PARTISAN!

Written by Edith Fischer and Brunhilda Olding, presented to the Fourth General Conference of Communist Unity, January 2026.

1. The Socialist Party’s history can be divided into three distinct periods. Firstly, its initial form was as a left electoral front of Socialist Alliance, Socialist Alternative, and the clique around Stephen Jolly to get the latter elected to Victorian state parliament. In the period following both Jolly and Alliance withdrew, the formation was left as a semi-dormant political force under the control of Socialist Alternative, with a substantial layer of independent activists. Finally, in the current period it takes on the form of a semi-independent political project under the general influence of Socialist Alternative’s politics and strategy, and with Socialist Alternative members dominating the leadership.
2. The national launch of the ‘Australian Socialist Party’ has seen the development of a strong layer of independents within the party who are broadly aligned with the strategy put forward by Socialist Alternative. The Socialists Workers Caucus in Victoria, Socialist Community Action in South Australia, and the development of Tasmanian Socialists all represent the emergence of a broad layer of active members who are not members of Socialist Alternative. This layer of independents, which will likely grow with the collapse of the Left-Green bloc, is currently part of a broad coalition led by Socialist Alternative. However, their general instincts and attitude is to the right of Socialist Alternative, being largely reformist in character.
3. The general orientation of the Socialist Party is towards electoral interventions. However, there is a small but growing impetus towards serious organising and the organic development of small union fractions. This confused and amorphous strategy is reflected in their “programmatic” documents which outline a politically confused, moralistic, semi-Lassallean approach towards socialism, with no clear clarification on the role of the state and the tasks of socialists in fighting against it, the role of the independent working-class, or the importance of internationalism. This programmatic incoherence is combined with a radical verbiage and attempts at revolutionary agitation disconnected from any serious revolutionary or political strategy.
4. Broadly the Socialists could be understood as a rightwards form of the historic experience of Centrism. The programmatic incoherence between reform and revolution, a weakness on internationalism and imperialism, and an unclarified strategy is combined with a militant and combative membership broadly moving to the left. This has programmatically expressed itself in the liberal strategy of capitulating to the petty-bourgeois Greens, tailing the “left” of the union bureaucracy, and basing its campaigns on liberal activism and platitudes in the service of electoralism. 
5. As such the defining feature of the Socialist Party as a political experiment must be understood to be its potential. The potential exists for the Socialist Party to become the party that the Australian proletariat needs: for it to herald a general upsurge in class struggle and the construction of a mass Marxist party. The potential also exists for it to fall under the political domination of the coalitionist-reformist wing of the socialist movement currently reorienting from the slow collapse of the Greens. Remaining hitched to the liberal status quo just as it is poised to be torn apart is a disaster waiting to happen for the Socialist Party, which will only repel frustrated workers and drive them to the right.
6. The crucial task of Communists in relation to the Socialist Party then is to struggle for this potential to be fulfilled. As such the development of the internal political culture of debate, discourse, and democracy is a vital task in the struggle for a Marxist party and program. The immediate tactical priority of Communist Unity is to grow and develop the Socialist Party. The growth of the party, the emergence of party organisations, branches, internal groupings, and all the other hallmarks of mass politics, will allow for our politics to develop as well. 
7. Further development of the Communist Caucus into the revolutionary pole within the Socialist Party, that which pushes all others forward, is the prerequisite to develop the Socialist Party as a mass working-class organisation. We will establish The Communist as a consistent and respected source on political questions within the Socialist Party, establishing concrete political lines of division within the party in the aim of launching a programmatic struggle, and a consistent unrelenting campaign for unity with Socialist Alliance and across the broader socialist movement. Our strategic aim is to fight for a genuine Marxist program, and the transformation of the Socialist Party into a democratic and fighting mass party.
8. The development of a Marxist party requires the establishment of unified national trade union and industrial organising fractions under the control and political leadership of the party, as well as an apparatus for tenant, pensioner, and unemployed worker organising. It also requires the establishment of youth and student, women’s, Blak, migrant, and queer caucuses. This must be complemented by a healthy democratic and functional branch life, the development of a party press, and an authoritative centre with a political mandate from the national party able to direct work in a strategic manner.
9. In order to forge the Socialist Party into a revolutionary mass party, it requires a revolutionary program. Such a program must include a democratic republic, the disbanding of the police and standing army and the arming of the working-class, and the expropriation of the commanding heights of the economy. This requires a fight to break its members from the electoralism and capitulation to liberalism and left Laborites that is conditioned by the dominance of SAlt’s program. This should be the key task of our Communist Caucus within the Socialist Party.
10. The existence of both Socialist Alliance and the Socialist Party represent a fundamental political roadblock to the development of a mass communist party in Australia. The task for communists is to agitate for principled democratic unity between the two parties with openly negotiated terms and conditions decided at a democratic joint conference. To such an end Communist Unity should agitate within the Socialists, and amongst pro-party wings of Alliance on the necessity for a principled democratic merger.