Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
The organisation best known as the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) began as a loose group of supporters of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) around 1970. Throughout its history this organisation has had various names: the Socialist Review Group (1970-1972), Socialist Workers League (1972-1974), Socialist Workers Party (1974-1989), Democratic Socialist Party (1989-2003) and Democratic Socialist Perspective (2003-dissolved in 2010).
The first issue of Direct Action was published by the Socialist Youth Alliance in September 1970. The long-running newspaper was then produced by the Socialist Workers League / Socialist Workers Party until 1990.
The party was closely aligned to the Jack Barnes-led U.S. Socialist Workers Party and lined up with its Leninist-Trotskyist Tendency / Faction within the USFI. Under the influence of the Nicaraguan revolution of 1979, the Australian SWP started moving away from what it considered to be Trotskyism. In August 1985 the SWP disaffiliated from the USFI and pursued a “Castroist” orientation, while at the same time turning towards the newly-formed Nuclear Disarmament Party and the environmental / green movement.
The collapse of Stalinism led to the SWP changing its name to the Democratic Socialist Party in 1989. In 1990 the DSP launched Green Left Weekly as “a paper by and for the green and progressive movement”.
In 2001 the DSP and several other socialist groups formed the Socialist Alliance. While initially an electoral coalition, the DSP was aiming to form what it called a “multi-tendency socialist party”. In 2003 the DSP became a “Marxist tendency” within the Socialist Alliance, the Democratic Socialist Perspective. Within the DSP, a factional struggle broke out in 2005 around its orientation to the Socialist Alliance. This ended in 2008 with the expulsion of a minority that formed the short-lived Revolutionary Socialist Party, which later merged into Socialist Alternative in 2013.
The Democratic Socialist Perspective dissolved into the Socialist Alliance in 2010, the organisation that now sponsors Green Left Weekly.
[Early issues of Direct Action and other resources can be found at the Reason in Revolt website].
Five issues of Socialist Review were published between mid-1970 and mid-1972. The first three issues were published by a group of Trotskyists who were active in the Socialist Youth Alliance and informally known as the Socialist Review Group. The January 1972 fusion of Socialist Review supporters and the Brisbane-based Labour Action Group gave birth to the Socialist Workers League, the group responsible for publishing the two issues of Socialist Review Volume 2.
Socialist Review No. 1, May 1970
Socialist Review No. 2, August 1970
Socialist Review No. 3, October 1970
Socialist Review Vol. 2, No. 1, February 1972
Socialist Review Vol. 2, No. 2, May 1972
Socialist Worker No. 1, March 1977
Socialist Worker No. 2, May-June 1977
Socialist Worker Vol. 2, No. 1, October 1982
Socialist Worker Vol. 2, No. 2, November 1982
Socialist Worker Vol. 2, No. 3, December 1982
Socialist Worker Vol. 3, No. 1, June 1983
Socialist Worker Vol. 3, No. 2, August 1983
Socialist Worker Vol. 4, No. 1, November 1988
Socialist Worker Vol. 4, No. 2, March 1989
Socialist Worker Vol. 4, No. 3, September 1989
Democratic Socialism No. 1, December-February 1990
Democratic Socialism No. 2, March-May 1991