Today, who cannot be aware of the culture war farce? People of different ethnicities, faiths, sexual-orientation, upbringings and genders are told that they present an existential threat to each other’s safety or livelihood.
Who has not heard the following rhetoric: “Immigrants are stealing our jobs and homes”; “LGBTQ+ people are trying to force their ideology on everyone”; “women keep wanting more rights”; “Indigenous people get more benefits”; “people on disability pension are lazy”?
Of course, these previous statements are gross lies and exaggerations spawned from the intent to divide people and create bitterness amongst the oppressed and exploited. With such statements, the ruling class want the working class to eat itself alive under their boot.
So, if we know about this bourgeois tactic and we can recognise examples of it, then what do we do about it? Whilst we should be aware of the phrasings, dog whistles and contradictions in these sentiments and highlight these to others, we can only do so much with our current numbers. Thus the basis of our solution remains to strengthen the workers’ movement and to show people that the real divide in society is the class divide.
Identifying Tactics on identity politics
What is identity politics? The formation of a political movement and self-perceived authority based on a singular aspect of an individual’s identity such as gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation. Whilst is highlights oppression it looks no further than the identity of the oppressor compared to the oppressed.
As Marxists, we should always be able to tie social and economic questions back to the class society in which we live in. A basic example of this is using the anti-immigrant claim that “immigrants are stealing our jobs”- this is in reference to unemployment issues most Australians face, but the reasoning is not some sinister motivation of people of foreign countries to ‘take over’ the workforce of Australia but because they generally do not earn the same wage as citizens and, because of the temporary nature of visas, are unlikely to stay on the same job over time. To brief: they are cheaper to hire.
Thus, the alienation of immigrants.
Another item which Marxists ought to break down is that of identity politics- the general anti/pro-diversity sentiment split between seemingly two sides of ‘oppressed minority’ and ‘oppressive majority’ (as established before.) Whilst most discussions on this do highlight the bigotry and hostile nature that the minority groups ace they very seldom link the root further than “the oppressive will oppress”. This is not the root, for the root is capitalism which incentivises imperialism for its cause. A good example of this is, funnily enough, the vaguely recent Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Whilst the movie discusses the topic of the patriarchy, sexism and stereotypical roles enforced on women it does not link the root of the issue further than the existence of the patriarchy in western society hence the actual politics and sentiment of the movie feeling hollow in its attempts to lift women out of the hole we pretend they’re still not in with the undercutting of wages and the lack of state-funded childcare.
Thus, the alienation of women.
This is not the only way in which gender oppression is weaponised by the ruling class. The following statement was put into Australia’s official 2025 Voting Compass Survey:
“Transgender women should be able to compete in women’s sporting leagues”
This comes alongside the plethora of anti-trans legislation passed by a number of countries, the attacks on trans healthcare that were once available in many places, and the seeming obsession of the bourgeois media with transgender individuals or ‘transgender issues’. A significant portion of the media has aimed to justify the oppression of transgender people, under the thin guise of “protecting [cisgender] women”. From the perspective of working people, these attacks on transgender individuals do nothing to solve the real crises in society: the housing crisis, inflation and war. From the perspective of transgender people, these attacks are an existential threat.
Thus, the alienation of transgender people.
Action and Reaction
There is more than one method of taking action (or reacting) to these means of division. In a sense, it’s a war of attrition against the propaganda of the state machine. This ties in with the ownership of the media and why we communists have a paper. Through the media, oppression is weaponised by the capitalists to divide the working class and so our goal is to fight for the unity of workers- which can be done through strikes, trade unions and protest but it is ultimately expressed through the party itself offering perspectives to the working class the end of division and oppression.
By attending strikes, protests and the like, we can demonstrate solidarity amongst workers and offer the perspective of a world freed from capitalism and theses divisions with the learned mass of the working class. So we say:
“Workers of the World, Unite!”