SP statement on the Greens - 16/10/2007
Dear ISO comrades,
Your response to our letter challenging you to a debate on the Greens is perhaps one of the weakest letters we have ever received from another socialist organisation, we almost feel sorry for you publishing it. It is however not surprising that you have declined our offer to a debate as you are clearly having trouble defending your opportunist politics around this question.

If an open debate is not a constructive way of pursuing a discussion about socialist strategy and tactics in elections then what is?

You say our “characterisations of the Greens [are] sectarian and wrong. For example, to say the Greens are “not an explicitly anti-war party” is silly. Of course they are.” What evidence do you have to back your description of the Greens as an anti-war party? We ask this question because in the latest edition of your newspaper (Socialist Worker) you state: “Even the Greens don’t have the war on their political radar.”

We maintain the Greens’ opposition to the war in Iraq has not come from a consistent opposition to imperialist war and interventions. It has been a tactical rather than a principled anti-war position. The Greens have always said that the Iraq war should have been carried out under the auspices of the United Nations and this was the main reason they opposed it.

Bob Brown has made many speeches where he has argued that Australian forces would have been better deployed in “our region”.

We have written many articles about the Greens in the past and below we publish a recent article we published in the October issue of our newspaper, The Socialist.

You say that “The reality, however, is that the socialist vote at this federal election will be negligible”. This may be true but what is the difference between this election and the last one where you to called for a vote for socialist candidates. How will we build support for the ideas of socialism if we don’t first support socialist organisations when they are small?

The Greens are a small capitalist party based on the more progressive layers of the middle class, as you acknowledged recently in a centre page article of Socialist Worker on exactly this topic.

In the absence of a mass leftwing workers’ party in Australia, the Greens have gained an electoral base in the inner-city. They have some good members who could well play a role in the future in a new workers’ party. Indeed some of their leading figures, including parliamentary candidates in this area, see the Greens as a sort of ‘holding bay’ until a new workers’ party comes on the scene.

The best way to influence the rank and file of the Greens is to mobilise amongst the community as well as firm but friendly criticisms of their political weaknesses. These weaknesses stem from their lack of a class and socialist analysis, their parliamentary cretinism, and their inability to organise and to work with the community to mobilise on the streets behind their policies – at least in Victoria.

Calling for a vote for the Greens, acting as their unsolicited, unpaid political advisors which the ISO obviously see their role today, will get you nowhere. Rather than win over people from the Greens to your party, we predict you will lose members to the Greens. Your newspaper today is like a fanzine for the Greens with headlines like “Greens a shining light amidst election gloom” (Socialist Worker, 15/10/04).

We need to be calling on people to vote Socialist (where a socialist is standing) with preferences to the Greens. This de facto Green vote will then go to that party with a clear socialist message attached, while increasing the vote for socialists and the raising the flag for socialist ideas.

There are two ironies in this discussion.

1. The Greens were delighted when we decided to stand Kylie McGregor in the seat of Melbourne. They know that a layer of voters (especially disaffected working class voters) are angry with the rightwing drift of the ALP but are put-off by the middle class character of the Greens and the experience of them on local Council. Some of these people will vote for SP and that vote will be preferenced to the Greens. These are votes the Greens would otherwise not of received. In other words the more leftwing Greens support our campaign for electoral reasons plus the political pressure it puts on their party from the left. These people are to the left of the ISO on this issue!

2. Every week the SP does joint work with the Green councillors on real campaigns on the ground eg the (successful) fight to save St. Andrews Kindergarten and the campaign against the State government’s rise in public housing rents. Our firm but friendly political criticisms of the Greens does not in any way stop us working with them. Hardly a week goes by when SP is not in the local paper criticising the ALP and Greens in this area and hardly a week goes by when we do not work with the Greens on real issues. We are winning people from Green politics to socialist politics, not the other way around. This is the principled way for socialists to act. Your position is to the Right of us, and will have no impact on the Greens. Your statement that “we would rather be part of this important discussion than point out weaknesses from the outside” is the opposite of reality – you and your rightward drifting party are on the outside, not us.

On top of engaging in the debates about which way forward for a new workers party with other left groups, we have also publicly debated the ALP, the Greens and several union leaders. We are unaware of your organisation engaging in such an open and public discussion around this important topic. We have also written a pamphlet called ‘The Case for a New Workers’ Party’ and many articles in our newspaper. Again this can hardly be called just ‘pointing out weaknesses from the outside’.

By the way we agree with the general points you made as recently as 2001 when you stated in your paper: “We will enthusiastically work alongside Greens in many campaigns. Where there is a Green candidate that campaigns on a left, anti-Liberal platform they should receive Socialist Alliance preferences. But the Socialist Alliance is a far better alternative than the Greens because it is clear that the source of environmental and social problems is capitalist society and is committed to both offering an electoral alternative and building a mass workers’ movement.”

You say in your letter that “Until recently we believed that the Socialist Alliance was a vehicle for furthering this aim” (building a new left independent of Labor) but “Unfortunately the SA was too narrow and sectarian to achieve this”.

You also say that “The Socialist Party was certainly not prepared to compromise and participate in the Socialist Alliance during its formative years.” This is true; we saw no point, unlike yourselves, wasting 5 years on a project that was destined for failure from day one. This does not mean that we shied away from the debate. Read again what we said in a February 2001 letter to the Socialist Alliance.

“No such forces exist as a basis for this proposed alliance. It would be a fundamental error to be under the illusion that a new viable party will be created by the gathering together of the already-existing small left parties and a very thin layer of non-aligned individuals. This layer, in addition to being small, is also overwhelmingly made up of long-standing activists, rather than of fresh layers just moving into struggle. We are in favour of a new mass party for the working class. This will not develop immediately but over a period and this process cannot be viewed in isolation from the class struggle and the situation in the workers’ movement. Any attempt to declare a new party of the working class before the forces necessary to make such a formation real have congregated, will end up the same way as the Progressive Labour Party.”

We believe your incorrect perspective on the Socialist Alliance has been a disaster for the ISO in terms of its membership and influence. Today the ISO is a shell of what it was in the 1990s. In desperation you are grasping at the straws of the Green Party. It is one thing to put up socialist demands on a reformist workers’ party, it is delusional to put them on the Greens. We know from the experience of New Zealand, Germany, Ireland, and even on local Councils in Australia, that once they get into power the dominant forces in the Greens will sell-out their principles for the perks of office.

The zig-zags of your organisation are almost unbelievable. You have come from a position where you once described the Socialist Party and our sister parties worldwide as “reformist” for even daring to stand for bourgeois parliaments. You often took on an anarchist position of boycotting elections.

Then for years after the Labor Party had as you say “capitulated to neo-liberalism” you continued to call for a vote for them. You then, without any explanation, announced that you would now be standing in elections under the banner of the Socialist Alliance. When that doesn’t work out for you, you decide to ditch the idea of fighting for socialist ideas in the electoral arena and call for a vote for the capitalist alternative of the Greens!

This ISO position reflects a general shift to the Right in the IST in general. Your newspaper in the 1990s, despite its formulistic approach at least clearly called for socialism. Today you would be hard pressed to find the word in your paper, apart from the title.

We did not challenge you to a debate in order to expose the incorrectness of your politics. We are quite confident that you are more than capable of exposing the incorrectness of your politics without our help. We look forward to comradely debates on polling day when ISO members are handing out Greens ‘how to vote cards’ and SP members are fighting for the ideas of socialism.

Comradely

Kylie McGregor
On behalf of the Socialist Party

Reply to SP from the ISO – 3/10/2007

Dear Kylie and Socialist Party comrades,

We have to decline your offer of a public debate between our two organizations as we feel it would not be a constructive way of pursuing a discussion about socialist strategy and tactics viz the federal election. But we are happy to send someone to address one of your regular meetings in Melbourne if you wish us to clarify things in more detail.

You correctly point out that we are supporting the Greens at this election. Unfortunately, we found some of your characterisations of the Greens as sectarian and wrong. For example, to say the Greens are “not an explicitly anti-war party” is silly. Of course they are. The contradictions in their politics that you refer to require a principled response from socialists—we agree with this. But it is better to pursue these discussions in a constructive way, as part of a broader struggle to build a new left beyond the Labor Party. Constructively participating in the Greens election campaign is a useful way to do this—it’s certainly better rather than writing them off as “a small capitalist party”.

We support the Greens because they represent a very important layer of people that firmly rejects the Labor Party’s political sell-outs. Most Greens supporters reject Labor’s capitulation to neo-liberalism and support the kind of social democratic policies that were once expected from the Labor Party. But you don’t seem to have recognised this significant point. While we acknowledge many of the limitations of Green politics and we retain an independent, socialist view of the world, we feel that as the struggle moves forward this layer of people can help build a new left independent of Labor’s betrayals. Until recently we believed that the Socialist Alliance was a vehicle for furthering this aim. Unfortunately the SA was too narrow and sectarian to achieve this.

We acknowledge the local work of your comrades in Melbourne. We welcomed Steve Jolly’s election to Yarra council in November 2004 and we recognise that this was the product of many years of focussed work in the local area. We are familiar with such an approach, having had decent results ourselves as part of the Socialist Alliance in council elections in Moreland in 2003 and Boroondara in 2004.

The reality, however, is that the socialist vote at this federal election will be negligible. We do not question your right to run a candidate in the seat of Melbourne. Unfortunately, we find it hard to believe that it can attract the kind of broad support capable of aiding the development of a genuine leftwing challenge to Labor. There may be doubts about the political capacity of the Greens to do this as well—but at least they attract a broad layer of people who want a real political alternative. In a context in which many trade unionists are questioning their support for the Labor Party, and growing calls for unions to back the Greens, we would rather be part of this important discussion than point out weaknesses from the outside.

In this regard, we find it slightly weird that you would demand for our support at the election. The Socialist Party was certainly not prepared to compromise and participate in the Socialist Alliance during its formative years. With regard to your letter, you could have easily come to us, asked for a clarification of our position and we would have happily obliged. Instead, you “challenge” us to a public debate with an open letter, presumably in order to ‘expose’ the incorrectness of our politics. In our view, this behaviour reflects the kind of pettiness that the left should leave behind.

Regards,

David Glanz and Tom Barnes
For the International Socialist Organisation

Original letter from SP to the ISO – 18/9/2007

Dear comrades of the ISO,

Please consider publishing this letter in your newspaper the Socialist Worker.

The Socialist Party would like to challenge you to a debate about the Greens. At a recent ‘Unity for Peace’ meeting held in Melbourne (13th Sep, 2007) one of your members made a contribution from the floor urging people to support the Greens electoral campaign in the seat of Melbourne. We have also noted that in your paper you are supporting the Greens electoral campaign more broadly.

We are writing to seek clarity about what your position is in relation to socialist candidates at the upcoming federal election. We would have thought that the best possible position for socialist organisations to take would be to call for people to vote for socialist candidates where they can. This is the case in the seat of Melbourne where the Socialist Party will be standing. We think it would be a serious mistake for socialists to call for a vote for the Greens in seats where other socialists are standing.

We urge you to look at the track record of the Greens not only in Australia but internationally. In Ireland the Greens have recently entered a coalition government with the main capitalist party, Fianna Fail. This government allows US military planes to land and refuel at Shannon airport.

Even here in Australia the Greens are not an explicitly anti war party let alone anti capitalist. They support bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan only to redeploy them in the East Timor and the Solomon Islands. The Socialist Party has also written many articles about the Greens when they effectively controlled Yarra Council in Melbourne from 2002-04. The budget that they endorsed was in no way progressive and they still refuse to support modest reforms such as recycling for small businesses.

The Greens are a small capitalist party who like every other capitalist party are forced to bend to the needs of big business when they get into power. The Socialist Party on the other hand is a genuine anti capitalist and anti war party. Our preferences will go to the Greens before Labor or the Liberals.

If this is in fact your position that you support the Greens above socialist candidates in the upcoming election, we would like to have more discussion and debate about this. We would like to challenge you to debate us on the question of ‘How should socialists relate to the Greens?’ It could be held somewhere in the seat of Melbourne with the speaker and chair of your choice. We look forward to your reply.

Yours in unity

Kylie McGregor

Socialist Party candidate for the federal seat of Melbourne

How Red are the Greens?
By Anthony Main
Originally published in the October issue of The Socialist.

The Greens in Australia put forward many policies that are seen as socially progressive. They stand to the left of the Labor Party on questions such as the environment, nuclear power, refugees, the Iraq war and industrial relations. In the areas of inner city Melbourne and Sydney in particular, they have made some electoral breakthroughs with Green MPs and councillors being elected.

With the differences between Liberal and Labor being more about style rather than substance, the Greens are seen by some as a left wing alternative to the major parties. But are the reforms that the Greens argue for enough to solve the problems that capitalism has created and how have the Greens gone implementing these reforms when they have had the chance.

Whilst the Greens have not controlled a parliament in Australia they have had effective control of a council in Melbourne. They ran the Yarra Council from 2002-2004 where the first Green Mayor was elected to power. They have also been in coalition governments in various countries around the world.

In Yarra we have had a taste of Greens policy in action. During their time in power they did nothing to seriously address the many issues that local residents face. The budget that they endorsed was in no way progressive. In fact it was a neo-liberal budget that would put Peter Costello to shame!

Even on environmental issues the Greens have failed to show a real lead. It has been left up to the Socialist Party to push for the council to support green waste collections and recycling for small businesses. The Socialist Party has also pushed for a zero emissions policy at Council, the result is that this year’s budget now includes serious resources to get zero emissions.

The Greens correctly highlight environmental destruction and global warming as major issues facing society. As seen by our actions the Socialist Party also gives these issues the highest priority. But the Greens can only fall back on general appeals for a cleaner, sustainable world whilst having no viable way of achieving this. Unless the majority of society owns and plans the wealth it produces the future of the planet will be bleak.

If we look at the track record of the Greens not only in Australia but internationally we see that they are very quick to sell out their principles. In Ireland the Greens have recently entered a coalition government with the main capitalist party, Fianna Fail. This government, amongst other things, allows US military planes to land and refuel at Shannon airport.

The Irish Greens have already back tracked on some of their key election promises including to require local councils to take charge of new housing developments. They are now refusing to commit to even regulating management companies on housing estates, let alone forcing local councils to supply the services for which residents have paid for through their taxes.

In Germany the Green Party was in a coalition with the pro-big business Social Democratic Party for seven years up until 2005. This government worked hard to dismantle the welfare state, it supported nuclear power and has supported the US in wars. The German Greens proved that they are not an anti-war party but just another party of the establishment.

Even here in Australia the Greens are not an explicitly anti-war party let alone anti capitalist. They support bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan only to redeploy them in the East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

The main reason the Greens are not able to successfully implement their policies flows from their politics. They do not acknowledge that capitalist society is divided into classes, where the owners of industry (a tiny minority of society) make as much profit as they can by paying their workers as little as possible. They do not see that the interests of the capitalist and working classes are completely opposed to each other.

Without a class analysis of the world or a plan for an alternative way of running society, the Greens when they get into power are forced to play by the rules of the profit driven system. Time and time again they will be forced to bend to the needs of big business.

The Greens are also purely an electoral machine and do not attempt to mobilise people into action. History shows that unless people are mobilised and fight on the ground very little change can actually be achieved. What is needed is a party that wants to get rid of the capitalist system, not be a part of it. This will be the only way to solve the problems facing ordinary people and our environment.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 10:05 am and is filed under Australian news and analysis, Reviews & letters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.