2025 - Our New Year’s resolution: Keep building the revolutionary movement!

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 1 January 2025

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) gladly extends greetings and welcome to all our friends and supporters on the occasion of New Year’s Day, 2025.

The new year will undoubtedly see a further expansion of the scope of people’s struggle and a growing isolation of all imperialism and all reactionary forces.

Armed with anti-imperialist class consciousness and united in struggle, the working class and its allies are the most powerful and unstoppable force for developing the revolutionary movement for fundamental change in Australia.

Ours is a country whose formal name is the Commonwealth of Australia. Emerging from its colonial past as a federation still under the control of imperialism, wealth in Australia has never been held in common, has never been shared across the class divides. 

 

For more than two hundred years, the old adage that the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer” has held true across the ages, and is seen today in a widespread cost-of-living crisis. This pattern of social polarisation built on the exploitation of the many and the selfishness of the few has well and truly outlived its uselessness and must be overthrown.

 

We live in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, but we are not yet in a proletarian-led revolutionary situation. 

 

That situation will be built by class conscious workers supporting each other and our class in the revolutionary movement that does exist and which we are doing our best to shape and promote.

 

It is contributed to by the consciousness arising from the tireless fight against Israeli Zionist aggression and in support for the courageous Palestinian people whose resistance to the Israeli Zionist occupation of Palestine has sent a message to the world and Israel that after more than 70 years of struggle against oppression and occupation the Palestinian people will never give up.

 

Palestinian resistance has lit the flames of resistance against imperialism and colonialism across the world, exposing and isolating the brutality and decadence of capitalism and its ruling classes.  The US-empire loyalists in the leadership of the capitalist Australian “Labor” Party are rightly rejected and unpopular for their defence of Zionism and for their treacherous betrayal of Australian national sovereignty in the hugely costly AUKUS arrangements.

 

Australian First Peoples have seen parallels between their situation and that of the Palestinians, both peoples having been subjected to occupation, theft of country, and attempted genocide. Their fight against racism and for self-determination will continue.

 

We are witnessing a sharpening of inter-imperialist tensions, mainly between US and China/Russia for markets, resources, areas of investments, and sources of surplus value in all corners of the world - Syria, Ukraine, Africa, Middle East, Asia, South America, Europe and Oceania - all leading closer to inter-imperialist war that could easily become World War Three.

 

The attacks on Australia’s most militant union, the CFMEU, have further exposed the ALP and the peak leadership of the unions in the ACTU as agents of the bourgeoisie committed to class struggle against the workers. However, their attacks bring with it the potential and capacity to unite and organise workers in struggle, adding further impetus to the revolutionary movement in Australia.

 

Fearing escalation of people’s struggles against the burden of capitalist economic crisis, oppression and war, the ruling classes of monopoly capital are moving towards more open repression and have no compunction in removing more and more of the veneer of bourgeois democratic rights.

 

They prosecute and gaol whistle-blowers, fail to protect Australian citizens from the vengeful reach of US imperialism, direct the police to attack and suppress progressive political actions, increase penalties directed at protests and even ban them outright.

 

The capitalist parties are lining up for a federal election. In previous elections, the people have shown their disenchantment with the two major capitalist parties by voting for independent candidates and minor parties. 

 

There is a growing awareness that parliament cannot be relied upon to solve the working people’s problems. Yes, the people will vote and are not yet ready to pursue an independent working class agenda through to the seizure of power from those who currently hold it from them.

 

But on the ground, in our workplaces and communities, people will be uniting, organising and mobilising against imperialism, colonialism and war and all reaction.

 

It is right that they rebel, rather than sit back having been told by the capitalist media that they have had their exercise of democratic rights by putting paper in a ballot box.

 

Their defiance of reactionary authority is a good thing and will not be satisfied by a once-in-three years vote for the politicians of their “choice”.

 

• Workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite against imperialism, colonialism and fascism.  

• Serve the people 

• For an independent and socialist Australia! 

CPA (M-L) extends comradely greetings to the Communist Party of the Philippines

 Written by: CPA (M-L) on 24 December 2024

Warm congratulations on the occasion of the 56th anniversary of the founding of Communist Party of the Philippines, 26 December. The Communist Party of the Philippines is the leading force in the struggles of the Filipino working people against semi-feudalism, semi-colonialism, bureaucrat capitalism, imperialist domination and the violent puppet Marcus government.

The Filipino people’s daily struggles against exploitation and political repression, and against imperialist domination come together in the powerful united front formed under the revolutionary leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. This revolutionary leadership is bringing together all sectors of society, workers, peasants, indigenous, educational and health professionals, with a revolutionary vision of land reform, national sovereignty, and socialism. 

Whether in the countryside or the cities or in the villages, the Filipino people’s protracted struggle is always fierce. We honour the hundreds of martyrs, the disappeared, the prisoners, and the suffering families and communities of fallen comrades.

 

We hail the victories of the heroic New People’s Army.

 

We acknowledge the key role of the great Marxist-Leninist, Joma Sison, in leading and guiding the Philippines revolutionary movement. Steeled in long and bitter struggle and armed with a correct ideological and political line, we are confident that the Filipino people under the leadership of CPP will continue to win further victories leading to the success of the revolution.

 

Australia is also a Pacific country dominated by imperialism, mainly US imperialism, the core of the capitalist ruling class in Australia.  US imperialism is exploiting and suppressing the Australian people economically, politically and militarily and continues the oppressive colonisation of Australia’s First People.

 

The US led imperialist AUKUS pact and US-Australia military alliance is dragging Australia into US imperialist wars and now is threatening an imperialist war with China.  The US and its puppet Australian governments are turning Australia into a major US military base in preparations for war with China. The Australian people are resisting the US led march to war and are building anti-war alliances with the people of Asia-Pacific. Neither the Australian people nor the people of the Philippines want war.

 

The comradeship between our parties embraces our people’s struggle against imperialism, rejection of imperialist war and building an anti-imperialist united front.

 

Red salute to the Philippines revolution, to the comrades of the CPP!

 

Workers of the World Unite!  We have nothing to lose but our chains!

 

Central Committee

Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

26 December, 2024.

 

Worth Reading - "NIGHT OF POWER - The Betrayal of the Middle East"

Written by: Ned K. on 26 December 2024

 

Some people are fortunate enough to find time over the Christmas - New Year period to read a book.

For those interested in the struggles in the Middle-East, the late Robert Fisk's book Night of Power - The Betrayal of the Middle East is well worth reading. It is well researched and covers the impact of the imperialist powers of USA, western Europe and Russia in the internal affairs of Middle-East countries, particularly Palestine and the settler apartheid state of Israel.

The book is written through the eyes of a westerner who spent over forty years in the Middle-East region. The clear message running through Fisk's book is that a pre-condition for the resolution of conflict and war in the Middle-East is that all imperialist powers exit the Middle-East. In the words in the book's foreword, Fisk "exposes the inescapable consequences of colonial oppression and violence in the Middle-East".

One chapter in the book, "The Dog In The Manger" exposes the attitude of the British imperialism during the British Mandate of Palestine from the Balfour Declaration days to 1948. Fisk exposes the real thinking of Winston Churchill and the British ruling class towards the Zionist "homeland" of Israel on Palestinian land. In Churchill's testimonial to the Peel Commission in 1937, Churchill is quoted as saying:

"I have a great regard for the Arabs, but at the same time you find where the Arab goes it is often desert...It is a lower manifestation the Arab". He goes on to say,

"It was for the good of the world that Palestine should be cultivated, and it will never be cultivated by the Arabs".

As I read these words I thought of how at school, we were told Churchill and the British rulers were heroes "protecting our way of life". 

I kept reading, keen to read the next words of Churchill quoted by Fisk and taken from Churchill's testimonial to the Peel Commission. Churchill goes on to expand on his views about Indigenous people generally, including in Australia. He says:

"I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly, wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

In more recent times, the imperialists meddling in the internal affairs and seeking to maintain their domination over the Middle- East and indeed Australia, may use different language than that of Churchill, but as Fisk makes clear in his book, their thinking is no different to that of Churchill's and they try to "educate" people in western countries to think the same way. 

Building a New Socialist Society

Written by: Xiang Guanqi on 26 December 2024

 

Each year, hundreds of thousands of Chinese flock to Shaoshan in Hunan Province.  Shaoshan is the birthplace of Mao Zedong, and the family home still stands. People go there throughout the year to show their respect for Chairman Mao, with the two peak periods being Chinese New Year and today, December 26, Mao’s birthday.

Last year was significant as the 130th anniversary of Mao’s birth. Those who missed out last year are arriving in large numbers. At the beginning of 2024, in just 8 days, more than 680,000 people went to Shaoshan to pay New Year's greetings to Chairman Mao, and according to the statistics analysed by reporters, among the tourists who came to Shaoshan, the proportion of "post-60s and before" was about 28%, and the proportion of post-90s + post-00s was as high as 32%. 

Mao’s Selected Works are also being sought out, and most of the people searching for them are young people aged 20-29. Why, then, do fashionably dressed young people with trendy ideas become so interested in these old books and these things that are said to be "outdated"? 

Comrade Xiang Guanqi, now in his 80s, a noted critic of China’s restored capitalism, says in this excerpt from one of his writings, it is more than nostalgia – Eds.

Maoism stresses the need for socialist society to revolutionise the whole of society and to strive to create a new socialist society that is truly and fundamentally different from capitalist private society, as the first stage of communist society. This is an important and profound element of Maoism's theory of continued socialist revolution.

Under the guidance of the Maoist general principle and strategy of correctly dealing with internal contradictions among the people, Chairman Mao personally took the lead in advocating the development of the communist spirit among the whole nation, and in the activity of ‘Learning from Comrade Lei Feng’, led the whole nation to endeavour to bring about a revolution in their thinking; and a number of advanced and exemplary figures appeared on various fronts as models for the whole nation to follow. At the same time, taking the nature of internal contradictions among the people as a prerequisite, we implemented the formula of ‘unity, criticism and unity’ to help the backward people to overcome some of the shortcomings and errors in their thinking and actions, and to gradually strengthen the transformation of their own subjective world, so that they could achieve, step by step, the revolutionisation of their thinking, and to keep pace with the requirements of the times for building socialism.

The famous ‘May 7 Instruction’, written by Chairman Mao on 7 May 1966, is the theoretical idea of building a genuinely new socialist society, a new innovation of the international communist movement.

 It is not a long text, so it is worth quoting in full here:

Dear Comrade Lin Piao,

I have received the report from the Rear Service Department which you sent me on 6 May. I think it is an excellent plan. Is it possible to send this report to all the military districts and ask them to hold discussions of it among the cadres at the army and division levels? Their views should be reported to the Military Commission and through it to the Centre for approval. After that, suitable directives should be issued to them. Please consider this .

In the absence of a world war, our army should be a big school. Even under conditions of the third world war, it can still serve as a big school. In addition to fighting the war, it must do other work. In the eight years of the second world war, did we not do just that in the anti-Japanese base areas? In this big school, the army should learn politics, military affairs, and culture, and engage in agricultural production. It can build up its own middle- and small-size workshops to produce goods for its own use and the exchange of other goods of equal value. It can take part in mass work, factory work, and rural socialist education. After socialist education, there are always other kinds of mass work for it to do, to unite the army and people as one. The army should also participate in the revolutionary struggle against capitalist culture. In this way, it carries out military-educational, military-agricultural, military-industrial, and military-civilian work.

Naturally, should be properly coordinated and a distinction should be made between major and subsidiary work. A unit can select one or two from the agricultural, industrial, and civilian combination, but not all three. In this way, the tremendous power of several million soldiers will be felt.

Likewise, workers should, in addition to their main industrial work, learn military affairs, politics, and culture, and take part in the socialist educational movement and in criticizing the capitalist class. Under adequate conditions, they should also engage in agricultural production, following the example of the Daqing Oilfield.

The communes do their main agricultural work (including forestry, fishing, animal husbandry, and subsidiary trades), but they must also learn military affairs, politics, and culture. When circumstances allow, they should collectively set up small-scale factories and take part in criticizing the capitalist class.

The students are in a similar position. Their studies are their chief work; they must also learn other things. In other words, they ought to learn industrial, agricultural, and military work in addition to class work. The school years should be shortened, education should be revolutionized, and the domination of our schools by bourgeois intellectuals should by no means be allowed to continue.

Under favourable conditions, people in commerce, service trades, and party and government offices should do likewise.

What has been said above is neither new nor original. Many people have been doing this for some time, but it has not yet become a widespread phenomenon. Our army has been working in this way for decades. Now it is on the threshold of new developments.

When it comes to a new socialist society, the new China of that time under the leadership of Chairman Mao was indeed a new society, a new society in which the whole society was filled with the spirit of communism. It was a great creation. If we look at China at that time not only at the level of development of the productive forces, but also at the level of the comprehensive development of society as a whole, and especially at the level of development of human beings, we can say without exaggeration and in all truthfulness that China had surpassed not only the Soviet Union, but also the developed capitalist countries of the West.        

Lei Feng was learnt everywhere. Under the leadership of Chairman Mao, China was truly an advanced socialist country holding aloft the red flag of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism; it was a new society in which ‘one person is for all, and all people are for one person’, in which there was both liveliness and unity of will, in which the free development of each individual was united with that of the whole society; and this was the road to the realisation of the historical task of socialism and to communism step by step.        

Nowadays, many people do not understand why people of the older generation who came from that era are always nostalgic for a time when the economy was not yet developed, when life was not yet affluent, and even when many people were still poor. The answer lies in the fact that Chairman Mao led the entire nation to create a new society full of the spirit of communism and nurtured a new generation of people who adopted the communist ideology as their outlook on life.

Just as the revolutionary mentors taught, once human beings completely got rid of their animal nature and the alienation brought about by private ownership, and truly began to live as human beings, the free and happy life of human beings also began. Today's nostalgia for Chairman Mao's era is precisely a reflection of people's longing for the pursuit of this free and happy life of mankind - the life of communism.

This can in no way be described as ‘nostalgia’, but rather as ‘seeking newness’.

Dan Duggan: A Tale of Two Pities

 Written by: Nick G. on 24 December 2024

 

Nothing says “hypocrisy” more than a Labor politician with words in his/her mouth.

On Monday, PM Albanese uttered certain memorable words in relation to Australian man Oscar Jenkins, captured by Russian imperialist troops in Ukraine.

Filmed being interrogated and slapped, Jenkins looked miserable.

Albanese vowed to “always look after Australians” after learning of Mr Jenkins’ situation.

It was a correct and appropriate response, albeit one that revealed the PM to be lying though his teeth.

For on the same day, the very same day, his Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus confirmed he has approved the extradition of US-born Australian citizen Daniel Duggan to the loving arms of the US judicial system as it passes under the control of incoming President Donald Trump.

Imperialism means persecution and oppression.

US imperialism and Russian imperialism are alike in that respect.

Dreyfus has just as vindictively slapped Duggan in the face by approving his extradition to the US. And not just Duggan, but his long-suffering wife Saffrine and their children who have now been separated from husband and father for more than two years while he has been held by US imperialism’s branch office in Australia.  

Saffrine said yesterday she felt the family had been "thrown out with the trash" by the Australian Government announcing Dan's extradition a few days before Christmas.

It is disgraceful and a complete injustice that Duggan has been held in solitary confinement in a NSW maximum security prison for 795 days having broken no Australian law and still innocent until proved guilty of fabricated Cold War charges brought against him by the US.

It must be a difficult thing to boast about “always looking after Australians” with your tongue stuck so fast to the big brown eye of your US masters!

 

The “three constantly read articles” should still be constantly read.

 Written by: Nick G. on 21 December 2024

 

(Above: Norman Bethune operating in the wounded in a field hospital in China.)

December 21 is the anniversary of Mao Zedong’s statement In Memory of Norman Bethune. 

It was written in 1939 after the Canadian doctor who had gone to China to treat soldiers wounded in the War of Resistance Against Japan, died of blood poisoning contracted from the wounds of a Communist Eighth Route Army soldier whom he had been treating.

Bethune was born in 1890. He began medical studies, but suspended them to work as a stretcher-bearer in France during WW1. He received a shrapnel wound in the Second Battle of Ypres, then completed his medical studies in 1916.

Bethune specialised in thoracic surgery and developed or modified more than a dozen new surgical tools. 

During the Depression, he became convinced of the links between the poor health of working people and the economic system of capitalism. He advocated socialised medicine and travelled to the Soviet Union to study its system of universal free health care. He joined the Communist Party of Canada in 1935.

Towards the end of 1936, Bethune went to Spain and offered his services to the forces supporting the Republican government. To better provide for the wounded anti-fascists, he developed a mobile blood transfusion service to take bottles of donated blood to the wounded.

Returning to Canada, Bethune agreed to go to China. In January 1938, he arrived in Yan’an where he met Chairman Mao. He spent the best part of the next two years on the battlefield, treating Communist soldiers and their wounded Japanese enemies alike. 

Chairman Mao’s eulogy for Bethune spoke of his personifying the spirit of Communism. He praised “his utter devotion to others without any thought of self”, and said that his “spirit of internationalism, the spirit of communism,” was “our internationalism, the internationalism with which we oppose both narrow nationalism and narrow patriotism.”

Mao used Bethune’s example to call on his followers to overcome bad habits born of the old society. “Every Communist must learn from him. There are not a few people who are irresponsible in their work, preferring the light and shirking the heavy, passing the burdensome tasks on to others and choosing the easy ones for themselves. At every turn they think of themselves before others. When they make some small contribution, they swell with pride and brag about it for fear that others will not know. They feel no warmth towards comrades and the people but are cold, indifferent and apathetic. In truth such people are not Communists, or at least cannot be counted as devoted Communists.”

If the example of Bethune was an inspiration during the War of Resistance Against Japan, its importance was in no way diminished during the period of China’s socialist construction.

It was placed together with two other writings, Serve the People and The Foolish old Man Who Moved the Mountains and published at the start of the Cultural Revolution under the heading “The Three Constantly Read Articles”.

Chairman Mao knew that it was one thing to bring the old society to an end, and an altogether different thing to build a new and different society.  It required the adaptation and development of the spirit of Communism from the pre-revolutionary, to the post-revolutionary situation.

That meant overcoming the old ideas, old habits and old customs inherited from the past and revolutionising people’s thinking in accordance with the requirements of advancing along the socialist road.

If people’s thinking had been revolutionised to carry out Liberation, it needed to be further revolutionised and carried to each new stage of the elimination of classes and the replacement of bourgeois individualism with proletarian collectivism.

The Cultural Revolution aimed at nothing less than the complete transformation of people’s world outlook. Without this change, without restricting the bourgeois right brought into the new world from the old, there would inevitably be a change in direction and the socialist road would succumb to the capitalist road, socialism would be abandoned and capitalism restored.

The “three constantly read articles” were promoted to support the socialist slogan “Fight self, repudiate revisionism”. This linked the survivals of feudal and capitalist thinking to the emergence of policies designed to destroy confidence in socialism and promote the reversion to capitalist economic and political methods.

The essence of the slogan “Fight self, repudiate revisionism” was the struggle between the proletarian and bourgeois world outlooks representing the concept of working for the public interest as against the concept of working for one’s own interest.

The betrayal of Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line by Deng Xiaoping and others confirms Mao Zedong’s warnings about the failure to restrict bourgeois right and the consequences of adopting policies that expanded bourgeois right.

Today’s China is both capitalist and social-imperialist. It has not officially discarded socialism, and hides its capitalist restoration behind the nonsense of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and practices imperialism in competition with the US and its imperialist bloc.

Regrettably, some on the Left in Australia are enamoured of the “characteristics” fig-leaf.

Within progressive circles there are not a few who praise China’s opposition to US hegemony, failing to see the imperialist motivation of China in doing so.

For our part, we will work to prevent US preparations for war against China whilst upholding an anti-imperialist line of opposing all imperialism.

We will constantly read the “three constantly read articles” to remould our own world outlook and develop the spirit of Communism with our own ranks.   

 

Re-loading missiles on ships: further integration of Australia into US war plans

Written by: (Contributed) on 19 December 2024

 

(Above: Guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey in the South China Seas.   Source: wikipedia.org)

A scramble appears under-way by the US to secure access to port facilities across the Indo-Pacific region for sensitive re-loading of armaments.

The stated diplomatic position follows revelations about how the US Defence Department has already authorised their naval vessels in September to use Australian facilities for re-loading with cruise missiles.

No comment has been forthcoming from Canberra about Australia's stated diplomatic position on the matter or who authorised the operation.

The information was, nevertheless, leaked in one single sentence of a short and official report about another, related military consideration and matter.

Fears have arisen inside the Pentagon about the US readiness to fight a war against China in the Indo-Pacific. It is possible for the US to fire dozens of cruise missiles within minutes during time of military conflict. A major consideration, however, has been the ability of US naval vessels to re-load with further missiles at sea to continue hostilities. Strategists have raised concerns that if military hostilities begin in the Western Pacific, for example, the US is faced with an 8,000 kms journey to safe port facilities for re-loading with further missiles. (1) They have noted that 'the ability to re-arm at sea will be critical to any future conflict in the Pacific'. (2)

To date, the US military have used secure facilities on solid ground in sheltered harbours for re-loading; re-loading at sea requires accurate assessments of a variety of problems affecting  
small movements which potentially have dreadful consequences in time of error.

While experiments are taking place using digital advances which include 3-D printing, specialised radar and motion detectors, the problem has yet to be resolved.

The US role in other spectacular achievements including landing a man on the moon in the late 1960s, and re-fuelling fighter jets in the air, is well-known, but they are struggling to overcome their failure to be able to re-arm missile-loaded naval vessels at sea.

The US is, therefore, seeking access to secure port facilities across the vast Indo-Pacific region. They appear to be more interested in remote places, rather than Japan and Guam which can be easily targeted by adversaries.

The news followed revelations that one of their naval vessels used Australian military facilities in Darwin to re-load missiles on-board the USS Dewey, a destroyer. (3) The Dewey has usually used a barge-like facility at its deployment base in Japan, but only used when the waters are calm. The Australian venture in September has appeared a departure from usual practice and took place with the bare minimum of publicity.

The moves, however, coincide with a short diplomatic statement from Canberra about 'China-proofing' Pacific states; concerns have arisen that China is increasing its diplomatic position across the Pacific and may seek basing facilities for its navy. (4) The concerns have arisen following revelations that the US were no longer the dominant power in the region and that China had successfully challenged traditional hegemonic positions. (5)

The region of the Pacific in question, furthermore, is geographically central to the US Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), with borders defined by sensitive military intelligence facilities in Australia, India, Japan and the US. (6)

Countries such as Nauru, Tuvalu, and other small Pacific states, have suddenly developed a highly geo-strategic diplomatic status on account of their position and historical allegiance with the US and Australia, while strengthening diplomatic links with Beijing. 

Australia is practicing blatantly colonial relations with several of these countries, purchasing the right to make decisions in relation to their foreign policy positions, The recent $600 million gift to PNG enabling it to have a team in the National Rugby League is a case in point: it is conditional on PNG agreeing to freeze China out of any security relationship in favour of Australia,

They tend to be situated along sensitive island chains which have been used by the US to restrict access and egress by China into the wider Oceania region.

The island chains have also been fortified by the US in recent times as part of a $27.4 billion Pacific Deterrence Initiative. (7)

The recent sudden resignation of Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni, for example, has been conspicuously played-down to avoid unnecessary controversy, although would appear a major confrontation between the traditional elite and the elected government. (8) Tonga, it should be noted, rests on an arc from sensitive Australian military facilities in Queensland. (9) No doubt influence, from elsewhere, was brought to bear.

In conclusion, Australians living near ports and coastal military facilities might like to consider the potential risks for their local neighbourhoods: a human error when military personnel are re-loading missiles would create massive destruction and loss of life, particularly in light of construction projects under-way for storing 300,000 tons of jet fuel just fifteen kms from Darwin's CBD together with the US-led upgrade to the Tindal air-base for rapid deployment across the Indo-Pacific region:
                                      
                                    We need an independent foreign policy!

*****              

1.     US Navy in race to re-load on high seas, Australian, 3 December 2024.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Ibid.
4.     See: 'China-proofing' Pacific states, Editorial,  Australian, 11 December 2024.
5.     Study: US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Information Clearing House, 22 August  2019.
6.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
7.     US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei, 5 March 2021; and, US Indo-Pacific Command proposed new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021.
8.     See: PM quits after rift with king, Australian, 10 December 2024.
9.     See: Peters Projection, Map of the World, Actual Size.

 

After Trump’s election in the USA - ICOR stands ready for worldwide anti-fascist, anti-imperialist united front and socialism!

Written by: ICOR on 15 December 2024

 

(Elon Musk and Donald Trump in cryptocurrency agreement.  Source:  https://cryptorank.io/​ )

On November 6, 2024, Donald Trump won the presidential election in the USA and will move into the White House. This means that the USA, an imperialist great power and main warmonger in the world is headed by a president who from various perspectives, is described as ultra-reactionary, right-wing populist or fascist. This increases the danger of US imperialism, which has always started and waged wars and destroyed people and nature, whether under Democrats or Republicans. The monopolies around Trump want to catch up with their aggressively reactionary program, especially in the rivalry with China. This has world-political effects for the masses of people worldwide, especially in crises and danger of war.

Their program: a general attack on workers; the possibility to fire strikers on the spot; attacks on wages; a global environmental catastrophe due to a backward slide on the few environmental policy advances, forced promotion of fossil fuels of oil and gas; intensification of inter-imperialist competition through the aggressive "America first" program; General attack on the working class, the revolutionary as well as the trade union movement and its rights; all the stops of economic warfare with punitive tariffs of up to 100%; bellicosity with threats against Iran, China and everything he calls the "axis of evil"; the Trump administration will continue the Biden policy of genocide in Palestine and Lebanon and may also plan to wage military war against Iran. Racism will be taken to extremes with the planned deportation of eleven million immigrants. The program also includes: closed borders; anti-women policies; an attack on the already completely inadequate social systems; discrimination against LGBTQ people, etc. etc… At the same time, the nationalist and chauvinist program of the monopolies behind Trump is creating further problems for US imperialism itself, because it also depends on a wide range of international relationships. 

Millions of people in the US voted for Trump out of their anger at falling living standards, insecurity and distrust of the bourgeois ruling class and international finance capital. Trump demagogically served their hopes with his claims of “secure jobs” and an end to arms supplies to Ukraine. With the extremely undemocratic electoral law and billions in campaign election funds from the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, among others, parts of the masses were persuaded to support Trump by a social media campaign. Anticommunism and social chauvinism have a dangerous influence among parts of the masses. The situation among the working class, the broad masses, is extremely polarized, which also poses a threat to the upswing of the class struggle. 

 

As early as 2017, the ICOR wrote in its resolution on Trump's inauguration: "The inauguration of Donald Trump marks a general tendency of open reaction and has global political repercussions. ... The shift to the right of the new US government is the reaction to the masses' search for an alternative to the existing system." The ICOR supports the worldwide protests against Trump's inauguration. 

 

Today, 8 years on, the world situation is many times more unstable and crisis-ridden; the danger of World War III and the nuclear threat more tangible; the environmental catastrophe an existential crisis for humanity. The US monopolies behind Trump are united in their ultra-reactionary course. In addition to the oil and gas industry, the high-tech sector in particular, which Elon Musk already sees in a top position working closely with the brutal government. 

 

Unlike 8 years ago, the working class in the USA, but also in Europe, is today often polarized and divided, but also much more determined. This is the concern of the monopolies and imperialists and so they are relying on a fascist to corrode the consciousness of the masses, especially the working class, and to suppress the class-conscious workers and revolutionaries.  The strike of 30,000 Boeing workers, which has been going on for over 5 weeks, is very significant, as is the successful strike of tens of thousands of dock workers on the east coast of the USA for 3 days at the beginning of October. Militant consciousness is on the rise. Immediately after the election victory, calls were made in many cities to strengthen solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. The first demonstrations against racism and in defense of trade union rights and the right to strike filled the streets of Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. 

 

Nevertheless, the danger of fascism in the USA and as a worldwide tendency must by no means be underestimated. All progressive people, especially all revolutionaries, are called upon to work to raise awareness and organize the masses in the spirit of anti-fascism, anti-imperialism and the struggle for socialism. The alternative is not Trump or Harris. Strong revolutionary organizations, the building of a strong Marxist-Leninist party in the USA are the order of the day under the flag of the realistic utopia of our time: the revolutionary overcoming of imperialism and the building of socialism!

 

Strengthen the ICOR and the anti-imperialist united front against fascism, war and environmental destruction!

Strengthen the Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations all over the world!

Forward to socialism!

 

Status of the signatories 13.12.2024. Further signing possible. Current list of signatories at www.icor.info

1. PCPCI   Parti Communiste Proletarien de Côte d'Ivoire (Proletarian Communist Party of Ivory Coast)

2. ORC   Organisation Révolutionnaire du Congo (Revolutionary Organization of Congo), Democratic Republic of the Congo

3. MMLPL   Moroccan Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Line

4. CPSA (ML)   Communist Party of South Africa (Marxist-Leninist)

5. PCT   Parti Comuniste du Togo (Communist Party of Togo)

6. PPDS   Parti Patriotique Démocratique Socialiste (Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party), Tunisia

7. SPB   Socialist Party of Bangladesh

8. SPB(M)   Socialist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist)

9. CPI (ML) MassLine   Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) MassLine

10. NCP (Mashal)   Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)

11. RUFN   Revolutionary United Front of Nepal

12. CPA/ML   Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

13. Krasnyj Klin   Gruppa Kommunistov-Revoljucionerov „Krasnyj Klin“ (Group of Communist Revolutionaries “Krasnyj Klin” ), Belarus

14. PR-ByH   Partija Rada - ByH (Party of Labor - Bosnia and Herzegovina)

15. MLPD   Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

16. UPML   Union Prolétarienne Marxiste-Léniniste (Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Union), France

17. BP (NK-T)   Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) (Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey))

18. KOL   Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)

19. RM   Rode Morgen (Red Dawn), Netherlands

20. UMLP   União Marxista-Leninista Portuguesa (Portuguese Marxist-Leninist Union)

21. RMP   Российская маоистская партия (Rossijskaya maoistskaya partiya) (Russian Maoist Party)

22. MLGS   Marxistisch-Leninistische Gruppe Schweiz (Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland)

23. MLKP   Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti Türkiye / Kürdistan (Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey / Kurdistan)

24. KSRD   Koordinazionnyj Sowjet Rabotschewo Dvizhenija (Coordination Council of the Workers Class Movement), Ukraine

25. PCP (independiente)   Partido Comunista Paraguayo (independiente) (Paraguayan  Communist Party (independent))

26. PC (ML)   Partido Comunista (Marxista Leninista) (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)), Dominican Republic

27. SUCI (C)   Socialist Unity Center of India (Communist)

28. CPPDM   Chinese People's Party for the Defense of Mao Zedong

 

Union membership and workers’ struggle

Written by: Ned K. on 14 December 2024

 

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released a report on the percentage of workers in Australia who are members of a Union in August 2024.

The Report said that 13.1% of workers were members of a Union in August 2024 compared with 12.5% of workers in August 2022. The increase in membership was due to an increase in public sector union members. 

Union membership in the private (non-government workers) sector actually declined from 8% to 7.9%.

The ABS report says that from 1992 to 2024, union membership has fallen from 40% of all workers to 13.1% of all workers. 

Union membership from 1992 to 2024 fell from 43% to 12% for men and from 35% to 14% for women.

The ABS report has a lot of detail in it, including duration of union membership with 66% of union members in August 2024 having been members for longer than 5 years.

The ABS report gives the appearance that the working class has "gone to sleep" as far as collective struggle is concerned, especially workers in the private sector.

This is not the case at all. The report does not explain that 1992 was about the time that big corporate interests, especially multinational corporations succeeded in having the then Labor Government, supported by the ACTU, introduce single site enterprise agreements as being in the best interests of workers. Initially these site-specific enterprise agreements could only be negotiated between an employer and Unions. Then the Labor Government allowed non- Union enterprise agreements. 

The new laws divided workers and more conservative governments made further attacks on workers’ collective strength with the Howard Government introducing individual contracts (AWAs) in an attempt to turn all Australian workers in to Howard's vision of millions of individual "enterprising workers" negotiating their own pay and conditions "free" of interference from "third party" Unions.

The ABS latest report on Union Membership would appear to suggest that the multinationals and the likes of the Business Council of Australia had won the class war.

However, the ABS figures hide the magnificent struggles of the working class since 1992 right up to December 2024.

It was the working class, some in Unions, some not, who took to the streets and barricades in support of the Maritime Union of Australia members struggle against Patricks' stevedores and the Howard Government. The ABS figures do not tell the story of the working class organizing Your Rights At Work, Worth Fighting For and throwing the Howard Government out of office in 2007.

More recently, the ABS figures do not show the breakthrough by early childhood education workers in winning a 15% pay rise through a collective agreement covering multiple employers across the early childhood education sector. This was the very reversal of that 1992 non-Union site by site enterprise bargaining.

The ABS figures do not show the tremendous struggle by the whole aged care sector workforce from registered nurses to carers to kitchen workers and chefs to collectively win a 25% wage increase and improved working conditions and staffing levels.

Finally, the ABS figures do not show that despite the decline to 7.9% membership density in the private sector, private sector workers employed in Woolworths dared to struggle and strike for over two weeks to prevent Woolworths from using artificial intelligence devices to increase surplus value from workers every second of their shifts.

Unions are part of the capitalist system as the system is based on a class war between the owners of capital and the workers who produce the wealth of goods and services. Every collective win by workers strengthens the power of the working class as a whole and gives more workers a taste for the decisive struggles that lie ahead