A. That is above all an economic question, that is, how long the populabe corrupted by an artificial tion can New Canadian org BARRY WEISLEDER A NEW national organization to unite revolutionary socialists in English Canada was formed at a convention held in Toronto, November 22-24, 1985.
The Alliance for Socialist Action [ASA] is the result of the fusion of four socialist groups: the Socialist Workers Collective (Toronto), the Socialist Action Collective (Winnipeg), the Socialist and Feminist Action Collective (Edmonton), and the Socialist Action Collective (Vancouver).
The new organisation is comprised of activists from the feminist, gay liberation and international solidarity movements; of active trade unionists, students and left-wing members of the New Democratic Party (the mass labour party in English Canada).
ASA members are already playing a leading role in the abortion rights and anti-intervention movements in several cities.
But without an activist organization based on a genuinely revolutionary programme, the ASA representatives stressed, socialists remain "chained to the treadmill of reformism" , with no real prospect for building a movement for fundamental change.
In three days of deliberations, which capped a six month oral and written pre-convention discussion period, the gathering of the rank and file sponsoring groups adopted a Statement of Principles, Basis of Unity, Political Resolution, Norms and Organization document, Tasks and Perspectives, and a Constitution.
The convention instructed its elected National Committee to edit and publish all of these documents early in 1986. The NC, which is composed equally of women and men from across the country, is the leadership body that will meet at regular intervals between conventions of the ASA.
Socialists can, on occasion, provide exemplary leadership to mass struggles even in periods of general working class retreat, and in this way attempt maintenance of the living standard. No one knows the extent of our debts in the East, and it cannot be foreseen how long the Kremlin will be prepared to bear the burden of the satellite countries. Without external changes, say, reforms in the Soviet Union, the present situation could last another ten or fifteen years. • anisation founded on the tractionate infience to bea to bring a positive influence to bear on the traditional organizations of our class.
Herein lies some of the motivation behind the ASA convention decision to help spread and coordinate across the country the work of two key social movement campaigns: the campaign for women's reproductive rights and to defend the Morgentaler abortion clinic; and the campaign against United States' intervention in Central America and the Caribbean.
The ASA will also launch a modest publication to serve as a vehicle for its socialist analysis and views as well as to provide vital information on struggles and campaigns in the interest of the working people. The newsprint bi-monthly will be called Socialist Challenge - for Socialist and Feminist Action, with its first issue scheduled to appear before March 8, International Women's Day.
Although the ASA exists only in English Canada, it aspires to be a part of the process of building a Pan-Canadian revolutionary workers' party. The next step along the long road towards that goal is to unite revolutionary socialists today living in Quebec and English Canada.
For that reason a central priority of the ASA is fusion with the Quebec Trotskyist organization Gauche Socialiste. The leadership of the GS has expressed agreement with this objective and will propose to the
February convention of that organization that a membership-wide discussion be opened up on the question of building a Pan-Canadian organization.
The ASA is committed to the construction of the Fourth International, now active in over 45 countries fighting to establish a revolutionary Marxist alternative to Stalinism, social democracy and petty bourgeois nationalism. Although links with the FI had previously been made, the ASA convention voted to apply for formal sympathizing organization status for the ASA within the International - a status the Gauche Socialiste was given one year ago.
International Viewpoint 27 January 1986