Socialist Alternative Politics

The SAP traces back its roots to the beginning of the Trotskyist movement in the Netherlands. In 1945 the Revolutionary Communist Party was founded as the Dutch member of the Fourth International.[1] However the party was unsuccessful as an independent party and was disbanded in 1952. The former RCP members opted for an entryist tactic in the PvdA. They formed the Social Democratic Centre (SDC) as an internal pressure group to move the PvdA leftwards. However the SDC membership was expelled from the PvdA in 1959.[2]

This severely weakened the Dutch section of the Fourth International. Their entryist strategy was expanded to include other leftwing parties and organizations, mainly the Socialist Workers Party (Dutch: Socialistische Werkerspartij), the Workers' Youth Central (youth movement of the NVV ) and later the Pacifist Socialist Party (PSP).[3] Within the PSP it formed the Proletarian Left (PL) group. The PL and the PSP leadership clashed on the formation of a broad progressive coalition together with the PvdA and the progressive Political Party of Radicals (PPR). The PL was opposed of the participation of the PSP in this coalition, which eventually led to a split between PL and the PSP in 1972.[4]

The PL decided to form a new openly Trotskyist "revolutionary workers' vanguard party". At this point the PL had about 300 members.[5] The party was originally called Communist League-Proletarian Left (Dutch: Kommunistenbond- Proletarisch Links, KB-PL). In 1974 the party changed its name to International Communist League (Dutch: Internationale Kommunistenbond, IKB) and formally re-affiliated with the Fourth International. In response to the change in course of the Fourth International, which with the 'turn to industry' wanted to focus more on the organizing of industrial workers the IKB again changed its name to the Socialist Workers Party (Dutch: Socialistische Arbeiderspartij) in 1983.[6]

In the late 1980s the entire Dutch non-social democratic left was in decline. This caused a major push for left unity, which eventually led to the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN), the PSP, the PPR and the non-parliamentary Evangelical People's Party (EVP) to at first form a common election list and later merged to form a new political party: GreenLeft. The SAP was excluded from these unity talks.[7]

In the early 2000s the SAP discussed multiple strategies to regain relevance. Attempts to merge with the International Socialists (IS) did not succeed and many member left the organization to join other leftwing parties. Membership numbers dwindled to about 40.[8] It was decided that the group could no longer consider itself a 'party' and therefore was renamed Socialist Alternative Politics (Dutch: Socialistische Alternatieve Politiek). The paper version of their magazine Grenzeloos (Borderless) was canceled in 2013.[9]

The SAP published a newspaper Klassenstrijd which in 1992 was renamed to Grenzeloos. The SAP also for a time had an affiliated youth wing called Rebel. Rebel fizzled out in the late 1990s.