With this issue we bring to a close the regular publication of Vanguard as the Party newspaper. We are doing this in the year following its 50th anniversary.VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
With this issue we bring to a close the regular publication of Vanguard as the Party newspaper. We are doing this in the year following its 50th anniversary.
We are doing this mindful of the importance attached by Lenin to the role of a Party newspaper as a collective organiser.
We are doing this reluctantly, but with optimism about the sustainability of revolutionary organisation and opportunities afforded by the Internet and social media.
Transitioning through new media
In his day Lenin and the Bolsheviks communicated through Party newspapers, agitational leaflets, books, posters and soapbox oratory.
Each of these had its advantages as well as its limitations.
We believe that there will be some disadvantage for us in no longer having a monthly print paper, but that the immediacy and accessibility of an online presence can compensate, and in time, outweigh any negative fall-out.
Just as it was in Lenin’s time, the crucially important task is to build the working class’s leading organisation, an organisation that is proletarian in ideology, in its political line, and its demographic representation.
A working class party
For that reason, with this final issue, we appeal to members to cast aside any hesitation that might prevent them from disclosing, among trusted friends and workmates or community activists, their support for the CPA (M-L). In appropriate circumstances, membership can be divulged as the beginning of a process of approaching sympathetic persons to actively support and join the Party.
For the same reason, we appeal to non-Party members and readers of Vanguard to cast aside any hesitation in putting themselves forward as potential members and associates of the CPA (M-L).
This is not to suggest that basic organisational principles be abandoned. The Party is a working class party. Its membership has to come mainly from the working class. Because it is a party that is always under the surveillance of the state, and to protect members as far as possible from harassment by the state and by right wing activists, its membership is largely secret. To be sustainable under conditions of intense attack, it needs to be like an iceberg – partly visible, but mostly hidden.
Circumstances in each work place, community organisation or neighbourhood will determine when and where it is appropriate and to whom it is appropriate to extend trust and take into confidence.
Unions and the Party
People involved in unions have to carry on the vital and necessary struggle for improvement of wages and conditions. But we need people who can look beyond that, who can see the bigger picture, who can push the boundaries and encourage a spirit of defiance and rebellion.
We need people who can try and steer the union and its members towards anti-imperialist independence and socialism, whilst recognising that unions cannot be vehicles for revolution as they are bound in a hundred and one ways to operate within the “due processes of the law”. Such comrades would see the Party, through its policies and publications and the way it organises itself, as striving towards leadership of a revolutionary movement. Such comrades would feel a responsibility for making sure the online and occasional print publications of the Party are available around the union office, and where appropriate, distributed to other officials and organisers; they would recommend particular articles to others to read. They would provide feedback on whether or not our message is getting through to workers and if not, how to improve it.
Strive for leadership in mass work
We need people who can lead the involvement of their workmates and community members in participation in the struggles of the whole working class and in its support of community actions, including those of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We need people who can keep politics to the fore and not be just another “trade union official” or content to lead a narrow community struggle without trying to make the links to the bigger picture.
We need people who will read Party publications and articles and papers recommended by the Party. Workers are often resistant to reading and writing: schools that have failed to develop them as readers and writers leave them feeling inadequate and ashamed; one of the legacies of schooling is that reading and writing never seemed relevant or purposeful - it was seen as tedious and a waste of time.
For a revolutionary, reading is a discipline like having a job, and getting up early every morning to get to the job. It’s just something that time has to be found for. Workers are skilled at hands-on tasks, but workers’ leaders need to develop theoretical understanding of the way capitalism works and of the way socialism can be achieved.
We need people who have good social contacts and who will not always associate only with people of a like mind. A broad range of social contacts stops a person getting isolated within a small group of fellow activists, and helps develop him/her as a leader within society more generally.
We need people who are well-liked, respected and trusted by workmates, friends, family and people in the community. Because of the hostility that surrounds communism in this country, such a person should not openly declare their membership of the Party. It too often creates an artificial barrier to working with people politically. However, their standing with others will enable them to find those moments and those situations where a good political line can be injected into discussions and where exceptions can be made to non-disclosure of membership as mentioned earlier.
In short, the new era of transition to an online presence has its challenges, but with a confidence in Marxism-Leninism as our ideology and the working people as our social base, we can move ahead and build the Party under the new conditions.