WeeklyWorker

03.10.2001

Which way forward for Welsh Socialist Alliance?

Dave Warren, Socialist Party member and treasurer of the WSA, replies to Cymru Goch?s ?For a Welsh Socialist Party? (see Weekly Worker September 6)

The 2001 general election gave a snapshot of the health of the Welsh Socialist Alliance/Cynghrair Sosialaidd Cymru and its influence in the Welsh working class. The alliance stood in six seats, gaining a total of 2,258 votes - comparable to Arthur Scargill?s Socialist Labour Party who also stood in six seats and polled 2,005 votes, splitting the socialist vote in some seats [the correct figure for the SLP is 2,805 - ed].

The WSA/CSC is still a small organisation, but with the correct approach, we are poised to increase our influence and win groups of workers and youth looking for a socialist alternative to New Labour and Plaid Cymru. How can this best be achieved?

Cymru Goch have suggested that the WSA/CSC should become a Welsh Socialist Party - ?socialist, pro-independence, green, decentralist and democratic?. At the same time, groups like the Socialist Workers Party are working to make the WSA/CSC more centralised. The WSA/CSC was set up in 1998 as an umbrella organisation. Its founding members made clear that it was not a political party, but an alliance of organisations and individual socialists that broadly agreed with the aims and objectives stated in our constitution. We spelled out that no organisation would be compelled to abandon its own programme to join the alliance.

For example, Cymru Goch is free to advocate an independent Wales in its own publication without fear of any interference from the WSA/CSC. Likewise, the Socialist Party, and all other affiliates, is free to conduct independent work under our own banner.

The right to organise independently is necessary in a broad organisation such as the WSA/CSC. Members are drawn from diverse political backgrounds with differing perspectives and methods of work. We have succeeded in putting together a broad programme, but much is left unresolved. The Socialist Party is a Marxist organisation that stands for the replacement of capitalism with socialism on a global scale. But we would never dream of insisting that the WSA/CSC be moulded in our image. On the other hand, we are not prepared simply to gloss over differences in programme, perspectives and strategy that exist within the alliance. We will continue to operate as an autonomous party within the ?umbrella? of the WSA/CSC.

A political party can only develop out of the experience of the struggle of working class people - it cannot be brought into existence by decree. To build a real broad-based socialist party with roots in the working class we need to reach out to trade unionists, youth and community activists. The worst thing we could do at this stage would be to set up a centralised, monolithic structure. We must be able to say to socialist networks and community or environmental campaigns that joining does not mean loss of autonomy. We must offer support and solidarity to other workers in struggle in the workplace or the community.

Our constitution states: ?The WSA/CSC strives to unite in action all those involved in fighting against injustice, including political parties, groupings and individuals, trade unionists, tenants? groups, campaign groups and protest movements. We will provide political, practical and moral support for workers in struggle.?

To maximise the number of organisations prepared to affiliate to the WSA/CSC and lay the foundation for a real broad-based workers? party, we must not pretend that we are a ready-made Welsh Socialist Party that only has to announce its presence for workers to flock to it.

Our role now is to reach out to other working class organisations and a federalist approach is essential to allow us to do so.

(from Socialist Wales, autumn 2001)