Dear Comrades of Communist Unity (formerly the Revolutionary Communist Organisation),
I was delighted to learn that your organisation successfully held its 4th General Conference just over two weeks ago, yielding rich and productive discussions on political, social, and organisational questions. The conference also marked the first experience of organised factional activity, which was handled in a remarkably harmonious and constructive manner. This represents an important milestone in your organisation’s transition from what was once a mere sect (despite its claims to anti-sectarianism) toward a genuine anti-sectarian movement.
The conference’s convincing and instructive resolution of the divergence between “partyism” and “actionism” was particularly noteworthy. The elevation of actionism to the level of a full route was identified as reactionary, while the permeation of everyday struggle with actionist impulses hinders the shift of our socialist cause from ideological impulse toward scientific practice. I fully endorse this judgement.
The critique of actionism elevated to a route reminds me strongly of the economist wave that preceded and followed the Second Congress of the RSDLP in Russia. Back then it was bourgeois democracy; today it is postmodern liberalism. Yet the confusion of tactics with strategy, and the advocacy of a disorganized “freedom of criticism” (then Bernsteinian, now the rejection of “abstraction” in favour of immediacy), remain consistent in their harmfulness—indeed, the contemporary form may be even more pernicious. A century ago, an economist tendency that inverted means into ends could still serve as a vigorous yet mild appendage to the as-yet-not-in-power bourgeois democracy. In the present conjuncture, however, such a posture can achieve little beyond becoming part of the “crisis spectacle” under capitalism—spinning in empty activity, superficial redness, and real atrophy, only to flare up and die quickly.
The “microscopic” or everyday actionism, meanwhile, highlights a distinction that is often overlooked yet perhaps the most crucial: what makes scientific socialism scientific is its willingness—whether in mild or difficult times, in unity or temporary dispersion, in optimism or pessimism—to unflinchingly tear apart the illusions and “inevitability” fabricated by the bourgeoisie, to orient toward the construction of a non-capitalist future, and to persist in the struggle without reservation. Inverting this orientation—making the desired outcome the driving force of thought—inevitably degenerates into a form of utopian socialism, or what the report aptly terms a Calvinist optimism. Such optimism may appear harmless on the surface during periods of relatively low struggle intensity or rapid advances, masking itself in the pleasant continuity of encouraging results and numbing activists. But when conditions reverse, the psychological drop from prior optimism to sudden setbacks—reflecting underlying organisational and rational deficiencies—can become the spark for collapse.
As a tendency with over half a century of theoretical and practical struggle behind it, the Spartacist Tendency’s ability to articulate its positions derived from real struggle in a systematic and theorised manner is itself a result of the deepening of the struggle. It signals that the re-politicisation of the working-class movement and the re-proletarianisation of socialist thought have already collided like two palms clapping, beginning to produce sound. As a Marxist from China, heavily influenced by Maoism in my theoretical formation, I had previously disagreed with the ICL-FI’s characterisation of certain remaining “communist” one-party states as still workers’ states, as well as with the near-campist “defend China against the US” stance, and I had prejudged the entire Spartacist international current as dogmatic holdouts clinging to outdated positions. The seriousness and combativity displayed by the Spartacists at this conference, however, have led me to recognise the error in my earlier views.
At the same time, “partyism” is now undergoing its real test as factionalism shifts from a theoretical category to lived reality: will it become another sect that turns a deaf ear to dissenting opinions within the organic whole of the movement, adorning a bureaucratic substance with anti-sectarian rhetoric, or will it strive earnestly to become the leading core of a national—and ultimately international—revolutionary Marxist vanguard party? Communist Unity is in the process of answering this question.
Plus, for my part, I believe that proletarianisation is an indispensable and high-priority procedure for any organisation that calls itself communist. I therefore hope that when a similar proletarianisation motion is reconsidered at your next conference in 2027, it will be able to secure passage, backed by a sufficiently solid organisational foundation for its implementation.
In any case, I am convinced that this conference will go down as a milestone in the history of the Australian left. The comrades of RCO–Communist Unity are providing a model for the revolutionary left in Australia and around the world through their unity combined with firm theoretical and practical resolve.
With communist greetings,
RedDawn
PARTISAN! 