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Workers' Liberty
the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class Workers Liberty Australia |
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Socialism to us means not the police state of Stalinism, but its polar opposite, the self-organised power of the working class breaking the entrenched power of the billionaires and their bureaucratic state machine. Socialism means a society restructured according to the working-class principle of solidarity. It means an economy of democratic planning, based on common ownership of the means of production, a high level of technology, education, culture and leisure, economic equality, no material privileges for officials, and accountability. Beyond the work necessary to ensure secure material comfort for all, it means the maximum of individual liberty and autonomy.
The trade unions are the product of long struggles by the working class for the right to build their own organisations to protect them from the arrogant power of the bosses. They remain the major organisations of the working class, the major vehicles of class struggle. There is no short-term prospect of them being replaced by new organisations. Since we believe socialism can be achieved only by the working class liberating itself, we must focus on the trade union movement, rather than on "radical" movements without a working-class or socialist perspective.
Yet the unions represent the working class incompletely, unsatisfactorily, binding the class to capitalism. We must develop the unions, transform them, reinvigorate them with socialist purpose and a commitment to the liberation of humanity from all oppression. To do that, the radical activist minority must organise itself and equip itself with clear ideas.
That is our aim: to spread ideas of unfalsified socialism, to educate ourselves in socialist theory and history, to assist every battle for working-class self-liberation, and to organise socialists into a decisive force, able to revolutionise the labour movement so that it, in turn, can revolutionise society.
Workers' Liberty invites as members all labour movement activists who agree with and will promote our basic aims; who will work to educate themselves in Marxist theory and politics; who will promote our publications; who will pay regular financial contributions; and who will carry out majority decisions, made according to our democratic processes, in a disciplined way.
Our highest decision-making power is a conference of members. Conferences elect a committee, including an editor and a secretary and maybe other members. The committee is responsible for convening conferences and for decision-making between conferences. Because of the large distances in Australia, decisions can also be made by membership referendums on written proposals.
The secretary organises and counts such referendums. The secretary also maintains the membership list and is responsible for organising adequate communications between members. The editor is responsible for publications. If elected officers become unavailable, they can be replaced by membership referendum. The committee must call a conference within a month if it receives a written request for that from one-quarter of the members.
Every member has the right and duty to develop and express their own views on political issues, including in public. Discipline obliges members to support duly-decided actions, not to suppress their own views. All members have the right to circulate their views on controversial issues to other members and to form factions if they consider it necessary. Our publications will, as a norm, offer due space to minority views. Conferences, or the committee, can suspend members, or expel them after a proper hearing, on grounds of flouting majority decisions in action, breach of working-class principle, or disloyal collaboration with enemies or adversaries of our group, but never on grounds of opinion alone. Organisational or personal disputes between members should be mediated by the committee. If a member of the committee is involved in the dispute, mediation should be by the other members of the committee. If all members of the committee are involved in the dispute, the dispute should be mediated by a commonly-agreed third person or by a conference.
This constitution can be amended by a conference, or by two-thirds majority in a membership referendum.