Communist Party of Australia

CPA 13th National Congress Guardian Special Edition

This is the last issue for 2017.
The Guardian will be back in 2018 on January 24.

December 13, 2017 - click here for index of articles.

CPA 13th National Congress – To the People

The 13th National Congress, which took place in Sydney on December 1-3, was a resounding success and saw delegates enthusiastically confirm the Party’s commitment to the task of “Taking the Party to the People”. Three days of reports and discussion revealed a picture of a Party growing in numbers and confidence. At the end of the Congress, some minor changes to the Party’s Constitution, several updates to the Party Program and an analytical document – the Political Resolution – were endorsed by delegates. Ambitious targets were set and a new Central Committee elected to guide the CPA through what promises to be an exciting period of even more rapid growth. more ...

Editorial – For those who arrived late – Welcome to the Cold War

The Australian government has sparked off a war of words with China, in part based on an attempt to manage the growing upheaval and dysfunction in government ranks, and in the larger scheme of things to carry out the government’s role as toady to the US in its strategy to “contain” China’s ever-expanding influence in world affairs. more ...

Broome Jail conditions “inhumane, degrading”

Conditions at a rundown Western Australian regional prison, where most of the inmates are Aboriginal, are “inhumane and degrading”, with some inmates in crowded cells forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor and potentially come into contact with vermin, a scathing report has found. more ...

Rally to save jobs

Last week over 120 Education Department clerical support staff rallied in Wellington Square at lunchtime in Perth to demand certainty over their jobs in the face of calls for continued austerity from Labor Party Education Minister Sue Ellery. more ...

Special Congress Resolutions

The resolutions on this page were adopted by the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Australia in solidarity with struggles in Australia and overseas. They range from trade union, Indigenous, to international struggles against imperialism and anti-communism. more ...

Congress impressions

The Guardian caught up with some of the delegates and observers after Congress to ask them about their expectations and impressions of the 13th National Congress of the CPA before they returned to their states. There were a number of relatively new members who attended Congress for the first time, reflecting a recent interest in the Party. So before asking about the Congress itself, the Guardian spoke to one of these observers from Adelaide about how she came to join the Party. more ...

Greetings from the Tudeh Party of Iran

The Central Committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran would like to take this opportunity to salute all delegates to the 13th Congress of the fraternal Communist Party of Australia. more ...

Political Resolution: “Taking the Party to the People”

Finalising the main document of the 13th Congress – the Political Resolution – was a mighty collective effort on the part of the whole membership of the CPA. Drafted and then circulated by the Central Committee at the end of May, it received close attention and discussion by Party Branches right through to the end of August. Over 200 amendments to the draft were received from Branches, State and District Conferences. Two large discussion journals were circulated with contributions from members keen for the Party to make the most of the opportunities presented by the crisis of capitalism. more ...

Culture & Life – A dystopian future?

When I was a child in the late 1940s, one of the comic books in my collection was set after nuclear war had devastated Earth (a hot topic in the ’40s and ’50s when America’s leaders were belligerently threatening to “nuke” any country that defied their diktat). I remember the main health consequence of the “atomic war” in the comic was blindness caused by “the flash”. more ...