May Day 2023
Yes, opposition by the Australian people to U.S. Imperialism and allied local monopoly capital is building. A significant section of the Australian bourgeoisie is quite alarmed by developments. The potential to build a United Front of classes opposed to U.S. imperialism and their local supporters is growing.
A prominent feature is that, over many decades in Australia and worldwide, the U.S. imperialists are testing what they can get away with and, like all reactionaries, they make trouble, get defeated and make trouble again.
As the old saying goes ‘if you don’t hit it, it won’t fall’. The task of the Australian people is to get organised. The working class and their mass organisations is slowly rousing.
At this stage, vocal opposition leadership is mainly from progressive sections of the bourgeoisie opposed to U.S. domination. Thus there is plenty of scope for a United Front. The working class and their mass organisations are increasingly giving more leadership and we need to struggle for this and the working class’s point of view.
Opposition is slowly building against U.S. domination and AUKUS. Meetings have occurred across Australia. We need the working class and their mass organisations, especially the trade unions, to give more leadership to the struggle and not just leave it to progressive sections of the bourgeoisie.
Developments in Europe are Instructive
With the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Germany, a U.S.-occupied country, has been taught to remember who is the top dog and their subordinate/lackey position. The U.S. blew up the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea that stretch from Russia to Germany in September 2022. And now U.S.gas multinationals sell gas to Germany and the rest of Europe at 3-4 times the price of Russian gas.
Germany, the supposed ‘leader’ and the biggest economy of the European Union, is humiliated with its lack of sovereignty. This is how the U.S. treats its ‘allies’ or puppet regimes. U.S. journalist, Seymour Hersh, has helped to expose this and he has thus become an embarrassment to the US war machine.
With 50,000 U.S./NATO troops occupying their country since 1945, Germany’s real ‘puppet’ government is exposed, and the facade of ‘democracy’ is glaringly obvious. Likewise Italy has also been occupied by U.S. troops since 1943, Japan since 1945 and South Korea since 1950. Consequently German, Italian, Japanese and South Korean multinationals are only permitted to operate in the U.S. ‘Rules Based Order’ if they comply with the U.S. line. And this is the heart of the matter why Germany is powerless to respond against the U.S. for the sabotage of their gas supplies and the outrageous attack on their sovereignty.
Thus the U.S.imperialists and their European and Asian subordinates carry out the dictates of their multinationals and the financial/industrial oligarchy of the billionaires.
Problems of the ‘Left’ in the United Front
Some people on the so-called ‘Left’ are active in the Independence struggle but pose some problems for the working class and therefore the United Front. As time goes on their ‘left’ opportunism becomes more obvious and shows up distinctly as an infantile disorder and rigid dogmatism. It has led them to a complete dead-end, instead of Marxism being dynamic and illuminating the path ahead in Australia.
They fail to see basic things such as who their real friends are, e.g. China and fail to see that Australia sits in the worldwide stream of countries seeking to strengthen nationhood, independence, sovereignty, and sustainable development for the benefit of the people. They fail to identify U.S. hegemony as the primary enemy and preposterously identify China as on par with the U.S. and as a rising imperialist power.
Further they don’t seek truth from facts. They only pay lip service to revolution by stages and to unite all classes against U.S. imperialism, its imperialist allies and against local monopoly capitalism. They fail to recognise the importance in Australian conditions of a first stage of a Peoples Democratic Anti-Imperialist Stage. With their misguided idealism they seek to jump a whole stage of revolution and go straight to the overthrow of capitalism and in their impatience go straight to socialism.
In their world view they don’t see the world as it really is but rather the way they would like it to be. This is subjectivism and idealist immaturity and divorced from reality. This type of infantile thinking potentially sets back the great cause of independence and socialism. The factual situation requires maturity, objectivity and clear thinking or be left floundering behind the people.
Working within a United Front requires tact, respect, subtlety and skill. It is not helpful to disseminate infantile, dogmatic ideas that damage the great potential of a United Front in the People’s Democratic Anti-Imperialist Stage.
Building the United Front
Progressive academics, journalists, professionals, former public servants, diplomats and politicians through independent publications such as John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations, and other publications, are putting a lot of work into building a United Front which overall is basically good. But they are also contending hard for their type of leadership, speaking for a very worried section of the bourgeoisie. The working class, the majority class, the most organised, determined, revolutionary and disciplined class, and its mass organisations such as trade unions, is finding its voice, leadership and demonstrating concrete actions too within this United Front.
Likewise IPAN, the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network. They are quoting Menadue and Pearls and Irritations’ authors substantially. The fact they are promoting Menadue’s/Keating’s line that China has neither the intent nor the capability to take over the region is significant. It shows that in practice they are capable of working within a United Front against U.S. Imperialism and local monopoly capitalism allied to the U.S. In reality they are identifying the main enemy of the people. Amongst them are many workers and trade unionists who are showing the way forward to resisting U.S. domination and struggling for Independence.
Our strategy of the United Front against U.S. imperialism and their local hangers-on is bearing fruit because it is based on the factual situation in Australia. That is, the critical importance of uniting everyone who can be united against the main enemy, (but at the same time struggling for the proletarian and the peoples’ line. Can we walk and chew gum at the same time? Of course we can.)
The latest development is the basing of U.S. nuclear-armed bombers at Tindal air base near Darwin, in addition to the 2500 U.S. troops stationed at barracks in Darwin, and the Pine Gap spy base near Alice Springs. The U.S. is also planning a nuclear-armed submarine base in Australia. These bases are a threat to Australia’s sovereignty, and not only a threat to China’s, but more so for the sovereignty of East Timor, PNG, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan and all of ASEAN and the Pacific island countries who are in close proximity. This is intimidation. Toe the U.S. line or else. Opposition to these U.S. stand over moves will grow in the region and in Australia. Give it 5-10 years and the opposition to the U.S. bases in Australia and externally will become more intense and antagonistic.
Recent Washington Post articles demonstrate the embedding of U.S.military personnel in the upper echelon of the Australian Defence Force, the Department of Defence and the associated think tanks, and their links with US arms manufacturers. This has been rightly called a move to fascism. The Washington Post articles demonstrate one section of the U.S. ruling class must be deeply concerned about the move to fascism by other sections. Hence the exposure by the Washington Post articles. And one patriotic section of the Australian bourgeoisie is likewise very alarmed at the moves to fascism in Australia and they are in intense struggle for their type of Australian independence.
Conclusion
Australia sits in the world-wide stream of countries seeking to strengthen nationhood, independence, sovereignty and sustainable development for the people. There is worldwide struggle for a multipolar world and an end to U.S. hegemony and domination. The primary enemy of the Australian people is U.S. Imperialism, their subservient Imperialist allies and the local monopoly class cling-ons.
In the struggle to rid Australia of U.S. domination, and achieve true independence, a United Front of all patriotic classes is essential. Naturally there is struggle within this United Front as to which class is to lead, or put another way, within a coalition of classes there is struggle for whose views and actions will prevail. This is healthy if it is kept within certain bounds and does not jeopardise the United Front against U.S. Imperialism, which of course is the MAIN THING.
Ways can be found to accommodate all classes and their representatives’ positions within reason, provided the main objective is primary and differences are subordinate. Further some allies in the United Front may be only temporary or partly conditional but our mantra should be to unite all who can be united against the U.S. even for a limited period of time.
Finally, in regard to nuclear weapons and WWIII, to paraphrase the Chinese leader Mao Zedong, ‘Why should we be afraid? After WWI the world had the Russian Revolution, after WWII we had the Chinese Revolution and many revolutions in many countries to overthrow colonialism, so if the imperialists headed by the U.S. dare to bring on WWIII it will be the end of them’.
There is a world to win by ending US Hegemony. In Australia there is an independent country to win – and A PEOPLES’ DEMOCRATIC ANTI-IMPERIALIST REPUBLIC!
