Red Flag builds on a long tradition of socialist publications. Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin drummed into his supporters in “Where to Begin?”, written in 1901, the role of the newspaper as “scaffolding” in building an organisation:

“The role of a newspaper … is not limited solely to the dissemination of ideas, to political education, and to the enlistment of political allies. A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator; it is also a collective organiser. In this last respect it may be likened to the scaffolding round a building under construction, which marks the contours of the structure and facilitates communication between the builders, enabling them to distribute the work and to view the common results achieved by their organised labour…

We’re here to launch and welcome the new Resistance Magazine, and I’m here to talk about the old – Resistance magazine’s precursors, our publishing traditions.

Our heritage takes in all the best traditions of radical and socialist journalism. Internationally, there’s Lenin’s Iskra of course, even back to The Red Republican and the Friends of the People, * which published the first English translation of the Communist Manifesto in 1850. There’s the US Militant in its healthy days, and Intercontinental Press * (library files).

The National Executive’s draft perspectives resolution has two major elements to it. The first part of the resolution presents an analysis of the Australian political situation, focusing in particular on why there has not been a generalised fight back by the working class against the Howard government’s Thatcherite offensive. The second part concerns the party-building perspectives and main tasks for the party that flow from the Australian political situation and from the stage we are at in building a revolutionary workers’ party.

Our strategy for achieving socialism is to build a mass revolutionary workers’ party on the Bolshevik model, which can imbue the working class with revolutionary consciousness and thus lead the masses in carrying out a proletarian revolution and the construction of socialism. Without the leadership of such a party the workers, no matter how massive or militant their struggles, will not be able to achieve decisive victory over the capitalist rulers.

One of the traditions on which Direct Action built is that of the old Industrial Workers of the World, who were the first publishers of a paper with this name in Australia. The IWW was formed in Chicago in 1905, and by the outbreak of WWI was well established in Australia. The IWW – otherwise known as the Wobblies – set out to be an industrial union uniting all workers in the struggle against the bosses. But it was also a revolutionary organisation based on a dedicated membership preaching the doctrines of all-out class struggle and the fight for a new social order.