05-05-2025: There have been a series of exchanges between the Revolutionary Communist Organisation (RCO) and the Spartacist League (SL) over the question of how to build the party that the working class, in Australia and elsewhere, vitally needs. In its article Party first, then split the class[1] the RCO chide the SL for “putting the cart before the horse” with its calls to enter the Australian Labor Party (!) supposedly in order to split a supposed working-class base away from its bourgeois leadership. The RCO say that the SL is mistaken to attempt this with “no mass base of organised cadres and workers”. We would agree that the SL are losing their way, to say the least, with this tactic. Whether the aim of the SL is to join the ALP to “drive the AUKUS war hawks out of the ALP”,[2] or something else, this is straight out betrayal. The Labor Party has membership clauses denying membership to communists for a start. And there are a million other reasons why workers would reject a move to join arguably the main party of capitalist imperialism out of hand.

What comes first?

Yet it would seem that, in reality, it is the RCO who are putting the cart before the horse. The RCO state openly that the work of the RCO is the reunification of the communist left on a revolutionary program, and that this is the reconstruction of a unified communist party. The RCO is dismayed at the divided state of the so-called left in Australia and seems genuine in its desire for advancing the struggle for socialism and revolution by resolving this state of affairs. What needs to be done, according to them, is to unify the existing left on a revolutionary program and then once this mega party is established – debates about politics, positions and theories can begin. They seem to believe that the party comes first, and the politics comes later. We are afraid that this is getting things precisely upside down. All political parties and organisations start with politics, with an agreed set of political positions, ideas, aims etc. Then the organisational question – a committee, an organisation, a party – flows from that. This is doubly and triply the case for a socialist/communist/Marxist party.

What politics is the RCO putting forward for the basis of such a party? They don’t say. Just that all parties that identify as socialist agree on the programmatic basis for a workers’ revolution, so their positions and their theories should stay in the background. But if this was the case, a unification of all left parties would have already happened decades ago. It hasn’t happened because there are different, and very concrete, political positions amongst them. Though unfortunately, when it comes to the crunch many of them join together on the same side of the class barricades – and often the wrong side. The different political parties on the left, small as they are, represent different class positions on the political spectrum. This unfortunately often includes positions of the middle classes.

Yes, this state of affairs is not helpful for the working class politically, and yes, a strong unified workers’ party (or a communist party as emphasised by the RCO) is one of the aims of the socialist movement. But did the Bolsheviks in Russia in the early 20^th century form their party by unifying the existing left parties programmatically first – and worry about politics later? Not on your nelly. In fact, this was never achieved. The October revolution soon exposed the Mensheviks, SRs and others as counter-revolutionary and not even progressive at all. Lenin recognised this very early, Trotsky recognised this much later. Luckily they came together politically precisely at the time when a revolutionary situation presented itself.  The Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, SRs and a host of others could not unify on a programmatic basis because they had vastly different politics as soon as it was posed in a concrete sense. As soon as the question of state power arose, only the Bolsheviks defended it. Of course, the Bolsheviks assumed power with the Left SRs – only for the left SRs to take up arms against the new Soviet Republic within six months. A program flows from politics – not the other way around.

Left Unity

The RCO correctly criticises the Socialist Alliance for seeking unity on a reformist program. The author of these lines made the mistake of building the Socialist Alliance while trying to ignore the lowest common denominator politics which created strong tendencies towards (even more) reformism. Today, however, the RCO wants to unite with the Socialist Alliance and other left parties with similar politics to the reformist Socialist Alliance !  So how can reformist parties agree on a revolutionary program?    The Socialist Alliance said left unity is a good thing, so everyone should join in. The RCO says left unity is necessary, so everyone should join in.  The difference?  RCO says that a program comes first, believing that all left parties are subjectively revolutionary, if only they put building a united communist party first. But again, what is the politics which is the basis for this unity? The RCO doesn’t say.

In Queensland, the RCO has called for a Socialist Electoral Front to run in future elections, aimed at all socialists and communists and the branches of Socialist Alternative, Socialist Alliance and the Communist Party of Australia.[3] We may well be in favour depending on the common political positions put forward. On what major issues should this electoral front stand? What stance should this front take towards the disastrous cost of living crisis, the impending world war and other wars, ecological collapse, economic ruin and more? The RCO doesn’t say. All of the existing self-described socialist/communist parties would agree that action is urgently needed, but all of them have different ideas about what should be done concretely about them. An electoral front of various individuals and parties cannot be established without some political positions being agreed – but there are none.

The RCO also calls for a joint electoral ticket on a federal basis. They critique Socialist Alternative for organising the “Marxism” conference each year in Melbourne which draws around a thousand people – but does not welcome other left parties.[4] Perhaps this is frustrating, but Socialist Alternative are trying to build their party through their conference. It may be strange that Socialist Alternative do not wish to debate other left parties over questions of political positions, but perhaps this reveals quite a bit about Socialist Alternative. The RCO strains at the leash in calling for all of these parties (and other independent socialists) to join forces organizationally (or programmatically) and then battle out politics and ideology from that point onwards. But for this to happen, there would have to be a certain political framework that all agree on, or a set of political parameters which all participants agree cannot be broken. And in fact, we would say that there is already a set of broad positions which left parties such as the RCO, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Alliance, the Communist Party of Australia and others already agree on. We would suggest this is what might be termed the reformist left Overton window.

 War and civil war

The RCO, Socialist Alternative and Socialist Alliance, to one degree or another – all agree on regime change in Russia, China and Iran. This means imperialist war. They can claim that they are for a workers’ revolution in these major states, not the regime change that Washington wants to achieve – but in practice this does not count for much at all. With the very partial exception of the CPA, and against their own intentions, such positions are on the wrong side of the class barricades. No matter what critiques one may have in relation to the governments of Russia, China and Iran, as long as imperialism exists, regime change will be prosecuted against non-imperialist states. And here again, there is political unity in the negative – as the RCO, Socialist Alternative and Socialist Alliance would basically agree that Russia and China (and perhaps Iran) are “imperialist”. We would argue such positions are a betrayal of the international working class, to say the least.

One major issue that united the RCO, Socialist Alternative and Socialist Alliance and virtually every single self-described left party was the “Covid” civil war from 2020 to 2022. To be sure, the RCO formed after the severe “Covid” political repression was released, but their mentions of it indicate that they stood with the so-called left on the fraudulent “pandemic”. Almost every single left tendency effectively merged with the capitalist state that they had sworn they oppose, in most cases for four decades or more. The Workers League was an exception to this unfortunate rule. The Trotskyist Platform, the Spartacist League (although coming up with a half-hearted anti-lockdown position 12 months after the fact), Socialist Action, the CPA, the CPA-ML, the Australian Communist Party, Solidarity, the Socialist Equality Party and others – all capitulated in a giant way in March 2020.[5] This was marching into war with imperialism, far from fighting against it. This betrayal arguably surpassed that of August 4, 1914, when the German Social Democrats and many others internationally declared themselves for “their own” ruling class during the great slaughter of World War I. The working class will never forget how these “revolutionaries” switched to the side of the ruling class at the first sign of a major conflict.

The RCO, as an aside, is remarkably abstentionist on the question of Stalinism vs Trotskyism. They do not appear to identify themselves either way and are perhaps attempting to find a “third way”. Some parties have tried to declare themselves Marxist without showing their hand, but it is difficult to maintain this position for any length of time. The RCO seem to have knowledge of Stalinism/Maoism and Trotskyism, and even at times raise very Trotskyist sounding demands. But on this vital question which has divided socialists and communists since 1924, the RCO are silent.[6] Perhaps this is their intention, perhaps they want to remain true to their own interpretation of Marxism. Of course there are dozens of different interpretations of both Stalinism and Trotskyism, and hundreds of different parties around the world as a result. Perhaps this is a debate the RCO believes can be left until later, or can be left until the united communist party forms, like many others.

Politics is, to a large extent, the search for allies – this much is true. We do not believe that our own organisation will, at a certain point during the revolution, become enormously popular because workers suddenly discover our “correct line”. On the contrary, there will likely be many splits, fusions and regroupments along the way to a workers’ (or communist) party, and well before a revolution. But at each step, politics has to come first. Common political positions have to be established, areas where all are definitively on the same side of the class barricades, and then organisational forms – committees, organisations, and ultimately Leninist vanguard parties – can be formed. The world political situation is urgent, no doubt.  So, we say politics first, then the party – then revolution.

Workers League

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@protonmail.com

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[1] www.partisanmagazine.org/2025/02/06/party-first-then-split-the-class/ (30-04-2025)

[2] www.iclfi.org/pubs/rb/1/aukus (30-04-2025)

[3] www.partisanmagazine.org/2025/02/05/open-letter-on-a-socialist-electoral-front-in-queensland/ (30-04-2025)

[4] www.partisanmagazine.org/2025/01/28/for-a-left-electoral-ticket-in-2025/ (30-04-2025)

[5] www.redfireonline.com/2021/11/11/australian-totalitarianism-the-yield-of-left-betrayal/ (30-04-2025)

[6] www.revcomorg.info/ (30-04-2025)