For those of you coming in late, Tom Sewell is a 20-something, New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based neo-Nazi activist. With a background in right-wing nationalist politics, Sewell emerged onto the political landscape in April 2015 at the first ‘Reclaim Australia’ rally in Melbourne, and later served as Blair Cottrell’s sidekick in the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF). Unfortunately for Sewell, the UPF collapsed in a heap after Facebook deleted it from the platform in mid-2017, and its proposed political party, ‘Fortitude’ — which was launched at the home of the short-lived ‘Aryan Nations’ in Perth in late 2015 — met a similar fate. (As for the Aryan Nations, it folded after several of its members were arrested and later convicted of the murder that took place several months after the party launch.)
Undeterred by failure, Sewell pressed on and, in 2017, alongside his comrade James Buckle, (former?) President of gun lobby group ‘Firearm Owners United’, Cottrell, Stuart Von Moger, and a handful of other AltRightists and neo-Nazis, he established something called ‘The Lads Society’.
Describing itself as a fraternal organisation, The Lads opened up an organising space in the suburb of Cheltenham and packed it with weight machines, various species of nazi, and one colossal ego. Further, in addition to attending a number of political rallies and other events, under Von Moger’s leadership The Lads were hired by Axiomatic Events to provide security for Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern during their July tour and were most recently employed by the organisers of the ‘March for Babies’. The March was organised by a number of principally religious, anti-abortion groups, and starred His Eminence, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke.
Largely ignored by media, The Lads finally got their moment to shine last month when an attempt to hijack the Young Nationals in NSW, in which members of the Lads participated, was exposed by the ABC’s Alex Mann. Now, sadly, not only has The Lads’ bunker in Ashfield in Sydney, along with several of its members, been exposed, but this week real estate agent richardson french placed the property in Melbourne, located at 9/158 Chesterville Road, back on the market. To add some spice to proceedings, a few months ago a Facebook account called ‘ladsleaks’ popped up and began posting internal discussions taking place among The Lads on their secret page. Among other things, ladsleaks posted images of Lads in Brisbane sieg heiling ‘peasants’ and a video of Cottrell’s angry react. (The content below was posted a few weeks ago.)
Nathan Sykes & The Australia First Party
Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes (below, centre, with Lads) is a middle-aged Sydney resident, member of Dr Jim Saleam‘s ‘Australia First Party’ (AFP), principal author of the blog ‘United Nationalists Australia’ (UNA) and former contributor to leading US neo-Nazi website ‘The Daily Stormer’. Oddly enough, he’s also Jewish.
The UNA blog functions as a kind of unofficial online shit-sheet for the AFP, taking pot-shots at various of its rivals on the right and its enimies on the left. The former category includes the (now-defunct) ‘Party for Freedom’ (PFF), UPF, ‘Klub Nation’ and, of course, The Lads Society.
Tom Sewell & The Lads Society ~versus~ Nathan Sykes & The Australia First Party
As noted above, a small amount of material sourced from The Lads private Facebook group has appeared elsewhere on the site by way of ‘ladsleaks’. As well as confirming that the group is mostly comprised of neo-Nazis (who are well aware — duh — that most folks hate ‘nazis’, and thus they have to lie and dissemble about their politics when in public), the conversation below reveals no small amount of anger and upset directed at Sykes and his lvl boss, Jim Saleam. In addition to Sewell and Von Moger, among those participating in the disco are wealthy German-Australian businessman and ex-NPD member turned ‘national anarchist’ Welf Herfurth, batshit scribbler David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), fellow Queenslander, former AFP member, ‘Whitelaw Towers’ and UNA blog contributor Jim Perren (who helped organise Fortitude’s failed launch in Toowoomba) and ‘Tyler Winchester’ (AKA Mark McDonald, founder of ‘Squadron 88’ turned Lad).
Choice quote: ‘AFP is a cancer and a waste of time’; Jim Saleam ‘smears and destroys everything that is not on his [side]. When I refused to further bankroll the Sydney Forum he turned on [me] like a dog’ (Herfurth).
Remembering the 43 Group
Marcus Bennett Tribune
November–December 2018
When 24-year-old Morris Beckman returned to his house on Amhurst Road in Hackney, he’d experienced quite a lot. His time fighting fascism abroad had seen him survive two Nazi torpedo attacks on a British Navy ship in the Atlantic. While his relieved mother showered him with affection on his return home, his father’s message was rather starker: ‘The bastards are back,’ he warned.
Indeed, the London that Beckman returned to fell far short of the expectations of himself and millions of other ex-servicemen. Though it may run counter to the popular narrative of the triumph over Hitler, fascism grew rapidly in Britain immediately following the Second World War. Fascist prisoners interned during the war began to reorganise their crippled movement, while a new presence of captured Nazi soldiers being released from prisoner-of-war camps and into British society prompted a far-right renaissance.
Within months of the war’s end, fourteen fascist groups and at least three bookshops operated openly across the city. Newspapers with names like Britain Awake and The Patriot were readily available on street corners. Most alarmingly of all, fascists began staging outdoor rallies in the densely-Jewish East End once again. ‘Openly in the streets you had public meetings shouting out the same antagonism and the same filth as before the war,’ commando veteran Jules Konopinski recalled, ‘and now even worse — they were saying the gas chambers weren’t enough.’ Alarm spread among the Jewish community that anti-Semitism could find a foothold so soon after the defeat of the Nazis.
Emergence
Nowhere was alarm at the situation felt more strongly than in Maccabi House, a Jewish sports club in Hampstead. Morris Beckman recalled that the club had a ‘subdued ambience’ that reflected the ‘weariness and uncertainties’ of the times. Polish-Jewish veterans of the Allied forces with no families or homes to return to were forging friendships in a new city. Several pre-war Maccabi regulars died fighting Hitler. The ones that had survived, once awash with optimism, were now world-weary veterans who mixed uncomfortably with jovial teenagers who hadn’t served.
In those days the true enormity of the Holocaust wasn’t known, and as the full picture began to emerge it had a profound effect on the community. Jewish ex-servicemen in particular carried a ‘sick sense of shame’, Beckman said, that no Allied action had been taken to prevent Nazi operations in the death camps. This consciousness was emerging at the same time as walls in London — whose Jewish community had only escaped the fate of their European neighbours by geographical quirk — were once again being daubed with swastikas.
To many, it felt as if Britain hadn’t learnt a thing. The Truth, a magazine whose editor, Colin Brooks, was a close confidante of Daily Mail owner Lord Rothermere, called for Jews to give up their houses to ‘British’ ex-servicemen. In October 1945, thousands signed an ‘anti-alien’ petition in Hampstead which called to expel the area’s large Jewish refugee population.
In February 1946, while driving for a pint in Hampstead Heath, four young Jewish ex-servicemen — the former Hurricane ace Alec Carson, Gerry Flamberg, Len Sherman, and Morris Beckman — witnessed a rally by the British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women, the organisation of Jeffrey Hamm. A familiar face of pre-war fascism, Hamm was interned for his loyalty to Hitler and was now seeking to rebuild Oswald Mosley’s movement. Addressing a sixty-strong meeting, Hamm chose his words carefully, denouncing the ‘aliens in our midst’ who ‘waxed fat in the black market’ while British soldiers died.
Pretending to buy a copy of Britain Awake, Sherman abruptly knocked two fascists unconscious by banging their heads together. Flamberg toppled the makeshift stage and knocked Hamm over. As the crowd scattered, an elderly German Jew stayed to shake their hands. It occurred to all four that they could face serious charges for their actions. ‘Well then,’ Carson said, ‘it’s about time they change the laws.’
Their action was widely supported, and an organising meeting at Maccabi House was arranged to push back the fascist threat. Thirty-eight ex-servicemen and five women turned up. The vast majority were Jewish, but the group also included non-Jewish socialists like Joe Zilliacus, a former Marine and son of left-wing Labour MP Konni Zilliacus. What united them was their conviction that the Jewish community must not be passive in the face of provocations.
Alec Black, a veteran of the D-Day landings, proposed establishing an organisation that could effectively fight fascism and anti-Semitism. He knew this would be a serious endeavour and emphasised that everyone involved would risk serious harm and jail time. Anyone feeling nervous about this activity could leave without any judgement or prejudice against them. No one moved an inch or said a word.
The organisation had two aims: to prevent fascist activities by physical force if necessary, and to pressure Parliament into making racial incitement a criminal offence. Since those present had few motivations beyond completing the tasks at hand, no grandiose names were suggested. It was decided they would be called ‘The 43 Group’, after the number of people in the room. But, by April of that year, the name seemed misplaced; over 300 people had bolstered the Group’s ranks.
Confrontation
After encountering their first post-war instances of physical resistance, London’s fascists dropped their respectable veneer. Rather than hiding behind dog-whistle phrases, the seasoned repertoire of Hitler salutes, ‘Heil Mosley’ chants, and renditions of the Horst Wessel Lied, the Nazi anthem, returned. In the face of constant physical attacks in their communities and workplaces, fascist anger grew increasingly frenzied. A bomb was pushed through the door of Gerry Flamberg’s home, while two 43 Group commandos beat unconscious a young fascist who had stitched razorblades into a flat cap and charged through Stamford Hill slashing people’s faces.
In November 1946, 43 Group militants published a letter in the Jewish Chronicle appealing for further assistance. It inspired a swell in members, but provoked an angry response from Louis Hydelman, who sat on the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Accusing the young commandos of acting ‘counterproductively’, Hydelman ordered the Group to disband. His intervention only highlighted the divide between young Jews committed to tackling the fascist presence and the older communal leadership, who remained legalistic in outlook.
Hydelman’s letter, derided for its patronising tone, fell on deaf ears. The Group’s impressive infrastructure, convinced members they could afford to ignore their critics. Not only could they boast of an active base of 1,000 members, but they had also made influential friends. Left-wing Labour MPs such as D.N. Pritt, John Platt-Mills, and
Woodrow Wyatt were keen supporters, while entertainment giants Jack Solomon and Bud Flanagan regularly donated significant sums to the organisation.
On the streets, confrontations intensified. Tightly-organised 43 Group units would form human ‘wedges’ at rallies, pushing through fascist security to attack the stage, and use ‘supporting parties’ to heckle and break up fascist proceedings. On Sunday, 1 June 1947, these skirmishes came to a head in Ridley Road, a market area of Hackney known for its vibrant Jewish life. The fascists’ decision to demonstrate here was particularly provocative as it had been a favoured site of Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in the 1930s.
The 43 Group organised for the ‘Battle for Ridley Road’ with military precision. Commandos were given maps of the surrounding streets with entry and exit points for ambush attacks. But walking up to the platform they were still taken back by the size of the far-right crowd. With police backing too, the fascists hugely outnumbered the 43 Group. But they nonetheless infiltrated the audience in front of the stage and, when fascist leader Alexander Raven Thomson began to speak, started heckling.
‘Going back to the Isle of Man for your holidays?’ one commando shouted. (Thomson had been imprisoned in a detention camp on the Isle of Man during the war.) ‘They should have hanged you with William Joyce!’ said another. Then the wedge struck and ferocious fighting broke out. A description of scenes by Morris Beckman recalls the intensity.
A young fascist about eighteen years of age appeared in front of me and called me a ‘Fucking Jew bastard’, catching my left thigh with a nearly well-aimed kick. I hit his nose square on and it spurted blood … I kicked his backside as hard as I could and he staggered off. A hard blow landed smack on my right ear and completely unbalanced me. For a moment, I was dazed, disorientated. My assailant was about to close and finish me off when Sam grabbed him around the neck and pulled him to the ground. Then Sam jumped on him. The genial, good-humoured Sam said, ‘I’m just breaking the bastard’s ribs so he won’t attend any more meetings.’
Victory
Ridley Road was the high point of a two-year period where the 43 Group had broken up around fifteen fascist meetings a week. The exhaustion of the original core Group members was evident, and younger comrades arrived to replace them. Jules Konopinski, who fled Poland in 1939, lost nine aunties and uncles in the Holocaust. His uncle, an Auschwitz survivor, moved to London to live with him, and was the ‘eyewitness evidence’ of the Holocaust he needed to motivate him in the fight against fascism. Alongside his friend Vidal Sassoon, an apprentice hairdresser whose attitude was that ‘after Auschwitz, there were no more laws,’ he became a militant; both of them armed with scissors, scrunched-up newspapers, and fisticuffs.
With a new layer of youth rejuvenating its ranks, the Group felt a sense of impending victory. Broader political developments were encouraging. Printworkers’ unions began to refuse to print fascist material, while both workers and union officials pressured the government to take action against Mosley. Widespread confrontations during the 1948 May Day rally broke the organisational backbone of the nascent Union Movement, which had amalgamated many fascist groups. 43 Group spies within fascist circles reported that, in drunken moments, Mosley’s ardent followers bitterly bemoaned the unpopularity of their leader, as it began to dawn on them that their days of glory were over.
Exhausted but satisfied that an immediate threat had passed, the 43 Group disbanded in April 1950. Following the war, bomb-marked Britain, Reynolds News noted, was the ‘only country in Europe, outside of Spain or Portugal, where one may preach undiluted fascism with full police protection.’ The 43 Group offered uncompromising resistance to Hitler’s would-be successors in Britain. Hardened by their experiences, they managed to close down the majority of post-war fascist meetings. During his retirement, Vidal Sassoon recalled that the 43 Group symbolised the moment that London’s Jews ‘turned their cheek for the last time.’ Their struggle should be remembered.
A few years after The 43 Group smashed Mosley & Co, on the other side of the worlde the ‘National Socialist Party of Australia’ had set up shop in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield. In 1964, ABC’s 4 Corners dedicated an episode to the party and its fuehrer, Arthur Charles Smith. Shortly after the episode screened, the nazi headquarters was raided by police. Even more interesting, in David Harcourt’s classic 1972 text Everyone Wants to be Fuhrer: National Socialism in Australia and New Zealand, it’s claimed that the police raid was to avoid the embarrassing prospect of the site being demolished by angry Jews. As detailed elsewhere in the book, this actually happened a few years later in Melbourne, when an angry mob demolished a similar venue: on Sunday, January 31, 1971 a crowd of anti-fascists (including many Jews, members of the Maoist Worker-Student Alliance and others) descended on the headquarters of the National Socialist Party of Australia and proceeded to smash it. (Below : ‘Nazis arrested in night raid’, The Canberra Times, June 27, 1964; extracts, Everyone Wants To be Fuehrer …)
NB. Ross ‘The Skull’ May features in Harcourt’s book. A few years ago, he was adopted as a mascot for the short-lived neo-Nazi group ‘Squadron 88’ in Sydney. The group’s leader, ‘Mark McDonald’, has since become the lvl boss of ‘The Lads Society’ in Sydney, and its headquarters in Ashfield is a grim reminder of a previous nazi occupation (albeit one with a happy ending).
It is with deep sadness that the ASF Secretariat announces the passing of Antonio Burgos (13 May 1918 — 31 October 2018), the last remaining veteran of the Spanish Revolution in Australia. Antonio served in a CNT centuria during the revolution, was captured in 1939 and imprisoned for 7 years. Upon his release he took a boat from Malaga to Casablanca and then made his way to Beni-Saf to join other CNT exiles who eventually made their way to Australia and resettled as refugees. In December 1965, Antonio Burgos was a founding member of the Grupo Cultural de Estudios Sociales de Melbourne. Antonio Burgos died at 1am 31 October 2018 at the Austin Hospital in Heidelberg, Victoria. He was born in Alicante, Spain on 13 May 1918.
Above : Antonio Burgos with ASF comrades and the Secretary of the IWA at his home in February 2016.
Above : On L, alleged killer Robert Bowers announcing his intention to GTKRWN; on R, Brisbane-based neo-Nazi and member of The Lads Society Beau Maverick. Neither man cares greatly for ‘optics’.
I may add some more thoughts at a later date, but in the meantime I think it worthwhile highlighting the fact that the rehabilitation of anti-Semitism and its increasing centrality to extreme-right perspectives in the United States is echoed Down Under as an increasingly larger segment of younger right-wing activists not only adopt a fascist outlook but place anti-Semitic conspiracy theories at the heart of their worldview. By way of example, the AltRight media platforms ‘XYZ’ and ‘The Unshackled’ (AKA ‘The Unhinged’ — which, to its credit, has been authorised by Google as a trusted media source) have drifted over the course of the last year or two from fairly conventional arch-Toryism to an open embrace of white nationalism. Leaving aside David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), fellow XYZ contributor Ryan Fletcher has accounted for this shift in an essay titled ‘Trading HEMP for Hitler’ (a text which comes highly recommended by editor David Hiscox). Fletcher is also a YUGE fan of James Mason’s Siege — required reading for members of local neo-Nazi grouplet Antipodean Resistance.
Above : Tim Wilms of The Unhinged wearing his Proud Boys ‘Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong’ shirt. Note that the arm reads RWDS (‘Right Wing Death Squad’). Under the Pinochet dictatorship (1973–1990), tens of thousands of Chileans were raped, tortured, murdered and forced into exile by his death squads. (Coincidentally, this weekend, LASNET has organised a gathering on Autonomy & Resistance at Trades Hall in Melbourne.)
1) Dan Spiller/Future Now Australia Presents: Milo Yiannopoulos & Ann Coulter
Queensland businessman Dan Spiller (AKA ‘Future Now Australia’ AKA ‘AE Events’) has recently announced the cancellation of the upcoming tour by Infowars-supplements salesman and paedophile apologist Milo Yiannopoulos (accompanied by fellow wealthy blabbermouth Ann Coulter). This is the second time Spiller has tried and failed to organise a tour by ‘foreign radicals’: back in April, Spiller announced that he’d be bringing both Yiannopoulos and ‘Proud Boys’ founder Gavin McInnes to Australia. That effort collapsed in a heap within a few days, but Spiller’s latest production took several months to fall apart … which I suppose could be considered either an improvement or a degeneration (depending on your perspective). In any (non-)event, the decision to cancel the tour has been compounded by Spiller’s decision not to refund buyers but instead offer them tickets to go and see two other ‘foreign radicals’ — Gavin McInnes and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — when they tour in December.
Fingers crossed, Mr Spiller’s seemingly chronic inability to successfully profit from foreign hate-merchants will not deter him from attempting to do so and being similarly adept in future. The silver lining on this grey cloud of failure, however, is perhaps the new book by Milo, which is apparently All About Australia:
Above : An extract from Yiannopoulos’s upcoming book on Australia. It’s unclear at this stage if Janet Albrechtsen has accepted an invitation to write the foreword.
2) Gavin McInnes & Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’)
Damien Costas, publisher of Penthouse Australia, is planning on bringing Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and ex-BNP member and founder of the English Defence League Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA ‘Andrew McMaster’/’Paul Harris’/’Tommy Robinson’) to Australia in December. As usual, venues will be made public 24 hours prior to the event, but it’s not unreasonable to expect previous venues, including Festival Functions in Findon (Adelaide), Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, Melbourne Pavilion in Flemington/La Mirage in Somerton, Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre and Le Montage/International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) to again provide a platform for race-hate. The dates for the tour are as follows:
• ADELAIDE : WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5
• PERTH : FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7
• MELBOURNE : TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11
• GOLD COAST : THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13
• SYDNEY : SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16
Of course, the possibility of either McInnes or Yaxley-Lennon being able to enter the country is entirely dependent upon Mr Potato Head’s feels on the subject. On Robinson, and in particular his current legal troubles (which may also see him prevented from coming), see : David Renton and Barrister Blogger.
With regards McInnes, he and his ‘Boys’ have been getting into some bother of late. Just a few weeks ago (Friday, October 12) in New York, McInnes was invited by the Metropolitan Republican Club to celebrate the anniversary of the assassination of Japanese socialist Inejiro Asanuma on this date in 1960. Following the event, some of McInnes’s fanboys went on a bit of a rampage, and some got arrest. An awful lot of ink has been spilled on the subject of the event and its aftermath, but as ever New York City Antifa (Twitter) is an xclnt resource. See also : The Proud Boys, The GOP And ‘The Fascist Creep’, Christopher Mathias, Huffington Post, October 18, 2018 (‘Gavin McInnes spoke at a GOP club, then his followers violently attacked leftist protesters. Modern American fascism finds its foot soldiers’) | NYPD arrests 14 Jewish protesters outside Republican club where Proud Boys brawled, Rex Santus, Vice, October 31, 2018 (‘The protesters outside the Club on Tuesday were there to call on the Republican Party to denounce white nationalism after the Saturday shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 worshippers were murdered by a man who’d shared anti-Semitic and white supremacist comments online.’).
Closer to home, Melbourne lawyer Nyadol Nyuon has launched an online petition, calling on the Minister to deny McInnes a visa. For their part, both Facebook and Instagram appear to have removed a large number of (official and unofficial) Proud Boy accounts from their sites. ‘The crackdown came slightly more than two weeks after members of the group reportedly attacked and beat activists protesting at an event in Manhattan. It also follows the massacre of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue — the worst anti-Semitic attack in recent US history.’ The gab.ai webshite (AKA ‘Twitter for nazis’) is also experiencing technical difficulties at the moment …
Above : Melbourne-based neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell tweets a dank meme about killing socialists. Note that Asanuma’s teenybopper assassin, Otoya Yamaguchi, killed himself a few weeks later.
The recent revelation that the Young Nationals in NSW have been targeted for infiltration by neo-Nazis and White supremacists created some mild embarrassment for the party over the course of the last few weeks. On Wednesday, it was announced that 15 members of the party — including Thomas Brasher, Michael Heaney, Clifford Jennings and Oscar Tuckfield — had resigned, while something like another 20 have had their membership status questioned, and may yet leave or be forced out of the party. See : Nationals members resign en masse amid investigation into neo-Nazi ties, Michael Koziol, The Age, October 31, 2018 | Young Nationals resign after after ABC investigation reveals alt-right push, Alex Mann, ABC, October 31, 2018.
On Monday the story — the origins of which may be traced back to some reportage in The Australian back in May, but which was given flesh by Alex Mann for the ABC — provoked the following front-page treatment in The Daily Telegraph:
Oddly enough Sharri’s father, Max Markson, has been doing his bit to promote racism and fascism in Australia by way of Penthouse and in his capacity as Milo’s Australian publicist. Sadly, the relationship between Costas and Markson has broken down in the wake of the paedophile apologist’s December 2017 tour: ‘ … Mr Markson called Mr Costas a “lying conman”. Mr Costas, the publisher of Penthouse Australia and owning a company alongside one of Australia’s biggest drug dealers, convicted ice importer Sean Dolman, retaliated by calling Mr Markson “a very naughty boy” who “had his finger in the till”‘ (Private Sydney: Markson sparks up in court in dispute with Penthouse publisher, Andrew Hornery, The Sydney Morning Herald, September 6, 2018).
As noted a year ago, the neo-Nazi grouplet ‘The Lads Society’ has a clubhouse in the Melbourne suburb of Cheltenham. The nazis also have a training facility in Sydney, which is located at 34 Thomas Street, Ashfield. The Lads certainly have a sense of humour, with the lease on the property being signed with Colemon Property Group on Hitler’s birthday (April 20).
The chief organiser of ‘The Lads’ in Sydney is a Kiwi called ‘Mark McDonald’. Previously, Mark was the lvl boss of another short-lived neo-Nazi grouplet called ‘Squadron 88’. It attracted some media attention by way of stuffing letterboxes in Jewish areas of Sydney with anti-Semitic tracts. McDonald is also widely-believed to be responsible for the distribution of some racist posters in Sydney in mid-2017. Most recently, McDonald and several other Lads attended Adelaide barrister John Bolton’s batshit rally in Wiley Park:
Above : Partially-obscured, joining Cottrell on the right is Adelaide barrister John Bolton; standing between Cottrell and Tuckfield is Mark McDonald, founder of defunct neo-Nazi grouplet Squadron 88 and current lvl boss of The Lads Society in Sydney.
Finally, ladsleaks has published an interesting discussion drawn from The Lads’ private Facebook page. The list of participants in the discussion reads like a Who’s Who of neo-Nazism Down Under, including both founders Blair Cottrell and Tom Sewell, Mark McDonald (‘Tyler Winchester’) and Stuart Von Moger, David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), Jim Perren (Australia First Party/’Whitelaw Towers’/United Patriots Front), Welf Herfurth and more. Much of the discussion revolves around The Lads’ shared hatred for Jewish neo-Nazi Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes. Based in Sydney, Sykes was until a few years ago a prolific contributor to the world’s leading neo-Nazi webshite ‘The Daily Stormer’. A member of the Australia First Party, Sykes uses his blog ‘United Nationalists of Australia’ to take aim at the party’s rivals on the right — including, of course, The Lads.
The post which triggered Tom can be read here — I’ll post other commentary from ladsleaks here laters.
Above : Neo-Nazi security worker Stuart Von Moger follows hot on the heels of His Eminence, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke.
Heh.
Following on from revelations concerning the neo-Nazi infiltration of the Young Nationals in NSW, a small contingent of local neo-Nazis were also involved in the ‘March for Babies’ in Melbourne yesterday.
Lead by Stuart Von Moger — who appears to have been employed in an Official™ capacity by march organisers — among those present were his Lads Society kameraden James Buckle (Firearm Owners United), Blair Cottrell, Jacob Hersant (Antipodean Resistance) and Tom Sewell. Also present were serial pests Neil Erikson and Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic, among a small number of other far-right luminaries.
Several women and non-binary folks heckled the speakers at the March but were swiftly seized by patriotik Volk including Hersant and Sewell, before being handed over to their friends in blue uniform.
1) For ABC Radio National’s ‘Background Briefing’, Alex Mann has investigated ‘how Australia’s alt-right movement is covertly influencing mainstream politics’. See : Haircuts and hate: Inside the rise of Australia’s alt-right (October 14, 2018).
2) ‘The White Rose Society’ has d0xxed a number of the neo-Nazis responsible for infiltrating the Young Nationals in NSW. Future publications will provide further details of those involved, as well as their connections to other neo-Nazi associations, such as Antipodean Resistance and The Lads Society. See : NSW Young Nationals stacked by Clifford Jennings and Neo-Nazis (October 11, 2018).
3) Those neo-Nazis so far named as being responsible for the infiltration of the Young Nationals in NSW are:
Top (L to R) : Clifford Jennings; Nicholas Walker (AKA ‘Niklaus Velker’); Oscar Tuckfield (AKA ‘Oscar Tuckers’ & ‘Oscar Tucker’); Stuart Churchill (AKA ‘Stuart Durand’); Thomas Brasher (AKA ‘Thomas Hopper’). Bottom : Justin Beulah; Lisa Sandford.
Blink and you might have missed it, but Saturday, October 6 was ‘International Freedom of Speech Day’, with ‘International’ having the operative meaning of ‘Wiley Park in Sydney and Docklands in Melbourne’ and ‘Freedom of Speech’ ‘whining about Facebook and the Racial & Religious Tolerance Act‘.
Organised by Adelaide-based law-talking guy John Bolton, two months of solid promotion on social media yielded … well, not a lot, really. Thus, maybe 30 or so patriotik Volk joined John at Wiley Park, where they listened to him whine alongside his neo-Nazi client Blair Cottrell and er, Nick Folkes (ex-Party for Freedom). Included in the audience was ‘Mark McDonald’/’Tyler Winchester’, formerly of ‘Squadron 88’ but now of the Sydney franchise of ‘The Lads Society’, NSW True Blue Crew lvl boss ‘Mitch(ell) van Dam’, and various members of both grouplets (Dwayne Bullen, Max Towns), former Reclaimers and Peanuts — even Rino ‘Bluebeard’ Grgurovic put in an appearance.
In Melbourne, the very smol rally was organised, appropriately enough, by ‘Tiny’ Avi Yemini. On stage he was joined by Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning and ‘Australian Liberty Alliance’ boss and wealthy gadabout, the Perth-based Debbie Robinson. As usual, Daniel Jones and George Jameson played dress-ups, some other pretend ‘Soldiers’ (of Odin) were present, but most in the crowd of perhaps 50 seemed to be drawn from Tiny’s facebook klvt and/or were elderly racists. The only interesting moment, of course, was when a deadset legend exercised his Freeze Peach by asking Anning if the allegation that he’s a ‘massive f*cking c*nt’ is correct, to which the whiny manbabies naturally responded by screaming for the police to silence Our Hero.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As for Bolton, he spoke at the Reclaim Australia rally in Adelaide in November 2015, a PEGIDA rally in Canberra in February 2016, an anti-refugee protest in Eltham in November 2016 and the final. ever. Reclaim rally in Sydney in January 2017. After being dropped by the ALA, Bolton ran as an Independent for the seat of Wakefield at the 2016 federal election and placed 6th of 7 candidates with 2,728 votes (2.84%).
More recently, Bolton joined a handful of Peanuts in Sydney in September last year to proclaim ‘Straight Lives Matter’ and in June this year expressed his support for poor old Sonia Kruger (see : How An Australian Television Host Became The Latest Free Speech Hero Of The Far-Right, Brad Esposito & Lane Sainty, Buzzfeed, June 25, 2018). But while Bolton obviously enjoys the company of racists and fascists, his chief point of interest is, I suppose, his legal work on behalf of Melbourne-based neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell: apparently, Bolton is mos def gonna win in the High Court, and have Cottrell’s criminal conviction for arsondrug traffickinginciting hatred for Muslims struck out because the Racial & Religious Tolerance Act‘ is like, totes un-Constitutional.
1) More planeloads of racist dickheads on their way
Ann Coulter, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon & Milo Yiannopoulos
‘Australia’ was founded as a dumping-ground for the shit of British Empire. Over two centuries later, it’s now a lucrative market for other forms of animae viles. Thus, Milo Yiannopoulos returns to our shores in November, on this occasion bringing with him another wealthy right-wing blabbermouth, Ann Coulter. If all goes to plan, the pair will be accompanied by Senator Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (assuming he’s not back in prison and/or in breach of his bail conditions by leaving E-E-England) and other speakers yet TBA.
The tour kicks off on the Gold Coast on November 29, followed by a ‘VIP Yacht Cruise’ on November 30, and then proceeds to Sydney on December 2, with another v xpnsv boat trip on December 3, and performances in Melbourne (December 5), Adelaide (December 8) and finally Perth (December 11).
The tour is being organised and underwritten by Queensland businessman Dan Spiller AKA ‘Future Now Australia’.
Until very recently, twice-convicted racist Neil Erikson was Mister Spiller’s gopher, which role included paying a nocturnal visit to the family home of sometime-rival Dave Pellowe AKA ‘Axiomatic Events’ (the mob responsible for bringing Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern Down Under).
Presumably, Spiller’s deranged acolyte will now have more time to devote to his various legal defences.
As for the luminaries Spiller will be hoping to turn a hefty profit from, Infowars-supplements salesman Milo has been having a somewhat difficult time of late, whining on Facebook about being uninvited from a conference in October and castigating his fans for failing to shovel enough money in his direction: I have lost everything standing up for the truth in America, spent all my savings, destroyed all my friendships, and ruined my whole life, Yiannopoulos wrote: At some point, you realize it’s occasionally better to spend the money on crabs and cocktails.
Fortunately for him, Facebook remains committed to facilitating his batshit, he receives the red-carpet treatment in Australia, and is celebrated by Newscorpse, including The Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen. When she’s not enjoying Milo’s anti-Aboriginal diatribes (a sample from his talk in Perth is below), Albrechtsen may be found promoting the work of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation (AIEF), where she serves as a brand ‘Ambassador’. Quite how Albrechtsen squares her support for Milo with her role as ambassador I don’t know: after I asked the AIEF for comment on Twitter, I was blocked.
Because newsflash [Aboriginal art] really is shit … Now Australians in this sort of bizarre form of middle-class guilt have decided to pay obeisance to a culture that failed to invent the wheel — and whose signature musical achievement is a big stick … The ugly truth that they don’t want you to say out loud is that history has winners and losers. The progressive left wants to turn Western countries into the only developed civilisations in the history of human society that shit on their own accomplishments in favour of vastly inferior civilisations for no apparent reason. Hence we’re confronted with the ugly spectacle of your own nation and ‘welcome to country’ … and the desperate, pathetic attempts to pretend that didgeridoos represent a beautiful and historic cultural achievement, and not a punchline to a joke. Now you might not know this, but there are absolutely no Aboriginal people left alive in Australia — the last ones died in the ’60s and ’70s, and since then George Soros has been shipping over Black Lives Matter activists, giving them tubs of white-out, and telling them to just daub themselves and make all the White people feel bad. Your politicians in a symbol of how intelligent they are have been falling for it for half-a-century.
So much for Milo. As for Coulter, while she’s been splashing about in the white nationalist pool for some years now, in April ‘Coulter gave a little more credence to those accusations [of white nationalist sympathies] by exposing her Twitter following of just under 2 million users to Mike ‘Enoch Peinovich’‘, a neo-Nazi blabbermouth from (((New York))).
Since his unexpected elevation to the Australian Senate following the disqualification of crazed pixie Malcolm ‘Jew World Order’ Roberts, Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning has been furiously competing with Pauline Hanson for the title of ‘Most AltRight 2018’. Thus his political obsessions have run in rough parallel with those of the baying KKKrowd, from the plight of White South African farmers to the dastardly conspiracy to commit White Genocide™, calling for the forcible eradication of Islam from Australian shores, Putin fanboydom and climate change denial. Recently, however, there’s emerged another contender: billionaire Clive Palmer. See : Alt-Right Memes and Clive Palmer’s Return to Politics, Jordan McSwiney, POP POLITICS AUS, September 27, 2018. Chumbawamba, however, are not down with the bloated idiot. See : Chumbawamba knock down ‘Trump-lite’ Clive Palmer over song use, Naaman Zhou, The Guardian, August 31, 2018.
**Anning, along with Avi Yeminem (Australian Liberty Alliance), is scheduled to appear at a rally in Melbourne on October 6 in order to protest censorship by Facebook.
Gavin McInnes
Also touring Down Under is ‘Proud Boys’ founder Gavin McInnes. The chinless wonder is scheduled to be speaking in Melbourne (November 2), Perth (November 4), Adelaide (November 7), Gold Coast (November 8) and Sydney (November 11).
Recently, after declaring his appreciation for NYHC band ‘Sheer Terror’, only to be rebuffed by the boys, McInnes’s followers have rather foolishly declared WAR! on skinheads, in particular RASH and SHARP (See : Hardcore Legends Sheer Terror Take the Proud Boys Down a Notch, Landon Shroder, rvamag, September 26, 2018).
It's been brought to our attention that Gavin McInnes was speaking favorably about us on his podcast.
Just to make things as clear as possible so there is no mistaking where we stand :
'PROUD BOYS' ARE NOT WELCOME HERE,OR ANYWHERE WE MIGHT BE.
McInnes is proudly-sponsored by Penthouse magazine and publisher Damien Costas, who in September was responsible for arranging Nigel Farage‘s tour of the colonies, and in December 2017 that of Milo Yiannopoulos. Following Milo’s tour, Victoria Police made noises about issuing an invoice to Costas for $50,000 for costs associated with their policing his tour but a savvy Costas told them to bugger off and, happily enough for him, they did.
Speaking of nazi punks, one, ‘Angel Montague’, is currently running a Facebook page called ‘Brisbane city punks’. Allegedly, Montague has been banned from the pubs The Back Room (Chardons Hotel) in Annerley and The Jubilee in Fortitude Valley and possibly one or two others for drunken violence. Still, by most accounts Brisbane punx give short shrift to neo-Nazi shenanigans, so it would make sense if Montague and her handful of neo-Nazi mates were continued to be shown the door.
3) Fortress (Australia)
Pioneering Aussie reich ‘n’ rollers Fortress have recorded a new album: ‘Brothers of the Storm’. The release comes in the wake of renewed touring by the band in Europe, with the boys playing a Hammerskins event in Frankreich (FRA) on March 18 last year, the annual memorial to Skrewydriver Ian Stuart Donaldson in Melbourne (AUS) on October 14, 2017 and another bonehead gig in Queensland on July 21, 2018.
One neo-Nazi who probably won’t be making any more muzak is Marcel ‘Flubber’ Kuschela. Kuschela, who performed with ‘Kategorie C’, committed suicide in the German town of Moenchengladbach last week: ‘According to the German newspaper Bild and public broadcaster WDR, the victim is a known right-wing extremist and Hooligan who is part of the extreme right-wing band “Kategorie C” and co-founded a movement known as “Hooligans against Salafists” (Hogesa).’
4) Dick returns to MUFF
In an about-face that surprised no-one, Richard Wolstencroft has returned to the helm of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF). This follows a brief moment last year when, after having made a stoopid homophobic statement, he ‘resigned’ as organiser and handballed responsibility for it to a flunkey. But in June he returned.
The fascist meathead’s festival does have its supporters, but such is the stench emanating from Wolstencroft he’s having some difficulty finding a venue to screen his shite. Hence ‘Club Voltaire’ in North Melbourne was on-board, and then not, and now the main venue is Top Secret.
LOL.
You can read more about Wolstencroft’s shitty fascist politics in this blog by Tony Goodfellow — Richard Wolstencroft’s relationship to holocaust denial and Nazis (November 17, 2017) — and you can peruse some unanswered ‘Questions for Richard Wolstencroft’ (June 30, 2018) by SF Lyons here.
Elizabeth Humphrys, ‘Halcyon Days? The Amalgamated Metal Workers’ Union and the Accord’, The Far Left in Australia since 1945 (Routledge, 2018), pp.244-245.
… With the AMWU leading the way, the militancy and organisation of the Australian union movement in the 1970s enabled its leaders to push their way into the highest levels of national political and economic decision-making, in the shape of the Accord. This social contract was central to drawing unionised workers directly into the process of national economic restructuring. However, the cost of this process was the weakening, disorganisation and fragmentation of the union movement. Unions suffered from declining membership they could not reverse, decreased activity and organisation at the workplace level, and an increased focus on local and sectional interests once enterprise bargaining began to take hold. Enterprise bargaining successfully stemmed the threat of open rebellion against the Accord, but its timing and legal framework meant it could not prevent an acceleration of union membership decline. There was a consequential deterioration of the relationship between the ALP and the ACTU, as both sides found diminishing value in cooperation. Whether a sustained pushback by militants forming breakaway unions could have reversed the further decline of worker organisation is impossible to know in retrospect, but it seems likely that the deterioration prior to 1989 had already been sufficient to change the overall balance of forces, and that the shift to enterprise bargaining simply reinforced the downward trajectory of the early 1990s and beyond.
Current [sic] ACTU President Ged Kearney has described the Accord’s centralised wage system of the early 1990s as a ‘yoke and shackle for unions’ and that because of this they ‘fought for and won direct collective bargaining’. Kearney also argued that union leaders were aware that the election of a conservative government was inevitable, and that there was a ‘need to rejuvenate the capacity of the union movement to organise, to bargain and campaign again’. But this is not what enterprise bargaining delivered in practice. Instead, the labour movement was unable to recover its declining workplace density.
The contradictions of the Accord also point to the improbability of a similar social contract being used to drive radical political economic reform in the future. This is because the social organisations that were central to instituting the Accord were hollowed out in the process of the social contract, so much so they can no longer play the same role — and nor can they be as effective in resisting such reforms as they had been in previous decades. During the Accord years there was a substantial fall in the level of unionisation from 49 to 32.7 percent. In the years since, this has fallen by a further 50 percent to under 15 percent. While there is debate about the relationship between the Accord and this decline it is clear that, within the Accord framework and through the ACTU’s post-Accord era strategy, there has been no sustained reinvigoration of union activism or organisation across the country.
The failure of the left unions’ strategy of industrial militancy and mobilisation to resolve the crisis in favour of labour (in the 1970s and early 1980s) resulted in these unions seeking a political solution through central state planning, and, thus, being brought inside the state and political society. The role of the CPA-led AMWU in the Accord process demonstrates how the social contract incorporated a militant union suffused with radical perspectives into the new political project centred on reviving accumulation and ‘modernising’ the Australian economy. Central to neo-liberal restructuring was the participation of unions in industry structural adjustment and efforts to increase productivity, which proceeded alongside the attempted reorienting of the Accord in the 1986–1987 Australia Reconstructed initiative. The shift from a workplace-focused strategy to a corporatist one facilitated the enwrapment of labour and the trade union leadership by political society and its priorities. This resulted in the molecular transformation of the AMWU — its leaders, members and structures — so that they were no longer capable of playing a significant role in defending, let alone winning, social gains for Australian workers. In the end, the solution the AMWU adopted for the impasse of its previous strategy of industrial militancy hollowed out the union’s membership and power — which exacerbated the devastating impact of economy-wide changes on the metals and manufacturing industries. This was a tragic outcome, the consequences of which reverberate well beyond its ranks and are still with us today.
It’s been a while eh — over two years, in fact (see : #TrotGuide 2016, April 21, 2016). That said, while there’s been some interesting developments on The Far Left : Down Under Edition, for the most part things are continuing to remain fairly calm and capitalism remains really really really late.
Still having a crack :
1. Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL);
2. Communist League (CL);
2 1/2. Communist Left (of Australia);
3. Communist Party of Australia (CPA);
4. Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) (CPA M-L);
4 1/2. Communist Workers Party of Australia;
5. Freedom Socialist Party (FSP);
6. Progressive Labour Party (PLP);
7. Socialist Alliance (SA);
8. Socialist Alternative (SAlt);
9. Socialist Equality Party (SEP);
10. Socialist Party (SP);
11. Solidarity;
12. Spartacist League of Australia;
13. Trotskyist Platform (TP).
Scratched :
1. ML Group (MLG) — see : Workers League;
2. Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP).
Tired and emotional :
1. Resistance;
2. The Socialist.
NEW!
1. Left Unity;
2. Stalin Society of Australia;
3. Victorian Socialists;
4. Workers League.
The Far Left in Australia since 1945
To begin with, The Far Left in Australia since 1945 (Routledge, 2018), edited by Jon Piccini, Evan Smith & Matthew Worley, contains a number of essays of relevance to spotters, especially ‘The current of Maoism in the Australian Far Left’ by Drew Cottle and Angela Keys, which details the activities of Maoists in Australia in the 1960s and ’70s and inter alia the sometimes rather hostile relationship between Maoists and Trots.
The mutual hatred of the Trotskyists and Maoists for each other was not simply over ideological differences. The Maoists were seen by Trotskyists as ignorant, dogmatic Stalinist thugs, prone to violence and lost to the quest of reactionary nationalism. Maoists denounced Trotskyists as police agents, full of talk about the need to build the international socialist revolution, wreckers or cowards. In a 1970 Vanguard article, Trotskyism was condemned as an apolitical diversion in its promotion of drug-taking, sex-obsession, homosexuality and pop culture.
Maoist students were known to resort to physical rviolence against ‘Trotskyites’ in demonstrations and on campus. At Flinders University in 1972 Maoists bashed Trotskyist paper-sellers. Maoist activists at the gates of car plants in Adelaide and Melbourne jostled and punched Trotskyist speakers and paper-sellers. A Trotskyist activist was beaten unconscious by a student Maoist after a rowdy meeting at La Trobe University in 1977. In 1978, Maoist students threw another Trotskyist student through a plate glass window at La Trobe University. Maoists often attacked Trotskyist activists at union rallies. Maoist demonstrations often involved violent confrontations with the police. Maoists destroyed the Nazi Party headquarters in Carlton after a mass rally at the Yarra River in Melbourne was called to protest their activities. Trotskyists condemned this act of ‘people’s violence against fascism’. The Maoists were arguably the most divisive grouping of the Australian Far Left in the 1960s and 1970s.
Everybody’s favourite Trot group, the Spartacist League, also get a guernsey in Isobelle Barrett Meyering’s essay ‘Changing consciousness, changing lifestyles: Australian women’s liberation, the left and the politics of ‘personal solutions”:
… women’s liberation saw itself as rejecting ‘male left’ politics and demanded that it be recognised as an ‘autonomous’ movement. For those who maintained their connections to the organised left, this proved to be a point of ongoing friction. As women’s liberation expanded, some self-described ‘political women’ within the movement complained that they were treated as suspect due to their allegiances to socialist groups. These debates reached their apogee with proposals to expel Spartacist League members from women’s liberation in Melbourne in 1973 and Sydney in 1977, prompted by complaints that they were ‘disruptive’ and not genuinely committed to women’s liberation. The proposals were the subject of significant controversy, with only the Melbourne motion succeeding.
The proposal to expel the Sparts is denounced by them in “Radical” feminism going nowhere: Fight women’s oppression through class struggle! (Australasian Spartacist, March 1977), Red-baiting in women’s movement: Stop anti-Trotskyist purge! (April, 1977), Sydney Women’s Liberation: Feminist purge defeated … (May, 1977) and no doubt in subsequent issues. See : Australasian Spartacist.
But anyway:
Maoists.
Sadly, the CPA (M-L) ceased the print publication of its zine Vanguard back in 2014, but you can continue to read the online version here. The CPA (M-L) also has an online forum of sorts called ‘Australian Communist Discussion Site’ which inter alia contains a discussion from November 2017 indicating the CPA M-L’s participation in a NEW! (to me) project in Adelaide called ‘Left Unity’; indeed, ‘our people were among the founding members of a group called Left Unity, a loose alliance of Socialist Alliance, CPA, anarchists and individuals’. You can read more about Left Unity here. And speaking of Left Unity …
Our political system is broken. The Liberals rule for their corporate mates. Labor is little better, tailing the political right and selling out its working class supporters to big money and developers.
It’s time for a genuine left alternative.
In the November 2018 state election, left wingers are uniting as the Victorian Socialists to get Yarra councillor Stephen Jolly elected to the upper house for the Northern Metropolitan Region.
We are for the poor against the rich, for workers against their bosses, for the powerless against the powerful.
The Victorian Socialists brings together socialist groups including Socialist Alternative and the Socialist Alliance, and individual activists, unionists and community organisers.
While Stephen Jolly will head the campaign, the ticket will also include Colleen Bolger from Socialist Alternative, and Socialist Alliance Moreland councillor Sue Bolton …
Whether or not Jolly will be able to win a seat would seem to depend upon: a) getting a reasonable amount of first preferences and; b) the flow of preferences from other parties. At this stage, it seems likely Labor will preference him behind Fiona Patten (Reason Party), an eventuality which would make it more difficult for Jolly to win. Still, stranger things have happened, amirite? In any event, you can read an interview with the Victorian Socialists by Riki Lane of Workers’ Liberty Australia — Vote Victorian Socialists! Put a socialist in parliament for Northern Melbourne — here.
Oh, and the Victorian Socialists will also be contesting the Western Victoria Region Legislative Council electorate in the November state election.
Still, not everybody’s on-board, and that includes the leadership of the world socialist movement AKA The International Committee of the Fourth International AKA The Socialist Equality Party, what reckons that this ‘latest opportunist manoeuvre by the pseudo-left is a calculated response to immense disaffection within the working class towards the Labor Party, which holds government in Victoria, and to the breakup of the longstanding two-party-dominated political system. Its aim is try to capture some of the social and political discontent and channel it into new parliamentary illusions.’ The electoral vehicle is subject to further excoriation by Patrick O’Connor in Australia: The pseudo-left Victorian Socialists and its pro-capitalist election manifesto (wsws.org, September 12, 2018).
Speaking of the leadership of the world socialist movement, I also recently stumbledupon a NEW! (to me) site called classconscious.org, which exists in order to ‘promote the unity of the international working class in the struggle for socialist revolution.’ The site, which began publication in March 2017, has a small number of articles on it, many concerning Julian Assange (for example: The I.C.F.I must expose the petit-bourgeois and far-right forces who have co-opted the campaign for Julian Assange: An appeal to ICFI members and supporters, September 9, 2018), and while ‘This blog has no relationship with the World Socialist Website or the ICFI, its publishers … it is from this organisation that we have gained our education in Marxism and upon which we base our perspective.’ So there you go.
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
*I’m happy to announce that at some point between now and April 2016, the COMMUNIST WORKERS PARTY OF AUSTRALIA announced its existence on Facebook AND it has a website!
**Futilitarian has kindly reminded me of the existence of a ‘Communist Left’ (of Australia) in Sydney (not to be confused with the seemingly quite short-lived ‘Communist Left Discussion Circle’). They (?) publish a zine called Red which you can read here. (The latest available issue is numbered 118 and dated March 2017.) A statement published in late 2000 describes the groupuscule’s history:
Communist Left was formed in June 1976 by Owen Gager. It was formed in continuity with the record of New Zealand Spartacist League (which became Red Federation), Owen Gager’s struggle within that grouping against Spartacist League US supporters B. Logan and A. Hannah (backed by the majority of Wellington Branch). Gager had the support of Auckland comrades, notably Bruce Jesson. Jesson was expelled for building the Republican Movement at the expense of Red Federation. It supported the 1970 Programme of the NZSL and Owen Gager’s political record in Australia, mainly on East Timor and the 1976 Australian Constitutional crisis (the Kerr Coup). The first members were Bill Keats and Terry Millar who remained CPA members. Terry Millar was a member of NZSL and a comrade of O.Gager in New Zealand. A glazier, Paul Azzopardi joined shortly after.
The programme of the Communist Left, written in 1977 and published in 1978, firmly established the group’s political basis. Key points include full support for Trotsky’s founding of the fourth International but recognition that Fourth International was dead and none of the proclaimed continuers or reformers of it maintained in any way the continuity of the tradition as established by Trotsky. This includes the Mandelite United Secretariat, the Healyite International Committee, those in solidarity with the Socialist Workers Party (of the US), the Morenoite and Posadasite variants and the International Spartacist Tendency. As communism is by definition internationalist, there is an urgent need for a fifth international.
Communist Left made many important interventions on the Australian left. Gager and Azzopardi intervened within the Labor Party. Keats and Millar within the Communist Party of Australia. There were also key political interventions on such issues as the colonial nature of Australian capitalism combined with its mini-imperialist domination of parts of SE Asia and the South Pacific, the crisis of manufacturing and subsequent unemployment, the nationalist crisis of Stalinism internationally leading to the third Indochina war (and the ostensible Trotskyist sell out to Stalinism). CL made practical interventions on issues such as unemployment and housing.
Communist Left supports the founding document of the Fourth International – The Transitional Programme. The aim of the Programme of the Communist Left is not to replace Trotsky’s programme but to relate its method to a new period – the post-war boom, the expansion of Stalinism, the degeneration of Trotskyism. The document sets out international principles and applies them to Australia.
Internationally CL/A was in solidarity with the NZSL which was re-established in 1978. This group became CLNZ in 1983. Discussions were also held with the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain.
CL/A grew in size as a result of practical work in unemployment and housing (squatting). CL/A was party to a major squatting of the Glebe estate area of Sydney (October 1984) involving hundreds of people. This however led to the expulsion of founder leader Owen Gager due to his indiscipline. Gager refused to argue for tactics previously agreed to by Glebe squatters and declared war on the majority when they insisted he did so. He then pretended that he was CL and that the majority had “stolen” the organisation off him. He then constituted himself as Communist Left (Leninist) and now is actively part of the Melbourne Anarchist movement.
Until the end of 1987 CL did some important work in unemployment and housing. A bulletin Communist was published. Interventions were made on a political level on issues such as the Hawke Government’s Prices and Incomes Accord (the Accord) and the left responses such as Broad Left and Fightback. We remained involved in housing and unemployment as members of the Union of the Unemployed, the Squatters and Tenants (UUST).
Communist Left Australia spit into fragments at the end of 1987. The majority supporting calling the police against their former comrades, giving the police names and addresses, totally unacceptable placing them outside the workers’ movement. Communist Tendency was established to maintain continuity of the CL tradition. CL was re-established when two former members including Paul Azzopardi rejoined. Red has been published consistently as a quarterly since March 1988. The issue currently in preparation will be the fiftieth issue. Leaflets have also been issued. Communist Left has also published an unemployed bulletin called Unemployed Action.
Communist Left broke off relations with Communist Left New Zealand when that grouping affiliated with the League for a Revolutionary Communist International (LRCI) whose leading section is the British group called Workers Power. We intervened to show that this was fundamentally an economist tendency, whose strategy was extending the trade union struggle into a general strike “posing the question of power”. We pointed out that the question of power must not only be posed but resolved – through a revolutionary programme confronting the totality of state power. This LRCI consistently avoided. We also pointed out the consequence of this was adaptation to the existing political consciousness of the working class – their reformist chauvinist consciousness. We pointed out Workers Power attacked Benn primarily not as a chauvinist but because of his inconsistency in mobilising the rank and file. This blocs with workers who whilst being critical on a trade union outlook share his fundamental political perspective – a reformist chauvinist one. Workers Power pointed to many heart felt examples of organising against chauvinism. However these are not of strategic consequence to them in drawing class lines. Workers Power lines of struggle are organising workers on the shop floor against the bureaucracy and extending militancy. It is not drawing class lines which involve fighting for an interest independent of capitalist social relations – the capitalist state.
In New Zealand sections of the Workers Power leadership who were also leaders of the Communist Left of New Zealand split with other militants internationally to form the Liason Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International [1995–2004]. This did not constitute a fundamental break from Workers Power but argued, correctly that the current leadership were adapting to imperialist pressures. Whilst we agree with their criticisms, the totality of LRCI, from the beginning must be addressed. Since they haven’t done so we can not reconsider re-establishing solidarity.
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
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