DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE

The strategic task of the revolutionary party is to unite and mobilise the working class and its potential allies in a struggle for power. The accomplishment of this task requires the solution of two central, interrelated, problems:

1. How to help the masses to cross the bridge from demands and forms of organisation that stem from their day-to-day struggles against capitalist exploitation and oppression to the level of political consciousness and action required to impose revolutionary socialist solutions.

2. How, in this process, to gather fresh forces and train the cadres who can build a mass revolutionary socialist party capable of leading millions of working people to victory.

Central to the solution of these problems is the party's ability to give clear and timely answers to the problems faced by the masses and, through their own experiences of struggle, draw them in the direction of a revolutionary struggle for power. In addressing this task, the following points should be borne in mind:

1. The sphere of economic struggle between workers and employers cannot alone provide the basis for the full development of working-class political consciousness. Such consciousness can only develop through activity on the entire terrain of the battlefield on which all oppressed classes and strata of capitalist society fight out their struggles with their class oppressors and with the capitalist state.

2. The working class cannot achieve genuine political class-consciousness unless it responds from a socialist viewpoint to all cases of oppression no matter what class or social group is affected. The development of genuine working-class political consciousness is not possible unless working people are politically equipped to analyse the intellectual and political life of all the social classes; unless they are able to apply in practice the historical-materialist approach to all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata and groups. Socialists therefore reject attempts to focus the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself and its economic struggle. The self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up with a clear theoretical and practical understanding of the relationships between all classes, strata and groups, acquired through direct political experience.

3. To fully develop the political consciousness of the working class, the socialist party must conduct propaganda in relation to every manifestation of capitalist oppression, no matter what section of the population it affects. All struggles against oppression are capable of drawing the masses into political action and assisting the development of working-class political consciousness. However, while there is no predetermined hierarchy of issues that defines which issues struggles may spontaneously develop around, the party must prioritise propaganda and agitation around those issues that have the greatest social weight, that are central to advancing the ability of the working class to think socially and act politically.

4. The working people will reach socialist conclusions only when they are convinced by their own experience of the correctness of the party's policy. Which issues will impel the broad masses into struggle at any particular time will depend on the development of the crisis of Australian imperialism. To neglect struggles undertaken spontaneously by the working people is as mistaken as to restrict the party's activities exclusively to those matters.

5. Socialists seek to convince workers that the problems facing all of the oppressed and exploited are issues of direct concern to them, and that there can be no individual solutions to the many problems created by capitalism. The problems facing the masses can only be solved through collective anti-capitalist political action.

6. The party champions progressive demands, and supports progressive struggles, of all oppressed sections of the population, regardless of the origin and level of their action. While supporting these struggles, the party seeks also to explain the necessity of going beyond immediate demands and struggles to a generalised struggle against capitalist rule.

7. Recognising the pervasiveness of divisions in the working class fostered by capitalism, the party advocates unity based on support for the demands of the most oppressed sections of the working class. It seeks to present clear solutions to the problems faced by potential allies of the working class.

8. Socialists promote methods of struggle in which the working class, because of its numbers and economic role, is strongest. The most effective method of working-class struggle is direct mass action in the streets and workplaces against the capitalist class and its state power.

9. The party derives its demands from the objective needs of the working class and all of the oppressed, and seeks to formulate them in terms that are, as much as possible, understandable to working people at their existing level of consciousness and readiness for action. In putting forward such demands it is necessary to avoid both opportunist and sectarian errors. The former result from losing sight of the strategic objective, while the latter result from ignoring the existing level of consciousness of the broader forces the party seeks to mobilise.

10. The party raises demands and proposes actions aimed at shifting the burden of the inequities and breakdowns of the capitalist system from the working people onto the capitalists and their state, where it properly belongs.

11. In the course of mass struggles, the party advances demands that relate to the immediate problems facing working people but which challenge the power of the capitalists to control the lives of working people and the wealth they create, and which point to the need for working people to take political power into their own hands. Through the struggle for such transitional demands, the working class can develop its understanding of the need to overthrow capitalist rule and the means of doing so.

12. Socialists do not limit themselves to the necessary struggle to defend existing democratic rights, but seek to carry the struggle for democracy into all spheres of social life, in particular into the sphere of economic organisation and the process of decision-making about the living conditions of the working class.

13. In conducting its work, the party must be clear in distinguishing between strategy and tactics, and between propaganda campaigns (the dissemination of many fundamental ideas), agitational campaigns (the dissemination of a few ideas, or even one key idea) and slogans for action — and when it is appropriate to employ them. Strategy is a long-range proposition requiring propagandistic approaches. Tactics deal with immediate aims and agitation leading to action. Propaganda work is directed at the most advanced elements, with the aim of raising their general political understanding. Agitation is directed at the broad masses, with the aim of preparing them for action. Slogans for action are aimed at calling the broadest masses into immediate action, into mass struggle.

14. The party's tactical proposals must be subordinate to and aimed at advancing its strategic aim of socialist revolution. The party must choose tactics that help to raise the class consciousness of the workers and their confidence in their ability to fight and win. In determining its tactical line, the party must take into account the existing political situation, the relationship of class forces, the masses' consciousness, militancy and preparedness for action, and the influence and strength of the party itself.

15. The revolutionary character of the imperialist era flows not from the possibility of revolutionary mass action at any given moment but from the historic impasse of capitalism and the rapid fluctuations in the political situation resulting from this impasse. In the context of the capitalist system's instability, and of growing dissatisfaction among the masses, the course of the class struggle can change abruptly. Because of this, the party must avoid routinism and display the utmost creativity and flexibility in its tactics while remaining firm in its strategic orientation.