f workers, winning masses to a class break with the parties of the bourgeoisie, etc.
In criticizing Robson the DSP leadership used a method that has been characteristic of all sectarian Trotskyist groups. Once anyone challenges the leadership you make a class characterization of that person. Barnes did that to Jim Percy. Jim was great as long as he agreed. Once he differed it was discovered he had been a "Petty bourgeois" type all along. He was a student hippy type with a beard who owned a house. Ipso facto petty bourgeois, wrong politically. p> Percy would inevitably lead to the liquidation of the party, since he was adapting to the petty bourgeoisie milieu. The method goes like this: someone raises a criticism but insists they agree with socialism, and the overall program, Leninism, Marxism, etc, the leadership then claims there is a "logic of the line". The logic of the line is always to capitulate to pressures. Pressures from whom? Why, naturally, the petty bourgeoisie, usually the radical petty bourgeoisie. In DSP language the "Left-liberal" milieu. What this method does is end the discussion. p> It is a way of refusing to consider criticisms. It is a culture that crushes democracy and debate. The message that such a method sends out to the rank and file is "Differ, and you will be driven out". p> Here is an exact quote used by a DSP leader against Robson: "While Comrade Robson has not consistently thought through where the line and orientation he has begun to develop will lead (hence his denials that he is not for building a Leninist cadre party), nevertheless, it represents an adaptation to the pressures of this left-liberal milieu. The logic of the line he has begun to develop is to dissolve the party into this milieu ... It is a liquidationist line ... "
In one form or another I have read that quote 100 times. Its role is to end debate and to silence others.
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The New Zealand Alliance
In general, in recent DSP documents there is a tendency to rigidity. And in the analysis of other currents the main focus is on program. When looking at the marvelous mass break in New Zealand from the two parties of the rich, the DSP documents refers to the Alliance as left-liberal.
This is utterly wrong. It misses the entire point of the process that is occurring and the potential made possible by the appearance of the Alliance. The Alliance is a definitive break by working people from the two parties of the bourgeoisie. It is the starting point in the framework of New Zealand to develop a mass movement for social change and democracy.
It can lead to a struggle in the unions for democracy and a class-struggle orientation, and may lead to the development of massively increased class consciousness and a culture of struggle. To look at the Alliance from a programmatic framework, and not see that the mass break is its most important underlying programmatic statement, is an idealist approach to politics.
The DSP reports see the Alliance as "a break with Laborism" or as a break to the "left". But stating it this way can miss the whole point. It is a break with class-collaborationist politics, it is a class break, and like all mass developments it has only a partial platform with a lot of areas left unstated.
To say that in Australia this is not a "model that we'd want to copy politically" because, "They will have activists but not revolutionary cadres, with revolutionary socialist politics "is utter leftist confusion.
What has happened in New Zealand, politically speaking, is the number-one goal that we need in every industrialized nation. It is the beginning of a mass, conscious break with class-collaborationist politics. The key to politics in New Zealand today is to have this break survive, grow and expand. The key to the evolution of the Alliance in New Zealand is rooted in international events. p> The main victory of the New Zealand development for the working class is its example internationally, and likewise the present international relationship of forces limits the immediate possibilities in New Zealand. The leadership of the Alliance is proving itself remarkably.
Firstly, to have succeeded in forming the Alliance, an extremely difficult achievement, and thus begin to break the monopoly grip of capital over politics in New Zealand and secondly, to begin building up a membership organization that begins to consolidate without losing its mass influence.
After the next elections it might become more possible for the Alliance to begin consolidating support in the union movement and building support among students and other youth. That is to go a bit more beyond the electoral framework under which it began. But we must keep in mind that New Zealand at this moment is not under the impact of a deep radicalization with mass actions and political fervor among its youth. <...
