> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://redflag.org.au/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The case for socialist organisation - URL: https://redflag.org.au/article/the-case-for-socialist-organisation/ - Published: 2026-09-07T02:15:50.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-07T02:27:51.000Z - Description: To win socialism, we will need to build a force as powerful as the political and ideological institutions of the capitalist class. - Author: Luca Tavan - Tags: Marxism and Socialism, Introduction to Socialism, #309, #socialism101 You only need to look at the headlines over an average week in 2026 to see why we need to get rid of capitalism. Wildfires intensified by climate change are raging across Europe and [detonating](https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/wildfires-expose-detonate-buried-bombs-mines-wwi-wwii-135860099?ref=redflag.org.au) buried WWII-era bombs and mines. Drought and economic disruption from war are combining to threaten the [world’s food supply](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-25/global-famine-fears-as-wars-and-el-nino-fuel-food-shortages/107072816?ref=redflag.org.au). Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz is seeking US approval to forcibly “[depopulate](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/02/israel-seeking-trumps-support-for-plan-to-expel-palestinians-from-gaza?ref=redflag.org.au)” Gaza. The 21st century was meant to mark the final triumph of capitalism, when a civilised, democratic version of liberal democracy would spread across the globe, uplift billions and resolve the problems of poverty and war. But people born this century have only seen things go from bad to worse. No wonder the last decade has been characterised by explosive resistance movements involving millions, from France to Nepal. While Australia is relatively stable, there’s no shortage of discontent, especially among young people. Australia had some of the largest and most sustained protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, for example. And resistance has started to emerge to the rise of One Nation, with conservative commentator Rowan Dean recently whining about the anti-Hanson high school walkouts: “You’ve got these school kids linking Pauline Hanson, oligarchs, fascism ... linking that to billionaires ... It’s really dangerous, it’s really sinister, it’s radicalisation of our youth”. So the injustices of capitalism are not just accepted by everyone all the time. Resistance of various sorts has always been a feature of the system. But to be effective, this resistance needs a clear goal and understanding of the adversary it is up against. Socialism has, since even before Marx’s time, been this goal. It proposes to replace the rule of capital, and its drive to accumulate profit ahead of all else, with a society run democratically by the workers who make the things we all need and depend on to live. This can be achieved only by workers taking collective, democratic control of their workplaces and industries and completely destroying the rule of the bosses and their state. In his poem *In Praise of Communism* the revolutionary German poet Bertolt Brecht called this “\[t\]he simple thing that’s hard to do”. Simple, because socialism is the rational alternative to the insanity of capitalism. Workers’ democracy could solve climate change by doing what capitalist governments refuse to: expropriating the fossil fuel companies and redirecting resources to renewable energy generation and expansion, regardless of whether it’s profitable. Military build-up and wars between capitalist states for control of markets, natural resources and trade routes would be immediately redundant in a society organised to meet human need rather than generate ever greater profit for the few. Hard to do, because the capitalist class possess immense social power and numerous defences to protect their rule, from repressive laws and armed police to the loyalty of “moderate” political leaders, who will always ultimately defend the system. The power of the capitalist class means they influence what workers think and can demoralise those who do want to fight back. To win socialism, then, we will need to build a force as powerful as the political and ideological institutions of the capitalist class. Socialist organisation is key to this. First, it presents a coordinated ideological challenge to the ideas promoted by capitalist institutions, from the education system to the mass media, that are reinforced numerous ways in our everyday lives. A lot of this is simply creating confusion about how the system operates, obscuring the power and interests that underpin the norms or prerogatives of the system. Take the mainstream economics taught in universities: it’s essentially a religious dogma that exists to justify the rule of the rich. As Marxist economist Richard Wolff explains: “the vast majority of students walk away from their economic courses with little more than free-market ideology”. It can’t explain why the system perpetually spirals into crisis, or why a world built on such abundance still contains so much poverty and desperation. Wars, likewise, and the real considerations driving them, are rarely discussed candidly by those waging them. Marxist theory endeavours to explain how capitalism actually works: why inequality, economic crisis and war are built into the logic of the system, and not just the product of irrational behaviour or bad policy. Importantly, socialists don’t just rely on moral arguments to rally people to our cause, morally bankrupt though capitalism certainly is. We have facts and logic too. This is why Marx put so much effort into developing a systematic study of the mechanics of capitalism. Marx didn’t write *Capital* for his own edification. It was the basis for the political conclusions laid out in the *Communist Manifesto*, which he used to organise and recruit more people to the revolutionary movement. Socialist organisation means each one of us is not starting from scratch: we can pool resources, experience and knowledge, and build on the work of those who have gone before. This history is important and instructive. Whenever a serious struggle to change society emerges, debates *within* the left will inevitably heat up. There will be arguments between revolutionaries who want to take events to their logical conclusion, and reformists, who want to settle for some compromise. Even *amongst* revolutionaries, there will be deep divisions and debates about everything from organising workers’ power to challenging oppression. Organisation is a way to clarify and resolve these debates, and at times test various arguments by putting them into practice in the course of the struggle. Learning from struggles of the past is essential to ensuring the best chance of successful ones in the future. This is why Socialist Alternative puts out a publication, runs educational programs and hosts conferences: so that there are more socialists armed with a solid grasp of history and political theory, ready to analyse, to argue and to organise. All the book learning in the world is useless if it’s not applied to the hard task of organising battles in the here and now. And why we discuss collectively the strategy and tactics of various struggles, because we want to work out what is the best way to win. Real revolutionaries don’t sit around waiting for the day the barricades go up. We are building an organisation of people committed to organising resistance wherever possible. Mass movements give their participants a sense of collective power, and can prove the relevance and necessity of radical change. They are fuel for future struggles to topple this system. Socialist Alternative is about bringing together the people who want to be active in such movements, who want to lead others and fight capitalism wherever they are, from their workplaces to university campuses. Our members are found in the middle of every serious social movement, from the Palestine solidarity campaign to the fight against the far right. There are a plethora of moderate organisations, from social justice NGOs to parliamentary parties like the Greens, that sometimes support protests and progressive campaigns. But they’re ultimately committed to reinforcing the very system they set out to change. And they often limit their demands and stifle initiative out of fear of being seen as unreasonable and alienating the people in power whom they want to influence. This has seldom led to serious victories for workers and oppressed people. Socialists approach social change differently. The recent teachers’ strikes in Victoria are a case in point: in a context of weak unions and falling real wages, Victorian teachers won a vastly improved contract off the back of two days of massive strikes and two historic members’ votes to reject pay offers endorsed by the union’s leadership. As even the liberal *Guardian* newspaper [acknowledged](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/17/australia-victoria-teachers-union-vote-pay-deal?ref=redflag.org.au), the uncompromising, take-no-prisoners approach of socialists was an essential part of winning a better contract. Teachers had to face down a hostile Labor government and their own treacherous union leaders in order to win. Socialist high schoolers led the recent [walkout](https://redflag.org.au/article/students-teach-hanson-a-lesson/) against Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, which was denounced hysterically by the right, the media, Labor and not a few school principals. The tone of defiance struck by leading socialist high school activists clearly resonated with thousands of young people disgusted at being lectured on civility and democratic responsibility by the very people who are overseeing a country sleepwalking toward far-right authoritarianism. In both these campaigns, it was important that socialists stuck to their guns and helped raise expectations beyond what the existing powers deemed “reasonable”. With more socialists, we can better connect with the thousands of people who are fed up. The growth of the Socialist Party, which now contests elections across the country, is one indication that there’s an audience out there who want to act and will when given the opportunity. With more than 6,000 members, the party has already grown to be the largest socialist organisation in the country for many decades. The more we can build our forces and deepen our collective political experience, the more possibilities there will be to wage a successful fight back*.* Winning, not just a few campaigns or a few members of parliament, but a revolution against capitalism, will require building a mass socialist organisation. We will need socialist organisers in every major workplace, every campaign and on every university campus. That starts with convincing individuals of socialist politics and arming them with the arguments and conviction to convince others. Nobody is born with the skills and experience to lead mass resistance to capitalism. Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky became known as one of the greatest orators in the history of the socialist movement, but his first attempts at public speaking were so disastrous they ended, literally, in tears. One witness recalled: “\[H\]e got himself so terribly wound up in a sliding network of unintelligible big words and receding hopes of ideas that his audience sat bathed in sympathetic perspiration, wondering if there was any way under the sun they could help him to stop”. It took time playing his part in the organised socialist movement to learn to organise, lead and inspire. We won’t all go down in the history books like Trotsky. But everyone who wants to see the rich and powerful torn down once and for all has a role to play in building a socialist group. The best time to do it is now.