April 5th-6th
Kathleen Syme Library, 251 Faraday St, Carlton and via Zoom
Register here
Agenda at a Glance
| Date / Time | Session Topic | Speakers |
|---|---|---|
| Session 1 Friday April 5 2-3:45pm | What is “left communism” and why Lenin fought it: Historical perspectives from Italy, Germany, Holland and Russia | Rjurik Davidson, Ari A and Andrew Martin |
| Session 2 Friday April 5 4:15pm | Political horizons after 40 years of neoliberalism in Australia: Can people’s democratic humanist sentiment be re-linked to ideology and organisation? | Keynote lecture: Max Lane |
| Session 3 Saturday April 6 2:30-4:15pm | Unifying anti-imperialist Marxists: Experiences and Perspectives from Australia and the United States | Claudia de la Cruz (2024 Presidential Candidate for the Party of Socialism and Liberation USA), Floyd Kermode (Communist Party of Australia), Sam King (Red Ant) |
| Session 4 Saturday April 6 4:45-6:30pm | Lenin’s anti-imperialism today | Nandini Shah, Brendan Duncan-Shah and Nick D. |
Session One
What is “left communism” and why Lenin fought it: Historical perspectives from Italy, Germany, Holland and Russia
Speakers: Rjurik Davidson, Ari A. and Andrew Martin
The period immediately following 1917 saw the rise in prominence of a current known as Left Communism. Spanning firstly Europe and Russia, this current was defined by several key axioms: revolution “from below”, the theory of the offensive, rejection of participation in the institutions of liberal democracy, including parliament, criticism of the Bolshevik regime as state capitalist, rejection of the “united front” and other blocs with “bourgeois forces,” and rejection of “transitional politics” such as the slogan for a workers’ government. In their various forms, this current was alternately associated with the work of Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Alexandra Kollontai, Vladimir Smirnov, Amadeo Bordiga, Antonie Pannekoek, Tony Cliff, Antonio Negri and others. Left Communist ideas continued in later periods as “autonomism”, guerrilla theories such as that of “foci” popularised by Régis Debray, and the urban guerrilla warfare of the Weather Underground in the US, or the Italian Red Brigades.
This discussion looks at the history of Left Communism — in Russia, Italy, and elsewhere — and the criticisms of it made by the Leninist heritage. It looks at its ongoing influence and what lessons might be drawn for politics today.
Session Two
Political horizons after 40 years of neoliberalism in Australia: Can people’s democratic humanist sentiment be re-linked to ideology and organisation?
Keynote Lecture: Max Lane
Throughout the 20th Century up until the mid-1980s, both socialist and left social democratic political streams existed in Australia. The Communist Party of Australia was an active force in the Labour movement until the 1980s. At one point in the 1940s it almost had a majority of trade union leaderships. There was an active socialist left among the ALP membership, with even a few left-wing MPs. There were parties to the left of both of these currents – especially the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP – formerly SWP), which played important roles in various campaigns and movements in the 1970s and 1980s. After the election of the Hawke-Keating ALP Government and its rapid move to implement neoliberalism, both the ALP Socialist Left and the CPA disintegrated. The DSP continued to be active until the early 2000s but then also disintegrated – though for different reasons.
Since the mid-1980s, progressive left sentiment has become delinked from organisation, ideology and tradition. This sentiment – which is democratic and humanist in character – still exists and may even have strengthened. On almost every major democratic humanist issue arising from the early 1990s until now, large protest demonstrations can occur, even without any leadership or organisations with any authority calling them. East Timor, the Iraq War, Aboriginal Rights/Invasion Day/Deaths in Custody, climate change and the environment, Black Lives Matter and now Palestine are all examples. But these protests are rarely ongoing, except when there is a core national or cultural constituency involved, such as with East Timor and Palestine. These are sentiments, delinked from organisation, ideology and traditions. Delinked in this way, these sentiments, or rather the people that hold them, can do nothing but shout out their outrage and disgust at the ruling classes’ crimes.
The challenge today is to build an organised socialist left that can help solve this problem of delinking and contribute to the realisation of a potential that could win struggles around these issues, and indeed, eventually drive in the direction of revolution. Is this possible?
Session Three
Unifying anti-imperialist Marxists: Experiences and Perspectives from Australia and the United States
Speakers: Claudia de la Cruz – 2024 Presidential Candidate for Party of Socialism and Liberation (USA); Floyd Kermode – Communist Party of Australia and editor of The Guardian – the Workers’ Weekly; Sam King – Founding member of Red Ant
Anti-imperialism is a critical point of unity for building any effective revolutionary movement inside the rich, exploiter countries such as Australia and the United States. This panel will hear perspectives from Marxist organisations both in Australia and the US that seek to build opposition to imperialist aggression against Palestine, China, Russia and elsewhere – as well as imperialist economic exploitation of the Global South societies. In Australia anti-imperialist action is still at an early – though important – stage of development. In the United States, the experiences and achievements of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER coalition provides a point of reflection and discussion about how like minded groups may be able to work together to move the struggle forward.
Session Four
Lenin’s anti-Imperialism Today
Speakers: Nandini Shah, Brendan Duncan-Shah and Nick D.
During recent government and capitalist press hysteria, The Guardian claimed, “Imperialism, in all its awful forms, still poses a threat. But it is no longer the imperialism of the west…today’s threat emanates from the east. Just as objectionable, and potentially more dangerous, it’s the prospect of a totalitarian 21st-century Chinese global empire.”
But if China – as The Guardian claims – is an imperialist state, then what differentiates it from the rich, imperialist societies like Australia and the United States? If it is not only the rich countries but also China that is “imperialist” then why not, for example, India? Why not Morocco? and Iran? and Brazil?
In his 1917 book Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism and in other works, the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin developed a Marxist definition of imperialism. Highlighting economic exploitation and oppression as the basis of imperialism, Lenin demonstrated how and why, “the whole world is now divided into a large number of oppressed nations and a very small number of oppressor nations that are enormously rich.”
In this talk we first explain and analyse competing concepts of imperialism. Compared to the mainstream, liberal or dictionary definition, we argue that Lenin’s concept of imperialism provides a far more compelling answer to the question of which countries are imperialist and why. We then overview the main mechanisms by which an imperialist arrangement of the world economy is produced and reproduced.
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SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Max Lane is renowned internationally as a writer and translator of Pramoedya Ananta Toer – a leading Indonesian dissident intellectual during the military dictatorship. Max was a key leader of the international solidarity movement against the Indonesian dictatorship and helped unite socialist opponents from Indonesia and East Timor with those in Australia. His latest book is Indonesia Out of Exile: How Pramoedya’s Buru Quartet Killed a Dictatorship. He is a founding editor of red-ant.org and has been a socialist activist since 1981. He is a Fellow of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. See maxlaneonline.com
Claudia De la Cruz is a member of the central committee of The Party for Socialism and Liberation. She is a popular educator, community organiser, and theologian. In 2018, she co-founded The People’s Forum, a social movement incubator that provides political education and uplifts socialist values and movements to nurture a new generation of organizers.
Claudia has over 25 years of experience in organising across sectors of struggle and building collective political education and cultural spaces in the US, and internationally. She is part of the political coordination of the International People’s Assembly, a platform that brings together social movements, political parties and organisations from around the world to discuss, debate and engage in collective action.
Rjurik Davidson is a novelist, editor and literary and film critic. His two acclaimed novels are Unwrapped Sky and the Stars Askew. He is winner of the Ditmar Award as Best New Talent and the Aurealis Award for his short fiction. See rjurik.com
Ari A is a PhD graduate and freelance researcher in Political Economy.
Andrew Martin is a rank-and-file union militant with two decades of industrial experience in four Australian states. He has held delegate positions in the AMWU and MUA. He fought to initiate the industrial action against the sell-off of Queensland Rail in 2009. Andrew was the key leader of strike actions against 12-hour night shifts at the Port of Melbourne in 2018. He joined the socialist movement before the Iraq war in 2003 and has also been active in the refugee rights campaign in Western Australia.
Nick D is an Asia Pacific solidarity activist and Indonesian language speaker currently working as a writer and translator. He has been involved in Cuba solidarity and climate justice movements in Sydney as well as campaigning to link left and socialist groups in the region. He is a member of Red Ant’s Editorial Committee.
Floyd Kermode has been a member of the CPA for six years. He edits the CPA’s weekly newspaper, The Guardian – the Workers’ Weekly, and is active in the Melbourne Branch. Prior to joining the CPA Floyd was a dissatisfied member of the Australian Labor Party. He has been an active unionist and union delegate for 13 years and currently works as a teacher.
Sam King is the author of the Marxist theoretical work Imperialism and the development myth: How rich countries dominate in the twenty-first century (Manchester University Press, 2021) and a founding member of the Red Ant Collective.
RED ANT 