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On 1 May 1886, 400,000 workers in the United States went on strike demanding the eight hour day. In Chicago, anarchist-influenced unions organised strikes across the city and mobilised tens of thousands onto the streets. As the anarchist labour organiser August Spies was addressing workers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant in Chicago, police suddenly arrived and attacked the strikers. One worker was killed and six others were seriously wounded.

Three days later, workers gathered at Haymarket to protest police violence. When police attacked the peaceful demonstration, an unknown person threw a bomb into the police ranks. It killed one policeman and fatally wounded six more. Police then opened fire on the demonstration, killing at least four workers and injuring over seventy people. Many of those left alive were arrested.

In the days after the Haymarket Massacre, police rounded up anarchists, socialists and unionists across the city. Eight anarchists were eventually charged as ‘accessories to murder’, without any evidence linking them to the bomb. Five of the eight, Michael Schwab, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg and Oscar Neebe, weren’t even at the massacre. The other three, August Spies, Samuel Fielden and Albert Parsons, had addressed the crowd at Haymarket.

The prosecution and the police made it clear that these eight people were chosen because of their anarchist ideals and union activity. On top of that, the jury consisted of businessmen and their clerks, and at least one relative of a dead cop — it was a complete sham.

Seven of the eight were sentenced to death. Neebe, the eighth, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. But after massive public outcry, Schwab and Fielden’s death sentences were commuted to life in prison. The bomber, meanwhile, was never identified. On 10 November 1887, Lingg killed himself in his cell. A day later, Spies, Fischer, Engel and Parsons were hanged.

Public opinion stood with the anarchists; 600,000 attended their funeral. Neebe, Schwab and Fielden were eventually pardoned and released by Governor Altgeld in 1893, not out of pity, but because they were all innocent.

The story of the Haymarket Martyrs lives on, and we celebrate May Day to commemorate all those who have lost their lives fighting for a better world.

‘If you think that you can crush out these ideas that are gaining ground more and more every day; if you think you can crush them out by sending us to the gallows; … if death is the penalty for proclaiming the truth, then I will proudly and defiantly pay the costly price! Call your hangman!’ – August Spies, 7 October, 1886

As we mark May Day 2025, we are in the midst of an unfolding capitalist crisis.

Where things stand

The Paris climate targets are in the rear-view window. Last year world temperatures exceeded 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

The war in Gaza is undoubtedly a genocide. Israel has torn up the ceasefire, cut off all essential supplies and returned to its war of extermination upon the Palestinian people.

In the United States, Donald Trump leads a fascist movement and is actively building an authoritarian regime. Trump is seeking to re-order the political system in the United States, and the position of the United States within the world.

This poses a dire problem for Australian capitalism. Australia remains a sub-imperial power within the US imperial system which Trump regards as obsolete. Australian capitalism relies on the threat of the United States to exert power within its region. Australia is now stuck begging for preferential treatment from an increasingly unpredictable Trump.

Trade wars lead to shooting wars

Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were squarely aimed at China. US capitalists have squealed, and Trump has since announced a stay of execution on most tariffs, except almost all those on China, his main target.

The United States engineered the “age of globalisation” in its own interests. Free trade agreements allowed US companies to move production offshore, pay lower wages to workers, and increase the rate of profit. But this “spatial fix” was only temporary. Profits and growth stagnated, China industrialised and US power declined in the face of increasingly broad global competition.

Trump’s trade war is an attempt to reverse US decline by executive order. The problem is that trade wars all too often develop into shooting wars as states seek to break out of the resulting political and economic crisis.

The way forward

The working class must not pin its hopes on one global power or another. All capitalist economic policy is at the expense of workers and at the expense of our long term survival on this planet.

More than ever we need independent working class power that can fight in the interest of workers, and we need working class solidarity across global borders.

We need to rebuild a fighting union movement, one that can coordinate internationally to place bans on warmongers and shut down polluting industries. To do this we must defeat the collaborationists and bureaucrats who tie our movement to capitalism and the state. We need to build a rank and file movement that can fight and win.

The movement to do this is anarchism. We have announced the Anarchist Communist Federation on May Day because we know that anarchist ideas and methods are essential if we are to rebuild the workers movement as a movement of revolutionary class struggle.

To work comrades, we have a world to win!

Revolution is the complete transformation of how we live, work, and relate to one another.

Most revolutions are political revolutions. They reshuffle who governs us but leave the deeper structures of oppression untouched. A social revolution goes further, changing how decisions are made, resources shared, and power distributed.

A social revolution describes the working class taking collective control of production, distribution, and daily life. It’s the people who do the work now making the decisions, on the job and in their communities. It’s a world built on the principle: from each according to ability, to each according to need.

To some, this sounds utopian. But what’s truly utopian is the belief that we can vote or reform our way out of a system built on exploitation.

Capitalism isn’t broken

Capitalism is a system based on inequality, coercion, and endless growth. Its violence is both spectacular and mundane: bombs dropped in one place, starvation in another, eviction notices quietly emailed while homes sit empty.

Capitalism doesn’t need to be mismanaged to destroy lives. It cannot be made green, ethical, or just. It cannot stop the plunder of land, of labour, of the planet because it cannot function without plunder: lithium from colonised lands, labour from exhausted bodies.

Reforms aren’t enough

Every reform we’ve won, we’ve had to wrench from the hands of capital. They’re concessions, not gifts, forced through by organised, sustained working-class struggle. When that struggle fades, capital takes back everything we’ve made it concede.

That’s why we support reforms but reject reformism. The belief that this system can gradually transform into something fair is a trap. We fight for reforms not to patch up capitalism, but to build confidence, organisation, and strength within the working class, so we can confront and dismantle the system itself.

Capital won’t go quietly

The ruling class will resist anything that threatens their control with all the violence they can muster. They will abandon every democratic pretence, and unleash the full power of the state to protect their wealth. If that means shutting down parliaments, backing fascist coups, or drowning mass movements in blood, they will not hesitate.

It doesn’t always come with bullets. Capital also starves into submission through sanctions, debt traps, and economic blockades. When profit is at stake, no law, constitution, or election is sacred.

History proves this. From Chile to Indonesia to Australia, the moment a movement becomes a real threat to capital the masks come off.

In Chile, Salvador Allende tried to bring socialism through the ballot box. For that, he was met with tanks and gunfire. The CIA backed a coup, the military seized power, and thousands of workers and students were rounded up, tortured, and executed. The dreams of a “democratic” socialism were buried in mass graves.

In Indonesia, the US armed and supported General Suharto’s military as it carried out one of the 20th century’s most horrifying massacres. Over a million communists, unionists, and anyone suspected of sympathy were slaughtered to protect the interests of capital. Australian diplomats and politicians were fully aware of the scale of the violence. They praised it as a “great victory,” while providing propaganda, intelligence, and diplomatic cover to the regime.

In Australia itself, the pattern held. Even the mild reforms of the Whitlam government provoked panic. Investment dried up, the media turned hostile, and the usually ceremonial Governor-General stepped in to sack the Whitlam government.

So why revolution?

No law can abolish capitalism. No party can vote us out of climate collapse. No bureaucracy can dismantle the system that created this crisis.

We need a revolution not because we’re idealists, but because we’re realists. Poverty, imperialism, and ecological collapse aren’t bugs in the system. They are the system.

Revolution is not a single event, but a process of rupture and rebuilding. If we want a world organised around life instead of profit, it must be built from the ground up, through the collective power of the working class.

Some argue that we can do this by using the state, but the state is not neutral. Time and again, leftists who enter the state find themselves crushed, co-opted, or transformed. Even those with sincere intentions are changed by the very institutions they hoped to use. The more radicals are absorbed, the more they come to resemble what they once opposed.

Means shape ends. You cannot use class structures to build a classless society.

The path ahead is made of the choices and struggles we take up today, because the tools we use shape the world we create. It begins with the recognition that we cannot live like this, and that we don’t have to. The working class already has the power to change everything. That power only grows when we organise deliberately, collectively, and from below.

Trans people are the latest scapegoat in a much older fight. Governments are dismantling our civil rights, gutting public services, and tightening control. In Queensland, that now includes a ban on gender-affirming care for trans people under 18.

I joined around a hundred others in protest against this ban. Most were young, and many were at their first rally, facing harassment by far-right groups loitering at the pub next door. It was a clear picture of what resistance often looks like now: brave, but small and under pressure.

But courage alone won’t win this fight. Neither will being visible for its own sake. If we want lasting change, we need power. That means organising, especially in the places where we already have strength: our workplaces and our unions.

Trans struggle is worker struggle

Unions aren’t perfect. They can be slow, bureaucratic, and cautious. But they’re one of the few tools we have that can challenge bosses and governments. Not with statements, but with action: walkouts, strikes, workplace campaigns. The kind of action that can’t be ignored.

But even unions with strong politics often won’t act without pressure. Without organised voices from below, they’re more likely to chase headlines and set aside our issues as too “divisive.” That’s why we need to build from the ground up.

Start where you are

Trans people are already in every kind of workplace: schools, warehouses, hospitals, offices. And the things we need—healthcare, safety, dignity—are the same things all workers need.

Talk to your coworkers. Find out what’s frustrating them. Maybe it’s short staffing, poor wages, or a new attendance policy. These are your starting points. As we fight side by side, there’s less space for transphobia to grow.

Don’t wait for permission. Set up meetings. Connect with other members. Bring trans issues into day-to-day union work. That could mean passing motions for transition leave, access to affirming care, and protections from discrimination, while linking these to broader issues like public healthcare, parental leave, and abortion rights.

Build on what’s already there

We don’t have to start from scratch. The National Tertiary Education Union has already won gender transition leave at several universities, thanks to members pushing for it. The NTEU’s queer caucus, QUTE, is one example of a space that can be made more active, democratic, and focused on real change.

If your union has a queer or trans caucus, join it. If it doesn’t, help start one. Use it to learn and to build. Figure out how to map your workplace, how to lead meetings, and how to push back when leadership avoids the hard fights.

Make and share union bulletins. These help link struggles, show workers they’re not alone, and build understanding. A good bulletin makes visible what management tries to hide.

We all work under the same bosses, deal with the same bills, and live in the same world. When we fight together, we learn to trust each other. That kind of trust breaks down transphobia far more effectively than any visibility campaign ever could.

Focus on power, not PR

This is only a starting point. But, these are real things we can do right now. We don’t need to wait for NGOs or headlines. If we treat this as a fight over our material lives, not a branding issue, we can start to turn the tide.

Too much of our movement is stuck chasing media moments or trying to seem respectable enough to be left alone. It won’t work.

We are being out-organised by the right. Those in power are using fear and division to stop us from fighting back. Little by little, they are trying to erase us.

The only thing that has ever stopped them is collective resistance: organised, consistent, and rooted in real power.

The election: an anarchist view

As we publish this first issue of Picket Line, the federal election is coming to an end. Whoever leads the next government, the ruling class will celebrate. And no matter how well the minor parties do, they won’t be able to achieve anything of significance.

So what has this election been all about? What do the parties represent?

Liberal and Labor

The Liberals are the natural party of bosses and landlords. When capitalism is stable, business will normally line up behind them. They are more aggressive than Labor in supporting fossil fuel capital and in minimising workers’ rights. Along with the National Party, which represents landowners in rural areas, the Liberals mobilise a socially conservative mass voter base to stay in power.

The Labor Party, on the other hand, claims to represent workers. But this has never been true. It is not even accurate to call Labor a party of the union movement; rather, Labor is the political arm of Australia’s conservative trade union bureaucracy. Since the party aims to manage a capitalist economy, it must also prove itself useful to the ruling class.

Historically, Labor has done this in two ways: first, by representing capitalists who want greater levels of state investment in the economy (they’re also favored when the Liberals seem incapable of managing a crisis). Second, when union democracy is strong, and workers use their power to strike, the capitalist system will empower progressive governments to make concessions. Labor’s connection to the union bureaucracy places it in the ideal position to negotiate compromises, suppress radical members, and keep class struggle in check.

Labor has only ever advanced the interests of ordinary workers when union membership is high and militancy among the rank and file is strong. The bosses and union bureaucracy fear rank-and-file members taking matters into their own hands. If they want to hold onto their power and privileges, both groups share an interest in preventing workers from getting out of control.

Absent pressure from workers, elections become contests between different factions of the ruling class. In the 1970s, half of all workers were in trade unions, and the movement was at a high point of militancy. This produced the Whitlam government and its reforms. Today, union membership is only 13%, and unions are too weak to confront laws that restrict the right to strike.

As a result, Labor now campaigns as the more competent and socially progressive manager of Australian capitalism. The conflict between the major parties reflects disagreements within the capitalist class. How much government investment should go into public transport? Should we strengthen ties with China or prepare for war? Parliament is where the ruling class decides.

Mostly though, capitalists agree on how things should be run. They want to maximise profits, grow the economy, and keep workers disorganised. And our disorganisation is why this election has been a virtually policy-free zone.

The Greens and Victorian Socialists

There are two main left-wing alternatives this election. At the national level, the Greens, and in Victoria, the Victorian Socialists.

How should we understand these parties?

The policies of the Greens are driven by two main factors: their voting base and the need to prove they can be trusted with power.

Unlike Labor, which has at least some connection to union leadership, the Greens have no roots in the workers’ movement. They also don’t claim any specific orientation toward class politics. Instead, the Greens emphasise whichever socially progressive values they think will maximise their vote in a given electorate. For the most part, this has meant appealing to highly educated professionals.

As the possibility of influencing government gets closer, the Greens are forced to prove they are a safe pair of hands for capital. This election, they demonstrated their willingness to embrace militarism, pledging $4 billion for drones and missiles. Were they ever in a position to win a majority, even greater concessions would be made.

The Victorian Socialists make similar criticisms of the Greens and aim to be a party of the working class. The project is largely controlled by Socialist Alternative, which means, unlike the Greens, the party is run by self described revolutionaries.

Ask a Socialist Alternative member about their goals for the party and they will all respond in the same way: they have no faith in elections; they have no intention of managing the capitalist State; the real purpose of the party is to spread revolutionary socialist ideas. For this reason, they insist is is not a reformist project.

But if it walks like a duck, and quacks like one too… In reality, the Victorian Socialists campaign on policies barely to the left of the Greens. Far from spreading revolutionary politics, they conflate socialism with reforms like higher taxes on the rich. They do this because elections force parties to fight for votes, which means promising a “realistic” set of results that can be argued for in parliament.

For real change, we need class struggle

This election, the major parties have felt free to ignore workers’ concerns. No solutions are offered for inflation or the insanity of the housing market. Desperate to sit at the big table, the Greens have embraced the imperialist defence of capitalism.

The Victorian Socialists claim their campaign will encourage workers to organise. But their actions say otherwise. The real message sent to workers is contained in one of their slogans: “For real change, vote socialist!”

As anarchists, we believe that real change only comes when workers organise and take action for themselves. Our class has never been more disillusioned with politics. Rather than drag our fellow workers back into the parliamentary mess, socialists should be engaging them in direct struggle.

Struggle transforms people in a way that no “how to vote” card or policy conversation ever could. When workers take action against their bosses, they not only gain a better understanding of how the world works, but also of how they themselves can change it. It is class struggle, not elections, that develops the skills and power which could force the hand of corporations and governments. Rather than try to get ourselves elected, all our efforts should be dedicated to rebuilding that power.