Marxism Today For Australian IndependencE For Australian Socialism This issue of Marxism Today is dedicated to the memory of our comrade Neil McLean.

Neil McLean was an activist leader of the Australian student movement in the early 1970s, a period of tremendous struggle by workers and students in Australia and around the world.

For more than 40 years Neil worked closely with many overseas student activists in Australia and progressive organisations in their countries of origin. He provided leadership to struggles within the National Union of Students against the onslaught by US imperialist neo-liberal restructuring of the tertiary education sector to achieve the privatised user-pay system.

Neil was a key figure among those who argued that people’s struggle, rather than parliamentary politics, was decisive in achieving radical social change. He promoted Australia’s national independence and links with, and service to, the working class and workers’ struggles.

Neil’s activism and study of Marxism led him to join the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) in late 1970s. Neil was part of a collective of young Marxist-Leninists who had the important role of overseeing the transition of CPA (M-L) leadership after more than two decades of Ted Hill’s leadership and guidance. In 1986 Ted Hill resigned as Chairperson and the Central Committee elected Neil McLean as the new Chairperson. He remained in that position for a number of years.

Comrade McLean had a very calm and assured leadership style and applied to himself Chairman Mao’s precept “No investigation, no right to speak”. To that end he was a patient listener and a thoughtful analyst. Neil contributed to the CPA (M-L)’s efforts in that period to emphasise unity rather than division within the people’s movement, and to explore common ground and joint efforts with other left parties.

He was a humble and hard working comrade who put others before his own personal interests; he never promoted himself and had no time for self- importance and individualism; he deeply cared for and respected friends and the ordinary people. Neil made an important contribution to the Australian people’s movement and the work of the CPA (M-L).

p 1 - Marxism Today 2015 Contents

Trade Unions and Parliament 4 Ted Hill on Communism, Trade Unions and the ALP 7 For Militant Trade Unionism 10 Corrupt behaviour has no place in the ranks of the people 14 What is a fair day’s pay?

Living standards of the people 16 Some notes on housing in Australia 19 The Australian taxation system and the Henry Report 23 A Marxist view of interest rates 27 Punishment and coercion characterise the bourgeoisie’s attitude towards the poor

Revolution by stages 31 The dawn of a new era: the Great October Socialist Revolution 34 Immediate Demands, National Independence and Socialism 36 Marxism and Nationalism 39 Who controls Australia? 42 Communism: Society without class

Revolutionary theory 46 Mao Zedong’s On Contradiction the key to understanding Class Struggle 49 Understand basics of Marxism to meet new challenges 52 Communist Manifesto: The little book that changed the world 55 Political consciousness and mass work 59 The Capitalist mode of production: a destructive rift for the planet’s ecology and humanity! 63 Lenin’s The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism 66 Class struggle and the State apparatus 69 From study and discussion of Mao Zedong’s work, On Practice

Marxism Today 2015 - p 2 Imperialism 73 Imperialism: what is it? 76 Imperialism: the greatest threat to the environment 79 Ballooning foreign debt ties Australia to imperialism 82 Imperialism and Racism 85 War and Peace and Capitalism 88 Cultural imperialism and media propaganda

p 3 - Marxism Today 2015 Ted Hill on Communism, Trade Unions and the ALP (Vanguard March 2013)

The history of class struggle in through critical examination, highlight Australia has thrown up some the key contradictions. Armed with inspiring people. The late Ted these insights, Hill made strategic and Hill, founding Chairman of the tactical recommendations for class- Communist Party of Australia conscious workers, working people, (Marxist-Leninist), was a person communists and others concerned with closely connected to working class fighting for Australian independence. struggles. The role of the Australian Labor Party in Australian politics attracted his Involved in pivotal struggles in attention a number of times. Similarly, Australia such as the Penal Powers the influence, both positive and struggle and the attempted banning of negative, of the trade union movement the Communist Party by the Menzies came in for comment from Ted. government in the 1950s, Hill always adhered to communist principles. As Trade unions and working class a barrister, he championed workers’ politics rights, fighting for compensation for The fight for better wages and those injured in the course of their conditions led to the creation of trade employment. He played a leading role unions. Such was the case in Britain in in the Communist Party of Australia the nineteenth century. With the spread and during the period of Khrushchev’s of capitalism and industrialisation revisionism and the consequent Sino- throughout Europe and the rest of Soviet split in the early 1960s, he the world, workers’ resistance to helped establish the CPA (M-L). impoverishment, long hours and harsh conditions saw trade unions spring Hill wrote extensively on the up across the globe. Australia was no particularities of Australian society, exception, with strong connections to the class struggle, the fight for the British movement because of our socialism and the longer-term project colonial ties. of the building of communism in this country. His writing was characterised In Chapter Eleven of Communism by a methodical, logical approach to and Australia; Reflections and Australian social conditions. Reminiscences, Ted Hill outlined the pivotal function that trade unions have Starting with facts, he sought to played in Australian working class analyse concrete conditions, and politics. For Hill, “the trade unions

Marxism Today 2015 - p 4 emerged to defend the economic ending of capitalism.” He contrasted interests of the workers.” the economist approach with militant trade unionism, which whilst pursuing After bitter resistance from employers similar aims to economism, did so in this country, “the capitalists more aggressively. recognised that the formation of trade Essentially, trade unions and trade unions could no longer be successfully union politics are constrained by resisted.” The eventual result was that acceptance of or accommodation to in Australia an “elaborate system of capitalism. This does not preclude the registration and legislative control of development of communist ideology trade unions … evolved.” It should by rank and file trade unionists or be borne in mind that when this officials. was written (1980s), the concerted ruling class attacks that undermined Notwithstanding that possibility, Hill the legislative basis of Australian pointed out the limits of trade union Industrial Relations as it had stood for struggle and trade union politics, decades, was yet to unfold. based on his analysis of Australian conditions. Nevertheless, Hill was correct in his identification of the essence of trade The incorporation of trade unions union politics. In the day-to-day as legal entities into the official struggle against the encroachments Australian Industrial Relations system of the capitalists, trade unionists and formalised acceptance by unions of their officials generally either “submit the ‘system’. Conversely, the system to [the] subordination [of] capitalism” (or the ruling class) would not bestow or “resist it.” The acceptance of recognition on any body that sought capitalism and capitalist relations of the overthrow of capitalism. production gives rise to ‘economism’, where the struggle over purely Ted Hill on the ALP economic demands is the beginning At the end of the nineteenth century, and end of trade union activities. the Australian labour movement recognised the limitations of trade According to Hill “economism is an union struggle and looked to address ideology of capitalism. It accepts the this problem by getting representatives permanence of capitalism but demands into parliament. Added impetus for improved conditions for the workers the creation of the ALP came from the under capitalism. It is an ideology 1890s depression, which hit Australian inconsistent with Communist ideology workers hard. which has as its ultimate aim the

p 5 - Marxism Today 2015 The ALP since its inception has carried From its inception, the ALP has the hopes and aspirations of Australian focussed its attention on achieving working people for a more just and parliamentary office, with the equitable society. “The ALP has objective of introducing reforms. always commanded strong electoral Experience has shown that whilst adherence among the working class. many become disillusioned with the Even in times of acute electoral Labor Party when in office, because its difficulties for the Labor Party huge promised reforms do not materialise numbers of workers have voted for it.” or are watered down, many workers This was a fact of Australian politics and working people still grudgingly that could not be ignored. support the ALP.

Another fact that could not be ignored The contrast between the ALP and was that the ALP was a party of the CPA (M-L) capitalism. The tension between the Ted Hill pointed out that it would take ALP’s traditional support base being time, repeated experience and patient in the working class (despite the explanation before working class continuing attempts by ALP insiders people completely shed their illusions to distance the Labor Party from trade about the ALP. Only then would they unions and the working class) and its be willing to embrace a vision beyond total commitment to the maintenance parliamentary elections and take up of capitalist relations of production the fight for an independent Australia, always caused problems for the Labor and ultimately socialism. Party. Ted Hill left a legacy of astute political The tension spoken of here not only insights that continue to resonate. His found its reflection in the factions in work deserves serious study. the ALP, it also informed what Hill called the ALP’s “built-in tendency E.F. Hill, The Great Cause of Australian Independence (Nov 1977) http://www.marxists.org/ to vacillate on important questions.” history/erol/australia/hill-great-cause/index.htm We need only note the vacillation we E.F. Hill, Communism in Australia: Reflections and have seen in the Rudd Government’s Reminiscences (1989) http://www.marxists.org/ approach to the repeal of the most history/erol/australia/hill-last/index.htm noxious elements of the Howard E.F. Hill, Looking Backward: Looking Forward (2nd government’s punitive WorkChoices ed. May 1968) http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ legislation. Vacillation over the crucial australia/hill-looking/index.htm issue of climate change also highlights E.F. Hill, Australia’s Revolution: On the Struggle for this tendency. a Marxist-Leninist Party (August 1973) http://www. marxists.org/history/erol/australia/hill-a-rev/index. htm

Marxism Today 2015 - p 6 For Militant Trade Unionism (Vanguard May 2010)

The relationships between the defeat of the Howard-led coalition in labour movement, trade unions, July 1987. There had been changes Australian capitalism and the role to industrial relations legislation, of Communists have been and still primarily at the behest of monopoly are complex and potentially divisive. capitalists. Analysis of these relationships should be undertaken with care to The 1980s were marked by an unravel all the complexities. escalating campaign against organised labour not only in Australia but Some insightful albeit ‘historical’ throughout much of the Western world. comments on the social, political and In the UK, Thatcher and her cronies economic roles that trade unions and had led the charge against the Miners, Communists have played in Australian and in the US Reagan had targeted politics were made in the 1980s by Air Traffic Controllers. Such attacks leading figures in the Communist and on the working classes, particularly trade union movements. Ted Bull, Ted organised labour, were part and parcel Hill and Norm Gallagher had been of the drive to turn around the decline involved in struggle in their capacities in profitability experienced after the as Communists and trade unionists for end of the long boom. decades. Coming together to address the broader issues that arose out of the The Australian industrial relations concerted attempts to crush the BLF landscape was strewn with the results and other unions in the 1980s, Bull, Hill of the concerted attacks on unions and Gallagher co-authored a pamphlet during the period in question. The roll called For Militant Trade Unionism. call of Dollar Sweets, Mudginberri, Whilst somewhat dated now, there is SEQEB, attacks on the Plumbers’ still enough in the pamphlet to draw Union and the deregistration of the some important lessons. BLF, highlight how concentrated and planned the attempts to smash unions Australian capitalism and industrial were. relations in the 1980s When the pamphlet For Militant Trade All this took place under the auspices Unionism was published in 1987, of a Federal Labor government the Hawke Government was into its and involved the Conciliation and second term and about to go into a Arbitration Commission, a body third, brought about by the calling of a charged with setting Award rates double dissolution and the subsequent and resolving industrial disputes.

p 7 - Marxism Today 2015 Other bodies have superseded tightened up the punitive side of the the Conciliation and Arbitration system. As pointed out by Bull, Hill Commission, but the role it played and Gallagher, the controls on unions in the attack on trade unions in the were akin to making them “a labour 1980s has salutary lessons for class- front”. The class-based nature of this conscious Australian workers and legislation was apparent at the time. their allies. “There is not even a pretence but that this legislation is aimed only at the According to Bull, Hill and Gallagher, workers and unions. That is its whole the arbitration system as it was then purpose. No one ever heard or will hear called, was “an elaborate system of penal action of any importance nor of of registration of trade unions”. a government ballot in an employer’s Underpinning the system was the legal organisation nor the operation against requirement that the trade unions had an employer’s organisation of any of to be incorporated, that is, the unions the many repressive provisions in this became corporations. They could sue legislation.” and be sued and be subject to fines, injunctions and have their assets seized. The point that Bull, Hill and Gallagher The unions could own property and made about the Conciliation and amass substantial funds. They could Arbitration Commission was that not dissolve themselves however. The essentially all such bodies reflect result was “a thoroughgoing attempt ruling class interests. Over time, trade at institutionalisation of trade unions unions were even more adapted to within capitalism”. the system. However, the struggle between capitalist ideology and The institutionalisation of trade unions working class ideology continues. caught them in a bind. Unlike other corporations whose shareholders were The lessons learned (and still are) not subject to punitive Drawing on their experience of fines, asset seizure and incarceration, decades of involvement in working unions and individual officials, even class and trade union struggles Bull, rank and file members, could be Hill and Gallagher astutely pointed and were subjected to fines and/or out that the adaptation of unions to incarceration. The system did deliver the industrial relations system was a degree of stability and wage rises, accomplished through a mixture of co- but the trade off was substantial. option and coercion. Acceptance of the system, capitalism, and by extension In 1987, new laws had been enacted the imbibing by some trade union by the Federal government that officials of capitalist ideology, gave

Marxism Today 2015 - p 8 rise to the strengthening of certain limit, constrain and make illegal more political traits. Trade union politics and more trade union activities. was predicated on the permanence of capitalism. The goal of unions was to Despite the viciousness of the attacks operate within capitalism to secure on the trade unions and the Australian the immediate economic demands of working class over the last twenty or so their members. This was contrasted by years, the optimism that Bull, Hill and the three writers to what they called Gallagher ended their pamphlet with scientific socialist politics. in 1987 still resonates. They suggested that “sustained campaigning is “Scientific socialist politics accept required.” With “patient explanation, the trade unions as very important agitation, action of all kinds will mass organisations of the working grow.” For them and for us now, “the class, and accept the vital importance Australian people are magnificent in of the struggle of the workers against struggle.” We can and will build an the adverse effects of exploitation but independent and socialist Australia. they hold that the struggle arises from the nature of capitalism itself and can only win final victory when capitalism is ended.”

Such a view, they hastened to add, was not to denigrate the importance of struggling for the immediate demands of workers, but the ultimate objective of scientific socialist politics – socialism – was a world away from the ultimate objective of trade union politics.

What about now? It is clear that since the pamphlet was published the attacks on the Australian working class and their unions have continued and intensified, with a number of changes to the industrial relations laws passed. In sum, the changes to the industrial relations legislation since 1987 have served to

p 9 - Marxism Today 2015 Corrupt behaviour has no place in the ranks of the people (Vanguard June 2012) by Nick G

In class society everyone lives as may be contemplating if they are a member of a particular class, returned to office, the incumbent and every kind of thinking, without Labor government has said it will exception, is stamped with the brand of give Fair Work Australia new powers a class.” (Mao Zedong, On Practice, to investigate unions, will increase July 1937) penalties against unions, and will require public disclosure of the wages The allegations against former of union officials. Labor MP Craig Thomson raise serious questions about social ethics Secondly, corrupt practices infest the and personal values. business world. Before Thomson, there were any number of high profile It is alleged that during his time as cases including: National Secretary of the Health Services Union, he used his union • Reg Williams, founder of HIH credit card to spend $6,000 on Insurance who was jailed for 4 prostitutes, that $103,000 was years 6 months with a non-parole withdrawn as cash advances from period of 2 years 9 months on 15 union credit cards, and that $270,000 April 2005 for filing false financial of union funds was spent on his 2007 statements and failing his duty as election campaign. a director. • Rodney Adler, a director of HIH Thomson is not the only member of Insurance (sentenced to 4 ½ the HSU leadership to be accused of years with a 2 ½ year non-parole rorting members’ funds for personal period). gain. Before making any further • Alan Bond, who was declared comment on Thomson, two things bankrupt in 1991 with personal need to be acknowledged. debts totalling A$1.8 billion. He was subsequently convicted of Precursor to further attacks on the fraud and served four years in people prison. Firstly, the allegedly corrupt activities • Harold Shand, convicted last in the HSU are an open invitation for year of making corrupt payments the ruling class to further interfere worth $60,000 to Queensland with and control all unions. Labor politician Gordon Nuttall. In addition to anything the Liberals Shand got 15 months. Nuttall is

Marxism Today 2015 - p 10 serving 12 years for corruption can only draw the one conclusion: that and perjury. men, consciously or unconsciously, • Queensland coal tycoon Ken derive their ethical ideas in the last Talbot who was facing charges resort from the practical relations on of making corrupt payments which their class position is based of $300,000 to Nuttall. Talbot – from the economic relations in died in a plane crash inspecting which they carry on production and his African investments and so exchange.” escaped justice. He added: “...morality has always been Placing self first is the foundation class morality; it has either justified for corrupt behaviour the domination and the interests of the What links Thomson, Williams and ruling class, or ever since the oppressed others is their outlook on life, which class became powerful enough, it has is to place their own interests before represented its indignation against this those of others. domination and the future interests of the oppressed.” Although nominally head of a working class organisation, Thomson Bolshevik values in the Soviet state is typical of many who take up Lenin and Stalin defined Bolshevik employment for a union not via the ethics largely in the light of workforce they purport to represent, their experiences in winning and by via tertiary credentials that mark consolidating the state power of the them as belonging to a class above the working class. ordinary working people. Thomson has both a Bachelor of Commerce and Able lieutenants such as Mikhail a Law degree. Kalinin promoted education and schooling as the means whereby In 1844 Marx described the ethics to nurture the youth of the newly of capitalism as “acquisition, work, emerging Soviet Union in whole- thrift, sobriety”, italicising the first hearted dedication to the cause of to indicate that placing the interests socialism, and popularised the concept of the self came above all other so- of the “new Soviet man” (and woman). called virtues of the capitalist ethic (Marx, Human Requirements and the Lenin stressed the moral goal Division of Labour Under the Rule of of education, declaring after the Private Property). Bolshevik Revolution: “The entire purpose of training, educating, and In Anti-Duhring, Engels wrote: “…we teaching the youth . . . should be to

p 11 - Marxism Today 2015 imbue them with communist ethics.” those who seek to right the ills of society. Nevertheless, the ethics of duty took precedence over the ethics of virtue. In 1937, he penned Combat Liberalism, The former ethic found expression in saying that “A Communist should have the Subbotniks – the voluntary use of largeness of mind... looking upon the Saturdays for the donation of labour interests of the revolution as his very time in the public interest. Lenin life and subordinating his personal set the example, removing building interests to those of the revolution... rubble from the Kremlin on May 1, (he should be) more concerned about 1920. others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered a Communist.” The ethics of duty to the public interest received a boost with the promotion In 1938, he wrote; “At no time and in of the example of coal miner Aleksei no circumstances should a Communist Stakhanov, who broke all existing place his personal interests first; records for extracting coal in 1935. he should subordinate them to Socialist emulation campaigns saw the interests of the nation and the the entire country gripped in a fervour masses. Hence selfishness, slacking, of Stakhanovism. corruption, seeking the limelight and so on, are most contemptible, while Mao Zedong: Serve the People selflessness, working with all one’s As leader of the Chinese revolution, energy, wholehearted devotion to Mao Zedong also selected labour public duty, and quiet hard work, heroes such as the Daqing Oilfield’s will command respect” (The Role of “Iron-Man” Wang Jinxi, but he the Chinese Communist Party in the elevated the ethics of virtue to prime National War). position in the defining of Communist ethics. In 1939, Mao eulogised the Canadian doctor and communist, Norman Mao was raised within a culture Bethune, who had died after working of Confucianism which, perhaps along the anti-Japanese front lines. more than the religions of the West, Mao praised Bethune’s “utter devotion relied upon virtue or “de” as the line to others without any thought of self... separating the “superior man” from We must all learn the spirit of absolute the hoi polloi. selflessness from him.”

Even his earliest writings contain calls In 1944, he eulogised Zhang Side, a for virtuous ethical behaviour befitting Long March veteran who was killed

Marxism Today 2015 - p 12 by the sudden collapse of a kiln on demarcation between the thinking of September 5, 1944, when making their class with its endemic corruption charcoal in the mountains of Ansai and hypocrisy, and the thinking of our County, northern Shensi. He published class lies precisely in a commitment to his eulogy under the title Serve the putting self last, and putting service to People, praising those like Zhang the people first. who “work entirely in the people’s interests”. We enjoin all readers of this paper to fight self, to work wholeheartedly “Our cadres must show concern for for our common cause and quietly every soldier, and all people in the and patiently build the respect of the revolutionary ranks must care for each people for the Party and its objectives. other, must love and help each other”, he wrote.

These articles were revived during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Mao’s most obvious attempt to instil in his people the thinking that really was stamped with a proletarian brand.

“Serve the People” was one of two phrases on everyone’s lips. The other was “Fight self, repudiate revisionism”. The latter encapsulated Mao’s belief that without a conscious rejection of self-interest, self- promotion, and self-cultivation there would be an ideological soil for the cultivation of revisionism, for betrayal of the revolution and for the restoration of the old capitalist society.

It is beyond the scope of this article to examine why the considerable gains in building a proletarian socialist consciousness under Lenin and Stalin, and Mao Zedong, were ultimately unsuccessful. However, the line of

p 13 - Marxism Today 2015 What is a fair day’s pay? (Vanguard July 2013) by Dennis M.

What decides the level of our exist without at least one second-hand wages? The capitalist media make it vehicle to get to work. That expense seem that wages are the outcome of is ‘socially necessary’ because of the discussions before tribunals. lack of public transport.

One example is the un-Fair Work However, ‘socially necessary’ goes Commission. It recently added $16.90 way beyond material conditions. to the minimum weekly wage. The ‘Socially necessary’ includes the boss-class was pleading for no more political, the cultural and the industrial. than six dollars. The ACTU had asked for thirty. The political intervenes because the state resorts to open violence. We saw To some extent, the Commissioners that when the police rioted during the balanced the needs of capital against Grocon dispute. the necessities for the lowest paid. But that calculation played a tiny part in One cultural element in ‘socially the outcome. necessary’ is the notion of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. A second Why did neither side get all it wanted? cultural element is the background The answer is because our wages are propaganda of television dramas. decided by the relative strength of the They never show that workers alone contending classes. The class struggle add value to the wealth of nature. sets the socially necessary costs of Rather, the programs reinforce the lie reproducing labour-power. So, how that capital creates jobs. much money is ‘socially necessary’? A further element in ‘socially Marx pointed to cultural differences. necessary’ is industrial. The latest The English worker, for instance, wage rise would have been even wanted ale and the French wine. less if United Voice had not been Engels explained accommodation campaigning for years around a costs. If workers pay rent, wages have Clean Start for cleaners. Those to meet that expense. actions created public support. They strengthened the wage demands in However, if we own our houses, workplaces. the bosses will try to reduce wages accordingly. Today, it is almost impossible for a working family to Marxism Today 2015 - p 14 But the impact of union action is limited To repeat: our wages are decided by by the laws against ‘unprotected’ the relative strength of the contending industrial action. A nation-wide cross- classes. Gallagher had another way of industry campaign like the one against putting this truth: ‘You won’t get from WorkChoices would have lifted the the courts what you can’t hold at the increase towards the $30 mark. gate.’

BLF secretary Norm Gallagher spelt out BLF strategy and tactics in the 1970s. The union would ‘tenderise’ the employers before they got to court. Once there, the lawyers would ‘grill’ them. That approach worked in the 1970s for two main reasons. First, the victory of our class in the 1969 O’Shea dispute had broken the penal powers.

The boss-class therefore had to regroup. It did so with the Trade Practices Act of 45D and E against secondary boycotts.

The second reason for the BLF wins was its depth of workplace organisation. Militant delegates exposed the lie about ‘a fair day’s pay’.

Hence, the campaign for wages and conditions has to be waged on every front: the industrial, political, and cultural. Those struggles open paths to socialism.

p 15 - Marxism Today 2015 Some Notes on housing in Australia (Vanguard 2010)

According to an October 2010 report It was clear that governments at Federal by the Australian Housing and and State levels saw it as their duty to Urban Research Institute (AHURI), help people achieve the ‘Australian which looks into the benefits and dream’. With modifications, the risks of home ownership for low- broad policy settings of Australian moderate income households, governments continued along the lines “Australia has long been a society mapped out in the 1950s. of home owners.” Economic stagnation This report and others like it on the With the stagnation that accompanied AHURI website (www.ahuri.edu.au) the ending of the long boom of provide a wealth of information about capitalism in the late 1970s - early the political, social and economic 1980s, government policies regarding factors that shape and have shaped this housing were re-assessed. “society of homeowners”. The 1990s ushered in “a fundamental Overview of housing policy change in policy settings on home In the 1950s, in line with post- ownership with the elimination of war reconstruction in general, some of the more explicit measures home ownership was promoted. A to promote home ownership. In combination of housing and non- particular, governments no longer saw housing policies encouraged this ideal. it as their role to assist the ‘marginal These policies included: ‘exemption would-be home owner’ in purchasing from capital gains tax, discounted/ a home”. Emphasis in government controlled interest rates for home housing policies shifted from the mortgages, cash grants to first home promotion of home ownership for buyers, provision of low interest home ‘marginal’ people to the provision of loans directly by governments and via rental housing assistance for those intermediary organisations such as with urgent housing needs. Such a state banks, sales of public housing to shift in emphasis was driven by neo- sitting tenants, mortgage deductibility liberal ideology which promoted the (for a short period only), development market as the most efficient resource of “affordable” home ownership lots allocator, with governments having by state land developers, and planning the reduced role of safety net providers policies which promoted detached “for some ‘at risk’ households”. housing, the house type desired by purchasers”.

Marxism Today 2015 - p 16 The rise of the investor The rise of the rental investor or Financial deregulation, which began landlord in the 1990s is directly under the aegis of Paul Keating the connected with the influence of neo- Hawke Government’s Treasurer, liberal ideological brain-washing contributed significantly to the rise about market efficiency and de- of the investor in the housing market. regulation. What gets overlooked One of the consequences of financial or downplayed in reports by many deregulation was the easing of credit. research bodies is the class aspect of In turn, the easing of credit has been their social analysis. one of the factors causing a steady increase in borrowing by rental The class aspect of housing investors. Clear from what has been outlined above about declining government The authors of the October 2010 involvement in and concern with AHURI report state that “in January housing policy and the rise of rental 1990 investors accounted for 14% investors/landlords, is the power of of the value of all housing loans but particular class interests. 20 years later accounted for 32%.” (Reserve Bank of Australia 2010: Financial capital in the form of banks, Table D5, Bank Lending Classified home loan brokers and others have by Sector, June). Furthermore, in big stakes in the housing market and Melbourne where the report’s authors some rental investors do too, though conducted their case study, “lending the latter do not necessarily have the to rental investors accounted for 50% same clout as the finance capitalists. of residential loans in June 2010, the first time that investor lending has As has been pointed out before in exceeded loans for owner occupancy”. these pages, the provision of housing and related government policies Another factor impelling rental necessarily reflect the values of the investment has been and continues dominant class. That is, the provision to be capital gain through the use of of affordable housing to low and negative gearing. Negative gearing, middle income families, or working the claiming of losses on rental class families, is not a priority for property “against all income for tax governments, landlords or financial purposes” has become more popular, capitalists. For the latter two, their with “the percentage of individual priorities are profit maximisation. For rental investors claiming a net loss for governments, beholden as they are taxation purposes increas[ing] from here in Australia to capitalist class 58% in 2000–01 to 70% in 2006–07”. interests, the social reforms of the

p 17 - Marxism Today 2015 1950s and the long boom years are Social housing things of the past. Long experience has shown that there are times when even the capitalist state The neo-liberal mantra says is able to provide a measure of social governments are no longer in the housing. It does not do so willingly, process of social engineering because but sees this as the lesser of evils. governments ‘always’ stuff things up. Markets are said to be the most Good examples were major housing efficient mechanisms for distributing redevelopment in England responding commodities such as houses. to the emergence of an organised working class during the 1830-40 In his article The Housing Question, periods. Another was in Australia, Frederick Engels wrote about the with the growing strength of the attitude of capitalist states to the issue working class after World War Two. of working class access to affordable The common thread is that the ruling housing. He said: “It is perfectly clear class will make concessions in the that the existing state is neither able nor face of pressure as a safety valve to willing to do anything to remedy the dampen the militancy of the workers. housing difficulty. The state is nothing but the organised collective power of The demand for a large scale increase the possessing classes, the landowners in the provision of social housing and the individual capitalists (and it is by the capitalist government is here only a question of these because legitimate and should be put forward. in this matter the landowner who is The housing question can only be also concerned acts primarily as a ultimately resolved through putting capitalist)… If therefore the individual an end to capitalism and removing the capitalists deplore the housing provision of housing from the hands shortage, but can hardly be persuaded of the capitalist class. In Australia’s even superficially to palliate its most conditions that means an independent, terrifying consequences, then the socialist Australia. collective capitalist, the state, will not do much more”.

Housing in Australia will continue to be fraught with problems of affordability for working class families, and finance capitalists and landlords will continue to rake in the profits. This is the stuff of capitalist social relations.

Marxism Today 2015 - p 18 The Australian taxation system and the Henry Report (Vanguard March 2011)

One of the characteristics of the The last recommendation implemented taxation system in Australia is being the GST, which was ushered in its complexity. According to an by the Howard government in 2000. Australian School of Taxation If the Asprey review is anything to go (ATAX) overview of the Henry by, then the Henry report will form the report we have in this country “over basis of ongoing tax changes. 100 separate taxes, [as well as] some of the lengthiest and most illegible A history of taxation in Australia tax legislation known to man …” Whilst a brief survey of the history of taxation in this country may not In 2008 the Rudd government be the most thrilling of prospects, it appointed Dr Ken Henry to oversee does put the Henry report in context a review of the taxation system. The and provide some insight into how tax Review of Australia’s Future Tax policy has been and still is shaped by System, to give it its official title, was class interests. meant to provide recommendations for the simplification of the Australian The colony of New South Wales was taxation system. That was not all the site of the first duties levied on beer, it was charged with doing. As its wine and spirits, along with wharfage title suggests, the development of fees. The year was 1805. This revenue Australia’s taxation system for the was earmarked for the building of foreseeable future was a major part of a gaol and orphanage in Sydney. the report. Interestingly, the colonial authorities applied duties on consumption items Previous review in 1972 rather than attempting to apply The last major review of taxation in taxes on property. As the Australian Australia was undertaken by Ken Marxist, Steve Gibson, has pointed Asprey, a retired NSW Supreme Court out: “During the first 50 years of judge appointed by the McMahon taxation in Australia, the main feature Liberal government in 1972. Asprey’s of taxation was the broadening and report was handed to Whitlam’s extension of the base of excise and government in 1975. The first customs forms of taxes” response was to shelve it, ignoring the recommendations. However, It was not until the advent of the First over the next twenty-five years all its World War that duties like customs recommendations were implemented. and excise were supplanted by other

p 19 - Marxism Today 2015 taxes as the mainstay of taxation in impetus for many new taxes. More this country. importantly, the sole responsibility for the collection of income tax was The first attempt to apply land tax in assumed by the Curtin government in order to split up large landholdings 1942, to help fund the war effort. To came about in 1877 in Victoria, almost sweeten the deal, states were able to a century after the arrival of Arthur continue payroll and land taxes, stamp Phillip. Three years later, Tasmania duties and sundry licence fees, as well introduced what is considered to be as continuing to receive a distribution the forerunner to income tax, with of revenue deemed surplus to the imposition of withholding tax on Commonwealth requirements. dividends, annuities and rents in 1880. The main elements of Australia’s tax Over the next 15 years in the states of structure can be said to have been put Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria in place with this war time initiative. and New South Wales general income It would take the implementation of tax regimes were introduced, with all some of the recommendations of the Australian states having introduced Asprey report from the 1980s on, general income tax by 1907. for the structure to be substantially altered. Commonwealth taxes Federation in 1901 added another Class aspects of taxation layer of government to the Australian Steve Gibson, in a 1999 article, argued political landscape, a layer that that the preferred form of taxation for required its own revenue streams. the Australian ruling classes has been The Australian Constitution gave the levies on consumption. This is known Commonwealth parallel power with as indirect taxation. the states to levy taxes (section 51(ii)). Section 90 of the Constitution gave By way of contrast, a prime example the Commonwealth the exclusive of direct taxation is income tax. power to impose customs and excise Another is land tax. Land taxes have duties. Section 88 established a not been popular, causing anguish to uniform national tariff, administered various members of the landed elites by the Commonwealth. Of the revenue in Australia. Consequently, they raised by the Commonwealth, one have been opposed at various times quarter went into its coffers with the throughout the history of European remainder distributed to the states. settlement in Australia. It has long been apparent that “the wealthy in this Income tax collection country have always used each and Two World Wars provided the every means at their disposal to block

Marxism Today 2015 - p 20 any and all measures designed to it who will continue to pay the lion’s ensure that they pay any, let alone their share of Australia’s taxes. Such a “fair share”, of the taxes necessary to situation is unjust and inequitable; it is pay for commonly used infrastructure time to make the rich pay! and services …” Taxation – exploitation by the state Workers pay the lion’s share In Origin of the Family, Private This is the context for the reviews of Property and the State, Frederick the Australian taxation system and the Engels described the state apparatus revolt against the mining super-profits as “a power seemingly standing above tax. society”. The state exists to moderate the irreconcilable conflicts between Governments try to maximise their the competing classes, so that the revenues in order to provide services continuing rule of the dominant class and infrastructure, amongst other is not disturbed. To do this, the state things, operating within certain maintains a standing army, police, constraints. These constraints being courts, bureaucracy etc. as well as that under capitalist conditions, ruling providing the infrastructure and class elements such as those in the basic services (health, education and mining industry like ‘Twiggy’ Forrest meagre welfare) to keep the system of Fortescue Metals Group and Clive going. Taxation is the primary means Palmer will act to minimise personal by which the large costs of running the and corporate taxes. state apparatus are spread across the whole of society. Woe betides any bourgeois government that gets its wires crossed In Australia, the state serves the on these serious matters. As we have interests of the dominant section of seen, Rudd paid the price for cherry- capitalists; the US, European and picking one of the Henry report’s Japanese multinationals. The taxation recommendations in an effort to return system assists this. At their demand, the Commonwealth budget to surplus. services to the people are cut back and huge tax concessions are granted for It may well be that Australia’s taxation their projects aimed at taking over or system is complex and is in need wiping out Australian industries. of review. Clearly though, under prevailing capitalist conditions and While the capitalist (and foreign with the bourgeoisie firmly in control multinational) can pay taxes out of of the state, it will be the working the profits delivered from the surplus people and those that can ill-afford value created by others, the worker

p 21 - Marxism Today 2015 has only “rainy day” money to call on. When the worker’s taxes are handed over, or taken beforehand as PAYE tax, the worker is in fact parting with a concession that was forced from an individual capitalist. The concession is then returned to the capitalist class as a whole, since the state exists and operates for the benefit of the ruling class of capitalists.

This ruling class uses its control and influence of government legislation to enforce methods of pushing the main burden of taxation onto the workers and their families. Some of main ones are income tax, sales tax and petrol excise. All sorts of devices and legalities are invoked to reduce the taxation burden on the capitalists. A whole industry of taxation lawyers exists to minimise the taxation problems of the rich!

Marxism Today 2015 - p 22 A Marxist view of interest rates (Vanguard June 2011)

Broadly speaking, the interest rate of money. Most importantly, they measures the exchange value of decide whether investment will be in money. production or in other areas.

It is affected by the existing supply Production and Circulation and demand for money in the market, On a deeper level, the driving force associated with the quantity and prices is that there is a relationship between of commodities in circulation and the production and circulation. In the quantity of money in circulation. The process of production investors higher the supply relative to demand, use money to buy inputs in order the lower will be the interest rate, and to produce a commodity, and then vice versa. exchange it in the market for money.

In times of crisis, where the circulation Karl Marx explained these of commodities is not operating transformations with the expression as it should, when there is both M-C-M. Money is transformed into overproduction and less capacity for a commodity, and the commodity consumers, the tendency is for interest transformed in the marketplace rates to fall. In boom times it is the back into money, incorporating other way around. an additional sum on the original outlay. When the movement of these The money supply processes in the economy as a whole Today there are two additional factors. alters, there is an effect on the interest One is that the widespread use of rate. computer technology has brought a situation where virtual money is In these processes, money takes the created. The other, and not unrelated, form of capital, which breaks down has been the explosion of credit. They into two parts - productive capital affect the money supply. (we will include in this capital for the purchase of machines, raw materials Working against this is that the banks and semi-finished commodities and and other financial institutions have labour) and circulating capital. monopoly power over the supply of money. Because of this they can The proportion of one relative to artificially alter the interest rates that the other being used in an economy they charge their customers. They is important. In times of expanding can also have an effect on the supply production there is a shift towards

p 23 - Marxism Today 2015 productive capital, and during a Rising prices of raw materials raise C time of contraction a shift towards and higher wages raise V. circulating capital. For example, if we have;

All other things remaining the same, 8 = 1 a relative rise in productive capital 4+4 will lead to a rise in the interest rate. A rise in circulating capital will lead Assume a rise in the costs of machines to its lowering. Here is the connection (constant capital) and wages (variable between commodities and money in capital). This would give; circulation. 8 = 0.8 Connecting with Surplus Value 5+5 A rising interest rate lowers the rate of surplus value. There are a number of Surplus Value has declined reasons for this. The value of labour power will rise because the cost of The importance is that with a fall in maintaining the working class and the rate of surplus value, capitalists producing the next generation of have the incentive to cut back on the workers will rise. This means that application of productive capital, wages will go up and squeeze the unless they can find means to employ proportion of the proceeds going into this capital more efficiently. This the hands of the capitalists, unless of means spreading the constant capital course, measures to reverse this are over a larger number of commodities applied. (increasing the intensity), speeding up the pace of work, or a combination Rising wages cause the cost of of both. The measure to which this is variable capital to rise. Rising prices impossible is, roughly, the measure for machines or raw materials, for by which the demand for productive example, increase the cost of constant capital will fall. capital. This affects the rate of surplus value by lowering it. Foreign trade and monopoly Foreign trade enters the picture This can be shown mathematically. through its effect on the circulation of Surplus Value is the Surplus, divided commodities and capital on a world by Constant Capital + Variable Capital scale. Changes in these circulations lead to a change in the economic SV = S relationship between nations. C+V Here too, there is competition and

Marxism Today 2015 - p 24 contradiction between productive and the speed of circulation of capital. The circulating capital. There is an impact quicker the turnover, the greater the on the global interest rate. volume of circulating capital there is. The expansion of credit is important in Increased monopoly lowers the cost this respect. Where there is already an of constant capital expended on a excess of circulating capital, relative commodity. This in turn, will add to to the volume of commodities in the the volume of profit. But if there is a economy, the expansion of credit will fall in the volume of productive capital further pull down the rate of interest. overall, this will lead to an increase in the volume of circulating capital. Australian economy There is a great deal of evidence to A rise in the volume of circulating suggest that the effects referred to here capital in excess of the rise in the have been operating in the Australian value of commodities will cause a fall economy for some time. Regardless in the interest rate. of short-term anomalies, the trend has been continuous over the decades. Here we see a direct link between the process of production and For the last 20 years or so, the rate the operation of circulation. The of interest has been historically low. smooth transformation M - C - M is It is a pointer to the extent of the interrupted. Interest rates go down. growth of circulating capital. With the proportional and quantitative Government intervention expansion of circulation capital, This is the point where government the fall away of productive capital policy can have an influence. is expressed in the decline of the By expanding the circulation of manufacturing base. government bonds, raising the statutory reserves imposed on banks In the present conditions, although or raising lending rates by decree, a the interest rate remains historically portion of the circulating capital can low, it is extremely vulnerable to be soaked up, or indeed, released by any rise. This is because the margin reverse action. Injecting or removing between getting on, or getting into circulating capital from the market serious trouble is very thin. Action is has an impact on demand/supply necessary to protect the vulnerable. conditions. Action is also needed to pull back the excess of circulating capital. Expansion of credit Another important factor to consider is Politicians often grandstand over what

p 25 - Marxism Today 2015 they do to maintain the rate of interest. When it is low, it is because of their goodness and skill. When it is high, it is usually said not to be their fault. The reality is that they do not have the control they claim. This is not to say they have no influence at all. They do.

Monetary and Fiscal policy Monetary policy refers to measures that influence the quantity of circulation capital, through a number of instruments, such as taxation, the Reserve Bank interest rate, bonds, statutory reserves etc. Giving some users concessions and penalising others can have an impact on productive capital.

Fiscal policy refers to government acting as either a provider or consumer of commodities and services. This can be used as an indirect way to influence the amount of productive and circulating capital.

Whatever policy is applied it cannot be done in isolation from the prevailing conditions that are inherent in the anarchic nature of capitalism.

For a better understanding of what is going on today and where we are heading to, a great deal of further investigation needs to be undertaken. Vanguard can and will assist in this.

Marxism Today 2015 - p 26 Punishment and coercion characterise the bourgeoisie’s attitude towards the poor (Vanguard May 2013) by Nick G.

It seems to be in the very genes of the were damned as vagabonds and “tied rich that they can only rationalise to the cart-tail and whipped until the the existence of the poor in terms blood streams from their bodies”. A of some fault or shortcoming in further piece of legislation condemned the latter. And because it is the them to a repeat whipping and the fault of the poor that they are slicing off of half the ear if they were poor, punishment and coercion are caught idle a second time, and for a required in dealing with them. third offence, to be executed as a hardened criminal. Bloody legislation against the expropriated His successor, Edward VI, ruled in Marx wrote a fascinating account 1547 that “if anyone refuses to work, of such punishment and coercion he shall be condemned as a slave to in Chapter 28 of the first volume of the person who has denounced him as Capital. an idler.”

“The fathers of the present working “The master shall feed his slave on class,” he said of people who had been bread and water, weak broth and such forcibly thrown off the land at the end refuse meat as he thinks fit. He has the of the 15th and during the whole of right to force him to do any work, no the 16th centuries, “were chastised matter how disgusting, with whip and for their enforced transformation into chains. If the slave is absent a fortnight, vagabonds and paupers. Legislation he is condemned to slavery for life treated them as ‘voluntary’ criminals, and is to be branded on forehead or and assumed that it depended on their back with the letter S; if he runs away own good will to go on working under thrice, he is to be executed as a felon. the old conditions that no longer existed.” “The master can sell him, bequeath him, let him out on hire as a slave, He reports how, during the reign of just as any other personal chattel or Henry VIII, a law in 1530 provided cattle. If the slaves attempt anything that those who had no work due to age against the masters, they are also to or incapacity should be issued with be executed. Justices of the peace, on a beggar’s licence. Those who were information, are to hunt the rascals able-bodied but unable to find work down. If it happens that a vagabond

p 27 - Marxism Today 2015 has been idling about for three days, was passed by Parliament in 1834, and he is to be taken to his birthplace, continues in force down to the present branded with a red-hot iron with the day. All relief in money and provisions letter V on the breast and be set to was abolished; the only relief allowed work, in chains, in the streets or at was admission to the workhouses some other labour. immediately built. The regulations for these workhouses, or, as the people “If the vagabond gives a false call them, Poor Law Bastilles, is such birthplace, he is then to become as to frighten away everyone who has the slave for life of this place, of its the slightest prospect of life without inhabitants, or its corporation, and to this form of public charity. be branded with an S. All persons have the right to take away the children of “To make sure that relief be applied the vagabonds and to keep them as for only in the most extreme cases apprentices, the young men until the and after every other effort had failed, 24th year, the girls until the 20th. If the workhouse has been made the they run away, they are to become up most repulsive residence which the to this age the slaves of their masters, refined ingenuity of a Malthusian can who can put them in irons, whip them, invent. The food is worse than that of &c., if they like. Every master may the most ill-paid working-man while put an iron ring round the neck, arms employed, and the work harder, or or legs of his slave, by which to know they might prefer the workhouse to him more easily and to be more certain their wretched existence outside. of him.” “Meat, especially fresh meat, is rarely Workhouses – “Poor Law Bastilles” furnished, chiefly potatoes, the worst By the end of the 18th century the poor possible bread and oatmeal porridge, were being herded into Workhouses little or no beer. The food of criminal where they were put to work for 12 prisoners is better, as a rule, so that hours a day winding yarn and other the paupers frequently commit some dirty tasks. Parish relief was provided offence for the purpose of getting into to some as an act of charity, but the jail. For the workhouse is a jail too; numbers of the poor soon exhausted he who does not finish his task gets this source of assistance. nothing to eat; he who wishes to go out must ask permission, which is granted Writing in 1845, in his Condition of or not, according to his behaviour the Working Class in England, Engels or the inspector’s whim; tobacco is reported how: “They accordingly forbidden, also the receipt of gifts brought in the New Poor Law, which from relatives or friends outside the

Marxism Today 2015 - p 28 house; the paupers wear a workhouse welfare payments. uniform, and are handed over, helpless and without redress, to the caprice of However, the attitude of the the inspectors. bourgeoisie towards the poor whom their system creates remains one “To prevent their labour from based on notions of punishment and competing with that of outside coercion. concerns, they are set to rather useless tasks: the men break stones, “as much When a few misguided individuals as a strong man can accomplish with took up Timothy Leary’s 1967 call effort in a day”; the women, children, to “drop out”, often at tax-payer and aged men pick oakum, for I know expense, the bourgeoisie found a not what insignificant use. To prevent new gold-mine of ideological abuse the “superfluous” from multiplying, to hurl at the genuinely unemployed. and “demoralised” parents from The Bulletin raised the flag of battle influencing their children, families are in 1976 with its use of the term “dole broken up; the husband is placed in one bludger”, which is never very far from wing, the wife in another, the children the lips of those fortunate enough to in a third, and they are permitted to never require the dole. see one another only at stated times after long intervals, and then only Compulsory income management when they have, in the opinion of The demonising of Aboriginal and the officials, behaved well. And in Torres Strait Islander communities order to shut off the external world through the racist NT intervention from contamination by pauperism introduced compulsory income within these bastilles, the inmates are management (CIM) as a coercive permitted to receive visits only with measure. Implicit in this was the the consent of the officials, and in the belief that ATSI people were to blame reception-rooms; to communicate in for the oppressive conditions that general with the world outside only by exist in many of their communities, leave and under supervision. “ that is, that they were underserving and squandered the benefits they were Bosses never reconciled to workers’ paid. win on welfare rights The Poor Laws and associated Great things were promised of CIM Workhouse punishments remained in in the NT, and it has now been rolled force until after World War 2 when out in “trials” in five low SES urban the working class was strong enough communities, the APY Lands in SA, to demand their replacement with and in parts of the Pilbara in WA. This

p 29 - Marxism Today 2015 is despite various studies that have said working class has forced the ruling that in the NT it was a disempowering class to modify and amend some control measure and that there was of its vilest anti-poor practices, but little evidence it was helping people. measures like CIM and putting single parents onto Newstart illustrate that Attacks on single parents the ideological core of their contempt The same attitude is behind Gillard’s for the poor remains. decision to move nearly 80,000 single parents from their insufficient Barbara Shaw from the Mt Nancy Parenting Payment to the criminally town camp near Alice Springs has low Newstart Allowance. This not been branded on the forehead, but represents a loss of around $100 per she, and many ATSI people like her, week to families in poverty, most of feel the stigma of identification and them headed by women. branding by having to carry and use the BasicsCard of CIM. On numerous occasions, Gillard has described this reactionary measure The bourgeoisie, the class that rules as one designed to “provide an capitalist society, will always push incentive to bring people back into the down on the working poor and the workforce”. Others have described it unemployed. It really is in their genes. as “designed to coerce”.

Following a complaint about this reactionary measure by the Australian Council of Social Services, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights and Chair- Rapporteur of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and practice wrote on 19 October 2012 to the Australian Government seeking an explanation of a decision it described as “threatening the enjoyment of human rights of some of the most marginalized and impoverished members of Australian society”.

Through centuries of struggle, the

Marxism Today 2015 - p 30 The dawn of a new era: the Great October Socialist Revolution (Vanguard October 2010)

The Bolshevik seizure of power in and the rest of the world. 1917 heralded the beginning of a new era for humankind. For the first Twelve years later, with the dreadful time in history an avowed working carnage of the First World War class party not only dared to seize seemingly set to drag on, Soviets of power, it did so with the declared workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors intention of overthrowing the last once again came to exert a powerful vestiges of absolutism and building influence in Russian society. The socialism. incompetence of Russian generals on the battlefields of the Eastern The seizure of power in the old Russian front against the German and Austro- capital of Petrograd was undertaken Hungarian armies combined with the in the name of the Petrograd Soviet. casualties, deprivations and the hunger Soviets were bodies of representatives of the general populace created the from the working class and peasants, conditions for the removal of the Tsar soldiers and sailors, first appearing and his replacement by a provisional around the time of the 1905 Russian bourgeois democratic government led revolution. Soviets sprang into being by Alexander Kerensky. because in Tsarist Russia the working class and peasantry were denied any The February revolution was the first direct political representation. of three revolutionary waves that shook Petrograd and other cities in The crushing of the 1905 revolution Russia during 1917. The next upsurge, did not lead to the disappearance of in July 1917, resulted in a set-back for Soviets, but it did drive leaders of the Bolsheviks. By late September, Soviets into exile or imprisonment. the continuation of the imperialist Any dissent was crushed during war by the bourgeois government of Prime Minister Stolypin’s tenure in Kerensky, waves of mass desertions office which lasted from 1906 until he from the front and continued misery was assassinated in 1911. However, in the cities, mass unrest by the people the experience of the 1905 Russian again reached a head. revolution and the appearance of Soviets had a profound influence on By October, Lenin judged that the the thinking of revolutionaries in what time was ripe for the overthrow of were then called the Social Democratic Kerensky’s Provisional Government. parties (Socialist), throughout Europe The masses revolted. On the night of

p 31 - Marxism Today 2015 October 24th -25th armed detachments One of the important features of the of workers arrested Kerensky’s Bolshevik led revolution was that it ministers in the Winter Palace. The was a mass movement. It was not a new era had begun. mere coup d’état, rather the majority of the people could see that the old Bolshevik leaders, such as Lenin, order was crumbling and could not thought that with the war-weariness of and did not represent their interests. the workers, peasants, soldiers, sailors There was a crisis of confidence not and citizens of Europe, a spark such as only in the old autocratic Tsarist the October uprising would precipitate regime, but also in the bourgeois revolutions in other European Kerensky government which replaced countries. There were outbreaks. In it. Consequently, the majority of the Hungary, the short-lived Hungarian Russian people became politically Soviet Republic led by Bela Kun active, using tribunes like the Soviets lasted from March to August 1919. to push for change. In Germany, the period of November 1918 through to the proclamation A second important feature of the of the Weimar Republic in August October revolution was the part 1919 was the first of three periods played by the Bolshevik party. Acting of intense social and political unrest as a directing force, channelling which brought Germany to the brink working class, peasant and soldier’s of a successful proletarian revolution. disaffection, the Bolsheviks were able to focus the people’s discontent. The revolutionary upsurge in Europe in the immediate aftermath of the Combining tactical flexibility with First World War really shook the party discipline, Lenin’s party world’s bourgeoisie and remaining outflanked its political rivals such as aristocracies. It really did appear that the Mensheviks, not only offering worldwide proletarian revolution up slogans that tapped into popular was a possibility. However, Russia’s aspirations, but acting on them as well. history and the social, political and The slogan ‘Peace, Land and Bread’ economic conditions at the time were reflected the yearnings for peace of the different in revolutionary Russia Russian masses, bled white by the war. to other European countries, where ‘Land’ represented peasant aspirations all the requirements for a socialist for a more equitable distribution of revolution were not fully developed or land and ‘Bread’ was the desire for matured. relief from hunger that many were experiencing. The old bourgeois Revolution is a mass movement order could no longer continue, and

Marxism Today 2015 - p 32 the contradiction between the people, to highlight some general similarities with the working class in the lead, and between revolutionary Russia and the bourgeois state, erupted in intense contemporary Australia. There was revolutionary conflict that shook the and is disenchantment with the whole world. established political order. In Russia of course, the disenchantment reached Among the first decrees that the new very high levels. The same cannot be Soviet Government promulgated said for popular sentiment in Australia; were those offering peace to Russia’s though this appears to be changing, belligerents, and another abolishing with more disaffected Labor voters private property and distributing the casting about for alternatives. landed estates amongst the peasants. Not only did this new government The key similarity lies in the desire of reflect the hopes and aspirations of the working people to make a difference toiling masses, it strove to implement in not only their own lives but them, relying on the enthusiasm, collectively, in the building of a energy and creative capacities of the more just and equitable international workers and peasants to construct a order. The Great October Socialist new society. Revolution marked the beginning of real progress in the building of Lessons from the 1917 Revolution that order and for that reason its Australia’s history and conditions significance will not fade. are vastly different to the situation in revolutionary Russia of 1917. For a start we do not face a revolutionary situation in Australia. Nor do we have the experience and background of feudalism and autocracy. Our bourgeois liberal democratic traditions provide limitations of social democracy that confine people to bourgeois class rule. There are nominal democratic rights that are confined to bourgeois parliamentarism and giving the illusion of democracy for the people. Our conditions are beyond the scope of what was available in Russia up until February 1917. Bearing this in mind, it is still possible

p 33 - Marxism Today 2015 Immediate Demands, National Independence and Socialism (Vanguard May 2011) How do Immediate Demands them into concentrated and systematic relate to the Vanguard slogan “For ideas)... Thus, immediate demands an Independent Australia and arise from the people, from campaigns Socialism”? and mobilisations have already been initiated around the conditions of Firstly, immediate demands should life, but are expressed in a way that cover the most prominent issues of points to progressive alternatives that concern to the working class and are both realistic and to some extent, many broader sections of people in reveal a vision of the future. society. They should cover areas where the people are engaged in the Narrow the target, broaden the base day to day struggle for improvements Secondly, the immediate demands and reforms in their living and formulated by the CPA (M-L) sharply working conditions, for protection of target the large foreign corporate the natural environment, for equality monopolies and multinational and justice in society, for decent social companies that are the core of services and community facilities, for Australian capitalism. The most an independent foreign policy based powerful and influential monopolies on peace, fairness and integrity. are American. Together with its political and military influence, this Immediate demands also look after economic influence means that the the well-being of the people, build interests of US imperialism underpin unity, and strengthen the capacity to Australian capitalism. struggle. Small Australian capitalists, The mass line entrepreneurs and producers are being A list of Immediate Demands was wiped out every day by the inroads of formulated by the CPA (M-L) and foreign imperialism. Working people represents an attempt to apply the face job insecurity, loss of wages and approach outlined by Mao Zedong in conditions, rising living costs, and his essay, Some questions concerning poor public amenities and government methods of leadership (1943) “… services as a result of ever-increasing all correct leadership is necessarily attacks to serve the interests of ‘from the masses, to the masses’. This foreign imperialism, especially means: take the ideas of the masses US imperialism and its partners in (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and Australia. concentrate them (through study turn Marxism Today 2015 - p 34 Paving the way for US imperialism ideas until the masses embrace them are the foreign and local collaborators as their own, hold fast to them and in the Business Council of Australia. translate them into action, and test They manipulate and bully State and the correctness of these ideas in such Federal governments, and finance action.” mass media campaigns to promote more foreign investment, more This means systematically and dismantling of Australian industries, diligently promoting these immediate more subservience to so-called demands at an appropriate time, and in ‘globalisation’. an appropriate manner, in the struggles taking place. What is important is to The link to socialism promote the ideas behind the demands, It is impossible to talk about winning not just focussing on the words alone socialism in Australia without as if that is all that is necessary. confronting the dominant core of capitalism in this country – US and other foreign imperialist interests. The path to socialism lies in expelling foreign imperialism and winning real and genuine national independence.

It is fundamental to uphold the leadership of the working class in this revolutionary struggle, but it would be wrong to think that the working class can achieve victory on its own. It needs and can win allies from other sections of the people also oppressed by imperialism. The demands reflect the interests of these sections as well, and flow in the direction of building a united front against imperialism, a people’s movement for national independence.

Test ideas in practice Finally, and critically, as Mao Zedong says, we need to “... go to the masses and propagate and explain these

p 35 - Marxism Today 2015 Marxism and Nationalism (Vanguard July 2011)

The ideal of Communism is a world of internationalism. It is entirely society based on human cooperation, different. without the historical divisions of class or nation. Communists are One distortion is the idea that any true internationalists who confront alliance of the working class with the issues of class and nation in other class forces, such as sections order to abolish them forever. of the petty bourgeoisie and sections of the national bourgeoisie, formed It is true that in the Communist to struggle against imperialism, Manifesto, Marx and Engels stated, is bound to mean surrender to the “The workers have no country”. But interests of these other classes. This far from advocating the complete simply ignores the Marxist-Leninist disregard for national issues, they position of promoting the leading role went on to say, “…the proletariat… of the working class and the position must rise to be the leading class of of upholding the independence the nation, must constitute itself the and initiative of the working class nation, it is, so far, itself national, revolutionary forces within the united though not in the bourgeois sense of front (or national movement against the word.” Lenin also linked the class imperialism). In Russia, China, Cuba, struggle to the struggle for national Vietnam and other places where liberation. revolutionary forces achieved success, this was due to Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary program leadership which was able to mobilise Australian Marxist-Leninists have the masses well beyond the purely sometimes been unfairly accused working class core. of petty-bourgeois nationalism by promoting a program of revolution A second distortion is the refusal to by stages; a stage of anti-imperialist recognise the fact that Australia is national independence, leading to the not merely a capitalist economy, but later stage of socialism. is one dominated by the ownership and interests of large foreign As with all matters, nationalism corporate monopolies which control has a class basis. Bourgeois all key sectors of the productive nationalism promotes the chauvinist and financial economy. This fact, jingoism of imperialism. The plus the overwhelming direct and working class position upholds the indirect influence of the United revolutionary anti-imperialist stand States in the political and military

Marxism Today 2015 - p 36 matters of Australia, means that US national life and national movements, imperialism is the main and strongest the struggle against all national pillar of capitalism in Australia. oppression, and the creation of nation- The domination of US imperialism states. The second is the development is defended by the Australian state and growing frequency of international apparatus. Revolutionary overthrow intercourse in every form, the of US imperialist domination of breakdown of national barriers, the Australia inevitably strikes at the heart creation of the international unity of of the capitalist system, including the capital, of economic life in general, of state apparatus. politics, science, etc. Both tendencies are a universal law of capitalism. The A third distortion comes from former predominates in the beginning the failure to see the dialectical of its development, the latter relationship between the stage of characterises a mature capitalism anti-imperialist struggle and the moving towards its transformation stage of struggle for socialism. In into socialist society.” (Lenin Critical the revolutionary struggle to expel Remarks on the National Question imperialism and seize ownership and 1913) control of Australia’s key industries and resources, the working class In our present era of mature, decaying will emerge with a much heightened capitalism (“globalisation”), the political consciousness and organised various (national) economic systems capacity. In the new situation with of capitalism are being transformed imperialism defeated, the class forces into a single (international) system will re-align (not disappear) and of imperialism. While this may be revolutionary struggle will continue news to some, Lenin recognised the in the building of socialism. Some process more than eighty years ago. people are pleased to hail this process “Imperialism is the highest stage of of continuing revolution in far-away development of capitalism. Capital in places such as Venezuela, but choke the advanced countries has outgrown over the idea that it should or could the boundaries of national states.” happen here. (Lenin Theses: Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self- Nation-States Determination 1916). In setting up Writing on matters of nation and the the conditions for a global economy, relationship to capitalism Lenin noted, monopoly capitalism is also preparing “Developing capitalism knows two the economic basis for the eventual historical tendencies in the national merging of nations. question. The first is the awakening of

p 37 - Marxism Today 2015 International movement against Australia in the category of an imperialism oppressed nation, one that is The division and re-division of economically and politically the world between the imperialist subservient to the imperialist “world powers has been a feature of the order”. The reality of capitalism last century, with US and European in Australia is domination by US imperialism now moving towards imperialism, and to a lesser extent, further confrontation, while Japanese European imperialism. The class imperialism is falling well behind. struggle for socialism in Australia cannot ignore the national question, In addition to these conflicts, cannot effectively oppose capitalism imperialism is weakened by endless without calling for the overthrow of cycles of economic crisis, as well as imperialist-dominated capitalism. the conscious world-wide movement against it. This growing movement National independence movement includes the peoples of the socialist Leading this struggle, the Australian countries, the workers and peasants working class stands in the front line, of countries struggling against as it is the class most exploited and imperialist bullying and resisting oppressed by imperialism, the class neo-colonialism, and it also embraces with nothing to lose, the best organised the workers and working people of and determined class. advanced counties such as Australia, and within the imperialist nations But it is not the only class oppressed themselves. by imperialism. Potential allies of the working class include the working Struggle against imperialism is class small farmers and small producers, struggle and some local industrial capitalists. “The characteristic feature of This is shown by example in Western imperialism is that the whole world, Australia of an alliance between local as we see, is now divided into a large steel manufacturers and construction number of oppressed nations and an and manufacturing unions in a insignificant number of oppressor campaign to have all construction nations, which command colossal materials made in Australia. wealth and powerful armed forces.” (Lenin Report of the Commission on Building a united movement against the National and Colonial Questions imperialist domination of Australia July 1920) is not petty-bourgeois nationalism. It is the application of Marxism to the Australian Marxist-Leninists place reality of Australian conditions.

Marxism Today 2015 - p 38 Who controls Australia? (Vanguard June 2013) by Dennis M.

Who owns Australia? The answer is projects. More than ever, they own the nowhere near as simple as it used to other sectors. be. When the authors traced the Australian In 1963, E.W. Campbell summed up branches of manufacturing companies under the title The Sixty Rich Families back to the USA they found that the Who Own Australia. Even then, to great majority are owned by finance focus on families was behind the capital. Only 16% are in the hands of times. Publicly-listed corporations other industrials. had taken charge. In Lenin’s day, finance capital was Today, BHP-Billiton is bigger than not so involved in the ‘making’ of ever. It is no longer the Big Australian. profit. Instead, banks ‘took’ profits It is possible to uncover who owns it. that had been realised from surplus But where is its control center? It is value produced in other corporations. no longer along Collins Street. Even That division no longer prevails. if a project is owned and managed The finance houses now buy into the by locals, we still need to know from corporations where wage-slaves add whom they get their loans. value. The financiers know that they cannot all get all of their money by A hundred years ago, Bukharin and swindling each other. Lenin wrote about monopolising capitals. They referred to this The latest pattern is called stage in the expansion of capital as ‘financialisation’. The ‘flight of imperialism. They pointed to how capital’ is part of what capital needs banks were binding with manufacture, to expand. Its flight can be from one mining and transport. Marxists call nation-market-state to another in this integration ‘finance capital’. ‘a race to the bottom’. But capital also has to be free to move between That dynamic is still at work. But corporations inside a nation-market- there has been a further change in the state. Money-capital can thereby relations between the productive and chase better average rates of profits. the financial. The connections are no The current pattern of finance capital longer just a matter of legs under the speeds that switching. The crisis same table. The financiers do more intensified the need to do so. than get the money together to finance

p 39 - Marxism Today 2015 Two Griffith University scholars, 07 to 45%. Georgina Murray and David Peetz, document the changes in corporate The increases in overseas ownership ownership since the 2008 crisis. Their are broad and substantial. In results appear in the winter 2013 issue broadcasting and TV, it is up by of the Journal of Australian Political 27%. For health manufacturing and Economy. They show how much more supply, it is up by 19%. In food and local production is in the hands of other manufacturing, the increase is overseas finance corporations. 15%. By contrast, the overseas slice in transport, utilities, construction Murray and Peetz base their results and heavy manufacturing dropped by from the top 128 corporations ranked nearly 12%. by revenue in mid-2010. They track how the patterns of ownership have Mining changed since 2006. They take up three The highest rate of foreign ownership questions. Where are the owners of the is in mining. Miners also account for biggest Australian corporations? How a third of the total price of all share- significant is finance capital here? Did market capitalisation among the top overseas finance capital expand here firms. Mining saw a 12% increase in through the crisis? overseas ownership, despite the czars. Rinehart, Forrest and Palmer together Key findings include a 13% jump hold under 5% of the sector. Rinehart in the US slice. US finance-capital gets most of her billions through a corporates now hold 28 out of every troubled joint venture with Rio Tinto. 100 ordinary shares. The UK slice has fallen by 6%. China has 0.2%. The finance sector The slice of finance houses held from There has been a 5.5% drop in the overseas more than doubled to 65%. Australian-owned segment. Before the The overseas share among banks went crisis, locals held Number One spot up from 41 to 52%. with 29%. The overseas were then at 27%. That order is now reversed. In 2006-7, the top five Australian- But in non-financial corporations, based finance capital entities held the locals are down at 13%. Overseas 19% of significant shareholdings. This owners stand at 23%. fraction fell by a third to 13%. By contrast, the top five from overseas In the twenty largest corporations, grew from 15 to 19%. the fraction held by overseas finance corporations rose from 35% in 2006- The changes inside finance capital

Marxism Today 2015 - p 40 are equally striking. Banks dropped is still able to impose its will on its back by a third to just 14%. The allies. Iraq is several times weaker Commonwealth Bank, for example, than in 2002. Venezuela is much slipped from first to third, down from stronger. 8 to 4%. Non-bank financial houses shot up from 11 to 23%. Australia has been snaking downwards. The most significant sell- BlackRock out was to float the dollar in December The newcomers are spearheaded 1983. Next, Hawke-Keating let in by the US Master of the Universe, forty firms to speculate on foreign- BlackRock. BlackRock is the exchange. One consequence is the world’s largest funds manager. It high-dollar. It makes other sectors of controls four trillion dollars. In the economy unable to compete. Australia, BlackRock scored 11% of shareholdings by 2010. It bought More than ever, the independence of an arm of the British Barclays bank Australia depends on realising the which held lots of Australian shares. needs of working people. Our welfare BlackRock CEO, Larry Fink, was a will be secure only under socialism. key advisor to US administrations The ground for our campaigns is solid. during the bailout. BlackRock itself More than two-thirds of Australians did not need an injection of funds. object to the level of overseas Fink is a Democrat. His most valued ownership of mining. asset is Obama’s ear.

State power These numbers add to the information we need to detail who ‘controls’ Australia. Corporations, however, cannot rule by themselves. They need the clout of a state. US finance capital dominates through its political and military links. Washington pushes the Trans Pacific (trade) Partnership as one more weapon for finance capital.

So-called globalisation has not overwhelmed all nation-market states. Rather, global power remains a game of snakes and ladders. The US empire

p 41 - Marxism Today 2015 Communism: Society without class (Vanguard December 2014) by Bill F.

The vision of Communism is a need for better and fairer conditions society without class differences in society to the recognition that the and class conflict, where all people most far-reaching and fundamental can contribute to society “according change is necessary, revolutionary to their abilities” and receive change that empowers the working from society “according to their people and disempowers the ruling needs”. Communist society is not class of exploiters and oppressors. about uniformity, but rather the recognition of different human Communists uphold the leading role capabilities and needs. of the working class in the ideological and political struggles of the exploited In the day to day struggles of and oppressed against their exploiters the working people against war, and oppressors. The history of oppression and exploitation, socialist revolutions tells us that the Communists pay careful attention to importance of this leading role is the strategies, tactics and policies best equally critical after the overthrow of suited to complex and varied stages of the old system and for the construction struggle. and consolidation of socialism.

If the correct strategies, tactics and Yet the irony, the contradiction, policies are applied they can win lies in the fact that as socialism is support and mobilise the people further consolidated, the more class around demands for change and differences are progressively reduced achieve, sometimes, even a measure and the more the working class state of success. becomes superfluous and can ‘wither away’ as the vision of a classless But the real measure of success society becomes reality. for Communists is in the raising of political consciousness. In this sense, Transition to classless society there are lessons in the losses and the Marx recognised that it was not stalemates as well as the victories. possible to establish communist society in one hit, and that a fairly long What is meant by “raising political transition period would be necessary to consciousness”? create not only the material conditions For Communists it means taking but also to develop the social outlook people beyond recognition of the necessary.

Marxism Today 2015 - p 42 the random anarchy of capitalist This first stage of communism, the production, and to produce goods and stage of transition, has been called services to meet the real needs of the Socialism. “This socialism is the people rather than just for profit. This declaration of the permanence of controlled economic development the revolution, the class dictatorship would also avoid the boom-bust cycles of the proletariat as the necessary characteristic of capitalism. transit point to the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition The working class state - dictatorship of all the relations of production on of the proletariat which they rest, to the abolition of all “Between capitalist and communist the social relations that correspond to society lies the period of the these relations of production, to the revolutionary transformation of the revolutionising of all the ideas that one into the other. There corresponds result from these social relations.” (K. to this also a political transition period Marx The Class Struggles in France, in which the state can be nothing but 1850) the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” (K. Marx Critique of the Marxist Socialism Gotha Programme, 1875) The revolutionary smashing of the old state power by the working class The task of the working class state is only the beginning of the much involves not only economic re- greater, more complex and difficult organisation of society in the interests task of building a new society. of the workers and other working “What we have to deal with here is people, but also the critical tasks of a communist society, not as it has preserving and consolidating the gains developed on its own foundations, but, of socialism, to move forward the on the contrary, just as it emerges from whole of society in the direction of capitalist society; which is thus in communism. every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with This means gradually introducing new the birth marks of the old society from ways of thinking based on the common whose womb it emerges.” (K. Marx good rather than the old, selfish values Critique of the Gotha Programme, of capitalism. 1875) It means using the state apparatus of Therefore, Marx and Engels saw the the working class (i.e., the people’s necessity to establish planned and armed forces, police, courts, prisons, regulated production to overcome etc) to prevent attempts by the

p 43 - Marxism Today 2015 defeated classes and their international “wither away”. supporters to overthrow or side- track the revolutionary power of the Communists have a vision of a future workers. society that has no need for hierarchies or weapons. “State interference in The broad scope of these critical social relations becomes, in one tasks means that the period of domain after another, superfluous, and socialist transformation is necessarily then dies out of itself; the government prolonged, and does not always of persons is replaced by the proceed in a straight line. administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. “The dictatorship of the proletariat The state is not abolished. It dies out.” is a persistent struggle – bloody and (F. Engels Socialism: Utopian and bloodless, violent and peaceful, Scientific, 1877) military and economic, educational and administrative – against the forces “Only in communist society, when and traditions of the old society. the resistance of the capitalists has The force of habit of millions and been completely crushed, when the tens of millions is a terrible force. capitalists have disappeared, when Without an iron party tempered in there are no classes (i.e., when there struggle, without a party enjoying the is no distinction between the members confidence of all that is honest in the of society as regards their relation to given class, without a party capable of the social means of production), only watching and influencing the mood of then “the state ... ceases to exist,” the masses, it is impossible to conduct and “it becomes possible to speak of such a struggle.” (V.I Lenin Left-Wing freedom.” Communism, 1920) “The state will be able to wither Towards a classless society away completely when society adopts Dictatorship of the proletariat is class the rule: “From each according to rule by the working class. It replaces his ability, to each according to his the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, needs,” i.e., when people have become i.e., the capitalists as a class. Unlike so accustomed to observing the the rule of the rich, who seek only fundamental rules of social intercourse to perpetuate their rule, the working and when their labour has become so class state acts in the interests of the productive that they will voluntarily majority of the people, and struggles work according to their ability.” to empower the working people in (V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution such a way that it will eventually (1917)

Marxism Today 2015 - p 44 In Australia, our immediate struggle is against imperialist domination; our program is revolutionary national independence continuing on to build socialism. At all stages, despite difficulties and set-backs, we should not lose sight of the goal - society without class.

p 45 - Marxism Today 2015 Mao Zedong’s On Contradiction the key to understanding Class Struggle (Vanguard April 2010)

It is essential that Marxist-Leninists contradiction.” have an understanding of dialectical materialism, and in particular the Contradiction is not only found in the question of contradiction. Mao natural world; it also features in human Zedong analysed the question of societies: “Changes in class society contradiction in detail in his article are due chiefly to the development of On Contradiction, written in 1937. the internal contradictions in society, He wrote: “The law of contradiction that is, the contradiction between the in things, that is, the law of the productive forces and the relations unity of opposites, is the basic law of of production, the contradiction materialist dialectics.” between classes and the contradiction between the old and the new, it is the He determined that contradiction development of these contradictions exists in the process of development that pushes society forward and gives of all things and that a movement the impetus for the supercession of the of opposites exists in the process old society by the new.” of development of each thing from beginning to end. Mao called this the The principal contradiction “universality of contradiction.” In a complex process, there can be many contradictions. The Thus, “the fundamental cause of the principal contradiction determines development of a thing lies in the and influences the existence contradictoriness within the thing. and development of the other This internal contradiction exists in contradictions. If we did not identify every single thing, hence its motion the principal contradiction in any and development. Contradictoriness complex situation involving several within a thing is the fundamental contradictions, not only would we cause of its development, while its fail to identify our real enemies, interrelations and interactions with we could not take advantage of other things are secondary causes.” the contradictions between various classes in Australian society to further Mao pointed out that every form the revolutionary cause. of motion contains within itself its own particular contradiction that Having identified the principal distinguishes it from other forms, contradiction, the revolutionary calling this the “particularity of forces can make use of the other

Marxism Today 2015 - p 46 contradictions to isolate US principal aspect, it is still important imperialism and hasten its defeat. to consider the secondary aspect. Once this occurs, a new principal This takes into account both unity contradiction will come to the fore. It and division; it unveils the nature of is essential that we do not confuse the the process of change and the trend of various contradictions in a complex change. situation. To do so leads us to confuse the stages in the revolutionary process The struggle between the aspects of and commit ‘left’ or ‘right’ errors. a contradiction permeates a process from beginning to end and makes one The principal aspect of a contradiction process transform itself into another. is the one playing the leading role An example of this is that the by in the contradiction. The nature of means of revolution the proletariat is a thing is determined mainly by the transformed from the ruled into the principal aspect of a contradiction, the ruling class, and vice versa for the aspect that has gained the dominant bourgeoisie. position. However the situation is not static, the principal and non-principal In considering the relation between aspects can transform themselves into the identity and struggle of the each other and the nature of the thing aspects of a contradiction Mao quoted changes accordingly. This change Lenin; “the unity (coincidence, is determined by the extent of the identity, equal action) of opposites increase or decrease in the force of is conditional, temporary, transitory, each aspect in its struggle against the relative. The struggle of mutually other. exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are The identity and struggle of the absolute.” aspects of a contradiction The identity of the aspects of a The place of antagonism in contradiction means first; that the contradiction existence of each of the two aspects Antagonism is one form, but not the of a contradiction in the process of the only form, of the struggle of opposites. development of a thing presupposes As Mao stated, “Contradiction and the existence of the other aspect, struggle are universal and absolute, and both aspects coexist in a single but the methods of resolving entity; second, in given conditions, contradictions, that is, the form of each of the two contradictory aspects struggle, differ according to the transforms itself into its opposite. differences in the nature of the While focussing mainly on the contradictions. Some contradictions

p 47 - Marxism Today 2015 are characterised by open antagonism, In an article of this nature we can others are not. In accordance with the only touch on the key points of On concrete development of things, some Contradiction in a limited way. contradictions which were originally We urge readers to obtain a copy non-antagonistic develop into of this essential work of Marxism- antagonistic ones, while others which Leninism and study it in detail in were originally antagonistic develop order to understand the role played by into non-antagonistic ones.” contradiction in shaping the course of revolutionary struggle. An example of the first type is the contradiction between the exploiting and exploited classes. The two coexist in class society and struggle against each other for a long period of time until the contradiction between them reaches a certain stage. The contradiction becomes openly antagonistic and develops into revolution.

An example of the second type is the contradiction between town and country. Under capitalism this contradiction is extremely antagonistic as the capitalists of the town exploit the countryside. Under socialism, this contradiction still exists, but becomes non-antagonistic as the working class in power supports and unites with the people of the countryside.

The Communist Party must not confuse the methods of resolving antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. Non-antagonistic contradictions must only be resolved by peaceful means such as debate, education and ideological struggle.

Marxism Today 2015 - p 48 Understand basics of Marxism to meet new challenges (Vanguard February 2011)

Australian workers are readying Dialectical and Historical themselves for new battles in 2011. Materialism The New Year starts on a high note Dialectical and historical materialism following the defeat of the ABCC’s form the basis of Marxist-Leninist attempt to destroy building workers’ philosophy. It is essential that all rights in the Ark Tribe case. Communists understand dialectical and historical materialism. Without The struggles of the workers at the this understanding we cannot correctly Melbourne Visy plant and the NUW analyse the contradictions of capitalist workers at Woolworth’s Hume society and guide the Australian Distribution Centre and at Swift-JBS people away from imperialist Brooklyn are an inspiration to us all. domination, to national independence and to socialism. Building workers have long been in the forefront of struggle, having been Dialectical materialism is so called under continuous attack by the big because its approach to the study of construction firms and the ABCC. the phenomena of nature is dialectical, Vanguard is confident that they while its interpretation of these will vigorously continue to defend phenomena is materialistic. Historical their rights and livelihoods in 2011. materialism is the extension of the Workers in other industries are also principles of dialectical materialism to sure to resist the bosses’ attacks. the study of society and history.

Ideological preparation necessary The dialectical method of thought We must be prepared to meet the requires that phenomena should challenges of a rapidly changing be considered not only from the situation in Australia and the world. standpoint of their interconnection This includes being ideologically and interdependence, but also from prepared. Central to ideological the standpoint of their movement, preparation is an understanding of the their change, their development and basic concepts of Marxism-Leninism. their coming into being and going out These include an understanding of of being. Marxist economics, the class struggle, dialectical and historical materialism, Dialectics recognises that internal the class nature of the state, and contradictions are inherent in all things imperialism. and natural phenomena. They all have

p 49 - Marxism Today 2015 their negative and positive sides, a past principal contradiction determines and a future, something dying away and influences the existence and something developing; and that and development of the other the struggle between these opposites, contradictions. The principal aspect of the struggle between the old and the a contradiction is the one playing the new, between that which is dying away leading role in the contradiction. and that which is being born, between that which is disappearing and that The importance of Mao Zedong’s which is developing, constitutes the work is that On Contradiction relates internal content of the process of seemingly dry philosophy to the development, the internal content of practical questions of building a the transformation of quantitative revolutionary movement and winning changes into qualitative changes. Put national independence and socialism. simply, “dialectics is the study of the contradiction within the very essence As Mao wrote in the article in of things” as Lenin wrote in his article question; “Changes in class society On the Question of Dialectics. are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society, Mao Zedong studied contradiction that is, the contradiction between the Mao Zedong analysed the question productive forces and the relations of contradiction in great detail in of production, the contradiction his article On Contradiction. He between classes and the contradiction determined that contradiction exists between the old and the new, it is the in the process of development of development of these contradictions all things and that a movement of that pushes society forward and gives opposites exists in the process of the impetus for the supersession of the development of each thing from old society by the new.” beginning to end (“universality of contradiction”). Mao pointed out that What is materialism? every form of motion contains within The founders of Marxism-Leninism, itself its own particular contradiction Marx, Engels and Lenin, consistently that distinguishes it from other forms promoted materialism. What do we (particularity of contradiction). mean by materialism? Addressing the issue of materialism in Ludwig He also investigated the questions Feuerbach and the End of Classical of the principal contradiction in a German Philosophy, Engels asked the process and the principal aspect of a rhetorical question: “Did God create contradiction. In a complex process the world, or has the world been in there can be many contradictions. The existence eternally?” He answered that

Marxism Today 2015 - p 50 “Philosophers were divided into two their existence, but their social being great camps according to their answer that determines their consciousness.” to this question. Those who asserted the primacy of mind over nature As Mao Zedong succinctly put it in On and, in the last analysis, therefore Practice, “In class society everyone assumed some kind of creation of the lives as a member of a particular class, world... formed the camp of idealism. and every kind of thinking, without The others, who regarded nature exception, is stamped with the brand as primary, belonged to the various of a class.” This means that both the schools of materialism.” workers and the capitalists have their own forms of thought and action. Social being determines Uniting to help one another on the one consciousness hand versus ruthless throat cutting and An important teaching of historical exploitation on the other! materialism is that the material life of a society determines the ideas, Recommended Reading: theories, political views and political Marx and Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party institutions of that society. Marx: Preface and Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Marx wrote in the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Engels: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State; Socialism: Scientific and Utopian; Political Economy, “In the social Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German production of their existence, men Philosophy; Anti-Duhring inevitably enter into definite relations, Mao Zedong: On Contradiction; On Practice which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines

p 51 - Marxism Today 2015 Communist Manifesto: The little book that changed the world (Vanguard April 2011)

February marked the one hundred ownership of land) all history has and sixty-third anniversary of the been a history of class struggles, of publication of The Communist struggles between dominated and Manifesto. In November 1847, dominating classes at various stages the Communist League, a secret of development; that this struggle, association of workers in Germany, however, has now reached a stage commissioned Karl Marx and where the exploited and oppressed Frederick Engels to draw up for class (the proletariat) can no longer publication a theoretical and emancipate itself from the class practical programme for a new which exploits and oppresses it (the party of the working class. bourgeoisie), without at the same time for ever freeing the whole of society The Communist Manifesto appeared in from exploitation, oppression and February 1848, the year revolutionary class struggles.” storms spread across Europe. Since then, this work has inspired millions Note here that the term proletariat is of revolutionaries who have struggled used for working class and bourgeoisie for socialism in many countries. The for capitalist class. success of revolutions in Russia, China, Cuba and other countries can, The Communist Manifesto begins in part, be traced to this remarkable with a succinct outline of class society little book. Lenin, Mao Zedong and and class struggle written from the Fidel Castro were amongst those perspective of historical materialism inspired by it. (see Marxism Today in Vanguard Feb 2011). In his preface to the 1883 edition, Engels summed up the basic thought The class struggle running through the Communist Since the breakdown of primitive Manifesto. He wrote; “economic communal societies, the history of all production and the structure of society existing society has been the history of every historical epoch necessarily of class struggles: “Freeman and arising therefrom constitute the slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and foundation for the political and serf, guild master and journeyman, intellectual history of that epoch; in a word, oppressor and oppressed, that consequently (ever since the stood in constant opposition to one dissolution of the primeval communal another, carried on an uninterrupted,

Marxism Today 2015 - p 52 now hidden, now open fight, a fight Manifesto is not a dogma that ended either in a revolutionary Following the analysis of class reconstruction of society at large, or struggles and capitalist society, The the common ruin of the contending Communist Manifesto lists some classes.” practical measures, which could be taken by the working class, when it Modern capitalist society has not becomes the ruling class and is able done away with class antagonisms. to “use its political supremacy to Instead, it has established new classes, wrest, by degrees, all capital from new conditions of exploitation and the bourgeoisie, to centralise all oppression and new forms of struggle. instruments of production in the hands Capitalist society has simplified class of the state, i.e., of the proletariat antagonisms. Two major classes face organised as the ruling class; and to one another, the capitalist class and increase the total of productive forces the working class. The capitalist class as rapidly as possible.” owns the means of production and employs wage labour. The working While taking note of these words, it class does not own the means of is also true that in the years since, a production and must sell its labour considerable amount of experience power and bring into existence has been accumulated, which has, commodities for the capitalist class to in the first place, enriched what is maintain its position. contained in the Manifesto.

As the Manifesto states: “Of all the There is a deeper understanding of classes that stand face to face with the need to pass through stages in the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat the transition from capitalism to alone is a really revolutionary class. socialism and that these stages differ The other classes decay and finally from place to place. There is a deeper disappear in the face of modern understanding of the concept of the industry; the proletariat is the special united front, where the working class and essential product.” As for other allies to itself other sections of society groups in society; “the bourgeoisie has to bring about revolutionary change. stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to Such new developments are natural. with reverent awe. It has converted Nothing remains static. Knowledge the physician, the lawyer, the priest, must be enriched by practice. If such the poet, the man of science, into its an enrichment does not occur over paid wage-labourers.” time, knowledge will be transformed into its opposite – dogma. This is not

p 53 - Marxism Today 2015 what The Communist Manifesto was single communist should shout their ever intended to be. The little book position from the rooftops. Certain laid down some general principles. things must be concealed from the These have been verified by history, class enemy, care must be taken that notwithstanding certain differences communists work with others in a way in their application, depending on the that does not isolate them. But these particular conditions of each country words do mean that the organisation and time in its history. of communists, the Communist Party, must put forward a principled, clear Learning from experience cut, far-sighted position. It must never In the years after the publication of compromise itself to the ideology and the work, the working class gained lies peddled by the capitalist class. considerable revolutionary experience in the February revolutions of 1848, It is fitting to finish with the final words the Paris Commune in 1871 ( where of The Communist Manifesto.“Let the it learned lessons that could not have ruling classes tremble at a communistic been anticipated earlier). revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They During the Paris Commune, for have a world to win. Let the ruling example, the working class learned class tremble. Working men of all from the first time that it held political countries unite!” power, that they cannot simply lay hold of the ready made capitalist state. It had to be destroyed and a new kind of state put in its place. Further experience was gained throughout the Twentieth Century. More experience is being gained in the Twenty First century.

The Manifesto also states: “The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare their ends can only be attained by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”

Of course, it would be silly to interpret these words as suggesting that every

Marxism Today 2015 - p 54 Political consciousness and mass work (Vanguard November 2011)

Different levels of political Mass Work consciousness among the people Communists work at all levels require revolutionary activists to defending the people from the work and organise in a number of economic crisis and promoting the different ways. upsurge of an independent anti- imperialist mass movement. Within the Most working people in the day to anti-imperialist mass movement there day battles for workplace rights and are different levels of consciousness conditions, democratic and human and struggle. rights, protection of the urban and natural environment, public and Communists play their part in leading community services, and peace in the the progressive demands and struggles world, invariably come up against one of the masses, while exposing the or another aspect of US imperialist connection between the day to day domination and capitalist exploitation problems and the different aspects of without consciously recognising imperialist domination of Australia. the economic and political class system of imperialist domination and There are natural connections to the oppression. masses in workplaces, communities and social networks. Other connections In Australia the majority of are in mass organisations, single issue unorganised masses are working class, groups, and struggles which can but are largely influenced by the ideas inform, educate and mobilise broader of bourgeois social democracy. The sections around particular issues. cynicism of parliamentary politics has deepened in recent times with the Experience of struggle creates global economic crisis of capitalist opportunities to draw lessons and overproduction. raise alternatives to the present status- quo such as the nationalisation of The attacks on the people intensify key industries, demonstrating the and the working class is more than effects of multinational domination ever compelled to rely on the strength of Australia, and taxing the rich of its own organised mass struggle corporations, not the people, to pay outside parliament, to defend the for the monopoly capitalist economic people and move a step forward crisis. towards realisation of its own destiny. The essential and critical task is to

p 55 - Marxism Today 2015 listen to the people, deeply know role of imperialism. their lives, struggles and concerns, and to understand the level of mass Our political work should promote consciousness and preparedness to and strengthen the people’s mass struggle. organisations, while exposing the links between US imperialism and the Communists assist and lead people local ruling class. in struggle, not only in the day to day battles for reforms within capitalism, Communists are deeply involved in but importantly, use the science the struggles of the people, working of Marxism to offer explanations out immediate tactics of struggle, of people’s situation and actual mobilising the people and offering experiences, and to put forward ideas Marxist explanations on the nature of an alternative vision for the future. of imperialist domination and how it overshadows economic and political Mass organisations life in Australia. A deeper level of political consciousness is reflected within Political work in mass organisations organised groups such as mass should promote common interests organisations, issue groups, trade across people’s organisations, and unions, community groups and the where possible, link immediate like. struggles to opposing and resisting imperialist domination. Among the There may be some recognition activists, we develop and promote of the nature of US imperialism in immediate demands of struggle, terms of global military domination working class leadership, the mass and aggression, but often this is not line method, and put forward an connected to its economic, political alternative vision for the future around and military domination in Australia. relevant issues.

For some, imperialism means only Left activism political and military aggression. They Many left activists see the need don’t see the economic imperatives for organisation, solidarity and behind the aggression, the class rule militant struggle, and are attracted to of corporate monopoly capitalism. intermediate levels of activism. The Others see only economic aggression danger of so-called “left activists” is as expressed through globalisation that they mostly confine their activities and free trade agendas, and somewhat to their own narrow, and very small, separate from the political and military left circles. They frequently suffer

Marxism Today 2015 - p 56 from left-bloc isolation and often see constantly makes a serious, genuine themselves as above and separate and sustained effort to improve its from the mass of people rather than a political work, and to build practical part of the people. Most are genuine alliances with other fraternal forces and sincere people, but the pressures opposed to US imperialism and of bourgeois sectarianism and left- committed to socialism. blocism isolates them from the majority of the people and can lead to Obviously, members of the CPA (M-L) ultra-leftism and adventurism. are not the only genuine people who see the need for revolutionary change, Our political work at this level for deep seated and thorough national should promote out-going activities independence, and for the victory of that welcome and involve broader socialism. We have a programme of sections of the people. We need to a revolutionary process connected by encourage the activists in ways that stages in Australian conditions, and bring them closer to the people, not a certain method of organisation that further apart. And we also need to places greater emphasis on mass work. encourage activists to keep up their Practice and experience over time will natural mass connections in the test our methods, as it will others. people’s organisations, workplaces Our work is constantly reviewed and and community. adjustments are made in line with changing circumstances. Revolutionary organisations have no place for bourgeois self-promotion and Nothing is static self-serving interests. The mass line Between the different layers of that seeks unity of all forces opposed political consciousness, there is to imperialism, and respects the movement and crossover. They are differences within the united front on not isolated and static; it’s a dialectical other matters, is the only way a broad relationship anti-imperialist united movement of working people can be built. Mass work, the mass line, patient and meticulous hard work and collective Revolutionary organisation discipline are some of the hall marks The highest level of political of a revolutionary organisation consciousness is that represented by striving to serve the people and build conscious revolutionary organisation, an anti-imperialist mass movement. i.e. communist organisation and discipline. The Communist Party “While we recognise that in the of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) general development of history the

p 57 - Marxism Today 2015 material determines the mental and social being determines social consciousness, we also – and indeed must – recognise the reaction of mental on material things, of social consciousness on social being and of the superstructure on the economic base. This does not go against materialism; on the contrary, it avoids mechanical materialism and firmly upholds dialectical materialism.” (Mao Zedong On Contradiction August 1937)

Marxism Today 2015 - p 58 The Capitalist mode of production: a destructive rift for the planet’s ecology and humanity! (Vanguard November 2011)

The current Carbon Tax controversy Emissions Trading highlights the limits of capitalism’s Then, to compound the problem, capacity to tackle the monumental the Carbon Tax will be replaced in issue of climate change. The Carbon 3 years time by an emissions market Tax is not even a useful interim trading scheme (ETS). Regardless measure for turning around global of the greenhouse caps, there are no warming. guarantees the ETS will even achieve the reductions of Labor’s inadequately The political promoters of the small 5% emissions target. In reality, Carbon Tax, Labor and the Greens, the ETS is a licence to pollute and are only deluding ordinary people, enables capitalism to pursue new unsuccessfully it should be noted, opportunities to seek profits at the that this will be the historic first expense of the planet’s damaged step in dealing with climate change environment. in Australia. However, the biggest obstacle to effectively deal with global Inviting the coal and energy warming and climate change is the corporations to trade in carbon capitalist market system itself! credits, and financial speculators to deal in derivatives in an ETS, is as The major polluters, the coal and bad as asking Dracula to run the blood electricity corporations, have little bank! The Australian parliamentary interest in the change-over to parties, whether they be Labor, Greens renewable energy sources, for they or Liberal will never compel the can pass on the Carbon Tax as an extra multinational corporations to change cost to consumers. over to cleaner sources of energy by regulation – the only effective method Some of the climate initiatives from of dealing with the impending climate the Carbon Tax are positive, such catastrophe. as the closing down of dirty power stations (with huge subsidies to the Marx on the exploitation of nature power companies), energy efficiency As Karl Marx pointed out, the programs, biodiversity protection and exploitation of nature is as necessary carbon farming ventures. However, to the profit system as the exploitation these are too little too late. Capitalism of the working class! is just not fast enough at tackling global warming! Close attention was paid by Marx

p 59 - Marxism Today 2015 to the German chemist, Justus the soil; all progress in increasing the von Liebig’s investigation into the fertility of the soil for a given time is crisis of soil fertility by capitalist a progress towards ruining the more agriculture. He offered the first long-lasting sources of that fertility… convincing explanation of the role of Capitalist production, therefore, only soil nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorous develops the techniques and degree and potassium for the growth of of combination of the social process plants. Marx then provided an incisive of production by simultaneously analysis of its broader social and undermining the original sources of environmental implications. all wealth – the soil and the worker.”

He argued that capitalist agriculture What capitalist industrial and produced a “metabolic rift” by its agricultural innovation had achieved inevitable exhaustion of nutrients was to alienate and separate both city from the soil. The expansion of and country, and then undermine the agriculture under capitalism saw new planet’s ecology for the sole purpose of technologies introduced to achieve capital accumulation. It had broken the increasing production and profitable nutrient cycle! Agricultural production farming methods which, however, was taken away to the cities, robbing broke the soil’s nutrient cycle. the vital nitrates and phosphates that The consequence of this saw the in the past were returned to the soil, redundant peasants forced out of the consequently degrading the land. countryside into the swelling cities as factory fodder, creating the polluting Previously most of the pre-capitalist metropolis we have now become so populations lived off the land in a self- familiar with! sufficient manner, where a healthy mutual exchange between human Capitalism’s answer to increasing populations and the environment soil infertility which it caused was existed, that maintained the nutrient to exploit the use of natural (guano) cycle. Now that less people were and then artificial nitrogen fertilizers, needed to work on capitalist farms which only exacerbated the fertility due to new technologies, they were problem in the long term! forced out of the countryside, through processes such as in England with the No truer words were spoken than by “Enclosure Act”, and concentrated Marx in Capital, Vol. 1 when he stated: into the cities, to be exploited in urban “All progress in capitalist agriculture factories. is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the worker, but of robbing The huge industrial and population

Marxism Today 2015 - p 60 expansion that concentrated in cities amounts of artificial nutrients. The inevitably created accumulated lack of nutrients on crop farms saw waste and pollution that damaged the the obverse occur in cities, where environment and the health of city these same nutrients accumulate in populations. urban areas and agri-business animal factory farms as waste. As a result Marx noted that recycling of organic of the vast distances involved, the wastes were of limited concern for accumulated nutrients are not restored capitalist societies. He remarked in to the major crop growing areas due Capital, Vol. 3 “In London… they can to the high financial and energy costs. do nothing better with the excrement A destructive rift takes place between produced by 4.5 million people production and the ecology that than pollute the Thames with it, at sustains life on this planet! monstrous expense.” Capitalism has left a legacy of polluted environments Sustainable socialism the world over that present populations According to John Bellamy Foster, now have to come to terms with and a US Marxist, there are positive clean up. experiences of sustainable production from the non-capitalist world. In his Climate crisis is a crisis of capitalism book, Ecology against Capitalism, he Currently, the crisis of the capitalist states “… in China under Mao, things industrial and agricultural system has were different... Mao’s emphasis on pushed carbon emissions to reach 450 local food self-sufficiency in each parts per million. That will cause the region helped to reinforce these planet to increase its temperature by 2 practices and, together with the degrees or more. The dramatic rise in encouragement of local industry, global warming will cause catastrophic slowed down urbanization at the same environmental damage to the Earth time as impressive advances were by the middle of the 21st century. made in agricultural production… In fact we are seeing environmental In Cuba, the economic crisis of the devastation happening now. Special Period has been caused by the cancellation of favourable trade There can be seen a vicious cycle of agreements with the collapse of development that occurs within the the Soviet Union. Lack of funds to capitalist mode of production. The purchase fertilisers and pesticides physical separation of people and from abroad created an interest in animals from croplands resulted in reducing the use of such materials, the lack of nutrients being recycled. and organic production techniques This created the need to use larger have become a mainstay of Cuban

p 61 - Marxism Today 2015 agriculture, with attention paid to nutrient cycling issues.”

Scientists point out there is limited time to start to reverse the destructive effects of global warming. Climate change will occur, but it can be mitigated by effective regulatory action. This requires a reversal of industrial production based on exchange value for the pursuit of profit. Instead a planned economy needs to be established where renewable industries are built for the purpose of use value (to meet peoples’ needs), therefore not exhausting the environment and destroying the planet’s ecology.

Waiting for capitalism to do the job, through a Carbon Tax and or an Emission Trading Scheme is a death sentence for the planet. To save the Earth and humanity requires capitalism to be closed down and sustainable socialism to be implemented!

Marxism Today 2015 - p 62 Lenin’s The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism (Vanguard October 2012) by Duncan B.

Lenin’s The Three Sources split them into two great camps. Those and Three Component Parts of who asserted the primacy of spirit Marxism, written in 1913 is a handy to nature and, therefore, in the last introduction to the basic principles instance, assumed world creation in of Marxism. some form or other... comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who In developing his theories, Marx drew regarded nature as primary, belonged on the three main ideological currents to the various schools of materialism.” of his time – German philosophy, English political economy, and French Dialectics socialism. Dialectics is an essential part of Marxist philosophy. Marxist dialectics Lenin wrote, “The Marxian doctrine teaches us, as Engels put it, “that the is omnipotent because it is true. It world is not to be comprehended as a is complete and harmonious, and complex of ready-made things, but as provides men with an integral world a complex of processes, in which the conception which is irreconcilable things apparently stable no less than with any form of superstition, reaction, their mind-images in our heads, the or defence of bourgeois oppression. concepts, go through an uninterrupted It is the legitimate successor to the change of coming into being and best that was created by mankind in passing away...” the nineteenth century in the shape of German philosophy, English political This way of looking at the world helps economy and French socialism.” the workers to see that capitalism is not eternal. Philosophy The philosophy of Marxism is called The Materialist Conception of materialism. What is materialism? History Engels put it in a nutshell in Historical materialism is one of Marx’s his philosophical work Ludwig great contributions to philosophy. Feuerbach, “The great basic question “Historical materialism” means the of all philosophy, especially of view of the course of history which modern philosophy, is that concerning seeks the ultimate cause and the great the relation of thinking and being, of moving power of all important historic spirit to nature… Which is primary, events in the economic development spirit or nature? The answers which of society, in the changes in the modes the philosophers gave to this question of production and exchange, in the p 63 - Marxism Today 2015 consequent division of society into Socialism distinct classes, and in the struggles of Marx did not invent Socialism. these classes against one another.” Socialists and socialism had been around for many years before Marx. As Marx wrote in his Contribution Socialism before Marx was what is to the Critique of Political Economy, called utopian socialism. Utopian “The mode of production of material socialists criticised capitalism and life determines the social, political dreamed up fanciful schemes to end and intellectual life process in general. it, but they could not explain how the It is not the consciousness of men capitalist class exploited the workers that determines their being, but on or point to the social force which is the contrary, their social being that capable of creating the new society. determines their consciousness.” Class Struggle Political Economy Marx also did not discover the theory Marx devoted considerable attention of class struggle. Class struggle has to the study of the economic system gone on ever since classes emerged of capitalism. His monumental work from primitive societies – from the Capital is the result of his studies. struggles between slave-owners and slaves through the feudal system to Central to the capitalist economy is the modern struggles between the the concept of surplus value. The capitalist class and the working class. wage-worker sells his capacity for labour (labour power) to the owner of Marx wrote on this point to the the factory, the capitalist. During his socialist Joseph Wedemeyer in 1852, working day, the worker works to add “As to myself, no credit is due to value to the raw materials supplied by me for discovering the existence of the capitalist. classes in modern society, nor yet the struggle between them. Long before The labour of one part of the day is me bourgeois historians had described enough to cover the cost of maintaining the historical development of this himself and his family (wages), while struggle of the classes, and bourgeois for the other part of the day he must economists the economic anatomy of work to create surplus value for the the classes. What I did that was new capitalist. Surplus value is the source was to prove: 1) that the existence of profit, the source of wealth of the of classes is only bound up with capitalist class. particular historical phases in the development of production; 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the

Marxism Today 2015 - p 64 dictatorship of the proletariat 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.

The Lesson of Lenin’s Article Lenin wrote in The Three Sources and the Three Component parts of Marxism, “People always were and always will be the stupid victims of deceit and self-deceit in politics until they learn to discover the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. The supporters of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realise that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is maintained by the forces of some ruling class. And there is only one way of smashing the resistance of these classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, and to enlighten and organise for the struggle, the forces which can – and owing to their social position, must – constitute the power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new.’

In Australia that power is the Australian working class and its allies.

p 65 - Marxism Today 2015 Class struggle and the State apparatus (Vanguard April 2013) by Alice M

In their detailed analysis of classes and the mass media. The capitalist and class struggle Marx, Engels and state is administered by parliament, Lenin paid a great deal of attention the CEO (Chief Executive Office) for to the decisive role of the coercive the ruling class. state apparatus in enforcing the rule of the class that holds the economic Ted Hill, the founding Chairperson of and political power in society. the CPA (M-L) used these general truths of the coercive state machine exposed Their investigations into the historical by Marx, Engels and Lenin, to examine origins of classes and class struggle the particularities and characteristics showed that the state apparatus arose of Australia’s imperialist dominated at the time when human society capitalist state. His analysis divided into two main classes – the deepened the revolutionary working exploited and oppressed majority who class consciousness and advanced create all the wealth (surplus value) Australia’s revolutionary theory. in society, and a small minority who own the means of production, exploit Marx, Engels, Lenin and Hill pointed the vast majority and keep the surplus out that the state apparatus takes value for their own class. many different forms, reflecting the historical, economic and social The job of the capitalist state machine conditions of the time. The capitalist is to suppress the resistance and state uses both the open force and struggles of the working class, and the deception as a means to suppress ensure that the exploitation by the resistance and challenge to the main minority class is not interfered with order of the capitalist class rule. Both or disturbed by the majority working the open and the deceptive coercion of class of the exploited population. In the capitalist state are two sides of the his 1919 lecture on The State, Lenin same coin, often used simultaneously. said, “The state is a machine for maintaining the rule of one class over another.” There’s the open violence and suppression by the armed forces – Today’s monopoly capitalist state is the army and the police, including made up of the armed forces (army the secret police, and imprisonment and police), jails, the public services, of rebellious workers. There’s also the courts, the extensive legal system the coercive state machinery of the

Marxism Today 2015 - p 66 upper levels of the public service powers in the 1950s and 1960s, the and the bourgeois legal system that BIIC, the ABCC, WorkChoices, Fair administers and enforces the capitalist Work Australia and many thousands class exploitation. more anti-worker laws designed to paralyse working class struggle and The monopoly media is an essential gut workers’ collective organisation. part of this capitalist state’s superstructure. It vigorously imposes In the struggle between construction the ideology and interests of the unions and the giant Grollo monopoly capitalist class, and tries construction company in November to crush or silence the voice and the 2012 the state deployed most will of the people when resistance and instruments of the state machinery to rebellion of the working class disturbs suppress construction workers’ battle the smooth operations of the capitalist for safety in their workplace. More exploitation. than one thousand armed and riot police were dispatched to the peaceful The imperialist dominated capitalist picket line. state has always used both of these forms of state repression and coercion. Simultaneously, the capitalist state activated many of its anti-worker laws From the British colonial armed against the union and workers, and the forces’ bloody and violent repression capitalist mass media went into full of the Aboriginal people, the violent drive spreading lies and propaganda putting down of rebellious convicts, to discredit and demonise the just fight the Eureka uprising of 1854, the of construction workers. struggles of shearers and maritime workers in the early 1890s, to the Chifley Labor government using the In Australia’s present conditions, army to crush the striking coal miners the capitalist state can largely rely in 1949. on coercion by deception, through its legal system and the mass media, More recently we have seen the in the suppression of the exploited 1998 MUA struggle, police attacking working class. striking workers on the picket lines, the secretive Commonwealth Crimes Nevertheless, in spite of the coercive Act and the more deceptive, but no state machinery surrounding the less effective, suppression of working working class, all the improvements class struggles through the capitalist to workers rights and conditions had legal system in the form of the penal been wrung out of the capitalist class

p 67 - Marxism Today 2015 through workers own struggles. They are important concessions forced on the ruling class by the organised and militant actions of the working class.

Through these actions the working class deepens the understanding of class struggle, the capitalist system and the role of its coercive state.

We encourage activists to study – Engels’ Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Lenin’s lecture on The State and The State and Revolution, as well as Ted Hill’s Revolution and the Australian State.

Marxism Today 2015 - p 68 From study and discussion of Mao Zedong’s work, On Practice (Vanguard October 2013) by Bill F.

Written in 1937, On Practice was through his activity in production he delivered as a lecture by Mao to also gradually comes to understand, in combat subjectivist methods of varying degrees, certain relations that thinking such as dogmatism and exist between man and man.” empiricism, which were hindering the struggle of the Chinese people Mao makes the point that, “Man’s against the Japanese invaders. social practice is not confined to activity in production, but takes The work explains the process of many other forms – class struggle, development of ideas and concepts, political life, scientific and artistic and the process of testing and pursuits; in short, as a social being, validating ideas and concepts through man participates in all spheres of practical application. It is sub-titled the practical life of society… class “On the relation between knowledge struggle in particular, exerts a profound and practice, between knowing and influence on the development of man’s doing”. knowledge. In class society everyone lives as a member of a particular class, The word ‘practice’ was used by and every kind of thinking, without Mao to embrace all the varied forms exception, is stamped with the brand of human practical activity – the of a class.” struggle for material production, the class struggle, scientific experiment This process of understanding the and the struggle for knowledge, and physical and natural laws and social both personal and collective direct relations develops as “human social experiences in social and cultural life. activity in production develops step by step from a lower to a higher level and Of the struggle for material production that consequently man’s knowledge, to meet the human need for food whether of nature or of society, also and shelter, Mao said, “…Marxists develops step by step from a lower regard man’s activity in production to a higher level, that is, from the as the most fundamental practical shallower to the deeper, from the one- activity, the determinant of all his sided to the many-sided.” other activities… through which he comes gradually to understand Marxism the phenomena, the properties and As history unfolds, human knowledge the laws of nature, and the relations expands and gradually leaves between himself and nature; and behind the darkness of ignorance, p 69 - Marxism Today 2015 prejudice and superstition. The at a higher level. development of large scale industry, social production, science and global Perceptual stage of knowledge trade meant that, “man was able to At birth we have no knowledge, only acquire a comprehensive, historical instincts and our five senses. In almost understanding of the development of no time, we experience warmth and society and turn this knowledge into a cold, light and shadows, noise and science, the science of Marxism.” the sound of voices, the sensations of touch, discomfort and sometimes Marxism could only arise in this hunger. Everything is impressions, modern era, when the era of small scale perceptions, unprocessed by thought production characteristic of earlier because there is as yet no knowledge feudalism and aristocratic privilege or experience to form conclusions. had been overthrown by capitalism and its relations of production. This In life, when we encounter new was the essence of the revolutionary phenomena, new things, new events wars in Europe in the seventeenth and and circumstances, the process eighteenth centuries and later. of understanding and acquiring knowledge is the same – it starts The new and unique features of with our sensations and perceptions, capitalism were studied exhaustively through which we acquire some by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels minimal or even partial knowledge. and formed the basis of their “In the process of practice, man at dialectical materialist theory of first sees only the phenomenal side, human knowledge. As Mao puts it, the separate aspects, the external “… dialectical materialism has two relations of things…This is called outstanding characteristics. One the perceptual stage of knowledge, is its class nature: it openly avows namely, the stage of sense perceptions that dialectical materialism is in the and impressions.” service of the proletariat. The other is its practicality: it emphasizes that These perceptions and impressions theory is based on practice and in turn then build on the practice, on the life serves practice.” experiences and knowledge already acquired. From this overview, Mao then proceeds to examine the process of Rational stage of knowledge acquiring knowledge, testing it in Mao continues, “As social practice practice, refining it through thought, continues, things that give rise and then re-applying and re-testing it to man’s sense perceptions and

Marxism Today 2015 - p 70 impressions in the course of his Therefore, conclusions, theories and practice are repeated many times; then plans must be tested in the real world a sudden change (leap) takes place in of class struggle, in the practice of the brain in the process of cognition, revolutionary struggle, to see if they and concepts are formed.” are valid. “The active function of knowledge … must manifest itself in As the brain processes the data the leap from rational knowledge to coming in from the senses, it searches revolutionary practice…This is the for patterns and associations, trying process of testing and developing to make sense of it all. As more data, theory, the continuation of the whole experience, practice takes place, process of cognition.” quantitative change gives rise to qualitative change and a breakthrough Mao notes that, “whether in the practice occurs. These are “Now I get it!” of changing nature or of changing moments when there is clarity, society, men’s original ideas, theories, whether it’s learning to count, learning plans or programmes are seldom a language, or understanding the class realised without any alteration.” This interests of potential allies and foes in may be because objective conditions the course of class struggle. have not developed sufficiently, or our knowledge is incomplete or Sifting the various concepts leads to the not accurate, or often because of higher stage of making conclusions, wishful thinking that “lags behind of drafting theories and plans, as Mao reality.” And, even when there is says, “Proceeding further, by means apparent success, he warns, “… man’s of judgement and inference one is knowledge of a particular process at able to draw logical conclusions… any given stage of development is This stage of conception, judgement only relative truth.” and inference is the more important stage in the entire process of knowing Political errors occur when proper a thing; it is the stage of rational social investigation is neglected knowledge.” and actions are based on superficial knowledge (empiricism) or a Revolutionary practice theoretical formula is dogmatically But Marxists are not content with applied (adventurism). just “understanding the laws of the objective world and thus being able “Idealism and mechanical materialism, to explain it”. Marxists seek to apply opportunism and adventurism, are all “the knowledge of these laws actively characterised by the breach between to change the world.” the subjective and the objective, by

p 71 - Marxism Today 2015 the separation of knowledge from practice.”

This only leads to isolation of the revolutionary forces, as they either trail behind the masses or run ahead only to disappear over the horizon.

In summary “Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge, and such is the dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and doing.”

Marxism Today 2015 - p 72 Imperialism: what is it? (Vanguard July 2010)

We often read about imperialism in Scramble for Africa had run its course this and other journals, but what by the start of the twentieth century, exactly does it mean? with the rest of the globe having been partitioned out by the Great Powers. For Lenin, it was the highest stage of The US and Japan managed to sneak capitalism, where the free competition in on the closing stages of the act in the between numerous small capitalist early years of the twentieth century, firms had inexorably given way to a with their seizure of colonies in the qualitatively different form, that of Philippines and Korea respectively. monopoly capitalism. It was clear, however, that the heady days of colonial expansion were over. The appearance of monopolies, and by extension monopoly capitalism, Lenin asserted that having partitioned was the direct result of the unfolding the globe, the tension between the of capitalist competition. As the colonial powers escalated. Re- quote goes, “one capitalist kills partitioning of territories was all that many”. Whilst large numbers of small was left, and ultimately the struggle businesses continue to come into being over territories and which alliance and pass away, one of the dominant of imperialist nations were to be features of capitalist development dominant were primary causes of the has been the concentration and First World War. centralisation of capital. Lenin’s minimal engagement with Astute observers of late nineteenth and the political side of imperialism early twentieth century capitalism, Lenin, in Imperialism, the highest ranging from Hobson to Hilferding to stage of capitalism, offered up an Lenin amongst others, recognised that empirically rich overview of the important changes had occurred to essential economic characteristics of capitalism after Marx’s death. Large monopoly capitalism, or what was capitalist combines had arisen, which the same thing for him, imperialism. allied with protective tariffs, the There were some insights into the intertwining of banking capital with global political ramifications of industrial capital in the form of finance imperialism, but these were kept to a capital, had fundamentally altered the minimum to avoid Tsarist censorship. political economic landscape. So, whilst there was a comprehensive Colonialism too had changed. The account of the economic characteristics

p 73 - Marxism Today 2015 of imperialism in Lenin’s book, the the struggle over the securing of political side of imperialism was rather sources of raw materials and markets less developed. That is, there was little had culminated in the complete analysis of the role of the state and the partitioning of the globe. international system of states. In his analysis of the changed Features of imperialism nature of colonial policy in the era This is borne out when the five basic of imperialism, Lenin touched on features of imperialism outlined how certain states, whilst officially by Lenin are reviewed. Those five politically independent, nonetheless features being: were ‘enmeshed in the net of financial and diplomatic dependence’. So, it 1. the concentration of production was possible to not be a colony, yet and capital [had] developed to still be in a subordinate position in the such a high stage that it [had] hierarchy of states. created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; Summing up Lenin’s analysis of the 2. the merging of bank capital with political component of imperialism, we industrial capital, and the creation find that he covered the colonial issue, on the basis of this ‘finance the struggle for the re-partitioning of capital’, of a financial oligarchy; the globe amongst the Great Powers 3. the export of capital as and he identified a stratification of distinguished from the export of states beyond the colonial power commodities acquires exceptional – colony relationship. That is, the importance; politically independent states who 4. the formation of international were trapped in subordinate positions monopolist capitalist combines in the hierarchy of the international which share the world amongst system of states, by virtue of financial, themselves, economic and diplomatic ties. 5. the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist However, there is very little else on the powers is completed. role of the state in imperialism and why alliances between states are entered Of the five basic features only one into, for example. This minimal dealt with the global political side engagement with imperialism’s of imperialism, namely the fifth. political side did not detract from Here Lenin examined the colonial the insightful and important work acquisitions of the Great Powers that Lenin produced in his book and (the major European states) and how in other writings. Nonetheless, one

Marxism Today 2015 - p 74 side of a dialectical relationship was accepted by writers that there was emphasised, the economic. a fundamental unity between the territorial and capitalist logics of Harvey and the two logics of power, with the capitalist logic always imperialism the dominant factor. That is, the The British born, US-based Marxist, dictates of capital are always behind David Harvey, in his book The New the decisions of a state at both the Imperialism, acknowledged the domestic and geopolitical levels. importance of the Marxist theory of Not so: “In practice the two logics imperialism as an analytical tool. frequently tug against each other, sometimes to the point of outright Drawing on the tradition of Marxist antagonism.” analysis of capitalist imperialism (as opposed to the imperialism of Study imperialism the Roman Empire for example), Harvey has contributed to Marxist Harvey put forward his view on what imperialism theory by highlighting the constituted the core relationship lying dialectical relationship that lies at the at the heart of capitalist imperialism. heart of imperialism. To understand the The core relationship was a dialectical world in which we live, it is important one, between what he called the to have a grasp of what imperialism ‘territorial and capitalist logics of is and how it impacts on the world’s power.’ people. Lenin’s and Harvey’s work are good places to start on the road to On one side was the territorial logic enlightenment. of power which was the realm of the political where states’ interests were of paramount importance. On the other was the capitalist logic of power where the capitalist accumulation process was the dominant factor. To unravel the complexities involved in actual situations requires the ability “to keep the two sides of this dialectic simultaneously in motion and not to lapse into either a solely political or predominantly economic mode of argumentation.”

Harvey claimed that it is too readily

p 75 - Marxism Today 2015 Imperialism: the greatest threat to the environment (Vanguard August 2010) There can be no doubt that on tackling climate change. These will capitalism in its modern form of be taken to the next UN-organised imperialism is the greatest threat to international climate summit at the environment of our planet. The Cancun in November this year. need to secure a higher rate of profit is what drives imperialism to go Bolivian President Evo Morales to any lengths to achieve that aim, addressed the Conference. According even to short-sightedly destroying to Morales, “Humanity is faced with the very planet we live on! the dilemma of continuing down the path of capitalism and death or What else would you expect? beginning the path towards harmony The imperialist system represents with nature and respect for life in capitalism at its most degenerate. The order to save humanity.” recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused by BP’s cost cutting and Like Morales, the Venezuelan ignoring of safety procedures is the President Hugo Chavez recognised perfect example of this. that climate change was being driven by the imperatives of capitalism: “The People around the world recognise climate crisis is much more than a the danger that imperialism poses to climate crisis, it is a systemic crisis. the environment. On April 19-22 this It is the total crisis of the system, the year, over 35,000 people from more capitalist model.” The only way to save than 140 countries attended the World humanity was through the building of People’s Conference on Climate socialism, Chavez claimed. “Out of Change and the Rights of Mother this great crisis, capitalism must be Earth, held in Cochabamba, Bolivia. buried and a new world born.”

The Conference was organised by Contrast the stirring words of these the Bolivian Government in response revolutionary leaders with the to the failure of rich nations to come spineless action of the Rudd/Gillard to agreement about action over Labor Government in bowing to climate change at the United Nations the biggest capitalist polluters and Climate Summit in Copenhagen last shelving even their weak Emissions December. Trading Scheme to some future date.

The Conference adopted seventeen Australia’ environmental problems resolutions and a People’s Agreement Australia is facing many environmental Marxism Today 2015 - p 76 problems - severe climatic changes, must support all struggles to protect soil erosion and increased salinity of the environment. We are inspired by the soil, degradation of our waterways, the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx excessive clearing of bushland, and Frederick Engels, who wrote pollution of the air in major cities, many years ago about the need to threats from toxic waste dumps - the protect the environment. list goes on. Much of the blame for the damage to the environment can be laid In Capital Volume 3, Chapter 46, at the door of the imperialists. Marx spelt out a truth that almost two centuries of bourgeois property Despite the weakness of the Federal relations has tried to ignore or obscure, government, ordinary Australians namely that: “From the standpoint of are not taking the damage to the a higher economic form of society, environment lying down. All around private ownership of the globe by Australia, people are rising to defend single individuals will appear quite the environment from the attacks as absurd as private ownership of one of capitalism. Whether it is the fight man by another. Even a whole society, by a few residents to save a piece of a nation, or even all simultaneously parkland or mass struggles against existing societies taken together, are freeways, waste dumps or logging, not the owners of the globe. They are these struggles draw together only its possessors, its usufructuaries, Australians from all walks of life and and, like boni patres familias, [good political experience. heads of the family, that is, stewards] they must hand it down to succeeding Australia’s indigenous people are generations in an improved condition.” facing pollution of their lands from mining activities such as the Ranger Engels too, was well aware of the uranium mine, which is contaminating effects of human activities on the the World Heritage-listed wetlands in environment. In The Dialectics Kakadu National Park with millions of Nature Engels observed that of litres of radioactive water. environmental degradation had a long history. He recounted the example of Marx and Engels on the fundamental early peoples whose forest clearances relationship between humanity and resulted in land degradation and the nature loss of soil moisture. The conclusion: Environmental struggles are an “Thus at every step we are reminded important part of the overall struggle that we by no means rule over nature for national independence and like a conqueror over a foreign people, socialism in Australia. Communists like someone standing outside nature

p 77 - Marxism Today 2015 – but that we, with flesh, blood, and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to know and correctly apply its laws. And, in fact, with every day that passes we are learning to understand these laws more correctly, and getting to know both the more immediate and the more remote consequences of our interference with the traditional course of nature.”

Anti-imperialist struggle as the lynchpin of combating environmental degradation and climate change As Engels pointed out, we have knowledge of the laws of science and an understanding of the consequences of our interference with nature. What is needed is the will to change the situation. The capitalists are unwilling to do anything, which would harm their profits. Only the people of the world united in anti-imperialist struggle can force the adoption of the measures needed to protect the earth’s environment.

Marxism Today 2015 - p 78 Ballooning foreign debt ties Australia to imperialism (Vanguard August 2011) Over the years a number of articles based entities to overseas entities from have appeared in this paper about the gross foreign debt gives the net Australia’s foreign indebtedness. foreign debt. Comparing the annual Continuing this fine tradition, growth in gross and net foreign debt selected information from a 2009 in the period 1976 to 2008, we see Australian Parliamentary Library that gross foreign debt rose 16.7% on Research Paper detailing the average each year, whilst net foreign data and trends associated with debt rose 17.8% on average during the Australia’s foreign debt, gives period in question. What this means us some insights into Australia’s is that Australian lending overseas financial ‘state of play’. has not risen as fast as Australian borrowing from overseas. For the period 1976 to 2008 in Australia, “the level of gross foreign Who is doing the borrowing? debt increased from $8 billion, to Since the late 1990s there has been a $1,072 billion.” Such an increase marked decline in total public sector represented a jump from 9% to 95% borrowing as a percentage of gross of gross domestic product (GDP) over foreign debt. From 1980, when public that time frame. The report’s author, sector borrowing accounted for 44.3% Tony Kryger, states that at 95% of of the foreign debt, the downward GDP, the 2008 level of gross foreign trend really kicked in when public debt was “its highest level ever.” sector borrowing dropped from 31.8% in 1997 to 25% in 1998. In 2008, the Gross foreign debt is defined as the public sector accounted for just 8% of total of non-equity (equities = shares) Australia’s total foreign debt. liabilities accrued by Australian residents from overseas sources. By way of contrast, private sector debt Included in gross foreign debt are such (which has made up the lion’s share things as bonds, “loans, advances, of gross foreign debt for decades), has deposits, debentures and overdrafts”. ballooned out from 55.7% in 1980 to Foreign debt is distinct from capital 92% in 2008. inflow connected with foreign investment, as the former carries with Since 1992, financial corporations it “the obligation to pay interest” as have been the major borrowers, such well as the principal. that, of the total Australian gross foreign debt of $1, 072 billion, 74% of Subtracting the lending of Australian that figure was attributable to financial p 79 - Marxism Today 2015 corporations, with the share of non- down to 22.2% ($226 billion) held financial corporations at 18.1%. Clear by US based entities; 23.4% ($239 from the figures presented here is billion) held by UK based entities, the absolute rise of Australia’s gross with 32.4% ($330 billion) held by foreign debt and the pivotal role ‘Unallocated’ which in this instance that finance capital has played in means international institutions and continuing this trend. international capital markets which have not been allocated a country of origin. The cost to Australia is enormous. The interest that has to be paid on the Compare this with the situation in overseas borrowings was $42.7 billion 2001. Then the leading creditor was in 2007-08 (bearing in mind that the the US, with 26% ($127 billion) out interest liability fluctuates according of a total of $498 billion gross foreign to the rise and fall of interest rates). debt. The UK in 2001 held 17% of This interest liability represented Australia’s gross foreign debt and 3.8 % of GDP. So 3.8% of the value Japan 7% ($86 billion and $32 billion of all goods and services produced respectively). within Australia was required to meet the interest commitment on the gross What such levels of debt do is put foreign debt. an incredible amount of political and economic power into the hands of Moreover, most of the debt has overseas based financial corporations; been initiated by finance capital and ‘who pays the piper, calls the tune’. therefore would not necessarily be The increased levels of Australia’s earmarked for productive investment. gross foreign debt are in large part a A proportion of the borrowings would consequence of neoliberal policies be used speculatively in such things adopted by the mainstream political as currency trading, share and bond parties in this country. trading, for instance. The role of ideology Australia’s chief creditors Neoliberalism, the ideology of late For much of the period 2001 to 2007, twentieth, early twenty-first century the chief creditors of Australia by capitalism, has been disseminated as country were: the United States and the ‘commonsense’ approach to the the UK, with Hong Kong, Singapore systemic problems of contemporary and Japan as lesser lights. The capitalism. composition by country of Australia’s gross foreign debt in 2007 breaks An integral part of the process of

Marxism Today 2015 - p 80 disseminating this ideology is that played by the mass corporate media. As we have seen with the unfolding of the ‘Hackgate’ scandal in the UK, the intimate connections between big business (which in this case includes media conglomerates such as Murdoch’s) and the State and the mainstream political parties not only promotes corruption, but also, amongst other things, acts to establish an ideological consensus.

What is needed to overcome Australia’s increasing level of indebtedness and the vicissitudes of neoliberalism is a more just and equitable society. One based on an independent, socialist Australia.

p 81 - Marxism Today 2015 Imperialism and Racism (Vanguard September 2011)

In recent days we have heard a the Government should be providing State minister of Aboriginal Affairs anyway). No mention of course, of the express distress at the level of racism forty-year struggle it has taken to get Aboriginal people in Australia even this pittance of reparation for the experience as part of their daily extraction of finite resources, and no lives. retrospective payment for the last four decades of mining. At the same time, NAIDOC week, meant to celebrate Aboriginal culture, What is happening here with all this was taken over by the mainstream talk of partnerships and caring for press and business journals to celebrate community? Surely Imperialism has the relations corporate Australia not abandoned racism as a means of has established with Indigenous whipping the working class. The details communities. of these agreements are interesting and can be found online, but what is NAB, Chevron, BHP, Rio Tinto, more interesting is the theory that lies they’re all into it, sporting headlines behind all this ‘partnership’ talk. like, Making Progress with Indigenous Communities (NAB), Supporting The Minister’s talk of racism as part Communities, with a photo of a happy of everyday contact on the streets or healthy Aboriginal child (Chevron) or in workplaces individualises racism Woodside’s claim to creative energy and presents it as a contradiction against a background of Central amongst the people. The reality is Australian Aboriginal art. BHP brags more complex. of the job opportunities it is offering Aboriginal young people. Racism is not an add-on for capitalism. It is integral to capitalist Rio Tinto, not to be left out, talks of expansion and accumulation. It is ‘partnerships’ with the Aboriginal embedded in capitalist institutions, communities whose land they are particularly the media and the legal exploiting, and have just completed systems; it structures historical an ‘historic agreement’ with the recording and remembering, and it people of Gove for 42-year right to has an increasingly important role to mine, for which the Yolngu people play in a world market that, whilst will receive seven million dollars offering ‘free space’ for capital to over the forty-two year period of the move to where the highest return on contract for social services (services invested capital can be realised, also

Marxism Today 2015 - p 82 contains a threat to unfettered capital the same time making sure cultural accumulation by offering ‘free space’ difference is up front and noticeable, for workers to unite across national serves a number of functions for boundaries. Imperialism.

Constructing identities Imperialism, Racism and War ‘Scientific Racism’ or biological Violence, or the threat of violence determinism with its hierarchy of (both domestic and global), is at the races constructed the identities of heart of Imperialism. War is a constant Europeans and adversarial others as we have seen over several centuries whose lands were becoming colonised. and into this one, and racism is integral ‘Scientific Racism’ justified the to war as it was to colonial expansion. invasion, occupation and exploitation of non-European countries, and Racism justifies death and destruction, the destruction of cultures that the ravaged terrain of the adversary, the were unfamiliar to Europeans, crippling of economies and the death and incorporated values that could of own citizens, and paves the way for undermine the aims and objectives of the deeper penetration of the dominant the occupying power. and most aggressive capitals into the defeated or captured economies, Imperialism utilises biological and the imposition of parliamentary determinism when needed, but it democracy, the system of governance has its own form of racist ideology. most favoured by capital. Imperialism calls more on cultural difference to generate fear and hatred Racism and Class of the other. Emphasis on racial purity Another function that racism performs has been replaced with an emphasis on for imperialism is to call into play cultural conformity; adherence to the cultural differences within the working ‘norm’ with the norm being identified class that can be utilised to undermine by the dominant power. working class unity, especially in times of crisis. But some acceptance of difference is also in the interest of Imperial A critical function of imperial racism adventures, thus in Australia we is to disguise class differences within give a nod to multi-culturalism and cultures and the commonality and have Aboriginal dancers performing work structured unity, always a threat at special functions and Aboriginal to capital that exists between cultures art decorating boardrooms. This especially within the working class. structuring of ‘normalcy’ and at

p 83 - Marxism Today 2015 These aspects of racism are particularly to prevent access to land and police important to capital in a world market present to protect exploiters’ ‘rights’ where new technologies enable is not a good look for multinationals working classes to communicate wanting to tighten their control over and act in their own interests across the Australian and global economy. national boundaries. As workers’ struggles deepen so Using images to disguise intent does imperial racism The language and images used by Capitalism and Imperialism to a capital are merely a ruse to disguise large extent construct the material the exploitation of land and peoples conditions with which we all have here and around the world. The use to contend, but they also have to of placatory imagery has had to be respond to the material conditions resorted to because of the militancy they have created, one of which is a of Aboriginal communities and their militant working class and politicised supporters. Indigenous peoples.

For forty years Rio ripped bauxite The hole capital has dug for itself out of Gove without any consultation only deepens, as events around the with the Yolngu people or adherence world indicate. Placatory imagery is a to government guidelines. They did measure of capital’s weakening state. exactly as they liked and would have continued to do so without widespread That Rio Tinto has had to be dragged Aboriginal resistance to the rapacious to the negotiating table to negotiate exploitation of land. directly with Indigenous people, as opposed to their preferred option of The Yolgnu were central to land rights negotiating a pliant Government, is struggles, beginning with the 1963 Bark indicative of the strength of the people. Petition to federal parliament. Now, mining companies of the same ilk as The struggle against racism will not Rio Tinto, with their imagery of happy be led by mining capital. It will be Aboriginal children and Aboriginal art led by workers, as have been all other backing their advertisements, claim struggles for justice, and human and ownership of the progress Aboriginal workers’ rights. But racism will not people have made against racism, be extinguished within capitalism. cultural destruction and dispossession Capital needs racism. Imperialism, of lands. even more.

People standing in front of bulldozers

Marxism Today 2015 - p 84 War and Peace and Capitalism (Vanguard April 2012)

Australian Governments as usual wars against progressive governments kow-tow to imperialism and foreign as with the Dominican Republic, or capital; the collaboration with U.S. to prop up inept but U.S sponsored military is a case in point, and governments, as well as military raises questions about Australian interventions to protect American sovereignty and independence as capital being threatened with does the subservience with which nationalisation or prolonged strikes. the Labor Government approached the mining tax. All of these are wars against the people where U.S. capital has The government is subservient, the significant investments and interests; people are not. There is rising concern all are examples of the State taking being articulated around Australia action against the people of invested about military alliances and foreign in nations on behalf of capital. Other investors doing pretty much as they wars, as in the Middle East are no like. different; they are similarly attempts to capture resources and create space The renewed U.S. focus on Asia is for imperial capital. to ensure that Asia is secured for the American camp, and at the same time International struggle against war it is preparation for a trade war and Imperialist/capitalist wars are not armed conflict if and when the need confined to armed conflict against arises further down the track. This is other nations that are threatening trade of real concern to Australians. or which need to be pulled into line for other reasons. War is a central tenet of Peacekeeper or warmonger? imperialism: imperialism cannot exist The United States, which presents without war. War paves the way for itself as the world’s ‘peacekeeper’, capital penetration of defeated nations; has a long history of war against it captures territory and resources neighbours and friends-become- and imposes collaborationist and enemies. The U.S. history is a history subservient governments. of war. America has been involved in eighty or more wars against its The need for imperialist nations to South American neighbours between be constantly at war or preparing 1885 and 1990. These can be loosely for war also distorts the economy of categorised as wars to extend national the imperialist nation and utilises a boundaries, as with Mexico and Haiti, vast amount of resources that could

p 85 - Marxism Today 2015 be used for the benefit of the people, determined by capital. So-called but which instead benefits imperial ‘peace’ gives capital the opportunity capital at great cost to the peoples of to focus on the internal class war. the imperialist power. The working classes of imperialist countries have The restoration of the U.S as the world good reason to support and unite with power and the only one to be tolerated the working classes of the nations is essential for Western capitalism subjected to imperialist exploitation. under threat, particularly in the U.S. and Europe. And as capitalism is Class War weakened, so are peoples’ rights, as In his 1914 article Karl Marx, Lenin capital struggles against its diminishing states “… history describes a struggle power. We are witnessing a global between nations and societies and also promotion of right wing parties and a within nations and societies and in clamp down on peoples’ protests, as addition, an alternation of peace and state power is more openly utilised to war, and rapid progress and decline.” protect a weakened and increasingly Marx brought order to this chaotic and threatened capital. What this means is seemingly unchangeable way of life that working people must look to each with his theory of class struggle. other to form alliances and devise strategies to protect themselves, and Imperialist wars are as much a struggle to resist any diminishing of the right of class against class as is the internal to withdraw their labour, rights to relationship between labour and organise, assemble etc. capital. Imperialist wars are fought on behalf of imperial capital: its Weakened economically, capital must purpose to capture the creativity and increasingly rely on force and the productivity that is the labour power threat of force to sustain its power to of the indigenous working class. exploit, and this remains true whether What else is foreign investment about, it is applied to the U.S. utilising its whether it is achieved by military military power to ward off perceived intervention or by stealth, aided and threats to its economic power or abetted by compliant governments? whether it is directed at a working class prepared to defend itself against Capitalist war continues at the unfettered exploitation. State power is domestic level and in another form, called into play and the war goes on in and for the same reasons as external another of its many forms. wars, to ensure trade is not interrupted, and that capitalist accumulation and What future? expansion can continue at a rate The pressure towards war only

Marxism Today 2015 - p 86 increases. We are seeing preparation subjective individual and collective toward more war in the Middle East experience of working people will and in Asia even before current wars are increasingly bring workers together resolved. The war against the people to claim power in their various fields, also intensifies as unemployment whether it’s the factory, mine, school, encompasses entire continents hospital or university. The cry of the bringing despair and want to masses many city ‘Occupiers’ of “All power of people. Indebted countries punish to the people” is not just a slogan; it is their people to keep faith with finance an outcome that through organisation capital. The environment is sacrificed, and working class leadership can and young people continue to die deliver social justice and sustainable either from war or from want. peace and it is achievable. History is on the side of the people. The gap between rich and poor widens as uneven development within and between countries (a characteristic of capitalism) becomes more apparent.

We face a future where capitalist and imperialist nations led by the United States plan a re-division of the world, one that does not challenge United States’ dominance. Behind closed doors, strategies and plans are being developed for various invasions. Internally, capitalism in crisis prepares to repeal gains won through the sacrifice and struggle of previous generations of workers. Social democracy attempts to temper worker militancy by offering small concessions to workers whilst skewing industrial relations legislation, taxation, and other legislation to benefit monopoly capital.

The people can create a different future. The struggle has begun and will intensify. The authentic,

p 87 - Marxism Today 2015 Cultural imperialism and media propaganda (Vanguard February 2013) by Bill F.

This article draws on several previous monopoly capitalist class which is Marxism Today articles on this closely allied to foreign imperialism. topic, with some minor changes and updating. The ruling class in Australia champions the interests of US Cultural imperialism is the process imperialism in particular, using a of social influence by which a nation tiny clique of local sell-outs with imposes on other countries its set close connections to the largest and of beliefs, values, knowledge and richest foreign corporate monopoly behavioural norms as well as its groups and financial institutions. The overall style of life. This definition Business Council of Australia is the certainly explains the stranglehold most prominent mouthpiece for this that the US has imposed on class rule by the dissemination of Australian culture. policies and attitudes that assist US imperialism to penetrate all aspects of Marxists hold that the superstructure life in Australia – economic, political, of society, the ruling ideology, the social and cultural. political institutions, state apparatus and cultural way of life arise from and As Marx and Engels observed in The reflect the interests of the dominant German Ideology, “…the class which class in society. is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual In feudal society, the dominant force. The class which has the means culture reflected the interests of the of material production at its disposal land-owning aristocracy. Under has control at the same time over the colonialism, the dominant culture means of mental production, so that reflected the interests of the ruling thereby, generally speaking, the ideas class of the occupying colonial power, of those who lack the means of mental such as the British colonial and neo- production are subject to it.” colonial domination of Australia right up to the Second World War. Critical to the ruling class are the owners and major shareholders of Under the current rule of the monopoly the local mass media, especially capitalist class, the dominant culture concentrated in the Murdoch, Fairfax reflects the interests of the most and Packer companies with their powerful and greedy section of the investments in many industries and

Marxism Today 2015 - p 88 links to international finance. Local news content usually means shots of politicians making brief A major role (self-appointed) is to statements or commenting on another use their control of the mass media, politician’s brief statement. Often, i.e. radio, TV, internet, newspapers some footballer has belted someone and magazines, etc, to justify and in a nightclub and we get to see it promote the ‘globalisation’ agenda of all again in the Sports Report. Then the main US and European corporate there’s the ‘human interest’ story; the monopolies. This is done directly police reporter; the court reporter; through editorials and feature articles the ambulance chaser – snippets of and indirectly through biased reports news to titillate, but never anything of and regurgitated handouts from depth. Trivia for the masses! various government, commercial and political lobby groups. The international news is invariably from the USA; a statement by Obama None of it questions the sacred idols on a conflict in the Middle East or of ‘foreign investment’ and ‘free Africa; the US point of view on the trade’, the pillars of imperialism. economic crisis in Spain, etc. For None of it criticises or even questions variety, sometimes the British BBC the right of US imperialism to invade gets a run, but puts the same position other countries and conduct illegal as the US. This is then referred to as murder with drones. None of it the “international community” and is criticises or questions the “conga line heartily endorsed by our subservient of suckholes” (Latham was on the politicians. money there!) knocking on the back door of the US Embassy and spilling More recently, large segments of the their guts to this foreign power. international news have been given over to the detailed ins and outs of Television News the US elections and the situation in Commercial Television News is a good Congress, featuring US politicians example of how the outlook of the and commentators. No such detail is ruling class is promoted. It is watched ever presented on issues in countries by millions of Australians every night such as New Zealand, Japan or China, and is the only source of information which are also important to Australia. for many people. Unfortunately, it is mainly spin and trivia, the most useful As for reporting the struggles of the bit being the weather forecast, while working class, the struggles of the commercial advertising takes up more people, forget that! When was the last than a third of the time-slot. time a strike by workers or a community

p 89 - Marxism Today 2015 struggle, was actively supported? It trappings and diversions of American has never happened. Even when there middle class society. are huge demonstrations in opposition to government policy, interviews Television, movies and popular music with organisers and supporters are are three powerful vehicles for US inevitably cut short and often the cultural imperialism. A glance at the focus was on trivial matters such as TV guide reveals that the majority of blocking the streets! the programmes will be US news, sit- coms and soap operas. These imported Not to let the ABC and SBS off the programmes promote the lifestyles of hook – they do the same, but are more the US and swamp Australia’s cultural sophisticated. For example, the ABC’s heritage and destroy its cultural Q and A program brings up some of identity. In Australia, Hollywood fills the real issues, but confines them to our cinemas and American popular scoring points for either Labor or music blares out from TV and radio Liberal. stations twenty four hours a day.

Bread and circuses The “stars” and “heroes” are often self- Beyond this core of calculated righteous, aggressive individuals who propaganda and manipulated display neither humility nor humanity. information is the broader, more The seemingly harmless and often general ideology of capitalism, brainless “sit-com” shows depict the promoting individual selfishness, life of the affluent American upper consumerism and divisive racism. middle class. Their houses are full of As Australia has become more and consumer gadgets; they wear snappy more a satellite of the US economic clothes and hardly seem to work at and political empire, the moral values all. When they do appear, the workers and ideals of Australian capitalist are shown as bit players; servants, society have shifted from British uniforms in the background etc., parliamentary democracy to the more “nobodies” who provide an audience aggressive pro-imperialist stance to cheer on the super-heroes. Either demanded by the US. that, or as violent, ignorant thugs who have to be controlled or eliminated The invasion of investment capital by the more enlightened middle by American corporations and the class. Class divisions are reduced increasing influence of the US in to “winners” and “losers”. There is Australian political and military no place for collective struggle, for circles have been accompanied by a cooperative action, for the idea that pervasive promotion of the culture, ordinary people might have courage

Marxism Today 2015 - p 90 and wisdom too. peoples’ opposition to US imperialism. Any attempts to break through The advertising and fashion industries the thought control of the media are geared around this rampant monopolies should be welcomed and individualism. They use all sorts of defended from attacks. clever gimmicks to make working people aspire to the wealth and comfort depicted on American TV. American language and expressions are copied, complete with accents. American sporting events and personalities are heavily featured and the artificial hype is copied by sporting bodies in Australia. There is even a shameless attempt to promote Thanksgiving and Halloween! This cultural conditioning seeks to chain people to the system of imperialist-capitalism.

Australia’s national identity In spite of this onslaught, there is resistance by wide sections of the people who really enjoy Australian art, literature, film, drama, poetry, music. Surely the aim must be to expel US imperialism from Australia and build a truly democratic Australia, an Australia with its own culture, an Australia where we can sing our own songs and watch our own stories.

We all need to produce and promote an Australian culture that has an anti-imperialist, working class and multicultural content, rather than being narrowly nationalistic; content produced by artists and performers who are closely connected with the Australian people and can express the

p 91 - Marxism Today 2015 Marxism Today 2015 - p 92 Communist Party of Australia (Marxist - Leninist) www.cpaml.org [email protected]

June 2015