MELBOURNE — A trade union militant, Craig Johnston was the Victorian secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union between 1998 and August last year. Respected for his integrity and militancy, Johnston is a leader of the Workers First grouping in the AMWU. He joined the Socialist Alliance in 2001. He spoke to Green Left Weekly's GRAHAM MATTHEWS about the future of the alliance.
Why did you join the Socialist Alliance?
Like a lot of people who have been disillusioned with the Labor Party, I saw it as an opportunity to build some real unity and an alternative on the left.
I joined the Progressive Labour Party when that was set up. I thought that was a project worth supporting. Unfortunately, [because of] a lot of petty personality politics, that fell over.
We need to build a political party that, in the long run will take on a revolutionary nature, but at least is an electoral alternative to the other political parties and is a party that will campaign for issues that are important to workers and other disadvantaged groups.
What do you think the Socialist Alliance has achieved?
I suppose the biggest thing is that we've started to build some unity among the various left groups. One of the problems that workers have had relating to the various left groups is that they're like sects — there's so many of them. And their differences, while probably very important and strongly felt, are a bit hard for many workers to understand. Unity is one of the biggest things that we emphasise within the AMWU.
[The Socialist Alliance] has also been at the forefront of a number of very important campaigns and also works with the trade unions. And in the future we hope and expect the alliance will do a lot more.
The alliance ... is a political party that understands militant unionists' concerns, and hopefully will address and support those concerns. Militant unionists can bring to the alliance practical campaigning experience, strategies and techniques that they've learned over the years, and a lot of working-class experience.
Do you think that greater socialist unity through the Socialist Alliance as envisaged by the Democratic Socialist Party is possible and desirable? What do you think of the DSP's proposal to reconstitute itself as a tendency of the alliance? Do you think the alliance should move toward a united socialist party?
When [the DSP's proposal] was first announced, my initial reaction was "good". Then I noticed there was some angst from some of the other parties [affiliated to the alliance] and I thought it was best if the DSP pulled back, and it did.
Having now heard more of the debate, I think that if the DSP wants to do that, it should, without it putting any pressure on the other affiliates to dissolve into the party.
I'd like to see — whether it's in two or five years' time, or two or five weeks' time — a united socialist party. Speaking to people from the Scottish Socialist Party, [in that party] groups have come together and worked very successfully on many campaigns and achieved some electoral success.
So how important do you think the differences between the left groups are?
Well obviously, there's more that unites them than divides them. How important those issues are, is how important individuals see them as. I don't see them as very important, but I'm not a member of one of those groups.
I think that people can't be forced. There has to be a process where they can feel comfortable with it. But for example, if we got one person elected into parliament — not that that is going to make a lot of difference — but it would then show that socialism is once again popular. We don't seem to be getting our views out amongst the masses.
I'd hate to see anyone withdraw [from the Socialist Alliance]. My understanding of the proposal from the DSP is that nobody else has to disband, it's just something that it wants to do. That doesn't mean that the other groups can't stay in, because at the moment it is an alliance, it is not a fully fledged united party.
I hope that people don't withdraw, because then they'll consign themselves to the level of the small sects that run around everywhere. While they all do a little bit, I think they have a lot less chance of having an effect and making real change in small, tiny groups. I've heard some of the debates between the groups, and I can't understand the fears that some of the other groups have of the [DSP] proposal. Some of the reasons given to me really didn't, in my view, stack-up.
From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003.
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