Resistance: A History of the Democratic Socialist Party and Resistance Volume 1: 1965-72
By John Percy
Resistance Books, Sydney 2005
338 pages, $29.95 (pb)
REVIEW BY JIM MCILROY
This is an important and timely book, given the transitional period the left and socialist movement faces right now, in Australia and internationally. The socialist movement is at a crossroads: Where to now? Where did we come from? What lessons can we learn from previous struggles?
The collapse of the Soviet Union 15 years ago left a huge vacuum in world politics — and in the international socialist movement. That movement is still struggling to recover. Processes for realignment and revival — such as the Socialist Alliance in Australia — are campaigning to take hold and win broad support.
There is a lot of confusion in the progressive movement at present, but the sentiment for political change is stronger than ever. This makes it all the more important to study and learn from the experiences of the past.
John Percy's history of the early years of the socialist youth organisation Resistance, and the founding of the Socialist Workers League (later Socialist Workers Party, then Democratic Socialist Party and now called the Democratic Socialist Perspective, an internal tendency within the Socialist Alliance), is a vital contribution to clarifying the heritage of the contemporary socialist movement in Australia.
As the book's cover note explains, this volume "covers the tumultuous period from 1965 to 1972, when first Resistance and then the DSP developed out of the youth radicalisation and the fight against the Vietnam War".
The book's author "has been an activist for some 40 years and a central leader of the DSP since its inception. His history is openly partisan — it's on the side of those who struggled for a better world then and who still think it was the right thing to do.
"While not attempting to provide a full political history of those years, Resistance recounts the main events, as they provided the framework for the development of the DSP and Resistance. But its central concern is the arduous and complicated process of constructing a viable revolutionary socialist organisation capable of playing a vanguard role in the struggle for a socialist society."
As well as "drawing on the direct knowledge of a central participant, John Percy's account is also based on original research and features an extensive index".
"While it will have a special interest for those involved in socialist politics, Resistance will also have a broader usefulness and appeal for those interested in left history. The youth radicalisation of the 1960s and the movement against the Vietnam War had an especially important social and political impact then and for generations to follow and this is an important account of that period."
At a time when so many Western intellectuals have lost faith in socialism, and rejected Marxism as "old hat", Percy has done us all a great favour by publishing this living history, in which he presents Resistance and the DSP current as a genuine successor to the best radical and socialist traditions of the Australian working-class movement.
Percy sets his account in historical context, with a brief but incisive summary of "our revolutionary heritage". He describes the "three main sources for our revolutionary tradition in Australia" as: "The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the 'Wobblies', who pursued a revolutionary syndicalist struggle early last century, especially during World War 1; the Communist Party of Australia, formed in 1920 following the victory and tremendous inspiration of the 1917 Russian Revolution; and the early Trotskyists, who tried to maintain a revolutionary Marxist perspective as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) bureaucratised under Joseph Stalin and betrayed its original revolutionary ideals, and the local CP followed suit."
The next chapter outlines the origins of the campaign against the Vietnam War, focusing on developments in Sydney, in particular the growth of the student protest movement on Sydney University from 1965. The formation of the Vietnam Action Committee was a turning point: "VAC was primarily responsible for building the Sydney anti-Vietnam War coalition from 1965-69, until the Moratorium was established in 1970. VAC must have organised dozens of actions, large and small."
Out of VAC, Resistance was formed in 1967. Initially called SCREW (Society for the Cultivation of Rebellion Every Where), Resistance soon became the main organisation for radical youth in Sydney, with activities every day at its headquarters in Goulburn Street. Resistance organised the revolt by high school students and became infamous for publishing a pamphlet called How Not to Join the Army.
Soon, the necessity to begin to construct a revolutionary-socialist organisation out of the heterogeneous rebel youth group Resistance was posed. John Percy and his brother Jim, along with other co-thinkers, began to grapple with the challenges of forming a more coherent organisation, based on Trotskyist ideas and inspired by the example of the US Socialist Workers Party.
This inevitably led to political dissension in Resistance, and eventually a split in early 1970. The founding national conference of the Socialist Youth Alliance, which returned to the name Resistance in 1980, was held in Sydney in August 1970.
"The most significant outcome of our founding national conference was the decision to launch our newspaper Direct Action. The first issue appeared in September 1970, as a monthly 12-page newspaper, published by Resistance", Percy writes. The paper took its name from the old IWW paper.
Shortly after this, the Melbourne branch of SYA was launched, and grew rapidly. I joined SYA there in this period, and can vouch for the exciting, inspiring campaigns we were involved in — primarily the Vietnam Moratorium, but also local and international solidarity struggles around various issues.
The next stage in the consolidation of this current was the transformation of the Socialist Review Group — which had been a "pre-party" formation established out of Resistance in 1970, publishing an occasional theoretical magazine called Socialist Review — into the Socialist Workers League (SWL), at a founding conference in January 1972 in Sydney. This process was a stormy one, with fusions and splits occurring, as political differentiation was sorted out.
Percy doesn't shy away from detailed accounts of the internal workings of the SYA and SWL, and reports on the various disputes and differences of opinion, and the individuals involved. But this is essential to a realistic understanding of the difficulties of the time, and the problems of trying to build a revolutionary youth organisation and party group, within the framework of Marxism-Leninism, in an advanced capitalist country like Australia.
The final chapter of Resistance is entitled: "Our Party On the Road". Percy begins by summarising developments up to 1972: "We had a national youth organisation that had established itself as the strongest and most dynamic socialist youth organisation in the country. We had a lively newspaper that was increasingly respected and widely read. We had founded the Socialist Workers League, and were finally starting to build a serious party organisation, with a national spread. Our party was on the road at last."
Percy ends this volume by outlining "the basic pillars of our movement", learnt by hard struggle in the early years, and maintained resolutely through succeeding years.
First, was a "basic revolutionary perspective", in opposition to all forms of reformism and class-collaboration, whether of the Laborist or other kind. Second, was a "thorough critique of Stalinism", defending a "vision of socialism as democratic and anti-bureaucratic".
Third, was "revolutionary internationalism", beginning with the anti-Vietnam War movement and continuing to this day. Fourth, was a "mass orientation", recognising that "a successful socialist transformation of Australian society requires the active participation of the vast majority" of the population in struggle.
Fifth, was a "central orientation to young people", recognising the crucial role of youth in the revolutionary process, and the need for them to organise independently in helping to the lead the struggle. And sixth was the emphasis on building a "serious, dedicated activist party", based on team-work and ongoing commitment.
This informative and revealing book on the history of the major Australian socialist current that has continued successfully right up to today, can only whet our appetites for the next two volumes — dealing with the 1970s and 1980s, and then the 1990s up to the present day.
From Green Left Weekly, April 13, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.