Over the weekend of 18 July, the Australian Socialist Party was founded. Fledgling as it is, we set ourselves the task of ending an increasingly harsh capitalist system and defeating all the parties who defend that system, from One Nation to the ALP. Achieving that will involve recruiting thousands of socialists to the party, and developing them into activists who can channel the rage of working people into a real force that can win against the odds.
The Socialist Party’s orientation to its members is unlike any other on the Australian political landscape, where party leaders generally see their members as how-to-vote distribution machines or empty numbers in a faction fight. Socialists aren’t just cheerleaders for parliamentary leaders—our members are fighters. So to help build an active party membership, the Socialist Party founding conference elected two national conveners: Rebecca Barrigos and Omar Hassan.
Both Barrigos and Hassan are teachers and union activists, both have been members of Socialist Alternative since the mid-2000s, both have led impressive campaigns in their home states over the past 20 years, and they’ve each played leading roles in establishing Queensland Socialists and Victorian Socialists respectively.
Speaking to Red Flag, Barrigos remembered the issues that spurred her to join the socialist movement as a uni student:
“The barbarism of the ‘war on terror’, the mass death toll and carnage that was unleashed on the civilian populations of Afghanistan and Iraq, the disgraceful rise of Islamophobia, racism used to justify war crimes, and attacks on civil liberties in the West to quell anti-war opposition, convinced me that I needed to join a socialist organisation that was committed to fighting every institution of the capitalist state.”
Similarly, Hassan related that he “became a socialist in the dark days of the John Howard years, furious at the racism and war that characterised that era”.
With the resurgence of Hanson’s One Nation and the genocidal wars grinding on in the Middle East, there’s a familiarity to the rage which drove Barrigos and Hassan towards socialism in their youth. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Sticking it out as socialist activists for two decades, in often difficult circumstances, is an admirable achievement in its own right, but those years meant more than just stubborn principles and passing time for Barrigos and Hassan. They’ve drawn lessons and inspiration from their years of organising. Hassan said that his time on the left has taught him “to appreciate the moments where working-class people come together to fight and win against the system: be it on a small picket line in suburban Melbourne or in mass protests against genocide and imperialism”.
But mass movements have risen and declined, ebbed and flowed, sometimes scoring small victories but often leaving the fundamental injustice in place. The transience of moments when workers feel their power taught Hassan “how important it is to build a political organisation that can sustain and consolidate the lessons and experiences of those times to build a force that can translate momentum into actual victories”.
Barrigos made a similar point when speaking about the movement against the Iraq War: “The Iraq War provoked unprecedented resistance. Millions around the world, in Europe, and here in Australia took to the streets in mobilisations even larger than the anti-Vietnam War moratoriums of the 1970s. But despite the size of these rallies, mass protests were never on their own going to stop the US war machine. If we want to win decisively, we need to build a socialist movement that mobilises the power of workers to successfully resist capitalism, and in that fight, lay the basis for a whole different society based on human need, not profit”.
Through their failures and limitations, movements of the past can give their participants a deeper understanding of what’s necessary to win. Not just a firmer conviction, but the right set of politics. Barrigos and Hassan are two among hundreds of experienced socialists who act as conveyor belts for these lessons to a new generation of radicalising young people. There are a few ways they have already been playing this role. They’ve both written insightful theoretical articles for the Marxist Left Review on topics like higher education, the Middle East and Australian politics. They both give impressive speeches.
Earlier this year, Hassan could be seen leading a mass rally against Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia, and last year Barrigos gave rousing speeches at a number of union rallies against attacks on the CFMEU. They also don’t shy away from the bread-and-butter work of basic organising, like knocking on doors, having one-on-one conversations, handing out leaflets and putting up posters. More important than all of these organising skills is their shared conviction that every socialist should develop and use such skills to build our ranks and fight for our ideas.
That’s what the Socialist Party is about—a space to discuss democratically the political lessons of our movement and raise every member’s confidence to fight for socialism. When asked for his thoughts on the founding conference, Hassan said:
“I’ve been inspired by the steady growth of the Victorian Socialists for some years now, but to see us found a truly national party is something else entirely. To see comrades from different traditions and organising experiences come together and commit to building a fighting socialist movement was so uplifting. But it’s just the start”.
In her closing statements at the founding conference, Barrigos struck a similar tone—not rosy-eyed about the challenge, but determined to meet it:
“Building this movement will not happen overnight. It will take determined effort by committed socialists all across this country to begin to turn the tide. A core part of this task is to recruit to the Socialist Party and convince more of our already existing members to be active in building the forces of socialism alongside us all.
“It isn’t all up and away, but our class has never run away from the hard things. Workers have met the horrors of capitalism with resistance, and socialists have organised this fight. It is a challenge we are all in for—and better equipped to fight now we have our Australian Socialist Party.”
