Articles by Ted Hill now on our website

Written by: E.F. Hill on 7 July 2026

 

Thanks to the initiative of a young comrade, a posthumous collection of articles by founding Chairperson Ted Hill has been pdf-ed and is available for download in the Media & Archives/Booklets section of our website.

Marxism, Australian Independence and Socialism contains 12 articles and a speech covering topics that include Applying Marxism to Australia’s Specific Conditions, The Australian Labor Party and Parliament, and Communist Ideology and Organisation.

They cover the years 1975 – 1987.  

We highly recommend this small booklet.  Its content is important, but more important again is the method of analysis and the principles on which it is based. 

“Know the teachings to use the methods” is the approach that we recommended in the introduction to our Study Guide, also available on this website.

We hope that the re=appearance of this collection of Hill’s articles will serve that purpose.

ICOR Asian Continental Conference - Report from Australia

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 4 July 2026

 

On July 4-5, the ICOR affiliated parties and organisations in the Asia region are meeting in Kathmandu, Nepal. We were unable to accept the invitation to attend, but sent this brief report on current conditions here to conference participants.

Introduction:  The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) greets participants in the ICOR Asia Continental Conference. We apologise for being unable to attend in person, but please rest assured that we value highly the solidarity and mutual support of comrades across our region. We particularly express our best wishes and good health to Comrade Alik, the continental coordinator, following the heinous crime of his attempted assassination by criminal thugs supporting Hindutva fascism.

The Australian ruling class remains committed to serving the US imperialists who hold a dominant position within the Australian state apparatus. They are part of the QUAD, comprising the US, Australia, India and Japan, and of AUKUS, comprising the US, UK and Australia.

Both main parliamentary political parties – the Liberal-National Coalition and the governing Australian Labor Party (ALP) – are cheerleaders for US imperialism within our region, and actively preparing the Australian armed forces for participation in a US-led war on its rival, Chinese social-imperialism.

Domestically, there has been a shift to the right with opinion polls now showing the One Nation Party of Pauline Hanson outpolling both Liberal and Labor.

Since its inception in 1997, One Nation has been an openly racist party attacking successive waves of migration to Australia. This is part of its appeal to different class elements, including some within the working class: it professes concern for social problems hurting working people, such as the cost-of-living crisis, the housing crisis, and poverty, but channels united working class action against these evils into disunity within the very multicultural Australian working class. It hides behind its professions of concern for workers the anti-worker legislation it continually votes for in parliament. It appeals to those who feel rejected by the mainstream parties, who feel nostalgic for Australia “as it used to be”, and those who are simply racist. Once dismissed as a fringe party, its current popularity reflects the deepening crisis of Australian capitalism.

Of greater danger to attempts to build a revolutionary working class movement is social-democracy in the form of the ALP, a bourgeois liberal reformist party to which many unions are affiliated. Workers may be deeply skeptical of the ALP leaders, but most currently accept that the parliamentary path is the continuing guarantee of their democratic rights. There are some indications that sections of the working class want a more spirited and militant level of struggle for their immediate demands, but few yet embrace our call for an independent working class agenda that rejects the constraints of social-democracy and the parliamentary path. 

Australia’s major trading partner is China. That creates scope for contradictions between sections of the ruling class. Among the people, there is no love lost for the social system China now represents, but not all are convinced that we should follow the US into a war with China. Among a section of the Left are those who support China as a bulwark of opposition to hegemony without realising that competing with the US for markets, raw materials and human labour power is not anti-hegemonism, but the pursuit of a rival hegemony by primarily economic and political means, while continuing to build its own military strength.

Our Party has growing concern with the militarisation of Space. This is proceeding rapidly with competition for the control of Space between the US bloc (including Australia), the European Union bloc, and the Chinese and Russians. Since earliest time, wars were fought on land; some four thousand years ago, the Mediterranean saw the development of sea-based warfare; and during World War One, the air became a new domain for conflict between countries. In recent times, two new overlapping domains have been added: cyber warfare and space warfare. 

It has been said that “Space assets underpin virtually every dimension of modern military power: reconnaissance and surveillance, precision navigation and targeting, communications architecture, missile early warning and anti-satellite capabilities.”  The UN Outer Space Treaty bans the deployment of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction from Space, but there are many types of weapons that fall between the cracks. This is, if you will excuse the pun, a space to watch.

Comrades, we wish this ICOR Asian Continental Conference every success.

Central Committee
Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
July 4, 2026

 

 

CPA (M-L) condemns US kidnapping of Maduro

 Written by: Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninst) on 5 January 2026

 

(Above: Venezuelans in Caracas condemn US imperialism)

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) unequivocably condemns the US kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife and their transfer to a gaol on US territory.

We also condemn Albanese, Wong and Marles, the most craven puppets of the US in Australia, who have failed to condemn the US actions. 

It is pointless to “urge all parties to support dialogue and diplomacy” without condemning the illegality of the US actions and stating the principles on which a call for “dialogue and diplomacy” are based. Those principles must be based on the UN Charter, and not some alternative version of a spurious “international rules-based order” constructed by the US to serve its own interests.

Oil, not drugs

Trump’s motivation for the kidnapping of Maduro is seizure of Venezuelan oil, not stopping the flow of cocaine and fentanyl to the US. He is also determined to impose a new Monroe Doctrine and freeze out competitors like China.

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and supplies BRICS countries like China and Russia.  China now has extensive investments and projects in South America. Indeed, just hours before US Special Forces invaded his country and kidnapped him, Maduro was meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi, Special Envoy of President Xi Jinping. According to Maduro, “We reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic relationship that is progressing and strengthening in various areas...”

US imperialism has committed acts of piracy in international waters, bombing alleged drug smuggling boats and killing over 100 people, and has illegally seized two tankers of Venezuelan oil.

According to various sources, estimates of the amount of cocaine smuggled into the US from Venezuela vary between 0 and 8%.  The latter figure was derived from a 2020 report from the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Overwhelmingly, cocaine is produced in neighbouring Columbia, the reputed source of 90% of US supplies. A few percent are sourced from Peru and Bolivia.

Fentanyl is not produced in or smuggled from Venezuela.

These murderous actions are extraordinary. The catalogue of breaches of international law are desperate efforts to shore up declining American power. The US hasn't been able to get its way with soft power, abuse, sanctions, tariffs, bribery and corruption, nor financial threats and bullying. Rather than showing US strength, it concedes US inability, its weakness. It strikes at the emerging world, where the US no longer predominates relying on its financial and industrial muscle. It marks another stage of American resort to imperialist military aggression.

“We will run Venezuela”

Trump has stated that the US will now run Venezuela.  He means that ownership of Venezuela oil will be transferred to the US companies which were nationalised by former President Chavez, and that Venezuela will have to compensate US oil companies for their nationalisation.

None of this will benefit the Venezuelan people. The hunger suffered by Venezuelan workers is directly the result of over a decade of US-led sanctions. Imperialists have crippled Venezuela economically, undermined their political structures through numerous failed coup attempts and laid the ground work for the recent direct aggression. 

The US is also running Australia.  Its puppets have signed up to the AUKUS arrangement and the Force Posture Agreement, which give the US unrestricted access to bases on our territory for which there is no accountability to the Australian government and people.

In solidarity with the Venezuelan people, we demand:

Break the US “Alliance”!
End the AUKUS arrangements!
Cancel the Force Posture Agreement and close Pine Gap and all US bases!
For an anti-imperialist free and independent Australia!

 

The Eureka Initiative

 Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 23 June 2025

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) would like to extend its revolutionary greetings and solidarity to The Eureka Initiative, an organisation with the aim of spreading revolutionary Marxist-Leninist ideology to the masses and youth of today.

They have stated their goals as that of creating mass interest in revolutionary ideology and practice through media and organization while advancing the cause of Australian independence, Socialism and Anti-imperialism. 

They have created some great artwork that serves as beautiful agitation and revolutionary propaganda. We look forward to the continuing great work and effort coming from the Eureka Initiative and hope for them a long and growing involvement in struggle.

Red Salute

Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

May Day Greetings from CPA (M-L)

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 30 April 2025

 

On the occasion of the 2025 May Day, the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) greets our class, the working class of Australia, and all workers and oppressed peoples throughout the world.

It is important that on May Day, the demands of the working class, independent of the electioneering slogans of the parliamentary parties vying for office, are raised and heard.

Together those demands make up an independent working class agenda and unapologetically go beyond what the Labor Party and the trade union leaderships supporting it, can tolerate.

They could not tolerate strong union militancy in the construction industry, so they placed the CFMEU under Administration. 

We demand the right of workers to belong to the union of their choice and for the freedom of action that all unions should possess, namely the right of their members to withdraw their labour when and where it hurts the employer the most.

We support the rights of workers and unions to take actions in solidarity with each other's struggles, for sovereignty and self-determination of the First People, in support of people's struggles for justice, the environment, for peace and against imperialist wars.  We support the right to take actions in solidarity with workers and the oppressed around the world and at this time particularly, of the right to stand with Palestinians against Israel’s genocidal killings.

Young workers are getting organised.  Sometimes this must be done in areas of new and often precarious employment where there has been no history of union involvement.  We salute these young workers and their courage in rising to the challenge of finding new ways to organise and struggle.

We recognise the support that comes from progressive members of other classes active in environmental, antiwar and anti-imperialist activity for Australian independence and socialism. 

There is a growing united front against AUKUS. AUKUS commits us to a $368 billion spend over 30 years – or $30 million per day over 30 years! Imagine what services could be provided to struggling communities if that money was used to address cost of living matters here in Australia.

Finally, wherever this greeting is being read in Australia, it is being read on the unceded lands of the First Peoples, and we acknowledge and respect their resilience in the face of colonial genocide. We support their ongoing struggles for self-determination.

Workers of Australia, take the lead in all our struggles!

For anti-imperialist independence and socialism!

Workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!

(Above: Art work courtesy of Olliver Tyler, Eureka Initiative, Queensland)

 

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.

 

Reply to a reader

Written by: Nick G. on 4 December 2024

 

Dear Ken,

I am replying to your comments on our Facebook page about our attitude towards China.

I know you are a long-time reader of our material, and that you were, for a while, a leading member of our Party. They are both good reasons for listening to your criticisms and taking them seriously.

I also acknowledge your personal connections to China through family and friends as a strong basis for your defence of China.

One of your comments is: “At a time when we are facing a hot possible nuclear in Europe and the Middle east i would suggest that the CPAML concentrate on the activities of the United States Israel and their satraps including Australia instead of joining in China bashing.”

Ken, we have posted, to date, 212 articles and statements this year. Four of them have specifically criticised China, and the vast majority have “concentrated on the activities of the United States, Israel and their satraps including Australia.”

In the context of attacking US imperialism’s preparations for war with China, we have sometimes referred to China as an imperialist rival of the US, but that is in the context of depicting US imperialism as the main source of regional and global tensions, and as the number one enemy of the world’s people.

Ken, I don’t dispute that you “personally have seen the great rise in living standards under Xi Jinping”.

Like you, I have been to China many times, and have seen the same thing.

When I first went to China, the Cultural Revolution was still in full swing. Yes, there was poverty, but the power of the landlords had been broken and the wealth of capitalists confiscated. Whilst people were living frugally, the Party was committed to eliminating the gap between town and country, and the bourgeois right manifested in the gap between mental and manual labour.

It is wrong to say that the Cultural Revolution kept the Chinese in poverty. I was in China just after the end of the Cultural Revolution, and could see that living standards had gone up.  My belief is that if the socialist economy of China had continued past Deng’s restoration of capitalism, it would have continued to improve, and people’s living standards with it, but without the yawning gaps of contemporary China’s class structure.

You say that “Poverty is only glamorous for people who don't have to live in it”. For our part, we do not glamourise poverty, either here or in China.

What we have said (for example, in our Spring 2020 Australian Communist article China and the Widening of Relative Poverty  - AC+2020+Spring.pdf ) is that a socialist society committed to the elimination of class differences has become a capitalist society with one of the world’s largest Gini Coefficients, and that whilst many people have been lifted out of absolute poverty, they have been placed into the relative poverty of an entrenched capitalist class system.

Your comment on our post about Banana Man and his flaunting of wealth over a worthless piece of non-art is that we are “China bashing”.  Even if we had wanted to, there is no need to when China does such a good job of bashing itself through the ostentation and extravagance of the billionaires who have crept out from under Deng’s reforms.

Ken, you have shared Comrade Xiang Guanqi’s criticism of Xi Jinping Thought 12 times. Yes, we do need to have our profile raised, and may even get more followers thanks to your efforts.  However, we question why you have sent it to two pages that support the Palestinian people. What other reason is there for this than to try and undermine our standing with supporters of Palestine? Is it because you think that China supports Palestine, and that any criticism of China is a criticism of Palestine? China played a positive role in bringing together 14 organisations representative of the combined Palestinian resistance. As we said at the time, this was a good thing but China had its own agenda, achieving a united Palestinian statement supporting a “two-state solution” involving a state with which it has had diplomatic relations since 1992 and is currently Israel’s third largest trading partner globally.

You state that “China under Xi Jinping is supporting the Palestinians”. Diplomacy, and China’s vote at the UN, is important, but to send our material to Palestine support groups implies that we are more interested in “China bashing” a friend of the Palestinians, and are therefore not supporting the Palestinians ourselves.

Forty of this year’s articles on our website have been specifically in support of Palestine. That’s an average of a bit more than three a month. They have included reports on rallies, analyses of Zionist aggression, the posting of calls for the release of the long-imprisoned Georges Abdullah in France, and statements by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.  Regrettably, you did not point this out in your sharing of our article on China with Facebook pages supporting Palestine.

Ken, as you know, there are three nominally Communist parties in Australia, only one of which supports “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and the Thought of Xi Jinping.

One of its leaders was recently interviewed on Chinese television supporting Xi’s multipolarity and peaceful coexistence with US imperialism.

It is important that we seek to cooperate with the other two parties in the interests of our working class, but we do so on the basis of acknowledging our differences.

We have a clear-cut stand on China as a capitalist and social-imperialist country.

It is our right to use the evidence that is available to us to explain that position.

We take your criticisms seriously, hence the length of this reply.

We will, however, have to agree to disagree on China.

Regards,

Nick G.

3 December 2024

CPA (M-L) concludes 16th Congress

Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 8 August 2024

 

The Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) recently concluded its 16th Congress.

The Congress was held as a process of consultation and discussion over 6 months, beginning on the 60th anniversary of its founding in March 1964.

 

Congress delegates read submissions from members and approved various changes to the Party Program, adopted a report on the international situation and one on the work of the 15th Central Committee.

 

Motions were debated and adopted on our ICOR affiliation and on retaining an Australian focus in our work.

 

Younger members were brought onto the new Central Committee, which then elected the following office-bearers.

 

Chairperson: Nick G.

 

Vice-Chairperson: Alice M. 

 

Congress also discussed our ongoing priorities and tasks and referred a number of matters to the incoming Central Committee.

 

Congress reaffirmed our determination to build the revolutionary movement for the achievement of socialism and anti-imperialist independence.

 

A workers’ party of a new type

Written by: Ned K. on 25 April 2024

 

If you ask people what comes to mind when you ask them the question "what political party, if any, do you support?" many people will say the Liberal Party or Nationals or Labor Party or the Greens or even "the Teals". An increasing number of people will say " None, they're all the same!"

What all these parties have in common is that they equate a political party with parliament and the people's involvement being the one day of the year every three or four years when elections are held.

Within official trade union circles, most are affiliated to the ALP and their leaderships urge their members to vote Labor because they are "better than the Liberals". If members ask for more information, they may get told that both the Unions and the Labor Party are part of the " labour movement".

So many workers especially, generation after generation, have voted for the Labor Party in the hope of significant changes to their working, family and community lives. More and more workers question what type of "labour movement" the Labor Party leaders are talking about. The decline of the Labor primary vote at elections is an indication of this disillusionment with the Labor Party as the working people's political party. 

Kevin Rudd, the former Labor Party leader and Prime Minister, gave an insight in to what the ALP's "labour movement " means in his first parliamentary speech in December 2006 when he said,

"Our movement for a century fought against Marxism, if you bother to read your history. We have had nothing to do with Marxism and madness. We have always seen our role as what we can do to civilize the market. That is where we come from as a tradition...So when it comes to our Labor values of equity, sustainability and compassion, we do not just believe that these, in themselves, are self-sufficient and worthy of being pursued. We also hold that they are values necessary to enhance the market itself."

Yet it is the volatility of the so-called "free market" of the system Rudd talked about that led to hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs as one manufacturing industry after another moved overseas because the "free market" was more profitable for the capitalists. 

The Labor Party and all parliamentary parties and even the ACTU leaders were powerless to stop it at best and at worst supported this "free market" destructive impact on working people's lives.

Workers Party of a New Type

One day about twenty years ago in Melbourne, I was at a union and community meeting about what needed to be done for workers to break out of the cycle of hope and disappointments experienced with Labor in parliamentary office, I heard a woman who identified as Dulcie (above) start talking about how workers needed a Party of a new type. Someone asked her what she meant by a "Party of a new type".

She replied with words to the effect that parliamentary politics and their parties were a very limited form of democracy which was outside of the involvement and control of the people who put them into parliament on election day. 

She said that people sensed this, and this is why workers and community struggles and issue-based organizations arise on all sorts of issues.
She said in all these struggles, leaders arise at the grass roots level. Some of these leaders were invited to channel struggles into parliamentary channels, but not many. Most remained leaders among the people involved in their particular struggle and community.

Dulcie said that what was needed in her view was a political Party that linked all the leaders within the myriad of people's struggles into an unbreakable network across the whole country. Such an organization would unite people for fundamental change of society away from capitalism's "free market" economy. 

Someone asked Dulcie why she thought this would happen. She replied that through exchange of views between grass roots leaders and exploring ideas and social theories that served working people and their communities rather the free market and profit motive, a people's movement would develop so powerful that the parliament and the small minority of corporations would be overcome and a new society of socialism serving people not profit would emerge. She said the big money people and those with privileges in parliament would not give up without a fight, but "we are many, they are few" 

She said that was what the CPA (ML), of which she was a member, was striving to become: a Party of a new type, but that it was the working people themselves who would determine if it "made the grade".

 

 

Party Anniversary and Congress

Written by: Central Committee, CPA (M-L) on 15 March 2024

 

Today, March 15, 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of our Party’s founding.

To mark the occasion, we are announcing today that we will be holding our 16th Congress this year.

Congress is taking place at a time of intensifying inter-imperialist rivalries and continuing crisis of global monopoly capital.  Although US imperialism is still strong, especially militarily, it is more widely exposed and isolated. The gulf between the ruling classes of monopoly capital and the masses is widening globally.  Conditions for expanding anti-US imperialist forces are strengthening, not least in Australia. Economic and living conditions of the people are worsening.  Climate crisis is rallying the people against monopoly capitalism.  Nevertheless, we need to take account of uneven conditions and developments. 

The heroic Palestinian resistance is isolating reactionary and imperialist forces, inspiring and mobilising the oppressed and progressive forces. The overwhelming international solidarity for Palestinians is an antidote to the ruling class’s push towards fascism.   

The inter-imperialist rivalries between the US bloc and China/Russia bloc are intensifying, threatening imperialist war, giving rise to anti-war and independence movements.   

Congress consultations offer excellent opportunities to examine Australia’s and international conditions, class struggle, the people’s and revolutionary movements, enabling the party to set the direction for our work and study in the next 4-5 years.

Central Committee

CPA (M-L)  

Celebrating the 60th anniversary of Australia’s oldest revolutionary newspaper.

 

Written by: Nick G. on 1 September 2023

Vanguard, newspaper of the Australian Marxist-Leninists, was first published 60 years ago, in September 1963, predating by a few months the formation of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) on March 15, 1964.

The first issue continued the work of those within the original Communist Party of Australia who had been battling to defend Marxism-Leninism in the CPA.

The contradiction between the sliding into reformism of the revisionists and the commitment to revolutionary politics and ideology upheld by the Marxist-Leninists, reached such levels of antagonism that a parting of the ways became inevitable. The Marxist-Leninists were either expelled or forced to leave the CPA. The first editions of Vanguard rallied the revolutionaries and led them organisationally, politically and ideologically towards the reestablishment of a genuine Marxist-Leninist Party, the CPA (M-L).

Vanguard continued as a hard copy newspaper until December 2014 when articles were transferred to the Party’s website. Selected hard copy editions still occurred on important dates (eg the centenary of the October Socialist Revolution in 2017) and annually on May Day. However, the advantage of the online publication of Vanguard has been its greater reach (including on the Party’s Facebook and Twitter accounts) and the immediacy of comments being able to be published on important events.

The online and occasional hard copy editions of Vanguard make it, at 60 years since that first edition, the oldest continuing revolutionary paper in Australia.

We are very grateful to all those who over the years, have contributed financially, organisationally, as writers and photographers, suppliers of information to be followed up, and distributors to the people. And we are equally grateful to those who continue to read the Vanguard.

CPA (M-L) contribution to ICOR webinar on united front against imperialism

Written by: CPA (M-L) on 1 August 2023

On Sunday 30 July, a comrade from the CPA (M-L) made a short contribution to the discussion. As there were many participants from countries around the world, each person was limited to a 3-minute presentation. The comrade spoke without notes but has made the following written recollection of his comments.

 

........................

Greetings comrades,

Firstly, let me begin by acknowledging the more than 300 people, many of them young, who confronted Nazis at a Nazi recruitment event in Melbourne yesterday. Their defiance of these right-wing street thugs is a very good thing.

Secondly, I can report that in common with workers in other advanced capitalist countries, Australian workers are facing declining living standards as the ruling class seeks to control inflation by using the levers of unemployment and interest rates. As a result, more and more are finding it difficult to meet mortgage repayments and rent increases, adding to the crisis of homelessness. They are yet to find the path to organised resistance, partly due to the repressive industrial relations laws that make all but “protected” industrial activity illegal. Even so, outbreaks of struggle are taking place.

Thirdly, on the international situation.  In our region we are acutely conscious of the danger of war as the competition develops between Chinese social-imperialism and US imperialism. Even those who are friendly towards the US are increasingly worried by the government’s surrender of sovereignty to the US. Mass organisations with broad popular appeal are organising resistance to the US stranglehold over Australia. The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) is one in which we work with former diplomats and politicians, with peace activists and others across a range of differing viewpoints, all wanting the Australian government to possess greater capacity for independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy. Alliances are being built across our region. An IPAN conference on the theme of a peaceful Pacific was held on July 29 with speakers from Australia, Okinawa, Guaham (Guam), Samoa and New Zealand.

Australia has recently joined the US and UK in the AUKUS alliance. This saw the cancellation of a contract for France to build conventional submarines in Australia in favour of a $368 billion contract with the US and the UK for eight nuclear-powered submarines. Even within the “defence” establishment there are criticisms of this arrangement. The submarines will not be based in Australian coastal waters, but will be “seamlessly interoperable” with US submarines off the coast of China. A new organisation, the Australian Anti-AUKUS Coalition is bringing together the rank-and-file of the governing Labor Party, unions and peace activists. A common demand is for the scrapping of AUKUS and the direction of the $368 billion towards the social problems of the working people.

A further consequence of AUKUS is that Australia must take responsibility for the disposal of nuclear waste from these submarines once they are decommissioned. For sixty years, the government has tried to impose a nuclear waste dump for intermediate and low-level waste on communities that have successfully resisted these proposals. Inevitably, they are proposed for “remote” locations on the lands of the First Peoples. We campaigned with the Barngarla people of South Australia, and the local farming community, to successfully block the latest dump proposal. The prospect of a future high-level nuclear waste dump will further boost the anti-nuclear movement.

Finally, let me acknowledge that many comrades at this ICOR meeting face far greater difficulties than those of us in countries like Australia. We pledge to do what we can to assist them in our joint struggle against imperialism.

Thank you.