Trump and the decline of US power-politics

 Written by: (Contributed) on 29 July 2025

 

(Above; image from https://www.usatoday.com/)

Despite dominating world political and diplomatic developments since the end of the Second World War, the US now appears to be losing its cutting edge. Reliable statistical information has cast a rather different light over US claims to be a leading super-power.

It has far-reaching implication for Wall Street, the military-industrial complex and corporate sector and class and state power. There remains little doubt, therefore, that the most aggressive part of US economic system favours the Trump presidential administration to defend and further their interests. And real-war scenarios have become a serious agenda item as they fear the rise of China.

Mainstream media coverage of US politics and diplomacy have tended to concentrate upon Trump as the leading figure; he only represents, however, part of the Republican Party, which has long used far-right associates to protect select financial interests. In fact, serious studies from the previous Cold War have cast a long shadow upon recent developments. (1)

A leading critic of the Trump administration recently commented 'Trump is downright weird, if not dangerous'. (2) The character assessment may be correct, although it presents only part of the whole picture. Those associated with the administration are inevitably powerful and rich people; he represents the interests of the higher levels of the corporate sector. Trump's arbitrary and erratic decision-making procedures merely reflect a juggling of the interests of different associates amid an 'abandonment of any consistent ideology in a drive for state power'. (3)

They have serious matters on their minds: the Trump administration and their associates fear the eclipse of US power in the global arena. And they are frantic to defend their own interests. The walls, nevertheless, are closing in and the socially constructed reality created by class and state-based psychological warfare techniques, filtered through to an entire society, is now visibly cracking and under serious strain. It is unlikely to survive; the moronic rantings of the MAGA entourage are little other than a diplomatic embarrassment.

While the US remains the world's largest economy, China, a serious competitor, is quickly catching up. US GDP for 2025, for example, has already been estimated to reach about $30.51 trillion, while China's GDP will reach $19.23 trillion; the US, however, have economic growth rates of about 1.8 per cent in comparison to China which reaches 4.0 per cent with relative ease. (4)

Reliable economic indicators, forecasts and projections have also specified that the US economy 'is set to slow … with the impact of tariffs becoming more pronounced in the second half of the year'. (5) It will have considerable bearing upon the Trump administration.

Reliable studies of China's economy have also concluded 'China is the largest trading economy in the world'. (6)

China, rising from a low-level participant in global economic forecasting, displaced Japan as the world's second biggest economy in 2010, it now accounts as 63 per cent of the US total, and remains a rising star. (5) Japan, once displaced, furthermore, has now sunk to fifth place with an economy estimated at about $4.19 trillion, and 0.6 per cent growth rates. (7)

The fact that the US rely upon Japan as a leading diplomatic and military ally and have elevated the US-Japan alliance to become 'a global alliance … with the Indo-Pacific Strategy', has revealed serious economic considerations in both Washington and the Pentagon. (8)

While the US emerged victorious from the Second World War, its paramount position was relatively short-lived; following the Korean War 'the American economy was put on a permanent military footing. It did not require the outbreak of actual war to keep the economy going, the Cold War did just as well'. (9) The policy continued through the previous Cold War, the so-called New World Order and into the present Cold War.

The whole period was marked by the rise of the US military industrial complex and its ability to foist war-mongering and an arms race onto compliant allies. It was a lucrative business; fortunes were made. They now fear losing them, despite the US still accounting for nearly 40 per cent of global military spending. (10) The Trump administration fear losing the support of shareholders in the defence industries. The large, and unwieldy, military apparatus, with numerous foreign bases, facilities and logistics hubs, has become increasingly a liability rather than a display of US military might.

During the early 1950s, US defence spending amounted to 13.58 per cent of GDP, later, during the Vietnam War it fell to 9.27 per cent, reaching only 4.9 per cent during more recent military debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. (11) The US economy, during the period, was growing fast. And war was, and remains, big business.

Today, however, the US economy is not as robust, and certainly not sustainable. Problems, therefore, loom on the horizon, which will include further cuts to government expenditure. It is unlikely to be popular with the electorate and society at large when the stark choice emerges between funding the military-industrial complex or more pressing concerns about living standards.

In fact, from a high spot during the mid-1960s when US GDP growth reached 6.5 per cent, it has now sunk to only 2.8 per cent last year. (12) It has been overtaken by defence budgets:
the Pentagon, for example, have already formulated plans to increase defence budgets to a projected $447.31 trillion by 2033, with over four per cent growth for each year from 2025 to 2033. (13)

It is not difficult, therefore, to assess the background to the Trump presidential administration, and where it remains based.

Demands by the US for NATO members to increase their contributions are best assessed in that light: in 2023, the 31 NATO members contributed $1341 billion, while the US contribution was $916 billion, which accounted for 68 per cent of the total. (14) As the US attempt to justify their increased defence budgets, they now expect other countries to subsidise their militarism and war-plans.

In conclusion, amid increased defence spending and escalating diplomatic tensions, the world has rarely been so insecure and the threat of war has become very real:

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     See: Old Nazis, the New Right and the Republican Party, Russ Bellant, (Boston, 1988).
2.     Could Rupert Murdoch bring down Trump?, The New Daily, 22 July 2025.
3.     Bellant, op.cit., page x.
4.     Forbes: Top Twenty Largest Economies (2025).
5.     Leading US indicators show clouds gathering, Australian, 23 July 2025.
6.     How China built a global network of ports, Australian, 22 July 2025.
7.     Forbes, op.cit., (2025).
8.     Ibid.     
9.     See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
10.   The Enemy, Notes on Imperialism and Revolution, Felix Greene, (London, 1970), page 215.
11.   US Defence Budgets, 'US Defence Spending', Econofact, 14 May 2024.
12.   Ibid.
13.   GDP Growth (annual per centage), United States, The World Bank Group.
14.   US Defence Industry Report, 2025, Yahoo!finance, 23 June 2024.
15.   Fact Sheet, April 2024, SIPRA (Sweden).

 

Save our Oceans rally in Adelaide

 Written by: Ned K. on 27 July 2025

 

On Sunday 27 July, about three hundred people from a number of grass roots environmental organizations rallied on the steps of SA Parliament House to heighten public awareness of the devastating impact of global warming and climate change on Earth's oceans.

Speakers included First Nations persons and scientists who have been warning governments for decades about the impact of algal blooms in the SA ocean waters.

The current algal bloom caused by rising ocean temperatures and changes in ocean currents has killed marine life in irreversible numbers as it spread along the coastal waters of the South-East of South Australia and gradually suffocated large areas of both the Gulf St Vincent and Spencer Gulf.

Speakers pointed out that when the previous algal bloom appeared in 2013 in coastal areas, marine biologists warned governments at state and federal level that the algal blooms would re-appear in larger more destructive forms due to the increasing impact of climate change on ocean temperatures.

In the week leading up to the Sunday rally, both the federal and state governments announced $14million each towards research about the algae and how to prevent it and also towards financial support for businesses and workers affected by the algae bloom's impact.

The federal government Minister Murray Watt did a "fly in, fly out" visit for a couple of hours with a photo shot of him on a suburban beach near some dead fish killed by the algae bloom.

The SA Premier belatedly expressed concern about the impact of the algae bloom, a brief respite from his obsession with Liv Golf and other sports events as saviours for the SA economy

Fund Our Future, Not Our Decimation

“Fund Our Future, Not Our Decimation" was one of the hand-written signs of one of the young people at the rally. It summed up what more and more young people think governments should be doing. Funding fossil fuel industries and spending money on the military industrial complex and Liv Golf for billionaire golfers are not top priorities for a growing number of vocal, active young people like those at this rally.

The devastating impact of climate change is affecting people in many walks of life. The algae bloom impact has seen united action by people from very different sectors of society.

First Nations people, commercial fishing people, recreational fishers, suburban and regional beach walkers, people who like swimming in the sea, surfers, environmentalists, tourism industry businesses and workers and whole small coastal town communities.

People from this diverse range of people were present at the rally in Adelaide. 

First Nations speakers at the rally said that people coming together from diverse backgrounds were a powerful force to save the oceans and indeed the planet.

Israel illegally boards Freedom Flotilla Boat: Albanese must protect Australians involved

Written by: Nick G. on 27 July 2025

 

The Zionist regime’s Israel Occupation Forces yesterday stormed the Freedom Flotilla’s Handala.

Two Australians were on the boat, Robert Martin – human rights activist; and Tania “Tan” Safi – Journalist and organizer of Lebanese descent.

The boat was carrying aid for the children of Gaza.

It is believed that all 21 activists on the Handala will be taken to the port of Asdod by the Zionist navy and deported.  They have declared that they will immediately begin a hunger strike, refusing food from the Zionist entity.

So far, there has been little or no reports in Australian mainstream media of the Handala.  Indeed, our own report of July 22, posted to our X account, caused X to suspend our account with its 2000 followers with no other explanation than that we had broken its Rules. You can see for yourself whether our article was justifiably critical of Israel and not anti-Semitic.

We reprint below a statement from the Freedom Flotilla organisation on Israel’s illegal disruption of its mercy dash.

Please write to Albanese (Contact the PM | Prime Minister of Australia) and Wong (Contact the Foreign Minister ) demanding that they issue a public statement condemning Israel’s seizure of the Handala and supporting the right of Australian citizens to join the Freedom Flotilla and its attempts to break Israel’s genocidal blockade of supplies to the starving children of Gaza.

The Freedom Flotilla statement follows:

Israeli Military Attacks Handala in International Waters, Abducts 21 Unarmed Civilians

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition confirms that its civilian vessel Handala, en route to break Isarel’s illegal, genocidal blockade on Palestinians in Gaza, has been violently intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters about forty nautical miles from Gaza. At 11:43 Palestine time the Occupation cut the cameras on board Handala and we have lost all communication with our ship. The unarmed boat was carrying life-saving supplies when it was boarded by Israeli forces, its passengers abducted, and its cargo seized. The interception occurred in international waters outside Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza, in violation of international maritime law.

Handala carried a shipment of critical humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza, including baby formula, diapers, food, and medicine. All cargo was non-military, civilian, and intended for direct distribution to a population facing deliberate starvation and medical collapse under Israel’s illegal blockade.

The Handala carried 21 civilians representing 12 countries, including parliamentarians, lawyers, journalists, labor organizers, environmentalists, and other human rights defenders. The crew includes:

Human Rights Defenders Aboard Handala, by country:

United States: Christian Smalls – Amazon Labor Union founder; Huwaida Arraf – Human rights attorney (Palestine/US); Jacob Berger – Jewish-American activist; Bob Suberi – Jewish U.S. war veteran; Braedon Peluso – Sailor and direct action activist; Dr. Frank Romano – International lawyer and actor (France/US).
France: Emma Fourreau – MEP and activist (France/Sweden); Gabrielle Cathala – Parliamentarian and former humanitarian worker; Justine Kempf – Nurse, Médecins du Monde; Ange Sahuquet – Engineer and human rights activist.
Italy: Antonio Mazzeo – Teacher, peace researcher, journalist; Antonio “Tony” La Picirella – Climate and social justice organizer.
Spain: Santiago González Vallejo – Economist and activist; Sergio Toribio – Engineer and environmentalist.
Australia: Robert Martin – Human rights activist; Tania “Tan” Safi – Journalist and organizer of Lebanese descent.
Norway: Vigdis Bjorvand – 70-year-old lifelong justice activist.
United Kingdom / France: Chloé Fiona Ludden – Former UN staff and scientist.
Tunisia: Hatem Aouini – Trade unionist and internationalist activist.
Journalists Aboard Handala
Morocco: Mohamed El Bakkali – Senior journalist with Al Jazeera (based in Paris).
Iraq / United States: Waad Al Musa – Cameraman and field reporter with Al Jazeera.

The attack on Handala is the third violent act by Israeli forces against Freedom Flotilla missions this year alone. It follows the drone bombing of the civilian aid ship Conscience in European waters in May, which injured four people and disabled the vessel, and the illegal seizure of the Madleen in June, where Israeli forces abducted twelve civilians, including a Member of the European Parliament. Shortly before their abduction, the Handala‘s crew affirmed that they would be hunger-striking if detained by Israeli forces and not accepting any food from the Israeli Occupation Forces.

Israeli officials have ignored the International Court of Justice’s binding orders that require the facilitation of humanitarian access to Gaza. The continued attacks on peaceful civilian missions represent a grave violation of international law.

“Israel has no legal authority to detain international civilians aboard the Handala,” said Ann Wright a member of the Freedom Flotilla’s steering committee.

“This is not a matter of internal Israeli jurisdiction. These are foreign nationals operating under international law in international waters. Their detention is arbitrary, unlawful, and must end.”

 

Gifting another $800 million to AUKUS “partners”

Written by: Nick G. on 24 July 2025

 

Above: Fremantle, April 2025

PM Albanese yesterday confirmed another non-refundable gift of $800 million to help pump-prime the ailing shipyards of our AUKUS “partners”, the US and British imperialists.

Together with an earlier gift of the same amount, it means that $1.6 billion of our money has been poured into the AUKUS black hole. More is to come.

It is no coincidence that the additional payment has been made as the US prepares to review AUKUS to ensure it supports Trump’s America First agenda. As part of the arrangement with the US, a President can cancel AUKUS if it results in any diminution of US war capacity.

With the current production rate, America will struggle to produce enough boats to meet its needs, let alone make another three for Australia.

The latest payment also comes just days after Albanese met with Xi Jinping, a gesture that had US opinion-makers (and some in Australia) suggesting that Albo was straying from the subservience required under the US Alliance.

It also comes in the wake of a disgusting display of backside-licking by Australian Ambassador to the US, and former Labor PM Kevin Rudd, who spoke effusively of his personal relation with Elbridge ‘Bridge’ Colby who will run the US AUKUS review. 

“Bridge has been around my place a lot of times, and so we have known each other for a long period of time, and that’s why I’m confident, quite apart from the mature relationship within our two defence establishments ... that we’ll work our way through this stuff,” he said.

However, others are not so confident, and some are even hoping ‘Bridge’ will burn the deal altogether.

Peter Varghese, a longtime Australian diplomat who ended his career in 2016 after running the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)  for PM John Howard as permanent secretary, wrote in an op-ed piece for the Australian Financial Review, “I hope Elbridge Colby sinks AUKUS for Australia. The US might yet save us from ourselves by adding conditions to the nuclear submarine agreement that no Australian government could accept.”

Those conditions focussed on a request from the US that Australia commit to the US side in any war with China over its province Taiwan.

Albert Palazzo, who was the longtime director of war studies for the Australian Army, argued in a mid-June discussion of AUKUS that Colby’s review, “should be welcomed by all Australians as an opportunity for the Albanese government to scrap the agreement and wean itself off US dependency.” Palazzo concluded his recent piece saying that, “AUKUS remains an affront to Australian sovereignty.”

We, and a good many others, have been opposed to AUKUS from the outset. But that opposition has grown in recent times. All opposition is welcome, no matter from whom or how early or lately it is expressed.

Our opposition is based on our fight for an anti-imperialist Australian independence and socialism. 

This is the only future for Australia if it is to avoid war, and end the injustice and inequity of capitalism.

Resistance to Capitalist Climate Disaster

 Written by: Sand G. on 23 July 2025

 

Source: www.australiangeographic.com.au/

On 15 July the federal court dismissed a case brought by Torres Strait community leaders that aimed to require the government to prevent climate harm in their communities. The court found that the colonial-capitalist government of this stolen land has no ‘duty of care’ to Australians to prevent climate related harm. 

The Australian Government, constantly singing about reconciliation, has admitted that it has no real obligation to protect unceded Indigenous land and that it’s more than happy to let corporations destroy country. It might come as no shock to many, since the Australian government never seems to demonstrate a duty of care to the people, especially to First Nations people. 

But the ruling of the judge says a lot about the future of climate action. The judge, washing the court’s hands of responsibility, said ‘this is a matter of government policy, and should be decided through political processes’. 

Source: https://anglicanfocus.org.au/

What political processes are available to the people to make sure that government prevents this climate disaster? Surely, with around two thirds of Australians agreeing for the last 20 years that climate change is an extremely urgent issue and more needs to be done to prevent it, that proper political processes would have responded to that?

Instead we have the opposite. Despite the clear will of the people to prevent climate catastrophe and protect country, successive governments bend over to big businesses, criminalise protests, and change laws to limit community appeals on projects happening on their country. 

Many Australian state governments either have, or are introducing laws to override environmental protections and prevent the public from speaking up about it. Climate protesters have been jailed and fined huge amounts of money, simply for standing on bridges or blocking trains, while the governments that allow communities to be destroyed by climate disasters walk free. 

In Boorloo Perth, protesters had guns pointed at them by policy simply for standing outside the Woodside CEO’s home.  Clearly, the political processes for the people to make government listen are not there. 

The judge, in this ruling, admitted what communists know to be true: courts, Parliament, and the Australian Government are not accountable to the people – we are in a dictatorship of capitalists.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

Australian workers have quoted this for over 100 years, and it’s all the more relevant now. This revealing court case has shown that injustice is how government works. More and more doors are closed to the people as we stare down the barrel of climate induced disasters. Their answer to our calls for change is “shut up and piss off” while they let multinational corporations destroy our communities for the sake of profit. 

So how should the people respond? Our Party recently reiterated our stance on rejecting the rigged game set by the government and embracing revolutionary action. We disdain to hide this view, and we look to the example of First Peoples who have waged armed and unarmed struggle against the occupying government for over 200 years. 

Our government has no concerns about using state enforced violence on us, so how long are we going to take it? 

Our Party stands with First Peoples and other anti-imperialist anti-capitalist comrades as we work to evolve our struggle in protecting our communities from the threat of colonial capitalism.

New Freedom Flotilla heads for Gaza as massacres increase.

 Written by: Nick G. on 22 July 2025

 

On July 20, two events, one showing the best of humanity, and one showing the worst, took place.

At the southern Italian port of Gallipoli, the latest Freedom Flotilla vessel, the Handala, departed for Gaza with aid mainly for the children who are being killed, traumatised and wounded by the sadistic butchers of the Israel Occupation Forces.

The vessel is named after the Palestinian cartoon figure Handala, a barefoot refugee child who turned his back on injustice and vowed not to turn around until Palestine is free.

Handala is part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a grassroots international network that has been sailing against the blockade since 2010.

On board the Handala are 20 volunteers including Australians Robert Martin and Tan Safi, Tunisian Hatem Laouini, ICOR Deputy Coordinator, and 77-year old US-born Palestinian Jew Bob Suberi.

These incredibly brave and committed people, carrying medicines, baby formula and stuffed toys, know what they are sailing into – the jaws of the Zionist beast.

Just hours before launching, Handala was the target of two deeply alarming incidents that appear to be deliberate sabotage intended to obstruct their mission and harm their crew.

On the night of July 19 or early morning July 20, a rope was discovered tightly wound around the boat’s propeller. This could not have occurred through normal use or by accident. It was a direct threat to the safety of the vessel and its ability to sail.

Even more dangerous, on the morning of July 20, the truck sent to deliver fresh water to the boat for washing and cooking on the journey, carried not water, but sulphuric acid. It splashed on a crew member’s leg, causing chemical burns. Another crew member who smelled the substance and opened the container sustained burns to his hand.

Flotilla members have video footage of the individuals who delivered this dangerous substance and have called for an immediate investigation and full accountability for these acts.

As the Handala was preparing to depart, one of the worst days of the deliberate shooting of starving Palestinians at the handful of food distribution centres controlled by the Zionists occurred. 

Eighty people were killed as truckloads of aid arrived in the north, while nine others were reported shot near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, and four more were killed near another aid site in Khan Yunis, also in the south.

The aid distribution points are like cheese on a mousetrap, drawing in the starving humanity who are then routinely killed by Occupation Force soldiers. More than ninety in one day, (and close to 900 in total) – all unarmed and civilians, and a further 150 wounded and sent to barely functioning hospitals, represents one of the worst displays of fascist and racist violence imposed on the innocent.

We won’t get much coverage of the Handala in the pro-Zionist mass media, but its progress can be followed here: Freedom Flotilla.

 

Terrorism? Where do we stand?

Written by: Lindy Nolan on 20 July 2025

 

Across occupied Australia, First Peoples have first-hand experience of terrorism. In Yuendumu the NT Intervention’s $100-million-spend on remote police stations saw a $7million police centre built before a single home was upgraded. It was a direct line from that to the slaughter of Kumanjayi Walker.

Before the damning inquest report was released, police assaulted and killed Kumanjayi White in Mparntwe Alice Springs, where the court and police centre tower over all other buildings. 

Yet, despite crushing grief, family leaders Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves and Samara Fernandez-Brown radiate dignity and defiance. 

At one point during the Intervention almost $80 million was spent on surveillance and removal of Aboriginal children compared with only $500,000 to support their families. 

Currently it costs the NT over $3,600 per day to imprison each young person. In 2022-23, 71 young people, as young as ten, were imprisoned. 93%  were on remand, 94% were Indigenous. On any night, between  44 and 59 young people  were in jail. That’s about $67 million per year! Yet, pitifully-funded programs to keep them out of jail largely survive on volunteers. It’s the same across the country. 

Last month public outrage caused the cancellation of a conference of first responders in Parramatta with Walker’s killer, Zachary Rolfe, as guest speaker.  It’s not about one or even many racist cops. It’s about a state apparatus of terror, the iron fist of military, police and jails, behind the velvet glove of deceit and so-called democracy. 

Terror spreads more widely as government complicity with US imperialist-Zionist genocide shakes peoples’ belief in ‘democratic’ lies. As Palestinian children, doctors, teachers and journalists are terrorised and massacred, here, eyes open. Here, resistance also grows against Segal’s fascist proposals, against laws to demonise protest, against the smashing punch to a female legal advisor and the trumped-up trial of journalist Mary Kostakidis, which aims to terrorise other journalists to self-censor or lie. Support Mary Kostakidis here. 

Killing innocent people

The Concise Macquarie Dictionary (named after a British Governor of the NSW colony who used terror against First Peoples) states terror means ‘1. intense, sharp or overpowering fear. 2. feeling, instance or cause of intense fear. 3. a period when a political group uses violence to maintain or achieve supremacy,’ and terrorism means ‘1. the use of terrorising methods. 2. the state of fear and submission so produced. 3. a method of resisting a government or of governing by deliberate acts of armed violence.’ All but the last meaning fits how Australia is ruled against most First Peoples, like a glove.

Language is constantly changing, with old words disappearing and new ones appearing. Meanings change over time. There’s also a difference between the dictionary meaning – the denotation – and what a word has come to mean in social usage – the connotation.

Today the dictionary meaning of terrorism has become secondary to the word’s new connotation. Across most of the world, and definitely in Australia, ‘terrorism’ is almost universally understood to be the killing of innocent people. The key word is ‘innocent’. But there is a secondary connotation – that terror usually comes from a small group of people.

Excitative terror or unstoppable mass movement?

The Red Brigades of Italy, the Baada Meinhof Gang in Germany, the Japanese Red Army called themselves Maoists, as did a section of the Weathermen in the USA. They were small ultra-left terrorist groups in the 1970s, whose members were rightly outraged by the horrors imperialism created across the world. 

Rather than having faith in the masses, these groups believed in what’s called ‘excitative terror’, the belief that ‘red terror’ comes first, that it will unite the oppressed masses and dominate enemy classes. Only then (they believed) the struggle of liberation is possible. They paid a terrible price for this mistake. All were isolated from the masses, were jailed or murdered by the ruling class, or forced into hiding. Their organisations were crushed.

Though they didn’t have the ease of electronic word searches, they knew the word ‘terror’ –appears in some of the hundreds of volumes of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and other Marxist-Leninist-Maoist works.

It appears four times Mao’s A Report on the Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan from 1927. The Report’s introduction includes these words: “For the present upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event. In a very short time, in China's central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves. Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly.” 

The huge, unstoppable mass movement of the peasants, not excitative terror, was key. This thread of reliance on the masses runs through all Mao’s writings, all his actions. He called them ‘our God’ saying with them, the Chinese party could remove the mountains of imperialism and feudalism. (Mao, The foolish old man who removed the mountains).

The highest stage of struggle

Armed struggle is the highest stage of revolutionary action, but it can’t be manufactured from thin air. Little groups, or even big ones – no matter how dedicated – can’t magic it into existence. 

In Where do correct ideas come from? Mao said of struggle, ‘Generally speaking, those that succeed are correct and those that fail are incorrect, and this is especially true of man’s struggle with nature. In social struggle, the forces representing the advanced class sometimes suffer defeat not because their ideas are incorrect, but because, in the balance of forces engaged in struggle, they are not as powerful for the time being as the forces of reaction; they are therefore temporarily defeated, but they are bound to triumph sooner or later.’ 

This is the case with First Peoples.

In 1988, First Peoples announced, ‘We have survived’. It was a clarion call of unity and defiance. Like the Palestinians facing genocidal US imperialist and Zionist attacks which aim to terrorise all opposition, to crush resistance worldwide, they will one day triumph. They will remember the brutality inflicted. Their potential allies are growing in number and knowledge from each horrific blow they witness inflicted. But not all are active. Many feel powerless. We must help change that. We must help people understand their own collective strength. 

Lenin stated, “Oppression alone, no matter how great, does not always give rise to a revolutionary situation in a country. In most cases it is not enough for revolution that the lower classes should not want to live in the old way. It is also necessary that the upper classes should be unable to rule and govern in the old way”, that the ruling class must be in deep crisis at every level, and that suffering has reached such intensity that the masses are drawn into action. (Lenin May Day Action by the Revolutionary Proletariat)

Whether it succeeds or not, depends on organisation among and of those masses. 

Our party supports revolutionary violence by the masses in such a situation, to overthrow such a ruling class. We want that ruling class to feel the terror of the masses in action to overthrow their terrorist system.

We disdain to conceal our views and aims

Marx’s Manifesto of the Communist Party celebrated the intense fear of communism and communists haunting the ruling classes. It opened with these words, ‘A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.’ 

The Manifesto concluded, ‘The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.’

177 years later, after huge struggles, setbacks and changes, we stand by those words. We serve the people. 

 

HIROSHIMA NEVER AGAIN! Five key demands for Hiroshima Day 2025

 Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 14 July 2025

 

This year is the 80th annual August 2 Hiroshima Day observance.

It comes in the wake of the US use of “bunker buster” bombs to prevent Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear power, enabling manufacture of nuclear weapons.

Tensions surrounding the question of nuclear weapons have not abated in the 80 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) joins with the people of the world in commemorating the dropping of the first Atomic Bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  

 

We raise 5 popular demands at this year’s Hiroshima Remembrance Day activities. recently voted to identify four key demands for participants in this year’s Hiroshima Day rallies.

 

The recommendation from our Party reads: “The Central Committee calls for Hiroshima Day activities to feature opposition to imperialist war and calls for nuclear weapons states to agree to declare they will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, and to agree to the complete destruction and thorough prohibition of all nuclear weapons. We call on the Australian government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We also call for the freedom of Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. We build the peoples' movement to cancel the US-led imperialist AUKUS pact and the acquisition of nuclear-powered war submarines; we call for closing Pine Gap, the secret US intelligence base and a critical part of the US nuclear command and nuclear war preparations and ending the US-Australia alliance and imperialist war.”  

 

The vast majority of the nuclear stockpiles are held by the US and Russian imperialists. Each has more than ten times the nuclear weapons of third-placed China.  According to GlobalMilitary.net, as of mid-2025, nine countries possess nuclear weapons, collectively holding approximately 12,300 warheads. This

 

Nuclear Warhead Estimates by Country (2025)

 

Country Estimated Total Warheads Notes

Russia ~5,449 Largest arsenal; includes deployed, reserve, and retired warheads.

United States ~5,277 Includes active and reserve warheads; part of a nuclear triad.

China ~500 Rapidly expanding arsenal; projected to exceed 1,000 by 2047.

France ~290 Maintains a sea- and air-based deterrent; recently enhanced cooperation with the UK.

United Kingdom ~225 Submarine-based deterrent; recently enhanced cooperation with France.

Pakistan ~170 Expanding arsenal; focus on regional deterrence.

India ~180 Developing triad capabilities; emphasis on credible minimum deterrence.

Israel ~90 Unacknowledged arsenal; maintains policy of ambiguity.

North Korea ~50 Continues testing and development; arsenal remains limited.

 

Note: These figures are estimates based on available data and may not reflect exact counts due to the secretive nature of nuclear arsenals.

 

The first five in the list are imperialist nations. The US and Russia are the most aggressive in the conduct of current conventional warfare. The rise of Chinese imperialism is a challenge to the global power of the US, and their rivalry continues to increase regional and global tensions. All imperialist and imperialist-backed wars in Ukraine, Palestine, Congo, Sudan and elsewhere must be opposed.

 

People everywhere must compel the nuclear-armed states to adopt a “no first use” policy as a step towards disarmament. The No First Use (NFU) demand is aimed at the immediate relaxation of international tensions prior to the agreement by nuclear weapons states to destroy their stockpiles. It commits a nuclear-armed state to never use nuclear weapons first under any circumstances, whether as a pre-emptive attack or first strike, or in response to non-nuclear attack of any kind.

 

To date, China is the only country to have made an unconditional No First Use pledge. It made it when it was still a socialist country under Mao Zedong’s leadership in 1964, following its first nuclear test explosion. The Soviet Union also had such a policy, but abandoned it in 1994 in the wake of the Soviet Union’s demise. Since 1998, India has maintained a policy of NFU with exceptions for a response to chemical or biological attacks.

 

People everywhere must demand the complete destruction and thorough prohibition of all nuclear weapons.  The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was opened for signature on July 1, 1968, and entered into force on March 5, 1970. Since then, five countries have acquired nuclear weapons capabilities, namely India, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa. (South Africa is unique in that it developed nuclear weapons secretly and then voluntarily gave them up, becoming the first and only nation to do so unilaterally.)

 

Countries that feel threatened by nuclear-powered adversaries will be tempted to acquire their own.  This was Pakistan’s response to India, and was the reason why Iran felt compelled to work towards nuclear weapons capacity given Israel's possession of a nuclear armament.

 

The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons leaves nuclear weapons in the hands of those that currently have them, and does not prevent their relocation to other host states (Belarus in the case of Russia; Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey in the case of the US).

 

The Australian people must call on the Australian government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. For the first five years of the Treaty, Australia followed the US in voting against it. In 2022, it timidly took a step outside the US shadow and abstained on the vote. 

 

Labor leader Anthony Albanese pledged in 2018 to sign the TPNW, and must be held to his word. We support the campaign led by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) to demand Australia sign the TPNW as a step towards the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons.

 

People everywhere must call for the freedom of Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. He is a Moroccan born Jew who at the age of 9 years was taken by his parents to live in Occupied Palestine (Israel). In October 1971, he was conscripted into the Israel Occupation Forces. Following his discharge, he studied physics at university and took a job at the Negev Nuclear Research Centre. He began to develop a critical view of Zionism and supported Palestinians. In 1985, he smuggled a camera into the Centre and took 57 photographs which proved that Israel had developed nuclear weapons. 

 

Visiting Australia in 1986, he converted to Christianity and met a British journalist from the Sunday Times which subsequently published his claims.

 

As a result, Mossad agents drugged and kidnapped Vanunu during a trip to Rome, took him back to Israel, where he was tried and jailed for 18 years, the first 11 of which were in solitary confinement.  Since his release he has been forbidden to talk with foreigners and has restrictions on his movements. He has been jailed several times for violating those conditions.

 

Vanunu does not wish to remain in Israel. He is kept there by the Zionist authorities who have never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons. By not acknowledging possession of nuclear weapons, Israel avoids a US legal prohibition on funding countries that proliferate weapons of mass destruction. Such an admission would prevent Israel from receiving over $2 billion each year in military and other aid from Washington. Vanunu’s freedom to travel and to speak would be an embarrassment to both the US and Israel.

 

Vanunu must be granted his freedom to leave, and should he choose to do so, to be granted asylum and citizenship by Australia.

 

The Australian people must oppose the AUKUS arrangements. They are part of US imperialism’s preparations for war with its rival, China. Former Prime Ministers Keating (Labor) and Turnbull (Liberal) warn that the arrangements tie us to the US in violation of Australia’s sovereignty and independence. 

In our view, imperialism and its military industrial complex spawn the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear war.  Mobilised and united working people will put an end to imperialism and its imperialist wars.

 

We put forward these five demands in the hope that they will continue to be pursued independently of the important Hiroshima Day observances.