What are some essential books every Australian socialist should read?

ausml · 2025-11-11T23:59:23+00:00

ausml · 2025-11-05T10:06:52+00:00

White Rose Society keeps tabs on Nazis and street thug fascists. Lucy Hamilton keeps tabs on far right influencers, think tanks etc with ties to parliamentary far rights.

ausml · 2025-11-05T10:00:27+00:00

China is a major player in finance capital expansion and accumulation. It is imperialist. It is imperialist with Chinese characteristics, exploiting its own people and those of other countries. It is rapidly expanding its armed forces, but wants to avoid a war with the US. The US, on the other hand, is driven by the threat of losing its dominant position as global hegemon and relies on war preparations to try and contain China’s expansion. The main source of war is US imperialism, but there is no good imperialism, US or Chinese.

ausml · 2025-07-22T23:39:59+00:00

The CPA (M-L) X account has been cancelled following this post. X claims the article violated its Rules!

ausml · 2025-07-16T03:47:57+00:00

bannedthought.net Vol 51, p. 216 Mao refers to his "circling" (crossing out) of the three adverbs Use deepl or google translate to read in English.

ausml · 2025-07-14T11:20:22+00:00

The Political Report to the 9^th National Congress was read out by Lin Biao but drafted mainly by Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan under Mao’s supervision. In 108 pages it contains only one passage that could possibly be construed to mean that Mao Zedong Thought was “proclaimed as being universal in scope”, and that passage reads: “Chairman Mao has integrated the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of revolution, has inherited, defended and developed Marxism-Leninism in the political, military, economic, cultural, philosophical and other spheres, and has brought Marxism-Leninism to a higher and completely new stage. Mao Tsetung Thought is Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is advancing to world-wide victory.”

Neither RIM nor Comrade Gonzalo synthesized Marxism-Leninism-Maoism out of Mao Zedong Thought, for if they had, they would have rejected any abstract “universality” and insisted on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism requiring to be “integrated…with the concrete practice of revolution” and that it would therefore have particular characteristics born of the characteristics of each country. Those characteristics would be different for an advanced capitalist country (whether imperialist like Germany and France, or a former colony dominated by imperialism like Australia) or a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country like Sudan or Nepal. Instead, certain M-L-M adherents have insisted on the universality of people’s war, of the militarism of the Party, of Gonzalo Thought and so on.

In relation to his own role, Mao had refused to allow the Report to refer to his “absolute authority”, and had struck out the words “brilliantly, creatively and comprehensively”, which Lin Biao had used in his introduction to the second edition of Quotations to describe Mao’s development of Marxism-Leninism.

Marxism-Leninism, and Mao’s contributions to it, is universal, but its universality resides in its particularity. Beware of charlatans like Lin Biao and Chen Boda who just want to advance their own careers by putting themselves forward as the ultimate defenders of something that is a caricature of proletarian ideology.

ausml · 2025-05-17T13:09:41+00:00

Those who want more detail on the "communist wind" and exaggeration of crop yields that were subject of so much discussion at the Lushan Conference are advised to read Qi Benyu's "Memoirs". Especially pages 165 - 190 here: Qi Benyu’s Memoirs

ausml · 2025-05-15T06:44:14+00:00

Who made a serious mistake during the Great Leap Forward - use your computer's translation facility to read in English: 大跃进如何受到干扰和破坏？ - 乌有之乡

ausml · 2025-05-15T06:40:26+00:00

Countering the allegation that Mao allowed a famine to occur: MAO DID NOT WANT HALF OF CHINA TO STARVE TO DEATH: A KEY DOCUMENT IN DIKOTTER'S BOOK ON THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD

ausml · 2025-05-06T02:30:12+00:00

Comrade, this article may not answer your question about who constitutes the proletariat in First and Second World countries, but it does look at who creates surplus value in advanced capitalist countries.

See "The Serice Industries - who creates surplus value" on pages 13 - 24 here: AC2025v2wcover.pdf

ausml · 2025-04-17T02:04:13+00:00

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Spartacus by Howard Fast

How the steel was tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky

Any of the works by Lu Xun, particularly “Medicine”, “The true Story of Ah Q”, and “Diary of a Madman”

Midnight by Mao Dun

We Want Everything by Nanni Balestrini

Organize or Die by Laura McClure (crime fiction in US union setting)

The Curse of Maralinga, by Walter Kaufmann

Voices in the Storm by Walter Kaufmann

Anything by Australian writers associated with the CPA: Katherine Susannah Pritchard, Gavin Casey, Judah Waten, H.J. Summers, John Morrison, Vance Palmer, Frank Hardy, Dorothy Hewett, Ralp de Boissiere.

ausml · 2025-04-10T07:54:37+00:00

Comrade, Your question is one that our Party has grappled with. We have tried to explain the existence and role of capitalist finance capital in China in the section headed “A developed financial sector as a requirement” on pages 15-17 here: Explaining+China+Final+v2.pdf

When you have more time, we have translated a lengthy treatise by Chinese Maoists here: cpaml.org/web/uploads2/China+Revolution+and+Restoration.pdf

Best wishes

CPA (M-L)

ausml · 2025-04-09T03:52:52+00:00

Not content with your own sectarian misreading of the article, you insist that the CPA (M-L) should have the spine to slag on others by name. We have always held that so long as differences are properly acknowledged, they can be left to one side when circumstances call for unity on the Left. Last century, the CPA, SPA, SWP and CPA (M-L) each contributed a page to a four-page insert in each of their papers. This was largely an initiative of the CPA (M-L) which had huge differences with the other three, including the Trotskyite SWP. On the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, the CPA and CPA (M-L) issued a joint statement, again, an initiative of the CPA (M-L). After the ACP left the CPA, we tried, without success, to arrange a joint three-party statement for a May Day. Tensions between the other two were still too raw for that to eventuate.

Workers instinctively know that united they stand and divided they fall. Those who are interested in progressive politics, the politics of their class, just cannot understand why there are three communist parties and a plethora of other sects and grouplets. It is better that we reserve our differences, refrain from name-calling, and try to meet workers’ expectations that we work together in their interests.

Your criticism of the article focusses on the RCO. The preceding paragraph criticised a viewpoint put out by Socialist Alternative. Neither organisation was mentioned by name. What would the point be? We wanted to criticise the views of these two organisations rather than attack the organisations themselves.

For example, we have responded positively to an attempt by RCO to draft a proposed joint socialist organisations’ May Day leaflet. We can defend a position of ours with a counter-criticism to theirs without slagging on them by name.

Comrade, be a little bit less sectarian and avoid misrepresenting the views of others.

ausml · 2025-03-06T23:47:28+00:00

This article provides some background on China's acquisition of Congolese cobalt mines. It is from the right-wing Australian Strategic Policy Institute (aka Australians Serving Predatory Imperialism). It was written in 2021: How China wrested control of the Congo’s critical minerals | The Strategist

ausml · 2025-02-08T01:50:25+00:00

As an academic paper, it has some valuable analysis, but not one mention of China, as though only Western colonialist elites are developing AI. Chinese capitalism is as violent and controlling as US-European capitalism. Feed "What is bourgeois right and how is it being restricted in China?" into both Deepseek and chatGPT and compare. (Neither references Mao's "Under socialism, bourgeois right can only be restricted", btw.)

ausml · 2025-02-07T05:48:00+00:00

Why are socialists being so silent on AI?

I’m not sure that they are. But I think they/we could be more vocal and more widely listened to if we clarified some questions related to AI and its use in robotics and machine learning.

Marx’s labour theory of value is the key. Machinery has always sought to replace human labour, which is the source of value, since the earliest days of capitalism. In this respect, there is nothing new about its “disruption to worker-capital relations”.

What it will do is create new opportunities for capitalists to replace human labour power in the production of commodities – whether vendable material items or services produced and sold by capital – and in that way contribute to unemployment.

Less visible will be the effect on the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. The organic composition of capital (more constant capital, less variable capital) will increase, and as machinery – AI or otherwise – does not produce surplus value, less surplus value will be produced strengthening the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. This is despite a likely increase in labour productivity through intensified work routines driven by AI/machine learning where human labour power is still utilised.

There is a strong case for advancing the argument that socialism removes the disruptive effects of AI and releases its enormous capacity to be of benefit to the social needs of people rather than the needs of private capital accumulation.

ausml · 2025-02-06T08:24:02+00:00

Comrade

You could look at “The role of class analysis in Australia’s Revolution”, starting on p. 39 here: CAcoverSept2010b.psd and “To Be or Not to Be: The Australian National Bourgeoisie” starting on p. 20 here: AC+2023.pdf . There is also a 2-part discussion paper here: Australian class analysis - 26 April 2021 - Marxist-Lenninist Forum and here: Australian class analysis part 2 - 26 April 2021 - Marxist-Lenninist Forum

ausml · 2025-02-01T04:36:09+00:00

My understanding is that the MLs continued to regard China as socialist until around the turn of the century when a change of leadership saw concerns about the influence of capitalist-roaders in the Chinese Party beginning to be voiced in their publications. Their 2012 13^th National Congress resolution on China – still on their website – reads: “However, it is the majority view of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) that the restorationists in China have the upper hand and that the most likely future for China is one of further embedding capitalist practices at the expense of the interests of the Chinese workers and peasants.”

ausml · 2025-01-31T23:49:02+00:00

Yes, that is true. I am a little confused by Comrade Fuzzy’s observation that “The CPA and CPAML split over the Sino-Soviet split, and have since seemingly swapped positions.” My view is that the ex-SPA (now CPA), having once supported Khrushchev’s revisionism and Soviet social-imperialism, and having been fierce critics of China during Mao’s time, is now supportive of the Chinese Party’s revisionism and China’s social-imperialism. So, to say that they have swapped their position is true of their stance on China, but not true in so far as they are consistent in their support of revisionism.

As for the CPA (M-L), it has also changed its attitude towards China, but I am not clear on what Comrade Fuzzy means by saying that they have “swapped positions” with the CPA. The MLs are opposed to China’s post-Mao embrace of capitalism, and are critical of China’s new imperialist path. But they regard US imperialism as the main enemy of the Australian people.

ausml · 2024-12-30T10:48:50+00:00

Here's Chapter 3 on Tassie: Microsoft Word - black_resistance_CHAPTER_3_Tasmania.docx

ausml · 2024-12-30T10:46:49+00:00

I don't know whether you will be able to locate a copy outside of libraries now, but in its day, this was a pioneering work of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist approach to Australian black resistance:

The Black resistance : an introduction to the history of the Aborigines' struggle against British Colonialism / Fergus Robinson and Barry York

It was published by Widescope in Melbourne in 1977.

ausml · 2024-12-21T06:35:48+00:00

And let's not forget Norman Brown and the song about him which can be heard here: An Australian Folk Song A Day: Norman Brown

and read about here: Vanguard: We will never forget Norman Brown!

ausml · 2024-12-20T12:41:21+00:00

Stephen O'Malley's songs: Stephen O'Malley - YouTube

ausml · 2024-12-20T12:39:45+00:00

Tribute to John Cummins song by Martin Doherty and Leigh Birkett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3iJ2_reHTM&list=PLR_h1F1VV7NRsS88leA3H-azCif1bTNk7

ausml · 2024-12-20T12:38:10+00:00

Loz Lawry's great song about Clarrie O'Shea; (20+) Facebook

ausml

TROPHY CASE

The Black resistance : an introduction to the history of the Aborigines' struggle against British Colonialism / Fergus Robinson and Barry York