2022: For Australian Independence and Socialism – Against War and Fascism

 Written by: CPA (M-L) on 1 January 2022

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) greets its friends and supporters – here and internationally – on New Year’s Day 2022.

Despite all the difficulties of the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, our members have remained committed to the fight for anti-imperialist independence and socialism, engaging in activities across a broad range of issues. The deplorable AUKUS arrangement has provided a particular spur to a mass movement of opposition to Australian subservience to US imperialism. 

China and the United States are global rivals, but their rivalry in the Indo-Pacific region is particularly acute. It is a region in which we are centrally located. China’s expansion is conducted largely through its main area of strength, the economic area, whilst US imperialism pushes back politically and militarily. US agents of influence in Australian media and political circles sing in chorus of the “threat from an increasingly aggressive China” and talk up the prospects of war. Defence Minister Dutton, in particular, is effectively a national traitor with an acknowledged adherence to the US as a foreign power. The majority of Australians do not want war with China, yet Dutton pushes us in that direction so as to serve his US masters. The task of frustrating the war plans of US imperialism and its Australian servants is of growing importance.

Fascism presents threats to the democratic rights fought for and won in the great working class struggles of the past. Fascism does not need to enter the stage wearing a crooked cross and a funny little moustache. Its characteristic is the use by the state of open repression in the place of the pretense that there is a democracy that works for the people. A licorice allsorts of right-wing groups has successfully mobilised around grievances associated with measures introduced to protect the population against Covid-19. Street thugs are a part of the armoury of fascism, but its big guns are in the corporate sector and its political parties. They constantly discuss ways to restrict and confine the struggles of the people. Legal restrictions on democratic rights are the essence of fascist measures that the people must mobilise to defeat.

A characteristic of capitalism is social division along class lines. In recent times, the gap between rich and poor has grown. The workers have been kept at stagnant levels of wages. Many have lost job security and its associated rights and have had to become “independent contractors” and gig workers. It compels people to find ways to organise and fight. New ways of conducting class struggle emerge. 

There is still the illusion that we can “learn to live with capitalism”.  Careers in the hierarchy of the union movement and the Labor Party are built on this illusion. We need to more vigorously champion the need to consign capitalism to the past, and to build support for the people’s own society, socialism.

One of the lessons of Covid-19, emphasised by some of the epidemiologists, is the power and necessity of collective action. Vaccinations, mask-wearing, social distancing and other measures have been overwhelmingly embraced. People have acted out of justifiable self-interest tied to the selfless responsibility of doing the right thing by family and community. Big business has pushed its own interests, telling people to “learn to live with Covid-19”. Whether it is the pandemic or the politics of the class struggle, the power and necessity of collective action will undoubtedly guide us through the coming year.