Democratic Socialist Perspective
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The Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), is a Marxist political tendency within a broad Australian socialist grouping, the Socialist Alliance. The DSP was founded in 1972 as the Socialist Workers Party and was known until early 2004 as the Democratic Socialist Party.
The SWP was for many years an orthodox Trotskyist group associated with the American Socialist Workers Party, but broke with Trotskyism in 1986, while maintaining Leon Trotsky's critique of the USSR. In place of Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution the DSP believes that socialist revolution in Third World countries (i.e. countries in which the development of capitalism was distorted by colonialism and imperialism) will take place in two connected stages.
The SWP and the DSP regularly contested Australian federal elections but never polled significant votes. They have from time to time practised entryism into the Australian Labor Party, but with little success.
Through the Socialist Alliance, the DSP contested the 2001 federal election but failed to compete with the Australian Greens for left-wing votes.
The DSP has a youth wing called Resistance and publishes a newspaper called Green Left Weekly (which, as of the early 1990's, replaced their earlier publication, Direct Action).
External links
- Democratic Socialist Perspective (http://www.dsp.org.au)
- Green Left Weekly (http://www.greenleft.org.au)
- Resistance (http://www.resistance.org.au)
- Socialist Alliance (http://www.socialist-alliance.org.au)
Further reading
Percy, John. Resistance: A History of the Democratic Socialist Party and Resistance: 1965-72. Resistance Books, Australia. 2005