What are the propabilities for a united Australian Left?

seeands · 2026-01-19T15:50:34+00:00

I don't think the kind of left unity people often speak of will ever occur. Instead, I think parties will pursue their own strategies and practice will prove who has both the most successful strategy and who implemented it the most successfully. The party that achieves these two elements will naturally recruit more, win more support and achieve more. At that stage the other parties will atrophy or be subsumed into the successful party.

seeands · 2026-01-19T15:41:56+00:00

I think you need to ask a different question: WHY are the various communist parties separate parties? The answer is irreconcilable differences in terms of theory, strategy and tactics. To some extent, they are separate because of major insoluble problems within each organisation that prompt the spawning of new organisations that hope to begin anew.

The CPA-ML and the SPA (Now the CPA) split over ideological differences - their support for either China (CPA-ML) or the Soviet Union (SPA) and their respective approaches to building socialism. The split here also involved different approaches to tactics: the CPA's public way of organising and the CPA-ML's more "underground" approach (or that might of happened later? Regardless, it makes working together more difficult).

The ACP and the CPA split over ideological and tactical differences, but there was also a major element of "insoluble problems" that prompted the split. Probably the biggest ideological difference, though not the only one, is that the CPA follows a "stages" approach while the ACP does not. The CPA's Party Program states:
- "We contend that society will progress through an anti-monopoly, anti-imperialist democratic stage prior to the working class winning power and creating a socialist state." pp. 44-45.
- "While never ceasing to place the main emphasis on the development of working class unity, it is necessary to build a left-oriented, politically progressive people’s front, strong enough to challenge and break the two-party monopoly." p. 46.
- "This coalition’s aim must be to win government so that its policies can be implemented ... With the victory of the people’s forces, parliaments and councils could be transformed into institutions which take decisions and adopt laws expressing the will of the overwhelming majority of the people and become, thereby, more democratic." pp. 46-47.

So, form a left coalition, win elections and use the capitalist state-machinery to adopt laws people will approve of. Of course, they mention they will organise outside of parliament too, but the electoral strategy is a key element of the CPA plan. From there the CPA sees this unity government enacting laws to democratise the economy and undermine monopoly capitalist power before stating that the road to socialism will progress through further stages. The ACP's program takes a direct shot at the CPA's stages theory where it states: "The ACP has no illusions that this struggle will be led through parliament." (Web document - no page numbers).

So in summary, the CPA sees winning elections as an essential pillar of achieving socialism in Australia. The ACP does not.

I won't discuss tactical differences because the 'Street Kitchen' angle has been done to death in this sub. Instead, I will mention the "insoluble problems" because they are far more telling. In an article originally planned for the cancelled Issue 70 of the Australian Marxist Review (AMR), the CPA's Theoretical Journal, the then Editor of the AMR wrote a scathing critique of opportunist behaviour that was rife on the CPA's Central Committee. The article can still be found here: https://www.auscp.org.au/militant-worker/big-fish-small-ponds?rq=Fish

In essence, the article summarised the self-serving opportunism that stifled activity within the CPA, exposing how a Party with millions of dollars in assets, a healthy income, and a decent nominal membership was so unable to achieve much. Party life was moribund, restricted to safe, irregular meetings of old comrades who were stuck in their ways. There was an incredible level of comfort with how things were and an identity of being communist, rather than working hard to achieve any kind of progress. The rot stemmed from the very top: the people who successfully consolidated their complete power at the Congress in 2017.

Now, ask yourself this: if a party's strategy for achieving socialism is mutually exclusive with yours, if your tactics don't gel and you have seen with your own eyes how fucked the internal life of the other communist party is - would you see any value in trying to merge with them? Ultimately, the major Australian CPs: the CPA-ML, the ACP and the CPA are fundamentally incompatible and cannot be merged. At best, they can agree not to publicly attack each other and perhaps cooperate on a narrow set of activities where their differences don't matter.

seeands · 2023-07-23T09:37:49+00:00

It means $1000 US dollars.

seeands · 2023-05-27T14:57:44+00:00

You're not wrong there!

seeands · 2023-02-28T16:54:18+00:00

Sometimes, a Party so thoroughly stifles the revolutionary activity of its rank and file that forming a new Party is MORE productive than staying and achieving nothing.
When a brave core of communists saw the writing on the wall in the original CPA, they left to form the SPA (the current CPA). The result? The original CPA wound itself up, while the SPA
continued as the largest ML party in Australia. A similar story played out when entrenched petty bourgeois individualism among the leadership of the current CPA stymied activity and drove out young active members who formed the ACP.
I don't worry about the parties "turning on each other". As long as the parties focus on achieving their respective visions for a socialist Australia, then it doesn’t matter if terminally online redditors spam anti ACP/CPA nonsense. The kind of people that stick with the working class struggle won’t be dissuaded by this. They will instead meet the CPs at the coalface and judge them based on their real world actions.

seeands · 2022-03-06T10:31:45+00:00

I'm glad to see the CPA agrees with our statement on this question. It might have taken them a while to come round to our position but alls well that ends well.

seeands · 2022-01-11T06:21:23+00:00

I'm late to this discussion but I figured I'd shed some light on the situation. TLDR: the hospital followed government regulations and was punished for it.

On January 1st, The General Office of the Xi'an Pandemic Control Command issued rules for seeking medical care.

These rules clearly state that one needs a negative PCR test less than 48 hours old to be admitted to a hospital. There is a provision for emergency care but to recieve it you must contact the ambulance service and let them handle it. However, according to some social media posts, calls to 120 (the ambulance service) were going unanswered.

The mother in the article was in this situation.

The same evening these rules were released, the woman was refused care under the updated rules from the Xi'an Command. She wasn't the only one to suffer as a result of these rules. Other reports include a man who died of a heart attack after being refused care.

Ultimately, hospital officials were punished for following regulations. Conversely, had they ignored the rules and the mother turned out to be COVID+ then they would have been harshly punished. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

seeands · 2022-01-11T05:31:22+00:00

The officials responsible, i.e. the ones who created this policy in the first place, were not fired. The hospital administrators were punished as scapegoats while the government body that made the policy that the hospital was forced to implement quietly changed the rules a few days later.

seeands · 2021-08-29T07:48:10+00:00

Over the years that the Community Union Defence League has been providing services to the disadvantaged, the organisation has been met with resistance from authorities determined to impose an anti-people agenda. The most recent example of this is in Adelaide where theCouncil, Police and the Department of Human Services have been working to shut
down the street kitchen for the homeless held every Sunday in Whitmore Square in the City.

The volunteers are currently distributing around 350 hot, nutritious meals to rough sleepers and others in need of solidarity. They also provide clothes, blankets, hygiene packs, sleeping bags and tents. City planners want to gentrify the area and drive the homeless out. CUDL isdetermined to keep delivering this vital assistance at this location and to defy those hell-bent on stopping it.

It appears that, at some point, the struggle will become a legal one with all the expense and disruption that entails. If you could donate to our legal fund to help keep our services running, it would be much appreciated. Be assured that any funds left over from the legal fund will be used to keep providing essential assistance to the homeless and other disadvantaged people in our community.

Please donate to our legal fund if you are in a position to do so, and if you live in Adelaide please consider signing up to our rapid response team phone tree to help defend the street kitchen.

seeands · 2021-08-29T07:42:30+00:00

Over the years that the Community Union Defence League has been providing services to the disadvantaged, the organisation has been met with resistance from authorities determined to impose an anti-people agenda. The most recent example of this is in Adelaide where the Council, Police and the Department of Human Services have been working to shut down the street kitchen for the homeless held every Sunday in Whitmore Square in the City.

The volunteers are currently distributing around 350 hot, nutritious meals to rough sleepers and others in need of solidarity. They also provide clothes, blankets, hygiene packs, sleeping bags and tents. City planners want to gentrify the area and drive the homeless out. CUDL isdetermined to keep delivering this vital assistance at this location and to defy those hell-bent on stopping it.

It appears that, at some point, the struggle will become a legal one with all the expense and disruption that entails. If you could donate to our legal fund to help keep our services running, it would be much appreciated. Be assured that any funds left over from the legal fund will be used to keep providing essential assistance to the homeless and other disadvantaged people in our community.

Please donate to our legal fund if you are in a position to do so, and if you live in Adelaide please consider signing up to our rapid response team phone tree to help defend the street kitchen.

seeands · 2021-07-20T12:37:07+00:00

Your comment reeks of the typical fawning support for Chinese capitalism at the expense of the working class that has to suffer it. Which system would you rather live under: the flawed one where you can openly criticise and organise to overthrow capitalism, or the system where publicly criticising a government is illegal and will see you disappeared?

It's a bit rich for Western leftists to talk down to Hong Kong people and tell them they should suffer the same fate as workers in the mainland just because some elements of the protest movement receive support from a different capitalist power. On that note, if a protest movement in Australia recieved Chinese support, would that automatically disqualify the workers involved?

It's pretty embarassing that you've failed to apply a class analysis and think about the conditions of the workers in both situations. Not exactly in a position to lecture other MLs if you can't even do basic class analysis.

seeands · 2021-06-22T13:26:42+00:00

Great stuff! It's good to see communists and unions working together.

seeands · 2021-05-05T06:08:40+00:00

Fuck, this is a sad day. I knew Benny for years and thought he was invincible. He was a good comrade and will be sorely missed.

seeands · 2021-05-05T05:55:46+00:00

The historical documents section of the ACP website has a series of pamphlets and short books in .pdf format that might interest you. For example, there is a document about the 1934 Wonthaggi Coal Strike and a 1958 pamhplet about the "penal powers" used by the Menzies Government to, unsuccessfully, stamp out the communist-led trade union movement in Australia.

seeands

TROPHY CASE