Communist Party of Australia: It's back!

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.smh.com.au/national/party-like-its-1989-the-communists-are-back-20090213-8765.html

JULES ANDREWS is gradually coming to terms with the way strangers react when he tells them he's a communist - the stunned silence, the finger pointing, the undisguised curiosity.

'You're at a party and someone asks you what you do and you say 'I work for the Communist Party' and there's just this hush," he said. "Then everyone wants to talk to you - some people think we disappeared at the end of the Cold War."

Australia's communists may have retreated after the fall of the Berlin wall, but they survived - carrying placards on union picket lines and selling copies of Marx's Communist Manifesto on university campuses.

And with the global economic downturn eroding faith in free markets, they are planning a return to mainstream politics with a new political party, the Communist Alliance. It is the first time since 1971 Australia's communists will be united under one banner, and the first time since 1999 a party with "Communist" in its name can appear on an Australian ballot paper.

Made of the small but committed membership of the Communist Party of Australia, emigrants from communist countries such as Cuba and Venezuela and "unattached sympathisers", the alliance is planning to field candidates in the next federal election and has hopes of one day winning a seat.

"The economic crisis has definitely been a factor," the Communist Alliance's secretary, John Bailey, said of the party's resurgence. "People realise that the good things are being taken away - their savings, super - and they're beginning to question the system, not just the major parties' policies but the system itself."

But how could a party that is ideologically committed to overthrowing Australia's economic system ever make a useful contribution in the Australian Parliament? Where does it stand, for instance, on the economic stimulus package?

"Our criteria for judging any policy is whether it helps working people or not," the Communist Party of Australia president, Dr Hannah Middleton, said.

[Bilan]

Sounds like shit.

[Bilan]

Made of the small but committed membership of the Communist Party of Australia, emigrants from communist countries such as Cuba and Venezuela and "unattached sympathisers", the alliance is planning to field candidates in the next federal election and has hopes of one day winning a seat.


The revolution is immanent.

[Hiero]

What do you mean?

[manic expression]

The revolution is immanent.

You have to start somewhere. Plus, a socialist with a seat would be a great victory for the working class. Best of luck to Australia's revolutionaries.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Yeah, I saw the article earlier this week, gave me a giggle. For one the article is light on real concrete facts. Despite claiming that the CPA is 'back' there is no concrete data provided to prove this - beside of course the formation of the 'Communist Alliance' (the claim that it will be 'the first time since 1971 Australia's communists will be united under one banner' made me laugh).


"Our criteria for judging any policy is whether it helps working people or not," the Communist Party of Australia president, Dr Hannah Middleton, said.

"There are communists in the Greek parliament, the European parliament [and] the President of Cyprus is a communist. So why not here? It's possible."


With communists like these, who needs liberals!

In all seriousness I'd love to here Dr. Middleton answer not "why not here?" but rather "why here?"

[Die Neue Zeit]

My original post expressed neither enthusiasm nor sarcasm towards the CPA. For obvious reasons I don't like in particular his ill-informed remark about Cyprus.

[Hiero]

Despite claiming that the CPA is 'back' there is no concrete data provided to prove this - beside of course the formation of the 'Communist Alliance

True. But the mainstream media wouldn't really know the increase or decrease in CPA membership or any party for that matter unless they had an insider. But the registration of the Communist Alliance like any political party for the vote requires 500 signatures for membership, which came from people in the CPA and other organisations, trade unions, peace groups etc.

The assumption that the mainstream media has made is that the CPA did not have enough members to register untill know and assumes that the economic crisis has brought more people to the party.

[Saorsa]

What are the differences between the Communist Alliance and the Socialist Alliance? The electoral approaches seem similar, why the need for two seperate and competing "broad left" fronts?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think the latter group is merely a Trotskyist group.

[Saorsa]

In practice the DSP is now the only group worth mentioning that participates, and the Alliance and the DSP are essentially one and the same thing. But I'm interested in Hiero justifying the existence of two rival broad left fronts and explaining the differences between them.

[Bilan]

You have to start somewhere. Plus, a socialist with a seat would be a great victory for the working class. Best of luck to Australia's revolutionaries.

Yes, of course. Nothing serves the working class better than a bureaucrat styling a hammer and sickle. Please.


What do you mean?

That this is the biggest load of shit I've seen in a while, and I expected something somewhat more intelligent from a Party as old as this one. "Perhaps", I thought to myself, "Perhaps the CPA would learn from its mistakes; perhaps it would reanalyse its practice in the past to lead it to a logical conclusion, upon which it would realize being at the head of trade unions and being elected in bourgeois parliaments does nothing for us. Does nothing for the revolution. That the bourgeois parliaments exist to perpetuate the order of bourgeois society. Perhaps"

I mean, what the fuck is the point of this?


True. But the mainstream media wouldn't really know the increase or decrease in CPA membership or any party for that matter unless they had an insider. But the registration of the Communist Alliance like any political party for the vote requires 500 signatures for membership, which came from people in the CPA and other organisations, trade unions, peace groups etc.

The assumption that the mainstream media has made is that the CPA did not have enough members to register untill know and assumes that the economic crisis has brought more people to the party.

That doesn't mean anything though. There is nothing of any substance here. At best, this sounds more like social democratic drivel then a communist party.
You should get a new president, and spokes persons, who are actually communists, not democrats.


In practice the DSP is now the only group worth mentioning that participates, and the Alliance and the DSP are essentially one and the same thing. But I'm interested in Hiero justifying the existence of two rival broad left fronts and explaining the differences between them.

This is the best answer:

http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/Brian2.jpg

SPLITTTERRSS!

[AnthArmo]

What are the differences between the Communist Alliance and the Socialist Alliance? The electoral approaches seem similar, why the need for two seperate and competing "broad left" fronts?

Exactly the same thing I was thinking. The Socialist Alliance is already quite powerful. It would be far more practical for the two to cooperate. The Socialist Alliance is already getting votes as high as 20% in some areas.

[Bilan]

Exactly the same thing I was thinking. The Socialist Alliance is already quite powerful. It would be far more practical for the two to cooperate. The Socialist Alliance is already getting votes as high as 20% in some areas.


That's bullshit. Not once have I ever heard that. Substantiate it please.
Plus, that's about as "good" as Labour getting elected.

[Hiero]

In practice the DSP is now the only group worth mentioning that participates, and the Alliance and the DSP are essentially one and the same thing. But I'm interested in Hiero justifying the existence of two rival broad left fronts and explaining the differences between them.

That justifies it. And that is why groups leave the SA because the DSP and the Green Left Weekly (the newspaper) take dominance in the alliance and drown out other voices. We are not going to join a alliance where we get swallowed up.


"Perhaps the CPA would learn from its mistakes; perhaps it would reanalyse its practice in the past to lead it to a logical conclusion, upon which it would realize being at the head of trade unions and being elected in bourgeois parliaments does nothing for us. Does nothing for the revolution. That the bourgeois parliaments exist to perpetuate the order of bourgeois society. Perhaps"

Well the trade unions have been the only way that real gains have been made for the working class, apart from community groups.

Secondly, there is no revolution in australia.

Also name one significant issue between workers and employers where any anarchist leadership (or influence) was present. I think you can come down from your high horse.

Seriously your reaction are so bitter, I am guessing your family had a negative history with the CPA.


The Socialist Alliance is already getting votes as high as 20% in some areas.

The vote for what?

With 20% they would be considered a significant minor party in Australian politics. They would hold some local, state or national seat someone where along the line.

[chebol]

The CPA never went away.* As I'm sure people have worked out, what's happened is that they've set up an electoral vehicle called the "Communist Alliance", which is made up of their generally aging membership, plus some supporters/ fellow travellers - many of whom were trucked in from some of the immigrant CPs in Australia (Lebanese, Cypriot, etc).

I'd argue that it's an unnecessary and potentially counterproductive move, as it is likely to split the (small) left vote, highlight the division of the left even more (rather than help to overcome it), and serve simply as an electoral tool of the CPA, rather than doing anything for revolutionary regroupment in Australia. The policies aren't going to stray far from the CPAs, so we can expect support for Cuba and Venezuela, combined with soft criticism of the ALP, and an unfortunate position on China.

On the Socialist Alliance, the DSP is the largest, and most active, affiliate but still only makes up about 25-30 percent of the membership. The Socialist Alliance is far from being "essentially one and the same thing", despite what Comrade Alastair might think or have heard (by strange coincidence, those who diss the Alliance here in Oz, tend also to be the ones opposed to unity, often feel threatened by it, and have a preference for protecting their shibbolethim over uniting in actual struggle).

On top of the meaningful, paid up, financial and active membership, there are the "electoral" members, those who sign up to allow the Alliance to get electoral registration. There's a few important - in fact, VITAL - differences, however, between the Socialist Alliance the CPA's new front.

The Socialist Alliance remains an open and active alliance. The majority of its membership are not in any group, and all members have a meaningful input into developing policy, strategy, etc. That is, it's nobody's front.

The Socialist Alliance is also constantly open to - consciously encouraging, in fact - the possibility of new affiliates (such as the Sudanese Australia Human Rights Association, an organisation linked to the Sudanese Communist Party, which affiliated last year). It is not "trotskyist" (neither is the DSP, by the way, having technically rejected it in the 80s for a return to "leninism" - the revolutionary kind, not the Stalinist catchphrase), it is "socialist". An alliance of socialist, in fact.

There are members who hold all number of positions (including Trotskyists *and* Cliffites, probably a handful of more-or-less reformed stalinist, at least one Hoxhaist, a few anarchists, humanists, etc). By far, however, most of the members simply identify as "socialist", or "marxist". This means having groups and individuals who hold radically different positions on some "theoretical issues" (State Capitalism, for example) from other groups.

But the Alliance wasn't set up to hand down the gospel truth on the Russian revolution (or whatever) from on high - it's designed to get socialists to work and strike together on the activities that matter (and not just elections, but union work, environmentalism, women's rights, antiwar, etc), with a longer term aim of building a new, broad, inclusive, left wing party capable of building a revolution.

Also, it's structure remains open to revision, if - as other groups, individuals, etc - join, or want to join on that condition. But such changes remain fundamentally a question of the democratic decision-making of the Aliance membership.

The Socialist Alliance often works alongside the Socialist Party, and we also encourage the SP, as well as the rest of the left, to join or rejoin the Alliance, or to enter into genuine discussions about new forms of regroupment.

Socialisme ou Barbarie wrote:

Plus, that's about as "good" as Labour getting elected.And you are from which distant planet, exactly?

AnthArmo wrote:

The Socialist Alliance is already quite powerful. It would be far more practical for the two to cooperate. The Socialist Alliance is already getting votes as high as 20% in some areas.I wouldn't say that we're "quite powerful". The Socialist Alliance remains quite small (albeit several times larger than all the other left groups), holds no seats in parliament (most of the "left" vote goes to the Greens, who poll around 10% nationally), and the unions are still dominated through and through by the ALP (with a few very notable - and sometimes explosive - exceptions. When the Victorian AMWU elected the Socialist Alliance member Craig Johnson as state secretary, the ALP "left" organised a set up, and got him 9 months in prison for doing his job).

As for elections, it's true: we got 19 percent in one council ward (and quite a few similar results in others) during the Victorian local government elections last November. [For the sake of the naked truth, here's a results from Maribyrnong Council. http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/maribyrnongresult2008.html Stuart Martin is the Socialist Alliance candidate who got 19 percent. Margarita Windisch is the other Socialist Alliance on that page]

Similiarly, the Socialist Party (CWI) - almost entirely limited to Melbourne - returned their member Stephen Jolley to Yarra Council with almost 30 percent, where he remains the only openly socialist politician holding an elected position in Australia.

A summary of the Alliance and SP results can be seen here: http://socialistalliancemelbourne.blogspot.com/2008/12/strong-socialist-vote-in-victorian.html

But this is still a country mile from where the left needs to be in order to change society. And to get there, we need greater unity in our organisation and action, not less.




* Well, sorta. The CPA actually DID go away, dissolving itself after the collapse of the USSR. The current CPA, which was an orthodox (anti-eurocommunism) split away from the CPA in the late sixties and had lived - until that time - under the same Socialist Party of Australia, bought the name soon afterwards. But they were running in elections in the late 90s, from memory, as the CPA.

[chebol]

Hiero wrote:


Quote:"In practice the DSP is now the only group worth mentioning that participates, and the Alliance and the DSP are essentially one and the same thing. But I'm interested in Hiero justifying the existence of two rival broad left fronts and explaining the differences between them."

That justifies it. And that is why groups leave the SA because the DSP and the Green Left Weekly (the newspaper) take dominance in the alliance and drown out other voices. We are not going to join a alliance where we get swallowed up.No, it doesn't, for the following reasons.
1. The DSP is not the only group that participates.
2. The vast majority of the membership are not in any group, they dominate due to the functioning of that little thing we call "democracy"
3. Some of the smaller groups didn't like the fact that the majority of the non-aligned membership agreed with the DSP on a number of points - such as ensuring democracy in the Socialist Alliance - and left. [Up until the point where the system was changed for being unworkable, the national executive of the Alliance was made up of representatives, with veto powers, from the different affiliate groups, some as small as two or three members, while the vast majority of non-aligned members had little say in the national running of the party between conferences.]
4. Others, like the ISO, weren't afraid of being "swallowed up", they had illusions of immediately winning seats and winning thousands of members from the ALP. If anyone was out to dominate the Alliance - and got shirty when democracy won out, took their bat and ball, and went home - it was the ISO (now Solidarity). Even now, with a few generous exceptions, Solidarity denies having done anything wrong when they were in the Alliance, blaming it all on the nasty, nasty DSP. Caricatures rarely resemble the political truth.
5. Your point is contradictory, and therefore makes little or no sense. First you say that the SA is *just* the DSP (untrue), then you say the CPA is worried about being "swallowed up" by it (which, if true, speaks worrying volumes about the tiny size of the CPA. The Alliance has less than 1000 members, while the DSP has 250-300).
6. Your argument is essentially a vindication of the Monty Python film clip. It's part of the problem, not the solution, comrade.

[Comrade GothMoth]

Good for the proletariat that a far-Left party actually will be able run for any kind of election in this country. Bad for the proletariat if the Marxists actually get in power. I hope this Communist Alliance actually remembers what Marx wrote about when he dreamt of an 'association of free men, working side by side with the means of production held in common'. This can never be achieved through reformist party politics. The only viable option is non-violent revolution.

[zapatista]

This will be interesting.

[Bilan]

Good for the proletariat that a far-Left party actually will be able run for any kind of election in this country. Bad for the proletariat if the Marxists actually get in power. I hope this Communist Alliance actually remembers what Marx wrote about when he dreamt of an 'association of free men, working side by side with the means of production held in common'. This can never be achieved through reformist party politics. The only viable option is non-violent revolution.

They're not far left.
And non-violent revolution is moralist, not realistic.

[Rise Against]

If there were a time for Revolution, It would be now.

[Comrade GothMoth]

They're not far left.
And non-violent revolution is moralist, not realistic.

I think Ghandi would disagree with that. He rebelled against the British Empire, all without violence. Mass Civil Disobedience is the way revolution will proceed. If you use violence, then that will give the capitalist pigs an excuse to use their armies on us.

The only reason capitalism exists is because we workers sustain it with our sweat, our labour, and our lives. The second we, as an organized mass, a true proletariat (not barbaric guerrilla squads), stop supporting the system, stop working for it, is the second it dies. All we must do is drop our tools and watch as the system crumbles around us, comrades, nothing more. If we spill innocent blood in our revolution, then we are just as bad as the wretches we are overthrowing.

[zapatista]

If there were a time for Revolution, It would be now.
the current economic climate, and hopefully, capitulation of capitalism, would make this appear to be true, but in Australia, we have nowhere near enough support.

[ZeroNowhere]

Good for the proletariat that a far-Left party actually will be able run for any kind of election in this country. Bad for the proletariat if the Marxists actually get in power.
Good thing there's no chance of that here, then.

[Comrade GothMoth]

Good thing there's no chance of that here, then.
Yeah :lol:.
Lucky for us, for the moment I suppose.
Still, better get cracking on that ol' revolution, eh?

[Rise Against]

Absolutely. In Australia, the chances of any party with Communist in their name gaining power is next to none.

[manic expression]

I think Ghandi would disagree with that. He rebelled against the British Empire, all without violence. Mass Civil Disobedience is the way revolution will proceed. If you use violence, then that will give the capitalist pigs an excuse to use their armies on us.

You are obviously confused about the history of the anti-British campaign and India, as well as Gandhi's role in it. Gandhi's Quit India movement was squashed without any problems by the British authorities, they just tossed the ringleaders in jail and that was that. What really drove out the British was the threat of urban riots all across the subcontinent, as well as the weakened state of the Empire after WWII. Gandhi failed in South Africa, and he did no better in India, the only difference is that thick-headed liberals made him into an icon, in spite of the history of the matter.

In short, violence got the British out of India, Gandhi only succeeded in getting his followers killed for no reason other than his own selfish moral purity.

Further, the capitalists have every reason in the world to use "their armies on us" if non-violence is pursued. It sure didn't help the Indians, who were gunned down indiscriminately as they held non-violent protests. But you, Gandhi's inmate, probably don't care about either effectiveness or the end result.


The only reason capitalism exists is because we workers sustain it with our sweat, our labour, and our lives. The second we, as an organized mass, a true proletariat (not barbaric guerrilla squads), stop supporting the system, stop working for it, is the second it dies. All we must do is drop our tools and watch as the system crumbles around us, comrades, nothing more. If we spill innocent blood in our revolution, then we are just as bad as the wretches we are overthrowing.

That's nice. Now read the Communist Manifesto and try to comprehend the meaning of "class warfare". Let me know when you've done this to a reasonable degree, because it's clear that you haven't as of yet.

[robbo203]

I think Ghandi would disagree with that. He rebelled against the British Empire, all without violence. Mass Civil Disobedience is the way revolution will proceed. If you use violence, then that will give the capitalist pigs an excuse to use their armies on us.

The only reason capitalism exists is because we workers sustain it with our sweat, our labour, and our lives. The second we, as an organized mass, a true proletariat (not barbaric guerrilla squads), stop supporting the system, stop working for it, is the second it dies. All we must do is drop our tools and watch as the system crumbles around us, comrades, nothing more. If we spill innocent blood in our revolution, then we are just as bad as the wretches we are overthrowing.


There is an element of truth in this. It was the Red Clydesider who said of the capitalist class that if we all spat we could drown them. Workers run the system from top to bottom after all. The only problem is that starvation works on the side of the capitalists and that is an all too telling argument the use of the General Strike to bring about revolutionary change. The change needs to be a conscious and political one.

However you are right about the stupidity of guerilla squads. The bourgeois romantics of the vanguardist left who fancy themsleves as Che type military commanders plotting violent class warfare from the comfort of their middle class armchairs to overthrow the system are puerile idiots who are if anything a menace to the movement. Marx and Engels were scathing in their contempt of these people who considered the working class too stupid to understand and organise for socialism and supposedly needed a vanguard eilite - themselves! - to lead the workers to the promised land

To deliberately set out on a course of action to violently overthrow capitalism is insane. It has not a snowballs chance in hell of succeeding. Moreover, it presupposes and necessitates a hierarchical power structure which may fit in well with outlook of these Leninist dreamers but it is completely at variance with the Marxian view that working class emancipation must be the act of the working class itself

[Bilan]

I think Ghandi would disagree with that.

Yeah, and he was wrong.



He rebelled against the British Empire, all without violence. Mass Civil Disobedience is the way revolution will proceed. If you use violence, then that will give the capitalist pigs an excuse to use their armies on us.

Firstly, if you think that India's "liberation" occurred without any violence, then you need to do some research on it. Ghandi's strength was like Martin Luther-King's. The peaceful element was dealt with to avoid having to deal with the real threat - in the latters case, groups like the Black Panthers.
Secondly, violent revolution is inevitable. It's not a choice. If you think the ruling class is just going to surrender because you're peaceful, you've got another thing coming.




The only reason capitalism exists is because we workers sustain it with our sweat, our labour, and our lives.

That's not why capitalism exists, and our submission is because of the nature of all class systems, which is that they are maintained through violence and domination.



The second we, as an organized mass, a true proletariat (not barbaric guerrilla squads), stop supporting the system, stop working for it, is the second it dies.

Really? That's all the second we die, because nothing is being produced, and we subsequently starve. And if you're suggesting we will just "reorganise the economy because we feel like it", you'll probably get done for theft, trespassing, and more.



All we must do is drop our tools and watch as the system crumbles around us, comrades, nothing more. If we spill innocent blood in our revolution, then we are just as bad as the wretches we are overthrowing.

Your moralist arguments have no basis, and no sense of reality.