The general strike today
Friday, May 27 @ 04:28:31 CDT

Working people in Australia are currently facing the biggest attack on their wages and conditions ever.
What weapons do we have to fight back with? Many in the labour movement are arguing against strikes. John Robertson (Secretary of Unions NSW) goes even further by saying that general strikes only inconvieniance the community. Will this be more or less of an inconvieniance than lower wages and more job insecurity?
As the working class moves back onto the scene in many places around the world we reprint this article by PETER TAAFFE on the general strike today. It was written in July 2003 against a European backdrop but has many points relevant to Australia today.

(read more)   

E=mc2 - How Einstein changed our understanding of the universe
Friday, May 27 @ 01:56:24 CDT

"The results of an electrodynamic investigation recently published by me in this journal lead to a very interesting conclusion, which shall be derived here". The opening lines of one of five scientific papers written 100 years ago by Einstein in 1905.

After three pages of mathematical notes, no more than a postscript to his main Relativity article, the conclusion: E = mc2.
A century after these papers were published, Roy Farrar examines’ how the materialist basis for Einstein’s theories was reflected in his socialist ideas and support for the struggle to change society.

(read more)   

Revolutionaries at 17
Sunday, May 22 @ 19:06:43 CDT

A short piece on the roles that Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky played in the socialist movement from the humble ages of 17.
By Ruth Coppinger, Councillor for the SP in Dublin West Ireland.
Originally printed in Militant Irish Monthly, December 1988

(read more)   

The Great Betrayal
Wednesday, May 04 @ 22:04:56 CDT

Reprinted from a back issue of 'Militant' 1992
Written By Stephen Jolly

What went wrong in Russia and why?
The bosses attempt to link the ideas of genuine socialism with the dictatorship, bureaucracy and mismanagement of Stalinism.
So the answers to How and Why Stalinism arose in Russia in the 1920's must be found.

(read more)   

When the Russian workers took power
Wednesday, May 04 @ 21:46:27 CDT

Reprinted from a back issue of 'Militant' 1992
Written By Stephen Jolly

Every worker serious about real change in society should study the events of the Russian Revolution. It's not just a question of celebrating what has been called "the greatest event in world history", when working people took power for the first time they changed the world forever.

(read more)   

The Question of the Party
Wednesday, May 04 @ 21:29:26 CDT

An article by Peter Taaffe written in 1999
A valuble read today as we ask ourselves what sort of party is needed in order to take us forward to socialism

(read more)   

Rosa Luxemburg: What Are the Origins of May Day?
Tuesday, April 05 @ 02:09:02 CDT

The happy idea of using a proletarian holiday celebration as a means to attain the eight-hour day was first born in Australia.

(read more)   

Twenty years after 1905
Friday, February 11 @ 05:28:47 CST

A speech by Leon Trotsky
This is a speech made by Leon Trotsky on 26 December 1925 and reproduced in the Soviet newspaper, Pravda, on 8 January 1926 under the title, ‘Cherez Dvadtsat Let 1905’ (Twenty Years After 1905). The speech was made at the Second Congress of the Society of Political Prisoners and Deportees. Translated by PETE DICKENSON, this is the first translation from the Russian original.

(read more)   

Socialists and trade unions: A correct approach
Sunday, January 23 @ 19:59:45 CST

Teamster Rebellion: 70th anniversary of Labor’s historic victory in Minneapolis, USA
Today, even the most militant sections of organised trade unionism (eg Workers First in the AMWU and the Victorian branch of the CFMEU) have a generally syndicalist approach, concentrating on bread and butter issues and leaving politics to the capitalists in the ALP. The approach of then healthy, Trotskyist-US Socialist Workers' Party in the 1930s to trade union work was in marked contrast, as you will see when you read this excellent article...
Seventy years ago, a small mid-western city in the US was shaken to its very foundations. The 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strike is one of the greatest labor battles in US history. For two months, the working class owned the streets.
By Canyon Lalama, Minneapolis

(read more)   

The Trade Unions: Communist Theory and Practice of Trade Unionism
Friday, January 14 @ 00:16:39 CST

By Lance Sharkey
First published in 1942 this was the single most influential pamphlet of the Communist Party of Australia - the largest (per capita) and most influential CP in the English-speaking world at the time.
Despite the Stalinism of the party, this pamphlet remains one of the best introductions for young workers as to the correct, most principled, and most effective relationship between socialists and the trade union movement. SP in Australia will probably reprint this pamphlet later this year.
Click here to read...

(read more)   

1905-2005: 100 years since first Russian Revolution
Thursday, January 13 @ 19:24:03 CST

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the 1905 Russian Revolution, where the Russian working class first showed its strength...

(read more)   

Rosa Luxemburg on imperialist hypocrisy over natural disasters
Wednesday, January 12 @ 21:32:55 CST

Rosa Luxemburg was a great Marxist writer and workers' leader who played the key role in the 1918 German Revolution and was murdered in the process.
100 years ago she wrote this brilliant essay after the eruption of Mt. Pelee that killed 40,000 people on the French Caribbean colony of Martinique.
She exposes the hypocrisy of the imperialist powers. Her essay is relevent today in the context of the tsunami tragedy and it shows the brilliance and relevance of a marxist analysis over the tripe we get from bourgeois journalists and the middle class left.

(read more)   

Have we reached “the end of history?” Is Marxism obsolete?
Monday, December 06 @ 18:32:14 CST

By Greg Bradshaw
‘Only the most ideological enemy of Marxism, or uninformed pseudointellectual, could seriously maintain that Marxist theory is obsolete.’ - Douglas Kellner
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Empire have led many to proclaim the end of ‘communism’ as an alternative to the market system. Historian David MacGregor wrote, ‘The former Soviet republics have been baptised by blood, and drowned in Pepsi Cola’.

(read more)   

Che Guevara: A legacy of struggle
Thursday, November 18 @ 17:33:08 CST

Che Guevara has become an iconic figure. His face can be seen in the slums of Argentina, and on countless t-shirts across the globe.
Daniel Waldron, Socialist Party, Ireland

(read more)   

Terrorism: A socialist response
Thursday, November 04 @ 20:51:21 CST

By Gary Duffy
The subject of terrorism is not a clean and easy one to deal with firstly there is the well known popular view that one individuals terrorist isanothers freedom fighter. (For example the East Timorese and the ANC in Sth Africa, the Taliban in Afghanistan who went from freedom fighters when fighting against the Soviets to terrorists when fighting against the US- inthe eyes of Western powers). Secondly terrorism has also meant different things to different people at different times. As an example in pre-revolutionary Russia the assassination of high ranking officials who engaged in brutal behaviour was a popular pastime- those who engaged in this type of activity could be called heroic (even if deluded in their methods). Not so those modern day terrorists with indiscriminate killings of every day citizens.

(read more)   

What future for Socialism?
Wednesday, November 03 @ 05:09:00 CST

LYNN WALSH, editor of Socialism Today, British monthly magazine of the Socialist Party argues that socialism, far from being 'finished', will once again become the idea that guides workers and youth in the struggle for a new society.
From Socialism Today, issue one, September 1995
WHAT, TODAY, ARE the prospects for socialism? Many on the left, including figures previously identified with revolutionary Marxism, are now utterly pessimistic.

(read more)   

Socialist theory
Thursday, October 14 @ 20:09:47 CDT

Why you should be a socialist
Can we reign in corporate power within capitalism? Or is socialism necessary?
By Ty Moore, Socialist Alternative, the CWI party in the United States

(read more)   

George Orwell on human greed and socialism
Tuesday, October 05 @ 02:17:14 CDT

From an article in the British socialist newspaper, Tribune, 21st July 1944
An argument that Socialists ought to be prepared to meet, since it is brought up constantly both by Christian apologists and by neo-pessimists such as James Burnham, is the alleged immutability of ‘human nature’.

(read more)   

The case for a revolutionary party
Thursday, August 12 @ 22:20:59 CDT

The political organisation of workers is a lot weaker today than in the past. In the 1960s and 1970s, for example, many trade unionists and student activists were organised in the Labor Party, or one or other Communist Party, or some other left wing party.

Today, the shift to the Right in the Labor Party has led to its emptying out by workers and young people. The collapse of Stalinist Soviet Union and Eastern European regimes led to the virtual wiping out of the Communist Parties in Australia and worldwide. Left parties like the Socialist Party are still small, albeit very active and ‘punching above their weight’ in terms of their effectiveness.

(read more)   

The Origins and Influences of Marxism
Friday, July 02 @ 00:57:47 CDT

THE REAL WORLD OF CHANGING IDEAS
By Gregory Bradshaw, Melbourne City branch SP

(read more)   

In defence of October
Wednesday, June 30 @ 05:16:17 CDT

Was the Russian Revolution of 1917 justified, especially in the context of the subsequent rise of Stalinism? Leon Trotsky's answers this question in his brilliant speech to students in Copenhagen in 1932.

(read more)   

Socialist analysis of Northern Ireland conflict
Sunday, May 30 @ 19:09:18 CDT

Troubled Times, The National Question in Ireland
By Northern Ireland Socialist Party Secretary Peter Hadden
First published 1995 now available online for the first time
Best single piece on how Marxists take up the most complex question of all, the National Question


(read more)   

Einstein on socialism
Tuesday, March 30 @ 03:04:51 CST

Here is an article on the need for socialism by someone regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of all time: Albert Einstein.

(read more)   

How capitalism works
Wednesday, February 11 @ 18:47:46 CST

A basic introduction to Marxist economics

(read more)   

Lenin: The original dictator?
Tuesday, February 10 @ 18:38:05 CST

In a moment of exaltation when US troops conquered Baghdad on April 10 last year, the US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, proclaimed that “Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed, brutal dictators”. Eighty years after the death of Lenin, the ruling classes globally still link him to the most horrific dictators.
PER ÅKE WESTERLUND looks at the reasons behind these decades of slander.

(read more)   

Has socialism ever existed?
Sunday, February 08 @ 05:22:43 CST

By Greg Bradshaw, Socialist Party Melbourne


(read more)   

New material from Soviet archives confirms Bolsheviks' position on Kronstadt!
Monday, January 19 @ 21:52:21 CST

For many years the capitalist press, erudite professors and bourgeois analysts have been going on about the "secrets in the Soviet archives". There was much speculation about the "terrible secrets of the communist regime" that would finally confirm the "evil character" of communism.

(read more)   

Short explanation of Dialectics
Sunday, January 18 @ 19:47:46 CST

Reading for SP Melbourne joint branch meeting on Introduction to Dialectics, 20th January 2004. Speaker: Andy Blunden
Very good, short explanation

(read more)   

Against the theory of State Capitalism
Friday, January 09 @ 03:35:55 CST

Ted Grant's 1949 article opposing the idea that the Stalinist USSR and Eastern European regimes were a form of capitalism - "state capitalism" - is still the best read on the question. Groups like the Socialist Alternative and the International Socialist Organisation hold the state capitalist theory as the center piece of their ideas.
This article is aimed at Tony Cliff who re-raised the state capitalism theory after the war (Trotsky had slammed the idea in the 1930s when argued by some US socialists). Cliff went on to found the SWP/ISO tendency (from which Socialist Alternative comes too).
Ted Grant was a leading figure in the CWI until he split with us in 1991 insisting on staying in the Labor Parties of the world well after their use by date in terms of active involvement by workers and youth. The web site 'In defence of Marxism' is run by his supporters today.

(read more)   

Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech - 1956
Thursday, October 30 @ 19:07:18 CST

Speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union by Khrushchev.
The slave labour camps in the USSR and the bureacractic mismanagement of the economy were leading to a backsliding of society and potential opposition from below. Khrushchev, who himself had been in the top leadership during the purges of the 1930s, had to act to distance himself from Stalin as a means of survival.
Khrushchev's earthshattering speech had a huge impact on stattering the remaining illusions in Stalinism amongst workers and peasants worldwide.

(read more)