All communists and left-aligned Australians have been rightly disgusted and concerned by the anti-lockdown protests on the streets of Melbourne this week. The events in Victoria’s capital are an escalation, the spear-tip of a movement that has been helped along by decades of anti-science thought peddled by governments and right wing think-tanks; infiltrated, manipulated and radicalised by reactionary and outright fascistic elements on various social media platforms; and ultimately brought to boiling point by the heightened contradictions unleashed by the delta variant of Covid-19.
There is much to unpack in regards to this nascent, still nebulous and leaderless movement. There are also questions to be raised as to the actions of bourgeois governments which led to this outburst, as well as the potential culpability of union leaderships by going along with bosses and government to keep the construction industry open throughout the pandemic, rather than demanding first and foremost worker safety, even if that means being paid to stay home.
The purpose of this article, however, is to provide some thoughts on how best Australian communists can fight this movement, despite having our hands tied by lockdowns and social distancing, as well as actions we can take more broadly in the current conditions, and in the near future as workers are forced back into the workplace to be exposed to a deadly virus. In many ways, the strategies we must employ represent getting back to the very basics of working-class organising.
First and foremost, we must educate our fellow workers. It goes without saying that we must assuage the fears of the vaccine-hesitant, and combat the attempts of the denialists and reactionaries to peel off those who are simply misguided and nervous. Beyond these most obvious tasks, we must go further. The current moment is the most fertile ground since perhaps the GFC to discuss with co-workers and peers the class politics that surround every part of this pandemic response. The very motivating factor of capitalism has guided every aspect of our governments insufficient and dangerous strategy. We must explain why it is that, against all science and in the face of international health catastrophes, workers are being forced back into unsafe workplaces. Highlight and explain the contradiction between the backsliding of conditions for the working class over the last 18 months, while capitalists have made massive profits, aided of course by their lapdogs in parliament.[1] [2] The plain fact of the matter is that workers are right to be angry, and we cannot just cede this ground to far-right demagogues.
There is also a needle to be thread when discussing vaccination – beyond a simple binary of pro- or anti-vax, there are conversations that should be had, about the contradiction of relying on private corporations to confront the greatest public health challenge of our times; about the imperialist hoarding of vaccines by wealthy capitalist nations; and about the incompetence, and blatant corruption, of our bourgeois government in rolling out the vaccine.
By educating those around us, we both raise class consciousness and steal away potential recruits from the kind of reactionary elements that would like to see the action in Melbourne go nationwide. It is the bare minimum a communist should be doing at this point in time. Beyond education though, it is in the act of struggle that the workers movement is steeled, and the current moment is ripe for such action.
Class struggle in current conditions can take many forms. Firstly, there is the immediate necessity of a class-wide response to the scenes in front of the CFMEU this week. Regardless of critiques we may have of past actions of leadership, we still saw a direct attack on a union building by a crowd containing fascist elements. There are already grassroots campaigns aimied at displaying solidarity with healthcare workers, and to show the vast majority of workers stand for public health and mass vaccination and against the actions of a misguided few. Similar attempts are underway to pressure unions representing many industries to take a stand against what happened. Such campaigns are a start, but the response must go much further than social media denouncements and hashtags of solidarity. Members of the CFMEU must demand leaders recognise and correct their flawed strategy of siding with peak industry bodies and bourgeois governments to keep construction open at the expense of worker safety – a strategy that led directly to what happened outside their state offices, when keeping the industry open finally became untenable.
It is not for those of us in other unions to sit by and watch our comrades in construction do all the heavy lifting, though. Communists of all industries should see recent events as a wake up call to the state of the union movement in this country, and act accordingly.
The calls for our unions to stand in solidarity with healthcare workers and against right-wing agitation are the absolute bare minimum. Without concrete action, solidarity is just a word. The best thing unions in other industries can do to show solidarity with healthcare workers is fight for non-essential workers to be given entitlements to stay home from work, to fight for those who can work from home to do so, to fight for the utmost standards of safety for those who are deemed essential. Unions should stand at the forefront of the battle against the united front of bosses and governments who want to send hundreds if not thousands of ordinary people to their deaths in the name of profit.[3] Unions should be doing education on a mass scale, on all the points raised earlier in this article. Communists should be agitating within their unions towards these ends.
This is not to say that we believe in the good intentions of unions led by the bourgeois ALP, or their efficacy as a vehicle for long term political change. However, by agitating within them against not only capitalists and their political servants, but also against inadequate, class-collaborationist leadership, we once again raise the level of working class consciousness, and draw workers to our cause.
Beyond union activity, it is imperative for communists to be active in mutual aid in their community. As always, it is our most vulnerable who have been worst hit by these times. Servicing the needs of vulnerable communities cast aside by capitalism is not only a moral imperative, but another method by which we win people to our cause, and confront existing power structures – one need only look to the recent state harassment of CUDL activists in Melbourne and Adelaide to see that beyond simply providing for those in need, communist-led mutual aid challenges capital by casting light on problems it would rather leave unsolved, and seeking to solve them ourselves.[4] [5]
When confronted by scenes like those we witnessed unfold in Melbourne this week, our impulse is of course to meet fascism in the streets. But that is just a small part of the work of committed communists, and there is a wealth of activity in between street action and social media sloganeering. The fight against fascism begins with education. Every worker disavowed of false consciousness is one less foot-soldier for reaction we have to deal with, when the pandemic recedes.
The time will come for the confrontation with our class enemies – in the meantime, educate, agitate, organise!