The Partisan Editorial Board introduce Partisan! #8.
AUSTRALIA: IMPERIALIST BY NATURE, NOT BY ACCIDENT
April sees a yearly uptick in flag-waving chauvism around Anzac Day, and debates around nationalism and militarism. This month’s issue is focused on imperialism – in particular, Australian imperialism, since Australia is an imperialist power in its own right (a fact neglected by much of the Left). While Australia is a junior partner to US imperialism, and US imperialism is “far worse” since the US has a greater capacity to exert itself internationally, Australian imperialism is far more pernicious and localised.
Historically, Australia has been a willing participant in imperialism, both of the imperialism of others (first the British, then the Americans), and its own imperialism. Narratives which float around occasionally about Australia being “dragged” into this-that-whatever imperialist venture are naive at best and obfuscating at worse. Australia eagerly participated in the world-historic bloodshedding of the first world war, which the Australian state saw as a proving ground to show the maturity of itself on the world stage.
After the second world war, Australia aligned itself with the at the time rising imperialist star: the United States. So Australia sent its troops to help invade Korea, sent its troops to help ravage Vietnam, sent its troops to help suppress militants across Indonesia and Malaysia, and then marched with Bush & Bush into the Middle East to pillage Iraq and Afghanistan for good measure.
What forces compel any capitalist state to be imperialist? The forces of the capitalist system itself – the need to expand into new markets, maintain control over the markets you already have, find new sources of cheap labour and material to exploit, to consolidate political alliances. Australia finds itself in a unique position, being a “developed” capitalist country plopped in the middle of the Asia-Pacific. This has allowed Australia to play its own hand, taking the role of imperialist overlord over Asia-Pacific countries such as Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and across Polynesia.
It does so with its own junior partner, New Zealand. In fact, “Australian imperialism” is a bit inaccurate. It is more accurate to describe it as “Australian-New Zealander Imperialism”, though it doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well.
This month, we present to you, our beloved readers, once again with a set of quality and interesting articles produced by members and sympathisers of the RCO.
We publish two talks given by two RCO comrades at two Platypus Affiliated Society panels: one from Anthony Furia (in Melbourne), and another by Mila Volkova (in Canberra). In Communists and the Whitlam Dismissal, Porco recounts the 1975 dismissal of Labor PM Gough Whitlam and how communists should orient themselves around parliament. In Social Patriotism and the Left, Revmira analyses how the Ukraine war caused a split in the Australian Left between those who take a defencist position (in defence of Ukraine, the EU, and NATO), and those who don’t.
We also republish a 2008 article from Lina Waldron, ALP a boss’s party; what about Greens?, which analyses the at the time emerging Greens Party and whether it can be considered a viable alternative to the Labor Party. On that note, we also publish Election 2025: What way for the working class? from Edith Fischer, which answers the very same question Waldron attempts to answer in 2008 – albeit differently. We make a consistent, yet controversial, call to vote Socialists first, Labor second in this year’s upcoming federal election.
Imperialism is the latest stage of capitalism, the current form that the capitalist world system takes. It is therefore not possible to, as some may posit, attack and destroy imperialism while the capitalist world system remains intact. Imperialism can only be abolished by a mass movement of the working class, organised into a party capable of leading the working class to power. Only by taking power and shattering the chains of domination can an emancipated society be established.
Solidarity,
Partisan Staff
PARTISAN! 