Editorial 2022
Celebrating May 1 International Workers Day
For all critically-thinking progressives and patriots it is clear Australia needs to free itself from US Imperialism and the local monopoly capitalist class allied to them. We need a United Front of workers, students, farmers, small business people, small and medium sized capitalists, intellectuals and all patriots for an independent Australia. This includes indigenous nations, ethnic community groups, women’s groups, the LGBTQI+ community, professionals, academics, environmentalists and conservationists, who want to free Australia from the US and their local allies. The coming together in practice of all these Australian forces can form a mighty movement to free Australia from the national humiliation of US Imperialist domination and the small, local billionaire class allied to them. A mighty peoples’ movement to form a United Front with the aim of a People’s Democratic Anti-Imperialist Republic.
Before our very eyes a new world order is developing with respect for each country’s independence, sovereignty, and nationhood, with no interference and coercion in internal affairs, and development of each country for the benefit of the people. We are also witnessing the death throes of imperialism in general and of US Imperialism in particular over a definite historical period. The doctrine of ‘American Exceptionalism’, that is the so-called God-given right to rule the world, the ‘right’ to interfere in any country, politically, militarily, economically, and culturally, to gain and maintain world hegemony is the greatest threat to humankind world-wide and in each particular country. It is the greatest threat to the world and its peoples wanting peace, independence, nationhood, sovereignty and development for the people. The reality for freedom-loving peoples all over the world and in each particular country is that US Imperialism, the secondary imperialist powers allied to them, and the bloated billionaire class benefiting from their domination are a nasty, destructive force in the world and as the old saying goes, ‘if you don’t hit it, it won’t fall’. This is the mighty task facing the world’s peoples and nations. In truth a World Anti-Imperialist United Front is forming headed by China and including all freedom-loving countries and peoples opposed to US Imperialism.
In Australia we too have the historical, mighty task to build the Peoples United Front to free Australia. We believe the working class should lead this United Front. The working class is the most numerous, well organised, far-sighted and disciplined class, and is completely willing to unite with all progressive classes, their parties and organisations for the complete liberation of Australia. The working class also seeks independence and initiative within this United Front.
To quote Mao Zedong when he and the Chinese people were dealing with the Japanese invasion and domination in the 1930s and were building the Peoples United Front for the War of Resistance Against Japan, with the Communist Party and the Kuomintang and all progressives and patriots in China:
‘To sustain a long war by long-term cooperation or, in other words, to subordinate the class struggle to the present national struggle against Japan – such is the fundamental principle of the united front. Subject to this principle, the independent character of the parties and classes and their independence and initiative within the united front should be preserved, and their essential rights should not be sacrificed to cooperation and unity, but on the contrary must be firmly upheld within certain limits. Only thus can cooperation be promoted, indeed only thus can there be any cooperation at all. Otherwise cooperation will turn into amalgamation and the united front will inevitably be sacrificed. In a struggle that is national in character, the class struggle takes the form of the national struggle, which demonstrates the identity between the two. On the one hand for a given historical period the political and economic demands of the various classes must not be such as to disrupt cooperation; on the other hand the demands of the national struggle (the need to resist Japan) should be the point of departure for all class struggle. Thus there is identity in the united front between unity and independence and between the national struggle and the class struggle.’
(Mao Zedong ‘The Question of Independence and Initiative Within the United Front – The Identity Between the National and the Class Struggle,’ November 5, 1938.)
Are Mao’s formulations applicable to Australia today? Yes they are. Although we are not militarily occupied by the US, the domination by them and their local puppets are such that these universal principles of Mao’s are applicable to Australia’s particular conditions.
To quote the Australian revolutionary and Communist, Ted Hill:
‘There is a unity of independence forces and a struggle amongst them, unity and struggle. Struggle is directed at building unity. In this whole process the Communists retain their independence and initiative. They do not seek to ram their views down the throats of other participants nor make adherence to Communism a condition of Communist participation in united struggle. However, they take their stand that Communists must retain their independence, be free to expound their own ideas, and struggle, work to win the people for their ideas. Appropriate unity and struggle are a process. All unity and no struggle is wrong and all struggle and no unity is wrong.’
(E.F. Hill ‘The Great Cause of Australian Independence, p. 140, November, 1977.)
Thus the path for the Australian working class and their allies from other classes, all progressives and patriots is illuminated by two of the world’s great theoreticians and leaders.
Our task remains to build this Peoples United Front and free Australia from US domination. In building this United Front the class struggle is subordinated to the present national struggle, or put another way the class struggle takes the form of the national struggle. Likewise ‘the demands of the national struggle’ and the need to resist the US, ‘are the point of departure for all class struggle’. These are irrefutable truths if we are to progress in the building of the United Front. Further it is essential that each of the participating parties maintains their independence and initiative within the United Front. For the working class we fight for our own class position within the United Front but respect and work with the views and positions of other classes, their political parties and organisations.
There is a country to win for genuine independence, sovereignty, nationhood and development for the benefit of the people, to free ourselves from the US and their allied imperialist powers and the small local billionaire class attached to them.
The Australian economy could be roaring along with a higher standard of living for all, if we embrace an independent outlook and the United Front to achieve it. We should have a 3 and 4 day working week, a living wage for all, best practice health and education systems, technology to benefit the people not the billionaires, a National Assembly to be proud of, including full representation of First Nations peoples, women, ethnic and all minority groups, stopping the cream of profits going to the multinational companies and the local billionaires, and the huge tax evaders like the tech companies Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook etc.
This is within the Australian people’s grasp and is our historical destiny to achieve it. And the critical foundation must be the Peoples National United Front.
