Introducing: Partisan Magazine

The Partisan Editorial Team introduce the first issue of the magazine.

The Revolutionary Communist Organisation’s (RCO) second General Conference took place in Brisbane on the weekend of the 6th to the 7th of July. At this Conference, delegates convened to debate the organisation’s outlook, strategic orientation, and structural reforms to be implemented in the coming year. The political maturation of the RCO was epitomised in its official recognition of the need to cohere a new mass communist party that will uphold the mantle of leading the working class on this continent in the struggle towards proletarian revolution. That is to say, we have officially adopted a ‘partyist’ outlook.

The first step towards this was the resolution adopted by the General Conference calling for a Refoundation Congress of the Communist Party in Australia:

There is no possible road to a socialist society without the organisation of a mass communist workers party and the elevation of this party to political power. In the absence of such a party, the primary task of all communists is to create one.

There currently exists no organisation in Australia that through size, influence, or providence can claim to be the legitimate party of the socialist workers movement. No organisation of this kind has existed since the dissolution of the Communist Party of Australia in 1991.

That as such, the Revolutionary Communist Organisation calls for a Refoundation Congress of the Communist Party in Australia. That all communists, revolutionary socialists, internationalists, and socialist workers will be invited to such a congress, which will adopt a program, organisational rules, and elect a Central Committee.

That until such a time that this congress is possible, the RCO will campaign in all spheres of the socialist and working class movement for such a party, and on the need for such a Refoundation Congress.

Clarification on the RCO’s outlook and what we think that of a mass communist party in Australia should be, was provided when Conference voted, with amendments, to adopt our new program: A Draft Program for a Communist Party in Australia: Program of the Revolutionary Communist Organisation.
To reflect our historical partyist task, Conference voted to rename our central publication facing towards the socialist movement, Direct Action, to the Partisan.

This article marks the first edition of Partisan. Additionally, the name change also reflects the next major step in the professionalisation of our publication, as we establish for it an identity and a consistent form. We fully intend on developing Partisan into a respected platform on the left for critical discourse on events and issues most pertinent to the 21st century far-left.

Partisan Magazine has been months in the making. It won’t be like the average sect paper:we aim to build a publication that can act as a platform for open polemic amongst the organized Left. We don’t believe in liquidating into every social movement that springs up, nor do we believe in taking command of activists. We believe staunchly in the necessity of the Party. We are committed to Communist Unity, and reject sectarianism on the basis that it aims to split the movement, to diffuse Communists, and to wreck efforts at reconstructing a Communist Party.

With this new magazine, we invite people of all backgrounds from across the organized Left to give their perspectives on news and events, culture, society, politics, and more.