Rules of the International Socialist Club, 1909

Principles and Objects

2. The principles of the International Socialist Club are those of Social Democracy. Its objects are to provide accommodation for and promote social and literary intercourse between its members, and to advocate—

(a) The socialisation of the whole of the means and instruments of production, distribution, and exchange, to be controlled by a Democratic State in the interests of the entire community.

(b) The complete emancipation of labor from the capitalistic domination. (c) The establishment of economic equality between the sexes.

(d) It recognises that the liberation of Labor must be the work of the working classes themselves, independent of all other classes whose tendencies are only towards reactionary ends.

(e) For the attainment of these principles the club seeks to promote and disseminate a knowledge of the economics, ethics and politics of Socialism.

From H. Holland’s Rules and Membership Book, Harry Holland Collection, Item P5/1/1511. Reprinted in David Lovell, Marxism and Australian Socialism before the Bolshevik Revolution, pp.251-252