A-Infos (en) Australia, Arc Up! - Can class struggle be anti-colonial? (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Front image shows Aboriginal staff and students supporting Utah miners 
outside Tranby College, 1978. Used with permission from Tranby 
Aboriginal Co-operative. Source: Around the Meeting Tree: Tranby History 
1980-2000. ---- Back image shows FUNSA workers, including FAU members 
during the 1960s. The FAU had a massive influence on FUNSA, holding many 
of its leadership positions. Source: Red & Black Notes.
Fifty years ago, major tendencies on the left fought tooth and nail for 
influence within the unions. Today, many leftists look elsewhere for 
power to realise social change. Seeing unions remain dutiful to the 
Australian Labor Party (ALP) and fail to lift a finger for Palestine has 
reinvigorated those interested in class struggle to push harder for 
rank-and-file militancy and control of their unions. Some, however, see 
this low point of unionism as a reason to turn away from class struggle 
altogether.

Influenced by the Marxist-Leninist 'two-stage' theory of revolution, a 
growing section of the left believes that colonialism and/or imperialism 
must be defeated globally before the fight of workers against capitalism 
can ever be successful.

In this conception, the Global South, nation states and all, are cast as 
the revolutionary subject. The Global North then, is its ruling class, 
made up of both colonisers/imperialists and their agents-white/settler 
working-class populations that are considered as unlikely to give up 
their positions in the world hierarchy, as capitalists are to give up 
control of the means of production.

From this position stems critiques that unions are doomed to be tools 
for maintaining the status quo, that class struggle is insufficiently 
revolutionary and incompatible with the liberation of those living under 
colonialism and imperialism. If this analysis were true, we would be 
left without a revolutionary strategy applicable to 'Australia'. If we 
can't trust most of the population to be meaningfully revolutionary, 
then the task is to wait to be liberated by those who are.

While there is a strident history of First Nations workers struggling 
for land and self-determination with the Pilbara, Gurindji, Torres 
Strait Islander Maritime Strike etc., this article will primarily focus 
on whether dominant sections of the working class are capable of taking 
up anti-colonial and marginalised struggles, making class struggle 
either capable of ending colonialism on this continent, or not.1

Fighting imperialism/colonialism before capitalism?
Rejecting the two-stage theory of revolution, internationalists like 
Anarchists know that colonialism and imperialism are tools of modern 
capitalist expansion, and can only be ended with the destruction of 
global capitalism. Even the so-called 'socialist' projects that 
maintained capitalist modes of production proved that imperialism 
reproduces itself as long as capitalism remains standing. The USSR and 
other 'socialist' states have viciously invaded and conquered their 
neighbours to expand their economic reach.

Colonialism is continued through capitalist production every day. Mining 
and fracking industries push Indigenous communities off their land for 
profit. The overpolicing of Indigenous people benefits the state and 
prison companies. To halt these processes, we must build a workers 
movement capable of acting at crucial points of economic leverage to 
refuse work and demand transitions away from destructive industries and 
work practices. This isn't a national workers movement, but one that is 
internationally connected and able to coordinate globally until the 
global capitalist system is smashed. The workers organisations necessary 
to conduct this revolution would take over production within a classless 
socialist society. Sovereignty able to be fully realised, any treaties 
developed by Indigenous nations would flow upward into mutual 
obligations followed in the lives and work of those who lived and 
navigated those lands.

The foundational position of internationalists is that more 'privileged' 
sections of the global working class are capable of solidarity with more 
oppressed sections, and that it is within all of our material interests 
to cooperate and lend our power to each other's struggles and the common 
goal of ending capitalism. In fact, the history we'll look at below 
shows that it is far less likely that any sub-section of the working 
class will achieve liberation for itself without a program of solidarity 
that reaches across the class, addressing all social issues faced by all 
people. In this conception, defending against attacks on the 
marginalised isn't optional, it's a crucial element of working class 
self-defense and an integral part of a credible revolutionary strategy.

Is anti-colonial class struggle possible here?
Where some focus on racist union history to argue against engaging in 
class struggle, others fire back citing instances of genuine 
anti-colonial solidarity within unions across history. Simplistically 
seeking anecdotes to confirm biases is a bad way to address genuine 
skepticism. As we'll discuss, both racist and anti-racist union history 
exists in ways too substantial to ignore. The best path forward is to 
understand what led to unions taking on exclusionary, racist policies, 
and what conditions then produced the instances of true anti-colonial 
class struggle. This might help point us toward a strategy of class 
struggle today.

In the late 19th century, Australian trade unionism was marred by 
racism. The White Australia Policy heralded by the ALP-led unions was 
"initiated by the British ruling class, emanating from the Colonial 
Office in London". Unions like the NAWU and the AWU barring Indigenous 
and non-white immigrant workers from membership at varying locations and 
time periods, from between the 1880s till 1960s. First Nations workers 
were excluded from equal rights and pay up till late 1960s, Melanesians 
forced into blackbirding were deported in part due to union agitation 
against the importation of 'coloured labour', and unions ran an 
anti-Chinese campaign during the 1878 Seaman's Strike. Instead of 
banding together as a class against bosses, a largely reformist union 
movement opted for excluding racialised workers instead.

Into the 20th century, communists became a substantial force in the 
unions. There were two main political tendencies that sought to broaden 
the focus of trade unionism from workplace issues to social issues like 
land rights. Both Marxist-Leninists and Internationalists attempted to 
achieve the "politicisation of strikes", with both operating originally 
from the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and within the same unions 
in the same broad time period.2 While by no means free of antiquated 
ideas around race and Aboriginality, the results produced by these 
different tendencies still has relevance to all who are interested in 
anti-racist and anti-colonial struggle today.

Marxist-Leninist 'Two-Stage theory' in action:

On paper, the CPA held radical anti-racist and anti-colonial positions, 
at one point supporting Aboriginal-controlled Republics.3 As well, 
certain CPA members were highly dedicated to Indigenous social issues at 
various points from 1920 to the 1960s. While we don't deny the positive 
contributions made by CPA members to Indigenous struggles in this era, 
there was a notable lack of workers power leveraged toward anti-colonial 
and anti-racist ends. Though they aspired towards action beyond the 
workplace, this goal was negated by CPA's commitments to the 'first 
stage' of the Marxist-Leninist revolution.

The 'first stage' wasn't to destroy global capitalism, but to cast out 
American 'monopoly' capital out of Australia and for the CPA to operate 
a capitalist economy 'in the interests of workers'. To achieve this 
goal, Marxist-Leninists contested top positions in the industrial trade 
unions capable of wielding the power needed for the task. Though, they 
found that the largely reformist membership base of the unions typically 
only elected communist leadership if they sidelined their communist 
politics and fought on bread-and-butter workplace issues.

As a result of trading communist principles for top positions, 
Marxist-Leninists became some of the most conservative trade unionists 
in the struggle. Communist officials often kept their moderate base on 
side by being the first to condemn more militant union activity. In his 
thesis, Douglas Jordan describes how the CPA would shut down militant 
activity because it "ran the risk of isolating militant workers from the 
rest of the movement which may have not been ready to accept such 
actions." On the one hand, Marxist-Leninists accused those more militant 
than them of advancing too far beyond the class, while being largely 
incapable of advancing the class themselves. It seems that through 
top-down class struggle, they had become reformists, not the workers 
communists. The strategy had reached a stalemate.

The CPA was unable to project a socialist strategic perspective because 
the requirements of a two-stage theory of revolution kept it grounded at 
the level of the tactics demanded by the first stage-the 'democratic 
revolution' against monopoly.

Ken Mansell, The Marxism and Strategic Concepts of the CPA 1963-1972 
(Thesis, 1980).

A section of commonly-cited racist union history comes from this era of 
Marxist-Leninist control. To appease the reformist and sometimes 
reactionary union base approaching recessions, the CPA adopted brazenly 
right-wing policies against mass immigration and the construction of 
migrant hostels "claiming that it was diverting resources away from 
building housing for Australians". Jordan notes that for the CPA to work 
with the right, "potentially divisive demands such as support for 
Aboriginal republics were abandoned in order to build the greatest 
possible unity to build the Popular Front to confront the growing threat 
of the fascist powers".

Since the CPA only really needed industrial workers to achieve their 
'first stage' goals, all other struggles and positions were dispensible 
if they thought it would win over this group of workers. Since class 
power in this era was effectively reserved for the white settler working 
class and relegated to workplace disputes, they would never achieve the 
consciousness necessary to cast out monopoly capital, nor any of their 
on-paper anti-colonial ambitions. The narrowness of their focus limited 
their power and cost them the prospects of realising communist goals. 
This era demonstrated that class struggle was for the working man only, 
and those whose oppression didn't begin and end at work were told the 
issues they faced would be addressed after the revolution.

Internationalism:

By the 1960s, the Leninist strategy had left the CPA well and truly out 
of touch. A burgeoning New Left was taking up the struggles that were 
sidelined by the CPA's 'class-first' program. Black Power, Women's 
Liberation, Queer Rights. After haemmoraging members to Stalin's 
violence, the CPA claimed independence from the USSR with the invasion 
of Czechoslovakia in 1968. This left the CPA freer to reinvent itself 
disconnected from Stalinism. Reborn from the ashes of the 
Marxist-Leninist era, the CPA eventually released their program 'Towards 
Socialism in Australia'.4

The program pursued actual Internationalism, not 'Stalinist 
internationalism' that amounted to uncritical loyalty to Russia. It 
stated that "working class international solidarity is imperative to 
defeat the operations of internationally organised capital which would 
have a dangerous advantage in every struggle..." The program also 
emphasised, "...workers need a class-wide approach based on the common 
interests of all. This means attention, not only to wages and conditions 
of various sections, but to the material well-being of all..." The 
failures of the past era had led these communists to believe that 
"without addressing broader social issues even the struggle for wages 
and conditions becomes increasingly less effective." These 
internationalists would go on to prove this was more than just "pious 
talk of socialism paired with reformist practice" as was the legacy of 
the previous era.5

In the 1970s, unions agreed to a blanket ban on uranium production, 
initiating strikes for workers who lost jobs refusing to load and 
transport uranium due to its environmental impact. Similar to today, 
direct actionists were bashed by police before causing any disruptions 
on the docks, while dockworkers involved were able to keep yellowcake 
uranium from leaving the ports for up to two months at a time.

In 1979, oil drilling was opposed by Perth unions who answered the call 
of the Yungngora people of Noonkanbah and placed full-scale labour bans 
on transporting and operating drilling equipment. The ban was so widely 
upheld by union workers that scabs had to create their own trucking 
company from scratch and wear costumes to hide from retaliation. The oil 
company, Amax, had to be bribed by the Perth premier to keep the 
contract, who knew the precedent a win like this would set for the 
future of Australia's oil export business. That likely makes the 
Noonkanbah dispute the closest the left has ever come to ending an oil 
exploration operation on the continent.

A labour ban was placed by the NSW Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) 
on a maximum security wing at Long Bay Gaol. The union refused to pour 
concrete for it and demanded better treatment of prisoners, showing the 
potential of workers involvement in prison abolition. In 1976, the BLF 
banned Chinatown construction work that would have pushed out Chinese 
working-class residents in Melbourne. In this era, certain unions 
employed translators and elected multilingual organisers in unions so 
migrant workers would become more involved. As part of international 
solidarity, workers went on strike for Indonesian independence from the 
Dutch and enforced bans on transporting oil and weapons from Australian 
docks in solidarity with the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

This era also produced First Nations unionists that found a political 
home in these radical unions because they meaningfully supported 
Indigenous struggles. The BLF supported Ray Peckham and Monty Maloney to 
produce a newspaper called 'The Aboriginal Worker', which appealed to 
Aboriginal workers to "play an active part in their union". Kevin 
'Cookie' Cooke helped to organise union resistance to evictions in 
Redfern, getting a ban slapped on development. Builders Labourers also 
lent a hand connecting the plumbing and electricity and making the homes 
liveable after they were shuttered by developers, ensuring the campaign 
had staying power. Unions also offered support to campaigns like the 
Aboriginal Tent Embassy and funded education scholarships at Tranby, an 
Indigenous adult education college.

Best of all, revolutionary consciousness was ignited at the 
rank-and-file level, not from union officialdom. Meredith Burgmann 
describes how "mass meetings of BLF members voted to impose green bans 
in support of environmentalist objectives or to aid some oppressed 
group-women, prisoners, aboriginal people, homosexuals and migrants. 
They denied themselves work opportunities in pursuit of these policies."

Communists involved in these unions remarked that "trade union 
consciousness was becoming revolutionary consciousness".6 If 
highly-paid, white larrikin construction workers with little formal 
understanding of left-wing theory could stand in solidarity with 
marginalised people, then perhaps any worker can. Through day-to-day 
rank-and-file engagement and struggle, workers came to realise they had 
the power to shape the world against the maligned interests of capital, 
and so they had the responsibility to.

This era came to be regarded as the golden age of unionism on the 
continent, simultaneously broadening the scope of accepted union 
activity as well as the base of power, able to win not only impressive 
social gains, but also higher wages than any other period before it in 
history.

But if workers power is the only leverage, won't every movement be 
controlled by workers?
Some struggle with the idea of workers power being the primary leverage 
across all social struggles. The fear is that workers holding economic 
leverage would mean that non-workers sacrifice the ability to lead and 
prioritise their own struggles. And this isn't totally unreasonable, 
since the CPA leadership once approved or denied strike action of unions 
under its control. Certainly authoritarian class struggle is 
incompatible with the desire of groups to have protagonism over their 
own struggles.

Though, amongst those that turn away from class struggle, some make the 
mistake of conflating marginalised people's lived experience and 
understanding of oppression, with the power to defeat it. Unfortunately, 
not all social groups come with the economic leverage that workers have 
to cost capitalists their fortunes until they concede to demands. The 
history of the New Left shows that if we try to trump the 
self-determination of communities over their own struggles, we will end 
up ignored and irrelevant. Given the need for both power and protagonism 
within struggles, we ultimately need to engage in class struggle in a 
way that doesn't require marginalised groups to give control over to 
workers. Again history demonstrates precedent for this.

We can look to struggles like Noonkanbah, the Chinatown construction ban 
and others as good examples of a blueprint to follow-unions seemed to 
lend industrial power to campaigns that were organised, had clear 
demands and had built community support. Some had engaged in protests 
before even calling on the unions. This history highlights that 
non-workers have an organising role in raising their struggles up, but 
this era also demonstrates that simply organising protests or community 
support wasn't enough. When it came to actually winning demands, workers 
power was crucial. In these cases, the unions didn't steamroll 
communities, they were just the enforcers of their stated demands. Ward 
describes how "The BLF banned the Chinatown construction work, demanding 
the council consult with Chinese residents over the designs".

We'd also encourage marginalised workers to get involved in their unions 
and connect them to their struggles. First Nations unionists like Chicka 
Dixon, Kevin Cooke and Ray Peckham pushed for their unions to fight and 
win the demands developed by First Nations communities, on their precise 
terms. Ray Peckham has emphasised that: "The unions were like our boondi 
or nulla nulla[fighting stick]. That's what we need back today, for the 
young people to understand that we are all working-class people, we have 
power in the union to fight the system."

In 1977, NSW-based First Nations unionists established the Trade Union 
Committee on Aboriginal Rights (TUCAR) to inform and mobilise unions in 
support of Aboriginal issues. Various unions affiliated with TUCAR 
organised to win better conditions for Aboriginal workers. In some 
cases, they were called on to take industrial action to support 
Indigenous communities, like refusing to take part in developments that 
would damage Aboriginal land or sites.

During a period of heightened white nationalism in the 1980s, TUCAR also 
formed a parallel organisation called the Combined Unions Against Racism 
(CUAR) in 1984, due to worries around racial abuse suffered by 
Indigenous people, students, immigrants and refugees especially from 
Asian backgrounds. While the involved unionists faced violent attacks 
for their organising, their campaign pushed the ACTU to inform and 
educate union members on challenging racism in the workplace and the 
community. This is the scale of influence class struggle organising can 
have, all while linked to the expressed needs of affected communities.

But aren't the unions tools of imperialism?
It is undeniable that many Australian unions are currently tied to a 
settler-colonial, imperialist state, and often reproduce its logic in 
deferring to state power and in defending jobs and industries that 
require Indigenous dispossession and land destruction. Affiliation with 
the ALP means arbitration over strike action and union dues going toward 
campaigning for Labor's re-election. It means supporting the ALP while 
Labor leaders back refugee detention, Israeli genocide and the war on 
Iran. However, the question should be-is Labor Party affiliation eternal?

While the Marxist-Leninists in the CPA failed to provide a serious 
revolutionary alternative to the ALP, they clearly demonstrated an 
ability to carve a path into leadership of unions dominated by the ALP. 
The mighty NSW BLF started off as a right-wing union run by gangsters 
before a rank-and-file group of CPA members intervened in the early 
1950s. Workers who organised then were bashed on the job or at union 
meetings by thugs. Still, through rank-and-file pressure they managed to 
win control of their union.

Organising in a separate organisation outside of individual unions 
allowed communists to remain accountable to revolutionary goals and 
coordinated revolutionary strategies to not get lost in the foils of the 
ALP-loyal unions. Anarchists employ the same strategy today. The only 
difference is that the left is weaker and less convinced of the need to 
intervene into unions. If we again built power at the rank-and-file 
level, we could cast out the hacks and conservatives tying unions to the 
Australian state.

The Labour Aristocracy:

Some Marxist-Leninists use the Labour Aristocracy theory to explain the 
persistence of reformist consciousness amongst the working class, and 
why class struggle hasn't been able to reach revolutionary heights in 
the west. While this idea is often vaguely and inadequately described, 
it usually refers to a layer of the working class either outright bribed 
with imperialist 'super-profits' or at least pacified by high living 
standards established with imperial wealth. The Labour Aristocracy has 
been called the "social basis of reformism". Unfortunately, specific 
claims about exactly which workers in which industries take the bribe 
are scarcely attempted, and when they are, they are promptly debunked.

In 'Settlers', writer J. Sakai claims that the white/settler working 
class benefits more from upholding whiteness than it serves to gain from 
fighting on class lines. Others like Strauss profess that highly-paid 
workers are the labour aristocracy and more likely to reproduce 
"opportunism". Of these highly-paid workers are construction workers who 
were once paid peanuts to do jobs that regularly resulted in falling or 
crushing deaths, before transforming their sectors through militant 
union activity. Their high wages weren't bought by the fictional 
generosity of capitalist bosses, but through hard-fought battles against 
them. And while white collar workers are often considered part of the 
Labour Aristocracy, these jobs seem to be the first on the chopping 
block as AI tech advances. It also seems the maintenence of this system 
of bribes isn't adjusted for inflation, as wages languish across the 
board.7 Tom Bramble does a decent job of engaging empirically with this 
spurious theory in his piece 'Is there a labour aristocracy in Australia?'

Historically, the Labour Aristocracy theory has been used as a crutch-a 
way for communists to externalise blame for failing to win workers to 
their ideas. When the CPA's membership climbed to over 20,000 around 
World War II then thinned out dramatically when workers secured adequate 
wages, the CPA wrote extensively about reformist consciousness 
preventing their success. But Ken Mansell suggests that "the Marxist 
Leninist strategy effectively ensured that reformist consciousness 
wasn't just not challenged, but totally reinforced by the fact that 
strong unions could win better living conditions to workers. The system 
could be reformed, bosses could be curtailed against the worst of their 
offenses." Due to the failures of their own strategies, much less 
imperial bribes, these communists were unable to transcend what they 
dubbed "trade union narrowness". The Leninist legacy was as part of a 
dual force with the ALP reinforcing reformism in society.

Without needing theories that are often used justify not organising, we 
can understand that there are those with vested interests in reformist 
consciousness persisting. We know capitalists give millions to the ALP 
every year because "the ruling class needs the ALP as a safety valve 
when the class struggle heats up or when their own parties are in 
disarray". We are aware that Labor Party hacks sit in official union 
positions on cushy wages, happy to squash union militancy to avoid 
fines. The task at hand shouldn't be to justify giving up, but to 
determine a strategy capable of winning workers away from both reformism 
and fascism, before capitalists solve the crises they create however 
they see fit.

Isn't class struggle too peaceful to work?
For those interested in a global revolution, it's hardly convincing to 
just pump our fists about the Australian workers movement of the past. 
Class struggle (in the form of strikes) is seen by some skeptics as a 
form of 'non-violent' or 'peaceful' protest, therefore not fit for 
especially brutal contexts. Many cite revolutionary political parties 
like the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, who abandoned class 
struggle for armed struggle after striking dockworkers were massacred by 
Portugeuse colonialists.

To be clear, we would never argue that strikes are liberatory or 
appropriate in every situation. There are also certain parts of the 
world, like Palestine, where an international workers movements and 
labour boycotts would be required to halt genocidal processes-like 
dockworkers across Europe managed in 2026 as they shut down 21 major 
ports for a day of solidarity action.7 Though, we think that instead of 
abandoning class struggle for armed struggle alone, there is another 
strategy born under American imperialism that bears exploring.

In an internal strategy document called 'COPEI' written in 1972 by the 
Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU), Uruguayan anarchists discussed Che 
Guevara's strategy of 'foquismo'. Due to US imperialism in Latin 
America, Guevara had argued that it was the right time for small groups 
to embark on armed struggle campaigns, which would in turn encourage 
political revolution. The FAU's analysis was written during a time when 
across Latin America there were armed groups attempting to imitate the 
successes of the Cuban Revolution, with some guerilla wars even being 
sponsored by the Cubans.

The FAU argued that the foquistas made an error in focusing on military 
strategy and centering the urban guerilla. Because they were mainly 
interested in the working masses as cover or support for their actions, 
they disregarded working people's participation "as protagonists in the 
revolutionary process". In pursuing this strategy, the foco either 
becomes isolated due to the emphasis on revolutionary violence, and 
forced underground by the state, or if they win, they take over the 
state with a military cadre that becomes the new ruling class that rules 
over the working class.

The Uruguayan anarchists crucially realised that the guerilla should not 
be the 'political center' of movements because their primary aim is to 
destabilise and take control of the existing capitalist system-making 
the party state the solitary boss over all workers, who must be 
hyper-exploited to produce exports that allow the regime to survive 
economic sanctions. The FAU believed instead that the workers movement 
should be the 'political center' because only the workers movement could 
carry within itself the directly democratic structures of a new 
society-federated workers councils.

This lesson from the errors of foquismo led to the FAU's own practice of 
defending workers strikes with an armed apparatus so workers were 
shielded from the violence of American imperialists. Even Operation 
Condor CIA operatives eluded to this being a more effective strategy 
than the Cuban foquistas.8 This lesser known history proves that class 
struggle can be successful in especially brutal contexts and that 
maintaining capitalist modes of production in hope of first defeating 
dominant imperialists is a fool's errand. Many of the people that accuse 
class struggle of being western clearly haven't engaged with the work of 
the Uruguayan anarchist militants.

How can we engage in anti-colonial class struggle today?
Class power can halt the processes of colonial capitalism. It can put a 
stop to the devastation of Indigenous lands. Class power can place 
pressure from outside prisons, in solidarity with incarcerated workers, 
or refuse to build prisons and police stations outright. It can be the 
looming threat needed to make the state think twice before messing with 
hard-won reforms that reduce Deaths in Custody and the criminalisation 
of marginalised communities. Since we've demonstrated that it's 
powerful, applicable globally and has been used for anti-colonial ends, 
the question that remains is how we go about building it.

The way anarchists approach this task is to come together in 
revolutionary organisations, purpose-made to train our members in the 
art of workplace organising. United politically we can strategise about 
how to intervene in the unions, coordinate actions, all while remaining 
accountable to revolutionary principles and not the machinations of 
ALP-affiliated unions.

Class struggle starts modestly, with conversations in the workplace and 
being a reliable worker. It means joining the union and fighting within 
it. Signing up your workmates. Dealing with their fears and 
preconceptions and developing their class consciousness. Class struggle 
is like a bonfire, it must be lit at the base. It takes hard work, but 
once it's going it burns everything above it.

Its gift is that it doesn't demand big moral sacrifices and if done 
right it protects against risks that other forms of activism are 
powerless to protect their adherents from. Class struggle first appeals 
to individuals seeking material enrichment. Better pay and conditions at 
work. To get that, they must engage in a radical experiment that proves 
the material value of solidarity and the potential of its power. It 
connects peoples struggles to one another. This transforms consciousness 
more than guilt, shame and moral pressure.

History proves that it is wise to take as much responsibility for 
changing people's consciousness as we can, and make as few excuses as 
possible. We must avoid strategies that suggest prioritising the 
liberation of one group, or on attacking 'one part' of the system. To 
take out global capitalism, our base of power needs to be as broad as 
possible, so class struggle needs to be a tool that can be utilised by 
all who seek liberation. If we leave any out of solidarity or justify 
certain oppression that can't be addressed now, we damage the prospects 
of building the power for anyone to win.

To abandon class power is to abandon revolutionary possibility on this 
continent. If class struggle doesn't look the way you want it to, then 
you best get organised to shape it to your vision.

Endnotes:
We think it's more useful to talk about anti-colonialism as the ability 
to halt existing colonialism and prevent its resurfacing, rather than as 
any structure or system operated by colonised people strictly-which 
could entail anything and isn't the least bit helpful or descriptive.
While it was a given that communists operated within the unions, as no 
rival power existed, many were similarly concerned about complacent or 
pacified elements of the working class as many on the left today. The 
CPA wrote extensively about how to get the working class beyond "trade 
union narrowness" and toward the "politicisation of strikes". Many found 
that reformist consciousness was a hard nut to crack. Due to the immense 
bargaining power of the unions, many workers came to see capitalism as 
imminently reformable and able to grant adequate concessions. Only one 
tendency would demonstrate an ability to overcome this stubborn 
reformist consciousness and build a truly revolutionary, anti-colonial 
consciousness and class struggle within the unions.
Their positions were mandated through the Comintern by Stalin and often 
clouded by paternalism and assimilationist thinking. One position they 
took initially was to support Aboriginal states or 
Republics-Indigenous-controlled areas of "Central, Northern and North 
West Australia" that could establish their own military, government, 
industries. Paddy Gibson argued that "while Aboriginal people had 
certainly exercised jurisdiction both prior to and in resistance to 
colonisation, no Aboriginal groups raised the demand for an independent 
republic." He goes on to say that the republic proposal was not in 
alignment with the contemporary Aboriginal rights movement then either, 
quoting John Maynard: "[T]he AAPA's fight was not for a separate and 
segregated Aboriginal state, but for the provision of enough land for 
each and every Aboriginal family in Australia in their own right and 
country."
This program was a dog's dinner politically. Though it had a clear 
Internationalist through-line, it maintained a mix of New-Left, 
Marxist-Leninist and Eurocommunist ideas. It featured some of the 
gradualist tendencies of the Marxist-Leninist era and Kautskyist 
influences that believed that if workers ran capitalism for themselves, 
this amounted to socialism. This was still their ultimate goal, but many 
communists in the unions engaged in day-to-day struggles in a way that 
was Internationalist in nature.
Communist Party of Australia. 1970. 'Modern unionism and the workers' 
movement: Communist Party of Australia, 22nd Congress, March 1970Ž 
(Pamphlet).
Communist Party of Australia. 1970.
For another anarchist communist critique of the labor aristocracy 
concept, check out Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front's position on 
'Anti-Imperialism and National Liberation'
Zabalaza argued that even if alliances between settler and indigenous 
working classes don't exist in some contexts, it does not negate the 
need to build them.
Kokinis, Troy Andreas Araiza. 2023. Anarchist Popular Power Dissident 
Labor and Armed Struggle in Uruguay, 1956-76, AK Press.

https://arcup.org/blog/2026/05/12/class-struggle-anticolonial/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en