Melbourne May Day, a Hopeful Farce

Telcontar reflects on the positive developments in the workers’ movement reflected in Melbourne’s May Day celebrations.

RCO comrades with the Freedom Socialist Party at May Day, 2024. Photo: Alison Thorne

The first appearance of the Revolutionary Communist Organisation (RCO) at Melbourne’s May Day rally was by nearly all accounts a major success, taking into consideration the position we currently hold within the anaemic Melbourne left. Indeed, the nature of our success cannot be understood without also understanding the socialist movement in Melbourne. As such this article is as much a report on the two May Day Events in Melbourne as it is an analysis of the Melbourne Left, in the vein of Comrade Max J’s amazing breakdown of the Newcastle socialist scene.

I’ll begin with the actual May Day Rally on May 1st proper by the Black People’s Union (BPU). The rally was hosted with the theme of International Worker Solidarity, and ‘no more imperialist wars’. It reflected the current state of the Melbourne left as a primarily anti-imperialist (to varying degrees) solidarity movement. The event run by the BPU had speakers from the BPU proper, the African Solidarity Collective, West Papuan Groups, a Mapuche speaker, a representative of Voice of Revolution Iran, several Palestinian activists, and a representative of Australian Services Union (ASU) for Palestine. The rally was attended by the RCO itself, the Renting and Housing Union, the Spartacist League of Australia (fresh from their merger with the Bolshevik-Leninists), the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group, and a few scattered independent socialists. The line promoted by the speakers was a firmly anti-imperialist struggle, until the end of the rally in which an offensive against the union leadership was (correctly) launched. Their rhetoric focused on the lack of action over Palestine, which is a strong attack considering the long history of the Australian union movement in acting against Imperialist aggression (for example, the 1938 Dalfram dispute).

The rally reflected the strange ideological position that the BPU holds in the Melbourne left. The BPU has a two-tiered membership system with First Nations people, and non-Aboriginal members as two separate membership tiers. Following the formation of Camp Sovereignty after the Invasion Day Rally this year, a massive glut of non-Aboriginal members applied to join the BPU. As such many of the ‘activists’ or socialists you might see meandering around Melbourne are either members or closely tied to the BPU. Alongside this, their prominent role in the pro-Palestine coalition gives them an incredible amount of weight amongst the left-laborites, Radical Liberals, and the other loosely defined ‘leftists’ who fetishise socialism as an ideal (My article in Direct Action #11 elucidates my stance on these people), colloquially referred to as “swamp”. They are a mass that is worth engaging with, and can be won over to socialism. It simply requires work, the re-composition of the workers movement, and to slay the fetish of the activist.

The rally itself was an energising experience, and even with the nay-saying that I just wrote above. The true May Day Rally saw a general air of militancy, excitement, and a revolutionary air which was deeply refreshing to see. Still, it is worth talking about the other two groups at the rally. The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group overall represents perhaps one of the most revolutionary minded groups in the area. Their open statements calling for ‘No War but Class War’ were a breath of fresh air in a city dominated by various strains of Left Nationalism.

The Spartacists continue their long and proud tradition of being militantly sectarian. Both at May Day and at the May 5th event, they were perhaps one of the most unpopular groups present. Indeed, a group of SHARPs (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) tried to force the Sparts out of the rally due to the Spartacist League’s position on the age of consent, one that has managed to win them very few friends and far too many enemies. Nonetheless, the Spartacists seem to be intent to continue to joust at the windmill of non-issues, such as whether or not fourty-somethings should be allowed to have sex with children.

The May 5th event was perhaps the more successful of the two events for the RCO. The event marked the official launch of the United Front for Eco-socialism (U4E), formed from the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP), the RCO, and Radical Women (which is affiliated with the FSP). The launch of a united socialist movement fighting around a common perspective is a major step forward in the fractured sea of the Australian left. The RCO as a new group had a very successful debut with several different groups interacting with us, and all the resources we brought to the event given out to interested comrades.

Alongside this the event served as a highly effective mechanism to build ties with the many socialist groups attending. The attendance ranged from the rarely sighted Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist), to Friends of the Earth Australia.

This event was a ‘hopeful farce’, as in spite of the anaemic state of the millennial left, there was a genuine air of solidarity and unity. The choir’s renditions of old socialist classics went down well. There was hope. Nearly every group has seen some growth recently and the unification of the Palestine and May Day Rallies meant that ideas were shared, the international nature of workers struggle was reinforced.

The road ahead of us is long and winding. It’s not always going to be direct or bright, but at the end of it is liberation, and what greater duty is there then to fight for liberation?

The complete list of groups in attendance ended up being: