The “March for Australia” on the 31st of August cannot be read as anything other than a major defeat for the socialist and workers movement. The wannabe jackbooted thugs of the National Socialist Network were able to tap into wide layers of the petit-bourgeois, and the backwards layers of the proletariat with their chauvinistic, racist, anti-migrant rhetoric. The myth that fascism in Australia was defeated with the downfall of Reclaim Australia has been proven to be just that.
The division of the left was a key part of the defeat on Sunday, and it cannot be allowed to happen again. The Revolutionary Communist Organisation calls for the formation of a mass democratic workers’ united front against the forces of reaction, racism, and bigotry.
This united front cannot be the shadowy recruitment wing of a sect, nor can it be an apolitical liberal cross-class coalition. It can only be formed through the labour movement, the socialist movement, and migrant and minority organisations, with a clear positive political program. This front must not only fight to smash the NSN, but to break the backwards layers of the proletariat from its leadership for a concrete political struggle for housing, jobs, wages, and in defence of and the further empowerment of migrants.
The united front of the workers is the only method which can defeat Fascism. Spontaneous disorganised anti-fascist outburst of violence and street battles do nothing, liberal multi-culturalism and attempts to rely on the bourgeois state and political order do even less. Fascism cannot be defeated by the workers movement tying themselves to defending the bourgeois political order; it can only be defeated by a mass proletarian struggle for Communism, and for the concrete advancement of the working class.
The historic tactics of anti-Fascism and the Popular Front have proven themselves to be a dead end, Mussolini may have been hung, and the Nazi Reich shattered but their descendants survived and now strive for power again. The Communist movement jumped into bed with elements of the bourgeois, and imperialism against another section of imperialism and ensured the defeat of the proletariat. We cannot repeat that mistake again.
Mass layers of the protest attendees on the 31st were drawn into reactionary politics by the dominance of right-wing ideology within mainstream politics. Any effective united front would fundamentally have to challenge these reactionary ideological apparatuses with a revolutionary perspective focused on drawing in ever wider layers of the class into the struggle, and undercutting the political support of the NSN, and the organised layers of the fascist movement. This can only be done by not only constant ideological combat and fighting for control of the political arena, but a proactive organising drive seeking to organise, mobilise, and educate sections of the proletariat.
Counter-rallies and fighting for control over the streets has a role to play but we cannot cede political initiative to the right. The united front must lead a militant workers struggle not only against fascism, racism, and division but against the state, and capital and that will require a willingness to not only fight but to seize political initiative over the issues that are pressing wide layers of the proletariat.
If this united front is to take on these tasks it must go beyond the simple unity of the sectarian left. It must live up to the name it gives itself. When the Fourth Congress of the Comintern called for united fronts, it did so based on mass revolutionary organisations fighting to split the leadership of the proletarian movement from reformism and centrism. This is the only model that provides an effective route out on how to smash the reactionary movements. A genuine united front drawing on the workers organisations, the socialist movement, Aboriginal, migrant, and minority organisations, and even sections of the Labor party. Sectarianism will doom us, the only way to smash fascism is through the conscious, and politically active unity of the working class.
We call on all socialists, workers, and unionists. All those who stand against racism, and the division of the proletariat, and for the defence of migrants, for the defence of Aboriginal people, and for the destruction of fascism to unite and fight under the historic banner of the workers United Front.
Death to Fascism! Victory to the Workers!
Smash Citizenship! All those who live here vote!
Raise the Rate! A living wage for all!
Expropriate the landlords! End the housing crisis!
Smash Racism through Mass Organisation!
Abolish Borders! For the free movement of labour!
PARTISAN! 
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