PARTISAN!

Partisan is a magazine that publishes communist journalism and analysis. It is published by the Revolutionary Communist Organisation (RCO), and as such espouses the RCO’s general politics.

Partisan accepts unsolicited contributions from writers across the left, whether they are students, workers, young radicals, or something else. Writing for Partisan is easy, but this guide exists to explain the process so that writing for us is even easier.

Partisan is a communist publication. This means that our editorial direction is informed by our support for communist politics, in particular a Marxist program.

We are mainly looking for:

• Political economy and the Marxist critique of it
• Communist political strategy and tactics
• Analyses of imperialism, colonialism, fascism, etc.
• Engagements with the past, present and future of the communist movement.
• International and domestic perspectives on current events
• Interviews with radicals and militants
• Communiques
• Reviews of films, books, music
• Event announcements and reports
• And anything in that general area.

Partisan is committed to the principles of open polemic and communist unity. For this reason, we are open to publishing a broad range of views from a broad range of militants and radicals. However, we reserve the right to decline submissions on political grounds when necessary.

Partisan publishes monthly. This means that we aim to have a complete issue out at the start of every month, generally within the first week. Following from this, we aim to have issues ready to be proofed and finalised within the last week or two of the month. For this reason, we generally set the deadline for submissions for the print edition at around the 25^th of the month. This means that any submissions past the 25^th will not make it into the subsequent print issue, but may be published online.

The submissions process is fairly straightforward. We request that you submit your work in a word processor file, such as .rtf, .docx, or .odt. We will not accept submissions in a .pdf format or a Google Doc (or other similar program). This is to ensure that your file is ready to be edited by our editorial team, and making the editing process easier for our team.

Your article or written piece must be submitted via email, to partisanmagazine@proton.me. In your email, please include the following:

• Title of the article and word count in the subject line
• Your preferred name or pseudonym
• Any relevant images and sources of images
• Your article file as an attachment

If your email lacks any of the above, we may contact you with clarifying questions and to discuss your submission.

When writing, keep the following in mind:

• Partisan Magazine publishes for a broad, left-wing audience. This is an audience that varies in terms of theoretical knowledge and interest. Write your article as if it’s going to be read by an activist or sympathetic union member who is not a member of a communist organisation, but is interested in communist politics.
• Make sure to proof-read and double check your writing before submission. While our editors will copy-edit and sub-edit your submission, we prefer submissions that contain minimal errors.
  • Capitalise all nouns as necessary: Australia, Karl Marx, Communism.
  • Try to avoid using sentences that are too long. Aim to be as concise as you need to be without stripping your writing of its content.
  • Avoid bloated paragraphs. Aim to keep your paragraphs between 3-5 sentences long.
  • Check spelling and grammar.
  • Use British English spelling. Organise, labour (except for the party, spelt Labor), metre, likeable, ageing, defence, protester.
• Avoid overly provocative or incendiary writing; avoid direct attacks against specific people or groups unless they are well-reasoned critiques.
• Avoid flowery language and extended metaphor (a long metaphor that persists through the entire text). Singular, illustrative metaphors are fine when appropriate.
• Avoid plagiarism by attributing all quotes and references.
• Adequately explain titles, events, jargon, etc. Try to avoid over-using political jargon, when possible.
• Explain all acronyms on first use. For example: Revolutionary Communist Organisation (RCO).
• Avoid common tropes in left-wing writing. For example, our readers don’t need to be reminded that capitalism is bad an evil. Our readers also don’t need to be told that sexism is disgusting, that racism is shameful, etc. We avoid morally charged language in our content unless we deem it necessary (which is a rare case).
• We favour an objective, but firm and analytic, tone.
• We do not accept “advertorials” promoting specific organisations, campaigns, candidates in elections, etc. We will promote these things per the instructions of the RCO’s Central Committee and Conference.
• Writers should avoid editorialising (expressing a personal opinion), and instead make a sound political argument.
• We generally aim to avoid content written in a first-person perspective.
• Avoid passive voice. Passive: “Palestinians dead after missile strike.” Active: “Israeli missile strike kills Palestinians in Gaza.”
• We do not publish narrative fiction.
• All references must be in-text references (Partisan, 2024) and hyperlinks. Note that hyperlinks are, of course, only visible online.
• Include subheadings as necessary.
• Writers should include a concise introduction of 1-2 paragraphs.
• Writers should include a headline and a subheadline, although we will modify it as necessary during the editing process.

A submission may be turned down for the following reasons:

• It is sent incorrectly (as a pdf or google doc, not through the email, etc).
• It contains too many errors (grammar, spelling etc).
• It does not fit the politics of Partisan.
• It is not appropriate for publication in Partisan.

We endeavour to inform all contributors if we decide not to publish their piece. Rejections are at the discretion of the editorial team.

We maintain a word limit maximum of 2,500. For general articles, we prefer 800-1000. We are open to submissions over 2,500 words, but you must discuss this with the editorial team beforehand. This is because the length of articles impacts how many pages it takes up in print editions, so we must plan for this ahead of time.

As Partisan professionalises, we will continue to stress the importance of following the points in this guide. The Partisan team is more than happy to discuss these with you, as well as answer any questions you might have about the writing process. All correspondence should be directed to the Partisan email (see above or footer). ■

Email: partisanmagazine@proton.me

Instagram: /partisanmagazine

Twitter/X: @PartisanRCO

Bluesky: @partisanmagazine.bsky.social