Australia's Fight For Socialism
Written By: Bob Briton
Background
The eradication of poverty has been a principal goal of the Communist movement from its inception. Of course, victory over poverty is not the only objective of the Communist movement. It aims to achieve a classless society in which every person is empowered to lead a creative and fulfilling life. The world has changed markedly in the one hundred and fifty plus years that have transpired since the publication of the Communist Manifesto, but the scourges of poverty, inequality and exploitation remain. During that historical period, socialist societies led by Communist parties have been established and for those parties, the overcoming of poverty has become a question over which they have direct political influence. In capitalist countries, the challenge for Communists is to lead revolutionary forces to establish socialism. Only in those conditions can a lasting solution to the problem of absolute and relative poverty be secured.
In the developed capitalist countries, there are special challenges for Communist parties. As noted by Lenin over one hundred years ago, as a result of the establishment of an extended, world-wide system of production and markets and the super-exploitation of the colonial countries, the ruling classes of the imperialist countries were able to create more stable secure political bases for themselves in the metropolises of the global system of imperialism. They did this by making concessions to determined popular resistance and co-opting the leadership of those movements to support a more “generous” capitalism. Social democracy was born.
Economic and ideological competition with the socialist world accelerated this trend towards concessions to the demands of the working class. After WW2, well-resourced public institutions for the provision of health, education and pensions of various types were founded. The creation of the “welfare state” did blunt class struggle to a degree and many, including some in the international Communist movement, came to believe that capitalism had arrived at a new, permanent stable stage. The Communist movement had become redundant and socialist revolution was necessary only in what is called variously the “global south”, the “third world”, the “underdeveloped” colonial and neo-colonial countries. Through socialist revolution, workers and other exploited people in those countries could secure what their counterparts in the “developed” countries had already achieved. Socialist revolution may still be necessary to achieve this goal in the “global south” but is irrelevant to relatively privileged populations in countries like Australia.
“The notion that workers and employers could arrive at a mutually beneficial deal and that justice was represented by the concept of “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” was embedded in the labour movement from its foundation”
The idiocy of this stance has been exposed by the developments of recent times. The concerted economic and ideological assault on socialism from the 1980s onwards led to the collapse of the socialist world. The affect on those countries in terms of the levels of poverty has been devastating. The tragedy also impacted workers and other exploited people in the capitalist world, including the more developed countries. In the perceived absence of a strong ideological alternative, a rolling back of the gains made during the previous century began. Public assets and services were privatised. The inflated cost of these was passed onto workers and their families. Unions were pushed out of workplaces and jobs became more insecure. An ideological assault on the ideas of socialism, collective endeavour and solidarity was stepped up. The disorienting effect of this is still being felt, particularly in the more developed capitalist countries including Australia.
The Australian Context
Australia was long considered by citizens and others as the “lucky country”. It is resource rich and its working class managed, through vigorous struggle, to secure a relatively high standard of living and significant trade union rights along with a strong social welfare “safety net”. Australia’s Aboriginal population, however, did not benefit from these gains and many migrant workers had to battle to partake in the “Australian dream”.
Another limiting factor in the struggle against poverty has been the strong hold of social democratic ideas on the Australian working class. The notion that workers and employers could arrive at a mutually beneficial deal and that justice was represented by the concept of “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” was embedded in the labour movement from its foundation. The defeat of the great strikes of the 1890s led many in the leadership of the trade union movement to believe that relief from the predations of the capitalist class could be achieved by parliamentary means. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) was born at this time with this thinking in mind.
Despite the adoption of a “Socialisation objective” by most trade unions and the ALP, no serious questioning of the capitalist foundations of the society and economy has been entered into. Since the 1980s, there has been a further ideological deterioration of the organised labour movement as a result of the openly class collaborationist “Prices and Incomes Accord” between the unions, employers and government of the country.
That pact for industrial “peace” is now defunct but there has been no resurgence in the general level of militancy in the trade unions. Successive Labor and conservative Coalition governments have tightened the restrictions on trade union activity and effectiveness. Levels of trade union membership dropped sharply as a consequence. Australia once had the highest level of union membership in the capitalist world. It is now one of the lowest, falling from 51 percent of workers in 1976 to 14 percent in 2016.(1) At the same time, Australia has undergone deindustrialisation and de-skilling as a result of the accelerated capitalist globalisation carried out in the past several decades.
“The emphasis changed to protest where bolder and bolder tactics were put into practice. They helped with day-to-day problems regarding accommodation and access to welfare”
The results of these developments have been a marked increase in historically high levels of poverty suffered by Australians, greater unemployment and homelessness. The effects of this have been felt most severely by the youth, the aged, migrants and the Indigenous peoples of the country. Official figures for these scourges are troubling but, at the same time, conservative. For example, a person obtaining even one hour of paid work per week is not categorised as unemployed.
The expectations of Australians around jobs with decent pay and conditions, secure accommodation and access to quality public services have lowered considerably. The growth of the “informal” sector of the labour market, the predominance of short-term work contracts and even “zero hour” contracts has further blunted trade union activity. The OECD estimates that roughly 40 percent of all employment in Australia is now “non-standard”.(2) Inflated housing prices mean that most Australians are locked out of home ownership. Young people who, in times gone by, would have looked forward to living in a home of their own are now forced into shared accommodation. Homelessness blights the country’s major cities with people living outdoors or in very temporary and unsatisfactory circumstances such as in vehicles or “couch surfing” in the homes of friends. Over 116,000 Australians do not have shelter of their own.(3)
Re-living Experiences – Rediscovering Tactics
The Australian working class, along with the working class of other developed western capitalist countries, has experienced these sorts of conditions before. These pressures have been felt during the various downturns in the global capitalist economy, most notably during the Great Depression of 1929 to 1939. The Depression hit Australia hard and posed a number of challenges to the young Communist Party, which was founded on the 30th of October, 1920.
“The emphasis changed to protest where bolder and bolder tactics were put into practice. They helped with day-to-day problems regarding accommodation and access to welfare”
Like all parties of the Third International, the Australian party prioritised its work among the organised sections of the industrial working class. A problem in this approach came with the mass unemployment that accompanied the Great Depression. The trade unions had much reduced capacity to press the employers for improved wages and conditions and union membership declined. Even in these conditions, the Communist Party made headway with a group known as the Militant Minority that sought to weaken the grip of social democrat thinking on the union movement. The Militant Minority was able to organise workers engaged on public works projects in return for unemployment payments. These workers were thought to have little or no leverage to improve their fortunes but, with Communist leadership, they did precisely that.
The Party was also the force behind the establishment of the Workers’ Defence Corps, which was bloodied in the strike struggles on the coalfields of the country:
“The struggle on the coal fields sharpened: arrests, batonings and jailings became commonplace under the Scullin Government. In [the state of] New South Wales the Nationalists, led by Thomas Bavin, were in power. This government attempted to place scabs in the mines. The miners marched to the scab pits at Rothbury to induce the non-unionists to cease work. It was in this demonstration that the police opened fire with their revolvers, killing Norman Brown and wounding several others. The Party and militant miners began to organise Workers’ Defence Corps to protect themselves from such violence. The Party slogan, “All Out” and its struggle for a general stoppage were sabotaged by the reformist leaders, who ultimately forced the miners to capitulate and return to work on the terms of the government and coal owners.”(4)
The greatest successes in this period, however, were achieved in localities working among the workers cast off by the economic crisis. Free speech campaigns, resistance to evictions and the treatment of the unemployed became the major preoccupations of the Party at that time. This experience was common to many contemporary Communist Parties in developed capitalist countries.
There is a substantial body of literature about the struggles of the Party in this period. The following from long time Party General Secretary, Lance Sharkey, gives a taste of the flavour of the times:
“In every city and large industrial town there were unemployed meetings and demonstrations. Lang was now in office in New South Wales (NSW), and there were besides the Federal Labor Government, Labor administrations in Victoria (Hogan), South Australia (Hill), Tasmania and NSW. These Labor governments commenced a reign of terror against the unemployed. Processions of the unemployed were everywhere batoned, and anti-evictionists who barricaded themselves in the homes of threatened workers were forcibly ejected by the police with batons, and sometimes drawn revolvers. Numbers were injured in these conflicts. Lang excelled in this bashing of the unemployed, and there were more workers in jail for political offences at this period and under Lang than ever before in NSW, Hogan and Hill vied with Lang in violence against the workless as did the [conservative] United Australia Party governments of Queensland and Western Australia. However, concessions were often won, and the Party won wide recognition among the workers and grew rapidly as a result of its activity among the unemployed.”(5)
The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was the jewel in the crown of the Communist International in the 1920s. They too, had a strategy of organising in larger workplaces to convert them into “fortresses of Communism”. Unemployment had the same impact on the practice of the KPD as it had on the CPA. The decimation of the union movement led to a shift to work in localities where the precariously employed and unemployed lived. The emphasis changed to protest where bolder and bolder tactics were put into practice. They helped with day-to-day problems regarding accommodation and access to welfare.
At the same time, the KPD obliged to organise on a mass scale to defend the movement against fascist paramilitary terrorism, chiefly from Nazi Stormtroopers (Sturmabteilung). Australia had a home grown far-right militarist group, the New Guard, but it did not present the same existential threat posed by the Nazis. This is not to diminish the struggles against this fascist formation in Australia.
“Australia has far-right populist groups at work seeking to attract shock troops among disillusioned young males. They don’t have mass appeal as yet and have not been able to build the local presence enjoyed by some European counterparts”
“The New Guards were everywhere attacking workers’ meetings, assaulting speakers and starting riots. The Workers’ Defence Corps, which had developed out of the unemployed and anti-eviction fights, took up the challenge and fought and repelled the New Guard attacks and finally drove them from the streets. The Langites [supporters of populist NSW Premier Jack Lang], who were always splitters and had tried to destroy the unity of the unemployed by setting up their own organisations, also issued a slogan of building a Labor Army under their control to oppose the fascists. Instead of united front tactics with the Labor Army, instead of seizing the opportunity for the organisation of the vast masses behind Lang and bringing them into the fight against the New Guard and the bourgeoisie, the Party opposed the formation of the Labor Army.” - Ernie Campbell(6)
In modern times, some large Communist parties have retreated from positions they previously held in the community. The CPA, influenced by the revisionism known as “Euro-Communism”, took up all manner of causes with less and less relevance to poorer working-class people. In Italy, the once mighty original PCI vacated the local scene to be replaced by fascist groups such as Casa Pound. Like the group before them, this organisation provides material aid, but to Italians only and not to migrants. A similar role is played by Golden Dawn despite the presence of the large and influential Communist Party of Greece. The origins of the resources required by these fascist groups and the official protection of them is suspicious and troubling.
Australia has far-right populist groups at work seeking to attract shock troops among disillusioned young males. They don’t have mass appeal as yet and have not been able to build the local presence enjoyed by some European counterparts. Nevertheless, they do maintain two gyms, one in Melbourne and one in Sydney (the “Lads’ Clubs”) from which they preach their toxic message. Other more-or-less unstable organisations spring up from time to time.
By and large, the Communist movement in developed countries, faced with reduced capacity to organise among the working class, has failed to adjust its tactics and engage the workers cast off by the system in their communities. Increasingly they have taken up causes that begin with words and end with words or gestures. Generally, Communist parties in the developed capitalist countries are losing or have lost their reputation among the population as practical front-rank fighters against oppression and poverty.
“For too long the parties in question have mouthed slogans of building the Party in the workplace, knowing full well there is little or no prospect of that happening in the foreseeable future”
Two Roads – Change or Oblivion
The Communist parties in developed western countries have two choices – learn from the experience of the movement during the last global crisis and update it creatively or face irrelevance and oblivion. The failure of the KPD to avert fascism despite its monumental efforts is worthy of deeper study. Conditions in Australia and Germany are very different and the impact of the Great Depression on workers was more extreme than today, but the similarities should prompt a reconsideration of tactics in response.
“The Communist parties have far more down-to-earth work to do, they have to manage this temporary refocus to help ensure basic means of survival and physical self-defence”
Communist parties in developed countries should re-focus to prioritise the workers pushed to the margins of society and organise around the satisfaction of their most basic needs. This must be done in the districts in which they live. For too long the parties in question have mouthed slogans of building the Party in the workplace, knowing full well there is little or no prospect of that happening in the foreseeable future. This objective should not be relinquished but a more immediate practical task confronts us.
The alternative to taking up issues forcing people into poverty is to join relatively pointless debates about historical events and figures and non-class approaches to real issues of discrimination. Parties could engage in these debates and base their work in inner urban areas and on university campuses. They will be forced to be reactive to the latest, corporate media driven fads such as the Universal Basic Income and the so-called Jobs Guarantee of the Modern Monetary Theorists embedded in the movement for a “Green New Deal”.
This would be death for the Communist movement in developed capitalist countries. In the face of increased marginalisation of masses of workers, hunger, homelessness, a drift to quasi-fascist authoritarianism and militarised policing, the Communist parties have far more down-to-earth work to do. They have to manage this temporary refocus to help ensure basic means of survival and physical self-defence.
The Australian Communist Party
The Australian Communist Party was founded in response to the failure of the Communist movement in this country to take up these challenges. The other Communist parties are pursuing a course that has led to a sharp decline in their size and influence. Pursuing what we believe are sound tactics, the ACP has grown strongly and steadily, notably among youth experiencing the sorts of hardship noted in this paper.
The ACP is limited at this stage by its size but already it organises free food distribution to the homeless in four Australian state capitals. It has plans to expand the type of services it provides and to further politicise its presence in the course of these efforts. This work is in addition to the more general propaganda efforts of the party and other roles carried out in support of groups defending the most oppressed in society. Where possible, and despite obstacles, members are active in building and activating their trade unions.
We are not satisfied with the impact of our work so far. It must be expanded many times over to make the impact we believe it can have on the fortunes of the Communist movement here. Early indications are very promising and nothing we observe from the trajectory being followed by others would lead us to change course at this stage.
So, these are what we believe are the pressing tasks before the Communist movement in developed capitalist countries in regard to combatting poverty at present and why it needs to reorient its work. We need to win the confidence of people that we are truly concerned about their difficult circumstances and not simply preaching about a socialist society towards which we take no practical steps.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1819/UnionMembership
2 https://www.actu.org.au/media/1033868/insecure-work_final-18052018-final.pdf
3 https://www.homelessnessaustralia.org.au/about/homelessness-statistics
4 E. W. Campbell History of the Australian Labor Movement - A Marxist Interpretation, 1945
5 L.L. Sharkey, An Outline History of the Australian Communist Party
6 E. W. Campbell History of the Australian Labor Movement - A Marxist Interpretation, 1945