The world is getting increasingly violent and irrational. The horror in Gaza has been followed by yet more death and destruction in Iran and Lebanon. The right is ascendant almost everywhere, with the surge in support for One Nation here just the latest example. If you think something needs to be done about the state of the world, you’re absolutely right. But what exactly should we do?
First, we have to address the elephant in the room: change these days feels hard to achieve. The people who run the world seem to act with impunity and without regard for whether or not anyone approves of their actions. Terrible US and Israeli war crimes attract sycophantic support, most enthusiastically from the Albanese government, while protests against them are either ignored or criminalised.
We could conclude from this there is no alternative but to accept the status quo—which is exactly the conclusion those in power hope we will come to. Or, we can refuse to give in, figure out what has worked to change things in the past and, from there, work out what can be done to get us a bit closer to that goal today.
One of capitalism’s best-kept secrets is that when large enough numbers join movements to fight back together, change can happen relatively easily and unexpectedly. Just think of the Gen Z-led uprisings that have brought down governments in Bangladesh and Nepal in the last couple of years.
The movement against the war in Vietnam in the 1960s is another example. Millions across the world engaged in resistance to the war, finally forcing the US to withdraw in what was a disastrous defeat for US imperialism and a win for our side. The heroism of the Vietnamese resistance, combined with revolt among US soldiers and a mass movement at home, made it impossible for the war to continue.
Mass movements are most successful when they involve organised workers. It was the revolutionary actions of masses of Russian and German workers that ended the slaughter of World War One, for example. Action by workers doesn’t just disrupt society in a way the powerful can’t ignore; it also raises the possibility of a democratic alternative, run collectively by the people who produce the wealth.
We are living in a different time to the heyday of the Vietnam War movement or the Russian Revolution. We haven’t been able to stop the genocide in Palestine, or force major changes in Australia’s stance. So we need to be willing to face up to the size of the mountain we have to climb in order to know what steps to take now.
What we do know is that capitalism reliably breeds discontent, which can be turned into action if there are people arguing for it. Action is important because it brings people together and starts to impact wider layers.
Take for example the 300,000-strong March for Humanity in Sydney, and the thousands who marched against the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. These marches provided thousands the opportunity publicly to oppose the government and to see that others shared their disgust. And they made it impossible for the government to maintain the fiction that there is consensus support for Israel.
Through mass action, we can get a sense of the power of our side, experiment with how to organise it most effectively, and get a better idea of what we’re up against. It brings people together and gives them a reason and opportunity to strategise about the way forward.
Individuals can have an impact, but individuals organised together around shared aims and strategies have much more. Which is the reason that, at the centre of most sustained movements, there is a minority of activists thinking about the next steps, how to widen support and win. These activists are usually organised in groups, formal or informal.
In the US civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, black students in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee spent their time between classes going to political meetings, organising sit-ins and regularly risking their lives to stand up against racism. They forged a new political tradition of resistance, which contributed to the movement’s success.
It’s still true today that organised groups of people can make things happen, even when they are relatively small. For example, when the Herzog visit was announced, activists across the country in various pro-Palestine groupings made a conscious choice to turn it into a political scandal for the Australian government. Instead of allowing Albanese, Herzog and Minns to dominate the narrative, activists flipped the script by organising mass demonstrations across the country.
But organisations need to be about more than just the immediate strategies for movements or campaigns, most of which are short lived. They need to offer a wider world view and vision for social change.
This is why building socialist organisation is crucial. Socialists are for the complete destruction of capitalism and its replacement with a society run by the working class. We’re fighting for a world in which we don’t have to keep organising episodically against atrocities and injustice, and instead society’s resources are organised democratically and used to meet people’s needs, not entrench the privilege of a few.
To get there, socialists want to use every opportunity for collective resistance to build and strengthen the sorts of organisations we need to fight for this goal now and into the future. We will need many more people to make the choice to join socialist groups to win fights in the long term, including pushing back the far right.
That’s why it’s important to be an organised socialist today. This means improving your understanding of the system so that you can fight it most effectively together with other socialists. Being a socialist also involves throwing yourself into campaigns, fighting for radical perspectives within them and arguing to others to become socialists too. If we want to destroy capitalism, the system responsible for so much horror, it will take nothing short of hundreds of thousands choosing to do the same.
Madi Curkovic is the Monash Student Association education officer.
