The foundation of the Communist Party in Australia was one of the most important acts of working class political independence in the country’s history. The Communist International insisted the early CPA organise across the labour movement, even in the racist and pro-Empire Australian Labor Party.
Under pressure of the working class at home, and the prestige of the Russian revolution abroad, the ALP had the year before adopted the ‘socialisation objective’, for the “democratic socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange”; an objective the ALP has never seriously acted on yet it still exists as the party’s first objective.
We reprint this letter both for its historical interest, but also to sharpen our discussion about how Marxists should engage with the Australian Labor Party.
The ALP has always supported the capitalist system, however, it has been based on the organised working class and retained – even today – majority support at the ballot box from the working class.
Today, most of what passes for the Marxist left treats the ALP with moral disdain, yet they happily organise in the trade unions, which are the organisational bedrock of the ALP.
Of course socialists and communists find the ALP leadership’s support for the imperialist world order revolting, but this is no new feature of Laborism.
Our task is not to display moral indignation at the pro-capitalist misleadership of the ALP, but to overcome the core contradiction of Laborism, which represents ruling class ideas within the workers’ movement.
For those who argue that the ALP was more ‘working class’ or more ‘leftwing’ in 1922, making work for socialism in the ALP now irrelevant, we point you to this part of the letter:
The policy of the bourgeois Labor government was always reactionary in substance. It hindered the workers in the carrying out of their real class struggle against the bourgeoisie. It tied the hands of the exploited masses, and made them the worshippers of the authority of the Capitalist State.
This is the nature of Laborism. We must overturn the current ‘commonsense’ for Laborite reformism and replace it with the commonsense of Marxism, democratic republicanism and revolutionary socialism.
As Comintern wrote to the CPA:
The Australian Labor Party is even more outspokenly a trade union party than its British counterpart, with an equally petty bourgeois, reformist set of leaders.
Nevertheless, the masses in their bulk continue to cling to the Labor Party. Does this mean to say that if the working masses are to be won for Communism, we should work within this mass party? The Communist International answers this question in the affirmative.
The joining of the Labor Party opens wide perspectives for the development of the Communist Party, and provides a possibility for Communist sympathisers in the Labor Party to find practical application for their revolutionary desires. It further gives the Communist Party the possibility to unmask the opportunist leaders of the Labor Party before the masses of their followers in the best and most direct way, demonstrating to the rank and file of the Labor Party, that such leaders will never fight for the serious demands of the proletariat.
Of course, we do not advocate cut-and-paste approach to strategy and tactics. The world of 2025 is markedly different to the world of a century ago.
Yet the ALP remains, in essence, the same sort of party. A bourgeois or pro-capitalist party, albeit one based on the organised working class.
Marxists who argue against work in the ALP for socialist ideas are operating as sectarians. And Marxists who argue against work for socialism outside the ALP are opportunists. That is the core of this letter and it retains strong relevance for today.
It further highlights the origins of the united front tactic. Not the diplomatic peace pact it became under Dmitrov and carried out by much of the left, Trotskyist, Stalinist and Laborite, ever since.
The united front is not a non-aggression pact. As Comintern points out here:
The United Front tactic is not a peace treaty. It is merely a manoeuvre in the proletarian class struggle. It is not an end in itself, but a tool for the acceleration of the revolutionising process of the masses.
The struggle against the leaders of the Right Wing of the Australian Labor Party must be pursued with all emphasis both within and without, constantly and persistently, exposing their policy, which consists of binding the workers hand and foot and delivering them to the bourgeoisie.
Of course, the big difference between 1922 and 2025 is that there is no united communist party in Australia. While the fight for coherent working class politics must take place in the ALP, for socialists outside the ALP it is beholden on them to get their house in order to take the struggle forward, united.
This letter was published in Our Unswerving Loyalty: a documentary survey of relations between the Communist Party of Australia and Moscow, 1920-1940. ANU Press 2008.
To the United Communist Party of Australia
December 1922
Comrades,
The Fourth Congress of the Comintern has concluded its work. The present letter is written to you for the purpose of imparting to you some of the decisions of the Fourth Congress which contain concrete proposals for the practical carrying out of the Congress decisions in Australia.
You have accepted the 21 conditions which form the basis of the present and future tactics of the Communist International, as well as the theses and resolutions of the Third World Congress, primarily those which relate to our organisation and our tactics, and you have presumably studied them carefully. As you know, the pivotal point of these theses was substantially contained in the slogan: “To the masses”! The Fourth Congress has again endorsed the correctness of this demand.
The capitalist offensive is carried on today in all countries with the open blessings of the opportunists, of the reformists, of the social-patriots of the 2 and 2 1/2 Internationals, or at best, under the hypocritical protests of the latter, such as the making of pacifist reform motions in Parliament which carefully respect the privileges of the exploiting class and which are intended to hoodwink the proletariat to the real cause of its terrible situation. Turn your glance to England, to France, to Germany, to Italy—everywhere you behold the same picture: reduction of wages, extension of the working day, lock-outs, and brutal suppression of every attempt of the masses at self-action, of every comprehensive new movement of the proletarian masses in the economic as well as the political domain. A period of economic and moral decline continues the infernal work of the five years of butchery.
This can only be met by a Workers’ United Front. It requires above all a consistent and determined but not too rigid application of the tactics of the United Front.
In this respect there is a tremendous task before you, our Australian comrades. The Australian Communist Party must now concentrate all its energy and all its ability to win a decisive majority in the trade unions; in every industrial center it should not only take the lead in the larger and smaller economic fights, but it should also really lead the masses in all their political movements as well as in the struggle to raise their cultural standard. During the capitalist offensive the Communist Party as the most revolutionary and best disciplined party must lead the entire proletariat in the struggle, with revolutionary slogans that will be understood by every worker. No matter whether the struggle be for small or great demands, the party must be a leader. Every single strike that is won, every victory in the struggle for daily interests, even if very slight, already signifies the winning of a strong position against the bourgeoisie, and what is even more important, it signifies a strengthening of the influence of the Communist Party among the masses. The younger Communist Parties of the Communist International frequently showed the tendency of isolating themselves from the mass of the proletariat, of applying the principles of Marxism in doctrinaire and sectarian fashion, merely as a means of preserving the purity of their principles.
This hampers the development of the Communist Party, which means also hampering the fight of the working class for freedom, and at the present moment it hampers particularly the successful defence against the capitalist offensive. It is for this reason that we draw your special attention to the necessity of expanding and intensifying the Communist activity within the trade unions, in every state, by means of firmly disciplined communist nuclei that should gather round them the the larger masses of sympathising workers. The trade unions are the organisations that offer the best prospects for the practical application of the slogan: “To the masses”! The trade unions provide the best opportunity for communists to show how far they are really connected with the masses, how they feel for the masses, and their ability to overcome the treachery of the reformist trade union leaders.
It must always be remembered that the Communist Party is not a party only of watchwords and slogans, but a real fighting proletarian party, always leading the class struggle. We must never tolerate such a situation in which the workers look upon the party as an accepted fact, but do not feel the need of entering it. Our tactics should be the tactics of struggle, and not the repetition of the same ideas, marking time on the same spot.
It is for this very purpose of strengthening the Communist Party and of accelerating its growth, that the Executive of the Comintern has been recommending tactics of the United Front for more than a year. In countries like Great Britain and Australia, owing to the existence of a peculiar type of political mass organisation known as the Labour Party, this tactic has a specific form of application.
The Australian Labor Party is even more outspokenly a trade union party than its British counterpart, with an equally petty bourgeois, reformist set of leaders.
Nevertheless, the masses in their bulk continue to cling to the Labor Party. Does this mean to say that if the working masses are to be won for Communism, we should work within this mass party? The Communist International answers this question in the affirmative. The joining of the Labor Party opens wide perspectives for the development of the Communist Party, and provides a possibility for Communist sympathisers in the Labor Party to find practical application for their revolutionary desires. It further gives the Communist Party the possibility to unmask the opportunist leaders of the Labor Party before the masses of their followers in the best and most direct way, demonstrating to the rank and file of the Labor Party, that such leaders will never fight for the serious demands of the proletariat. On the other hand the masses will at the same time have the opportunity to convince themselves that the Communist Party is not only the forward-driving element of the class struggle, but that it is also the only Party that takes a hand in all the fights of the masses, shares unreservedly all their sufferings and misery. Only in this manner it will be possible to win the confidence of the workers, to isolate the opportunist leaders and to separate them from the masses. We have reason no longer to content ourselves with unmasking the treacherous nature and role of the leaders of the Labor Party merely by propaganda, while otherwise letting them have their free play. We should rather fight within the Labor Party and capture it by waging the fight against the social-traitors in the mass party which has been monopolised by them.
Nevertheless we deem it necessary to warn you against the illusion of assuming that a victory over the reformists and opportunists within the Labor Party would make the class struggle any milder, that the mere possession of a majority of the masses in the Labor Party would give you something like “democratic government”, a gradual transition to the proletarian rule by the sole application of democratic measures of compulsion against the bourgeoisie.
Such a view would be dangerous opportunism. On the contrary, you must be perfectly aware of the fact, and leave no doubt in the minds of the wide masses of the proletariat, that the winning of the majority in the Labor Party will tremendously increase the struggle against the bourgeoisie, accentuating the class antagonism and compelling capitalism to resort to the most savage measures of violence. Such is the logic of all revolutionary class struggles. He who fears the consequences of this logic should cease to call himself a Marxian, a revolutionary and a Communist. The bourgeoisie will become increasingly restless, provocatory, brutal, and ruthless in the precise measure that its reformist agents, the leaders of the Labor Party, will lose that influence over the masses.
This is a fact of which you should never lose sight. The winning of the majority of the workers by the Communists does not mean any softening of the intensity of the class struggles, but its aggravation; no slackening of the revolutionary propaganda, but rather the increasing consciousness of the proletarian masses that the bourgeoisie will not shrink from civil war in the defence of its rights. Emphasise this fact day by day in your big and little actions, in your victories as well as in your defeats and your joining the Labor Party and the consequent stubborn adherence to the United Front tactics will in no way contain the menace of damping your revolutionary watchwords, in a word, of converting you into opportunists.
The EC of the CI therefore deliberately advises the Australian Communist Party to join the State Labor Party as well as the Federal Labor Party, carrying out the resolution of the Australian Trade Union Congress in June 1921 and 1922 on the Unity Question.
We emphasise: the application of the United Front tactics as already emphasised by the Comintern on numerous occasions, does not deprive the Communist Party of its freedom of agitation, propaganda and criticism in all situations and at all times, nor does it impair the organisational independence and the subordination of Communist Party members and organisations to the discipline of their Party under all circumstances; on the contrary, these things are rather emphasised thereby. Wherever we find ourselves as Communists, in carrying out the decisions of the Communist International, we observe the strictest Party discipline and the most complete devotion to the Communist International. It should be your aim to bring together all the militant elements within and without the Australian Labor Party and to convince them that the working class of Australia needs above all the unity of all the class conscious elements under the banner of the Communist Party.
But should the Labor Party leaders refuse to admit us into their organisation, this is no reason for abandoning the “United Front”. It only means that our efforts will have to be redoubled to maintain the “United Front”. It must never be said that the Communists divided the workers. That must be left to the leaders of the Labor Party. Our duty as Communists and the party of the working class is to bring our class to victory. This can only be done by pointing the way and working with the masses and showing them that we are the real leaders and that our place is inside the workers’ organisations. Again, should the Labor Party leaders refuse to admit you, it is no reason for falling down before these leaders, asking for mercy. We have to carry on the fight as Communists, among the rank and file of the Party, and ultimately they will demand our admittance.
The policy of the bourgeois Labor government was always reactionary in substance. It hindered the workers in the carrying out of their real class struggle against the bourgeoisie. It tied the hands of the exploited masses, and made them the worshippers of the authority of the Capitalist State. As against this, it is the duty of a Communist Party to remove all the influences that hinder the development of the revolutionary forces of the working class, and are obstacles to the class struggle. For this reason the Communist Party must take the initiative in all the mass movements of the workers, and try again to secure the leadership of the various labour organisations, and mobilise them for the fight against the capitalist class. If the Communist Party should find it necessary in this connection, in order to increase the resisting power of the working class, to unite temporarily in joint activity with other labour organisations, by forming a bloc or a workers’ coalition government, not a liberal Labor government but a real militant workers’ government composed of representatives of the working class, the Communist Party should not shrink from such a task. The intensification of the class struggle against the bourgeoisie, which is bound to follow the formation of such workers’ government, will enable the Communist Party to fight for the realisation of the real dictatorship of the proletariat from this intermediary stage.
The United Front tactic is not a peace treaty. It is merely a manoeuvre in the proletarian class struggle. It is not an end in itself, but a tool for the acceleration of the revolutionising process of the masses. The struggle against the leaders of the Right Wing of the Australian Labor Party must be pursued with all emphasis both within and without, constantly and persistently, exposing their policy, which consists of binding the workers hand and foot and delivering them to the bourgeoisie. At all elections the Communists must retain the right of participating in the pre-selection ballot. It is by joining the Labor Party that this will be made possible.
Now a few words about your press. Much as we congratulate the Australian Communist Party for its activity and work accomplished in the trade unions, particularly in New South Wales, we must point out to you on the other hand, that your press leaves a good deal to be desired. It is high time that you should become clearly aware that the whole [activity] of the Communist Party does not consist of the enlisting of adherents, but also of really taking part in the class struggle. It is not enough to show up cleverly the backwardness of the masses, but it is rather necessary to change their class consciousness. The masses cannot be convinced merely by leaflets and cleverly-written articles. The first thing needful is live activity and example by deed. Through your press you should take part in the daily struggles of the workers. Your press should be the mirror not only of the life of the Party, but of the entire proletariat and of all the exploited and oppressed. A proletarian newspaper must play the role of a popular tribune. It is this feature that is lacked by your press. We have no doubt that you will remedy this defect. To make your press more lively your should do your utmost to get the masses of the workers to contribute to your paper by sending letters and descriptive articles of their daily life, and at the same time shaping your papers so that their contents should speak not only to the mind but also to the heart of the workers.
Your Party is still weak, your experience of the class struggle as a Party is still inadequate, your preparedness for taking the lead in the future intensified class fights is still deficient. You should not hide your light under a bushel, but take all the measures to increase your organisation, also numerically, above all in the great organisation of workers, the trade unions, where you ought to make particular efforts to strike deep roots. This requires the untiring self-sacrificing and uninterrupted activity of every member of the Party without exception.
The Australian proletariat is still trammelled by the petty-bourgeois democratic illusions. To help them shake these illusions it requires not only vigorous educational activity, but also patient and judicious treatment of the backward elements. Finally, the Communist Party must never forget that the calm periods of the class struggle are merely the calms before the storms, that these moments of respite must be utilised to prepare the working-class for the future struggles whether defensive or offensive. If this should be neglected, you are in danger of surprise-attack and provocation on the part of the bourgeoisie, of premature struggles with their inevitable defeats.
By following the advice you get from experience of many years’ fighting of the advanced proletariat of all countries you will overcome the capitalist offensive which menaces you with slow destruction, profound misery and brutal disfranchisement, and triumphantly march to the final victory.
Long live the United Front of the workers of Australia!
Long live the Communist Party of Australia!
For the Executive Committee of the Communist International.
Dec. 1922