DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE

May Day greetings from the Democratic Socialist Perspective, a Marxist tendency in the Socialist Alliance in Australia. You have our revolutionary solidarity in all your struggles today and ahead of you.

Dave Holmes is one of the authors of the pamphlet Change the System Not The Climate (Resistance Books 2007) who participated in the recent Climate Change | Social Change Conference organised by Green Left Weekly. The other authors of the pamphlet, John Bellamy Foster and Terry Townsend, also spoke at the conference and selected audio and video recordings of the conference are available (click here). Holmes is a veteran leader in the Democratic Socialist Perspective. Peter Boyle spoke to him about the key issues the conference needs to address.

Comrade S. Arutchelvan
Secretary General
Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM)

Dear PSM Comrades

On behalf of the Democratic Socialist Perspective in Australia, I extend the warmest congratulations for your successful election campaign which culminated with the PSM winning two seats on March 8. This is a great victory for the PSM but also a great victory for socialists all around the world.

To Comrade Fidel Castro Ruz,
Commander in Chief,
President of the Republic of Cuba

 

Dearest Comrade

Your comrades in the Democratic Socialist Perspective in Australia join millions of others around the world in offering our deepest appreciation and respect for your long and exemplary revolutionary service as President of the Republic of Cuba. In a world being condemned by capitalism to war, poverty, injustice, and now, an unprecendented global environmental crisis, the great example of revolutionary Cuba, and your personal leadership, have been beacons of hope.

Here on the other side of the world to Cuba, we are campaigning for the government of our wealthy country to simply match the medical and education aid that Cuba has provided to our neighbour, the newly independent, but poor and small nation of Timor Leste. This says something very profound about revolutionary Cuba. Cuba's aid, based on international solidarity not the advancement of corporate profit, speaks to the hearts and minds of the ordinary people in our region. It champions the cause of socialism through deeds more eloquent and persuasive than many words.

It will be hard for others to match your historic leadership but we are confident that the Cuban revolution, which has survived the unremitting and ruthless hostility of its powerful imperialist neighbour, will find the resources to live up to your fine example in revolutionary leadership.

For our part, we repledge our complete solidarity for the Cuban revolution, the other socialist revolutions in the making and those which are still to come. Every revolution that takes place in this 21st Century will in no small part owe a large debt to the Cuban revolutionary example and Cuban solidarity.

While your role as head of a great revolutionary state has come to an end, your role as revolutionary teacher and inspirer of millions in struggle for a better world, continues. We are privileged to continue as some of your proudest students.

Revolutionary salute!

Peter Boyle
National Secretary
on behalf of all the members of the Democratic Socialist Perspective in Australia

MATCH IT!
Prime Minister of Australia
Mr Kevin Rudd, MHR
Parliament House, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600
25 January 2008

Dear Prime Minister

We the following academics, writers, organisations and NGO workers observe these developments, on education assistance to Timor Leste:

• over 2002-2007 the number of University scholarships offered by the Australian Government to students from Timor Leste declined from 20 per year to 8 per year

• over 2003-2006 the number of medical training scholarships offered by the Government of Cuba to students from Timor Leste increased from 50 to 1,000

There are currently 800 students from Timor Leste studying medicine with the Cubans.

This makes it probably the biggest aid program in medical training, per capita, in the world. Adult literacy training in Timor Leste is now also dominated by the Cubans.

Dear comrades,

We in the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) — a Marxist organisation in Australia — wish to offer our greetings and revolutionary solidarity to the delegates at the founding congress of the provisionally-named United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

We have been following with enthusiasm the struggle of the oppressed in Venezuela, led by the government of President Hugo Chavez. Our respect and admiration for the gains won, in the face of opposition from the greatest superpower in history, is immense.

The Congress noted that a new political terrain was opening up with the election of the Rudd Labor government on the back of a mass campaign of opposition to the anti-worker “Work Choices” laws introduced by the former Howard Liberal-National government.

The following resolution was adopted with the support of 80% of delegates at the 23rd Congress on the Democratic Socialist Perspective on January 4, 2008. Regular delegates: 46 for; 12 against; no abstentions. Consultative delegates: 34 for; 8 against; no abstentions.

1. As the reputation of the Venezuelan Revolution, the first socialist revolution of the 21st century, has spread around the world, socialist ideas are once again commanding the attention of millions. Challenging retreatism, sectarianism and dogmatism in the left, this new advance will create new openings for international socialist renewal and regroupment.

Published in Liberation, publication of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), January, 2008.

[The Assistant National Secretary of the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), Australia, Sue Bolton, attended the Party Congress right from 10-18 December. Comrade Sue did not just remain confined to the seats of the Congress Hall; she sought out comrades of the working class and peasant fronts and interviewed them; with the DTC workers of Delhi she shared her own experiences of being a bus driver and organizing transport workers; tirelessly interacting with a range of delegates she seemed quite at home and it was difficult to remember that she was a guest! In the following conversation, Sue Bolton discusses the challenges facing the Left movement in Australia. Interview was conducted by Kavita Krishnan (KK).]

KK: Did working class issues play any role in the Howard Government’s defeat? In working class struggles, what has been the role of the Labor Party that is now in power?

The 23rd Congress of the Democratic Socialist Perspective will be held January 3-6 in Sydney. The congress is open to all DSP members and guests invited by branch or national leadership bodies.

The congress will set the political course of the DSP and elect a new national leadership body and national office bearers.

Delegates were recently elected by local branches on the basis of support for political platforms (see below) submitted for consideration at the congress. This followed a period of pre-congress discussion in branches facilitated by the publication of written pre-congress discussion in 13 issues of the DSP's internal discussion bulletin.