PARTISAN!

Partisan magazine’s editorial board introduce the second issue of Partisan.

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Lenin’s oft-repeated truism “without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary practise” should well be amended to say that without a revolutionary party there can be no revolutionary practise. The paramount struggle for communists in Australia today is the refoundation of the Communist Party, yet as we wage this struggle the question emerges of political strategy. Both in the fight for the party, and in the heightened era of class struggle that the party’s re-formation will take place. Political strategy as an art has long been forgotten by the communist movement in Australia, having faded as the short-term squabbling of sects becomes the forefront of the political arena. Yet as we look forward toward the future of the communist movement, the question of how to get there must dominate communist debate.

The strategy of the workers movement must be forged through struggle and tempered in the waters of debate. This edition of Partisan puts forward the position of the Revolutionary Communist Organisation on political strategy, and what the road forward in the Australian front of the World Revolution looks like. We hope that it may kick-start debate within the Australian left on what the strategy of the working class must look like. We are not the average sect paper; we are here for open and honest debate, for polemics against the sect formula, and for outlining the necessity of a party, and from there, workers revolution.

Too many groups have set their mind on the end goal yet forgotten the steps to get there. The legacy of October 1917 looms large, yet many have forgotten the decades of work building up to the storming of the Winter Palace. We need a mass party, we need to mobilise the working class, and we need a program. These are the basics of any genuinely Communist strategy. Without a party we have nothing, and without a strategy we have less than nothing. It is crucial that as Communists we learn to look beyond the brief flourish of movements, and look towards the long, hard, and cold road towards unity. The road that leads towards revolution.

On this road we will see debate, and that is not something to reject but rather to revel in. Debate and open polemic are a vital part of the Communist tradition. We strive to turn this debate from meaningless squabbles over long fossilised shibboleths towards debate over the strategy towards a worker’s republic.

We open this debate throughout this edition by touching on topics as diverse as Blockade Australia, the current Bengali revolution, Indigenous Liberation, and the need for a Democratic Republic. All these debates reflect the continuing maturation and development of not only the RCO, but the communist movement within Australia as a whole. We must turn our gaze towards high politics, towards the arena of genuine revolutionary strategy and go beyond the simple sect formula. Partisan is the Partyist newspaper of the communist movement, and we strive to live up to that label with every edition.

To those who disagree with the contents of our articles, we not only welcome but encourage debate within our letters section. For those looking for a publication willing to accept their articles we are open to you. We allow anyone, of any tradition to enter into debate within these pages. The communist movement lies in ruin, yet it is a historical necessity that it be reforged under a single banner. The working class have a world to win, we must work to raise the level of struggle.

There is no war but the class war, we call for all communists to unite under the banner of the party of the proletariat. Without a party we have nothing. With a party the world lies within our grasp. 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.