Saturday October 30 will be the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist movement in Australia. On that day in 1920 a disparate group of militant socialists came together in Sydney to form a party of a new type, the Communist Party, the Australian section of the Communist International. The new party got off to a shaky start and it has suffered from a number of splits, official harassment and other attacks over the decades. But for all of those setbacks it can be said that there is hardly an aspect of the political, social and cultural life of the country that has not been influenced – and influenced greatly for the better – by the Communist movement.  more ...

The world’s coral reefs are under an increasing threat from climate change. The most striking evidence of this is provided by the mass bleaching of coral reefs all around the world, which has increased in severity over the last fifty years.  more ...

On the ninth anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan, Australia’s Parliament is at last discussing Australia’s involvement in the US-NATO led war. The debate in both houses began last week with both the government and opposition pledging to keep troops in Afghanistan for at least another ten years. The debate is one of the concessions won by the Greens in the agreement that delivered their support for Labor to govern. It comes after repeated calls by the Greens for a debate. The Greens have consistently opposed the involvement of Australia’s defence forces in the war. Opinion polls show that almost two thirds of Australians want our troops to be withdrawn.  more ...

For communists across Australia, the end of October is a time of celebration: it signals 90 years that the Communist movement has been organising, campaigning and leading the struggle for the liberation of the working class in this country.  more ...

Much has been written about the causes of the global financial crisis (GFC) that rocked the capitalist system in 2007-08 and the economic crisis that followed. Explanations and theories range from describing it as “an act of god”, the result of individual greed or stupidity, or simply a financial crisis divorced from the real economy, through to more serious studies. The lead article in the October 2010 issue of the Australian Marxist Review provides an in depth analysis of the US causes of the GFC from a Marxist perspective.  more ...

This week the ABC is running an insidious piece of anti-Communist propaganda in the form of a dramatised documentary. The program is I, Spry: The Rise and Fall of a Master Spy and it is concerned with the career of Brigadier Spry, the head of ASIO.  more ...