan and Afghanistan to defend our basic rights. How long can the US and Australia be in Afghanistan and fight for them? We should put that responsibility on those countries to take action for themselves, to take care of their citizens and provide them with the protection they deserve.

These vigils have been well attended but how have the Australian media responded to these killings?
Sahema: We've never received serious attention from the media. They tend to focus on violence, or big interesting events that they think will be interesting to the Australian people. If the Australian people want the asylum seekers to stop coming here, they need to look deeper than this and stand with us.

What is Ecosocialism?

In Australia's current context of yet another wave of natural disasters, both fire and flood, i'm inspired to refresh myself on the ecosocialist alternative to our climate crisis.

The reigning capitalist system is bringing the planet’s inhabitants a long list of irreparable calamities. Witness: exponential growth of air pollution in big cities and across rural landscapes; fouled drinking water; global warming, with the incipient melting of the polar ice caps and the increase of “natural” extreme weather-related catastrophes; the deterioration of the ozone layer; the increasing destruction of tropical rain forests; the rapid decrease of biodiversity through the extinction of thousands of species; the exhausting of the soil; desertification; the unmanageable accumulation of waste, especially nuclear; the multiplication of nuclear accidents along with the threat of a new—and perhaps more destructive—Chernobyl; food contamination, genetic engineering, “mad cow,” and hormone-injected beef. All the warning signs are red: it is clear that the insatiable quest for profits, the producti- vist and mercantile logic of capitalist/industrial civilization is leading us into an ecological disaster of incalculable proportions. This is not to give in to “catastroph- ism” but to verify that the dynamic of infinite “growth” brought about by capitalist expansion is threatening the natural foundations of human life on the planet.

How should we react to this danger? Socialism and ecology—or at least some of its currents—share objective goals that imply a questioning of this economic automatism, of the reign of quantification, of production as a goal in itself, of the dictatorship of money, of the reduction of the social universe to the calculations of profitability and the needs of capital accumulation. Both socialism and ecology appeal to qualitative values—for the socialists, use-value, the satisfaction of needs, social equality; for the ecologists, protecting nature and ecological balance. Both conceive of the economy as “embedded” in the environment—a social environment or a natural environment.
What then is ecosocialism? It is a current of ecological thought and action that appropriates the fundamental gains of Marxism while shaking off its productivist dross. For ecosocialists, the market’s profit logic, and the logic of bureaucratic authoritarianism within the late departed “actually existing socialism,” are incompatible with the need to safeguard the natural environment. While criticizing the ideology of the dominant sectors of the labor movement, ecosocialists know that the workers and their organizations are an indispensable force for any radical transformation of the system as well as the establishment of a new socialist and ecological society.

www.havenscenter.org/files/Ecosocialism.CNS.final.version.pdf

There is an example of exactly the kind of alternative we need developing already in Australia, an initiative to bring together the demands of labour and ecology:

As employers and governments begin to close the coal industry down, then it is a real issue to where the new jobs will come from. What Earthworker has always argued is that new jobs need to be in manufacturing. Employers and governments are saying that they can’t manufacture any longer in Australia and make a profit, so we are saying that by using a cooperative model we can in fact manufacture in this country.
We actually have a social weight as workers, well beyond the weight that we use to fight the boss for wages, conditions and safety. We actually have a social weight to direct the economy.
\When we looked at the issue of climate, we knew that climate is an environmental crisis but its cause lies in the economy. An economy that is not based on the vested interest of the vast majority but based on the interests of a minority. We’re seeing the narrow interests of investors in the corporations put ahead of the rights of citizens.
We have a massive vested interest in eliminating climate change but how do we do that when the economic levers are in the hands of a minority who are actually causing that climate emergency?
Earthworker is looking to establish the means to allow people to establish the alternative now, not off in the future.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/53162

Solidarity with the Tunisian teachers

I stand in solidarity with the Tunisian teachers struggle for conditions, jobs and dignity. Tunisian secondary teachers stopped work on January 22 and 23. The Ministry of Education of the interim post-dictatorship government has maintained the curriculum of the Ben Ali regime and refuses to negotiate with the General Union of Secondary School Teachers.

Teachers have been leaders in the struggles again Ben Ali and in struggles for democratic reforms since his departure. Despite Western powers congratulating Tunisia for building a "strong, democratic country", in every area of society - campuses, the media, the unions, the impoverished interior regions - those who took to the streets to overthrow Ben Ali continue to struggle for the demands of January 14: work, dignity, freedom.

What you can do:

Send messages of solidarity to the Tunisian teachers’ strike via menasolidarity@gmail.com or http://www.facebook.com/mena.solidarity

Take a photograph of yourself and colleagues in your union branch using the poster designs below. Send to us or post on our Facebook page and we will forward

Read more about recent strikes in the Kasserine region here, and a report on Mohamed Sghaier’s visit to the UK in November.

Poster 1 and Poster 2

Alliance Voices, Revolution and Transition

In light of recent developments (I'd argue both the the continuing crisis in Europe, the advancing revolutionary situation in the Middle East / North Africa (MENA) region, and the continued development on the Latin American alternative, which are all showing in practice the strengths and limitations of different approaches to the question of revolutionary leadership and unity, as well as the subjective ones of the Socialist Alternative's "turn to unity"), there has been some interesting discussion in the lead-up to the next national conference of the Socialist Alliance. I'm going to look at some particular contributions from Alliance Voices, and some related posts, as part of the process of working on some PCD of my own. There have been other good contributions so far - including this piece from three leaders of Resistance which is well worth reading - that I won't comment on just yet.

Nick Fredman, a member of the Alliance from Melbourne branch, has put forward an amendment to the Towards a Socialist Australia (TASA) document to tighten up some sections - particularly, incorporating an explicit call for "Revolution" in 'How will we get there?'. This is, in part, driven by the call put out by Socialist Alternative for unity amongst "Revolutionaries", counterposing it against unity with the "Reformists", whoever that might mean (during discussion at a recent event in Sydney Josh Lee from Socialist Alternative did say that this didn't mean the Alliance...) - which has triggered seemingly endless back and forth on social media.

Graham Matthews, from Sydney West branch, has responded with an argument that the use of the R word is implicit in the TASA document and our perspectives, isn't necessary, and puts up barriers in actually regrouping working class leadership:

"there is certainly no evidence that an important task facing the (revolutionary) socialist movement in Australia today, is convincing large numbers (or even relatively small numbers) of reformist socialists that socialism can only be won through extra parliamentary struggle and, ultimately, social revolution...

In this context in Australia then, where the level of the crisis is so acute, yet where the forces of working class resistance are so defuse and ideologically confused - why would the (relatively) few organised socialists, want to place an ideological and organisational barrier between themselves and those who are coming into political motion?

Peter Boyle, from Sydney central branch (and national co-convener of the Alliance), has weighed in on this debate and other proposals arguing that making our revolutionary politics explicit in material like TASA isn't a barrier, but it shouldn't be done just to defend the Alliance from accusations of "Reformism". He argues that we should explain revolution in a way which draws on Australia's history and the real context of today:

our guide is not just what we (or others in the left) understand, or want, but also where the consciousness of broader layers moving into struggle against the capitalist system is at... most people come to a stronger realisation of [the] need to organise systematic resistance to the violence of the minority only in the process of struggle.

Peter's piece references and draws on Peter Camejo, whose work I think needs to be included in this discussion, particularly Liberalism, Ultraleftism, Mass Action.

There's another that's come up in discussion - Trotsky's Transitional Program, and whether or not it should have any bearing on this discussion, which I wanted to weigh in on a little bit. Before that, I think it's initially worth noting the following quote from Doug Lorimer in the introduction to the Transitional Program published by Resistance Books:

Under certain circumstances, agitation around any of these different types of demands can serve to mobilise working people in mass anti-capitalist struggles. It is the mobilising potential of any of these types of demands at any particular conjuncture in the class struggle that is of primary interest to revolutionists. It is a basic fact of political life that people who are united with others in struggle are more open to radical ideas and new forms of action than those who are atomised and quiescent.

Omar Hassan from Socialist Alternative, who took up this point of transitional demands in a note on Facebook (apparently in reference to a comment made by an Alliance comrade at a recent event in Melbourne) argued that the Transitional Program is hugely problematic and the divide between our ultimate goal and the struggles of today "cannot be synthesised on paper, they must be embodied in the traditions of a revolutionary party." I find this rather problematic. He is certainly right to say "demands don’t create revolutionary crises, objective circumstances do" - but there is a whole world of advances the working class in Australia could be making short of capitalising on a revolutionary crisis to overthrow capitalist property relations. In the words of Trotsky, "transitional" demands lead to "one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat" - but there is a whole lot of struggles to be had between now and that final point which can also be considered "transitional", and it's crucial that we make some advances on that front now. Just because Trotsky misread the revolutionary potential of the impending crisis in 1930 doesn't invalidate the concept as a whole.

Many of the examples of transitional demands Trotsky counterpoises to the "minimum" demands of the Stalinists - indexation of wages to inflation, open the corporate books, no secret diplomacy - are struggles that have at specific times or in limited ways, since been won (or forced upon our rulers, in the case of WikiLeaks) - and although this hasn't been a "bridge" to worldwide socialism yet, at times times they have helped to galvanise various other struggles - WikiLeaks played key roles in the change in government in Kenya or the overthrow of Ben Ali in Tunisia, for example.

"We cannot do away with the schism between minimum and maximum program," states Omar - yet the value of the concept of transitional demands is in approaching the fight for minimum demands - ie reforms - in a strategic way which helps to develop the power of the working class and does actually connect our struggles for "minimum" demands today to our broader strategic vision. To strike at the "weakest point of capitalist hegemony" is a good aim, but to me it only seems of use if we're actually using that strike to develop momentum, win recognition, and actually begin to solve the question of leadership by drawing the broadest possible forces into radical struggle in order to further radicalise them.

This is to me an example of a transitional demand - one which may or may not be able to granted under capitalism, but which brings socialist revolution closer. That is our goal as revolutionaries, after all - for our struggles today to be hastening revolutionary overthrow of class society. And history has shown us that victories in certain key social movements has led to a wave of increased class struggle on a whole variety of fronts - from the success of civil rights & indigenous rights movements in the US and Australia helping to catalyse the upsurge of the 60s and 70s, to the overthrow of Ben Ali & Mubarak empowering already rampant trade union struggle, civil rights struggles by minorities, the women's movement or those of the shanty towns.

This isn't a shortcut to revolution; it's a perspective that putting our shoulder to the wheel in struggles today and making them as successful as possible, not only propagandising about the dictatorship of the proletariat from the sidelines, is the best method of convincing people of the need for a revolution and winning them to a revolutionary party.

Omar and I are both active campaigners for Palestine solidarity here in Australia; I think the demands of the BDS movement are a perfect example of transitional demands. The three pillars of the movement - an end to the apartheid wall, the right of return for refugees, and full civil rights for Palestinians inside Israel - are difficult to imagine ever being granted by the present existence of Israel in its current form as an apartheid state and imperialist attack dog for the region, as their implementation would critically undermine the possibility of maintaining that project with a facade of democracy. But this doesn't mean the struggle for those demands is a dead end reform we should stop fighting for - the inability of Israel to grant those reform helps to develop and broaden awareness of the nature of Zionism as a racist ideology underpinning imperialist dominance in the MENA region. And any cave-ins from the Israeli state on these points will curb the power of imperialism in the region, even if only fractionally.

The rallying cries of the Russian revolution - peace, land, bread - were certainly key transitional demands (nobody's maximum program), and those for real democracy, redistribution of wealth and dignity being raised in the MENA region today likewise fit the bill. Tad Tietze, in the discussion following Omar's post, argued that a demand like climate justice is a similar example of such a transitional demand to struggle for today; at one point this was the rallying cry for a movement of thousands, and although the last two years have seen a decline in such activism, I think every new climate disaster reflects the burning vitality of that demand.

How does this all relate to the above discussion about the goals and politics of the Alliance? Omar gives a throwaway comment that "it is also relevant because those seeking to justify the Alliance program seek to hide behind references to their alleged transitionality." This comment (seeming at odds with the above comments that the Alliance isn't reformist) does reflect a certain truth, but I feel it's being expressed as a pre-emptive hostility over a different tactical perspective for Australia today; a different approach to the question that's been raised - what role should the party play in making the revolution? And what does this mean for our activism today? I think this question is shaping the above Alliance Voices debates, as much as Alternative's call for unity.

The certain truth: I do agree with Peter and Nick that we should be including explicit statements that our ultimate goal is working class revolution in the Alliance constitution or our chief propaganda tool, the TASA document - but Graham is right that the key thing to be done today is win more to socialism, not convince other socialists of the correct path, and that requires we throw our energy into the struggles at the grassroots today, particularly aiming for the most transitional demands to strip the emperor's clothes from Rinehart, Palmer and the whole capitalist system and neoliberal offensive, if we want to educate and unite the class-conscious workers into a force which can take advantage of real revolutionaries opportunities.

But the important thing isn't uniting on our "maximum" program - for now, it should be left at the revolutionary overthrow of class society by the masses. In this low ebb of class struggle, it's far more important that we focus our attention on the immediate "minimum" & "transitional" kinds of tasks to regrow a pole of class struggle today. It's heartening to see the Socialist Alternative turn to unity and agree that we should unite on "a socialist program for Australia today"; but is that program to win more ones and twos to Marxism, or is it to build class struggle as a whole and win a whole generation of activists? As a Marxist in the Alliance, my perspective is certainly for the latter.