Reply to Bill - good Marxist party in Australia ?

["Chris Warren" <cwarren@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

very interesting question - and I wonder what the hidden agenda is?

Bill asks the wrong questoin - he should ask - "what party for good Marxists
in Australia?"

I don't know what union Bill is from, and what experience he has had but
there is no true worker based party in any advanced western capitalist
state.  A true Australian marxist party has yet to emerge.

We currently have well intentoined by tragically anti-Marxist groups,
setting themselves up in complete contradiction of the Communist Manifesto,
as sectarian organisations opposed to working class organisations.  The
International Socialists and the DSP are examples of this.  The old
communist party was initially set up as an sectarian organistion (as a
faction within Sydney trades union movement) but later sought to work with
the broader labour party.  This was blocked by federal labour party
intervention (1946?).  This is one key point about the experience of
Australian marxism.

In my view, Australian marxism, ie communism, has been forced into an
unnatural, dysfunctional, sectarian position outside the mass labour
movment.  Nonetheless Australian marxism had huge success but only when it
worked in non-sectarian fashion within the working class after WW2.
Sectarian splits in the 1960's destroyed Australian marxism.

So the problem boils down, for true Marxists in OECD countries, to working
in whatever mass parties have substantial support within the working class,
or working supportatively in Australian trade unions.  In other words it is
not appropriate for Australian marxists to set up their own sectarian
organisations opposed to other working class parties, except when there is
no other alternative.

Marxism is for a class not a sect and you cannot have a vanguard outside and
opposed to the workers movement.

Because western capitalism has created unnatural and temporary class
relationships through exploitation of the rest of the world, western working
class parties have all generally been subverted by the middle class - so
called gentrification.  This certainly applies to Australia.  But we don't
judge marxist tactics from this simple standpoint.

The only organisations that are true working class parties are trade unions
and trades and labour councils.  If Bill informs us what experience he has
had with any of Australia's best trade unoins, he may receive an appropriate
answer.

Otherwise he should just continue his window-shopping in the wasteland of
the sectarian left.



Chris Warren





----- Original Message -----
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 1:04 AM
Subject: Forwarded from Bill


> Can anyone give me some help finding a good Marxist party in Australia to
> join? I was a member of the Socialist Alliance and am currently in the
> Greens but am seeking a true worker based party. I am currently looking at
> Workers liberty, Socialist alternative and the Socialist Equality party
>
> thanks Bill
>
>
> Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
>
>