I would like to add some comments about the so-called Sino-Soviet split and its impact on the Australian Communist movement.

The establishment of the CPA(M-L) was the Australian manifestation of the international struggle between revolutionary movements and revisionism.
After World War 2, and under the pressure of the Cold War and the misleadership of the Soviet Union, much of the leadership of Communist Parties across the world succumbed and adopted notions of a peaceful transition to socialism. Togliatti and the leadership of the Italian Communist Party, for example, propagated full-blown theories of respecting the constitution, and gradually building the electoral strength of the Party to take control of the society.(Look at Italy today to see how that went).

Marxist-Leninists across the globe strove to maintain the revolutionary edge of the Communist movement and broke away from the old parties to establish new revolutionary organisations.

... Read more »

One quick question I do have is on this party and its relation to Mao Zedong Thought, and its stance regarding the Sino-Soviet split, as I have heard from a Comrade in the CPA that that was the main issue of contention between what is now the CPA (ML) and the CPA.

Comrade,

Your friend in the CPA is partly correct in what he has said about Mao Zedong Thought and the Sino-Soviet split being the main issue of contention between what is now the CPA (M-L) and the CPA. I think "partially correct" because these provided the background to that split, they were its external conditions. But those conditions had to have an internal basis, a basis within Australia and within the Australian Communist Party prior to the split. That basis was disagreements over approaches to work in the unions, differences in attitudes towards the ALP, and differences over parliamentarism and revolutionary, as opposed to reformist, strategy. I joined the CPA (M-L) in 1970, six years after th ... Read more »

Q: How are you guys different to acp or cpa*?

• acp = Australian Communist Party; cpa = Communist Party of Australia

A: We would say that we have organisational, political and ideological differences. Some of these are embedded in the more than 50-year history since our founding in 1964, and may not be easy for people to see. We all say that we are fighting for the objective that is common to our respective parties’ names – Communism. But how we get there is the sticking point.

Ideologically, there are differences in our understandings of what constitutes revolutionary change and of the strategy of achieving socialism by first defeating the hold of US imperialism over Australia. Although we recognise US imperialism as the main enemy of the Australian people, we do not support China’s embrace of capitalism, nor its own imperialist actions.

Politically, we characterise the ALP as a party of capitalism. We do not believe in going soft on ... Read more »

A reader has asked us to recommend some introductory readings on Marxism. Our reply follows:

Thanks for your request for some beginning information on Marxism.

Probably a good approach would be to combine a look at some of the classic writings of people like Marx with contemporary articles that take a Marxist position.

For the former, nearly everything written by the early Marxists is archived at www.marxists.org . Relatively short works such as the Communist Manifesto, and Marx’s Wages, Prices and Profit and Wage Labour and Capital are good starting points, while Lenin’s Karl Marx and Stalin’s Foundations of Leninism summarise Marxism on the basis of later historical experience. Mao’s writings, especially his essays on Marxist philosophy, such as On Practice and On Contradiction are very worthwhile.

Combi ... Read more »

A reader has written to us in relation to the Chinese company Huawei. He asks: “Is Huawei a threat to our national security? Is it right to oppose it publicly?”

Our reply follows:

Dear X,

Sorry about the delay in responding to your questions regarding Huawei. They were passed onto comrades in our leadership group who were given the opportunity to help shape a response. Unfortunately, this type of collective discussion takes some time under our circumstances.

Several of us have read “Silent Invasion”, the Clive Hamilton book which, while certainly giving evidence of China’s sometimes clumsy attempts to gain influence here, has very little concrete evidence of threats to the security of the Australian bourgeois state.

Huawei could well be a credible commercial operation, and not the front for spooks in the PLA that Hamilton and others are saying it is. We suspect that there is a bit of a snowball effect internationally with ... Read more »

A comrade enquiring about membership of the Party writes:

“I've been reading on the party as much as I can to build an idea of its history, but there's one thing I haven't found much on... from my reading this party took the Chinese camp in the sino-soviet split, a move with which I'm in complete agreement... but later on when the sino-albanian split reached its conclusion I can't find anything in CPAML history (or Australian communist history for that matter) to reflect the divide, so: if you don't mind the question, where can I find older CPAML material on post-mao China, and maybe material on the sino-albanian side of things? I've found quite a lot on the party's history with MZT, but I've yet to find much on how it developed its worldview through the 70s to the 2000s.”

We have responded briefly as follows:

There are few documents that relate to the split between China and Albania, and the Australian Party’s response to this. We held the Albani ... Read more »

A reader, A., has sent the following query:

What is the group's view on other sects of the left?
Do you only work with MLs or are you open to working with anarchists and trots? Posadists?

Our reply follows:

Hi A.,

Your question re “left sects” is quite relevant following the joint celebrations of the centenary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The Communist Party of Australia and ourselves released a joint statement honouring that momentous event and in several states we were joined by other organisations in meetings and celebrations.

In the present political circumstances of our country, most of these organisations (ourselves included) are quite small, so I understand your use of the word “sects”. However, that word also implies an exclusive attitude and practice; probably Socialist Alternative is the closest to a sect in that regard.

The historian Humphrey McQueen uses the word “gro ... Read more »

Dear Comrades

In Australia and Imperialism in the Twenty-first Century, Alex M. has done a fine job in setting forth the issues and identifying Australia as a sub-imperial country.

An interesting and important point is the extent to which Australia benefits from the alignment with the imperialist triad of USA, Japan and EU. Australia is a bit unusual in having a well-developed capitalism but a high reliance on the export of commodities. We clearly have a higher standard of living than that of peripheral countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and yet, this could not be accounted for by our domination over Pacific Island nations, as bad as that might be. Do we get higher prices for our commodities by associating with US imperialism?

Such benefits will have a bearing on what is to be done, because if our working class is sharing in the product of a worldwide exploitation (Arghiri Emmanuel's idea of unequal exchange), then we are not mere ... Read more »

A reader has sent the following comments:

Comrades

A bit confused by the article on Catalonia, Kurdish and West Papua independence
Re read Stalin as suggested
I send a lot of Vanguard articles to my former students in China
Their queries were
What about Taiwan and Tibet?
Also what about Shanghai, Guangdong and Liaoning provinces where a growing number of people are unhappy about their rich regions subsidising poorer predominantly western regions (examples of Verona and Lombardi in Italy )
Several asked why we are not calling for socialist revolution in Spain, Iraq and Indonesia rather than independence for the regions.
Tried to explain the different historical situations but not too successfully
Would appreciate your comments or a more explanatory article in Vanguard

Solidarity
…………………………
Our reply follows:

Dear comrade,

Your email raises a number of qu ... Read more »

A reader has sent the following enquiry:

How long do you guys think it will take to achieve socialism in Australia, especially considering the aussie proletariat's political apathy?

Thanks for your enquiry.

The only answer to this is to acknowledge that revolutions are not made to order, but are the outcome of circumstances independent of our wishful thinking. As late as July 1917, Lenin was arguing against the transfer of all power to the Soviets because the Bolsheviks were not sure of majority support from the Russian people. Three months later, the Bolsheviks had a majority in the Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Deputies, had the vast majority of soldiers and sailors on-side and had the majority of the poor peasants supporting them as well. Elections in Moscow and Petrograd confirmed that the masses of urban residents supported the Bolsheviks. It was at that point that Lenin called for a seizure of power. He later criticised ... Read more »