Socialism

The overwhelming majority of the 1140 people who attended some part of the Marxism 2013 conference would have agreed with Socialist Alternative national executive member Vashti Kenway at the opening session: “I am feeling extremely hopeful of developments here in the left in Australia.” The hopes for closer unity of the revolutionary left infused the conference with excitement in the wake of the March 28 merger of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and Socialist Alternative and the participation in and endorsement of the conference by the Socialist Alliance and Green Left Weekly.

National co-convenor of the Socialist Alliance, Peter Boyle, addresses the opening night session of the Marxism 2013 conference. Marxism 2013 has been organised by Socialist Alternative and supported by Socialist Alliance, Green Left Weekly & the Revolutionary Socialist Party. This talk discusses some of the challenges and prospects of left unity in Australia.

Photos of the first day of Marxism 2013 by Ali Bakhtiarvandi.

A capacity crowd of about 350 people filled the room for the opening night of the Marxism 2013 conference in Melbourne on March 28.

The Price of Valour: The Triumph & Tragedy of a Gallipoli Hero, Hugo Throssell, VC John Hamilton Pan Macmillan, 2012 393 pages, $34.99 (pb) Captain Hugo Throssell, one of nine Australian soldiers to win a Victoria Cross for supreme bravery at Gallipoli in 1915, stunned his home-town audience of patriotic Australians in 1919 with his statement that “the war has made me a socialist”.

It takes more than an individual to upset the international chessboard as dramatically as it has been in the past decade. Forces unleashed by the logic of capitalism have drawn a new geopolitical map, in which the United States has lost its former place as the world's centre of gravity and the ultimate arbiter of the key issues of the economy, politics and war. Yet, though changes of such magnitude were obviously not the work of one person, the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s hallmark was a profound intuition of this impending change.

Do oil spills make good economic sense? A witness called by Canadian firm Enbridge Inc— which wants approval to build a $6.5 billion pipeline linking Alberta’s tar sands with the Pacific coast — told a recent hearing in British Columbia that the answer is yes.

The abortive leadership spill in the Labor party on March 22 was yet another demonstration of its total political bankruptcy. Kevin Rudd's leadership ambitions may now be in the dustbin of history but Prime Minister Julia Gillard has won a pyrrhic victory. The public watched this gross display of principle-free power play in disgust. It seemed to make a government led by Liberal leader Tony Abbott a virtual certainty.

Beyond Capitalism? The Future of Radical Politics Luke Cooper & Simon Hardy Zero Books, 2013 Luke Cooper and Simon Hardy should be congratulated on producing a thoughtful contribution as to how we build a movement capable of defeating capitalism and creating a socialist society. From climate change to the financial crisis and austerity, the neo-liberal project has failed. Where it once promised prosperity, it can only deliver ashes.

The latest Green Left Report discusses the passing of revolutionary Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, and his legacy in Venezuela, Latin America and globally.

Tens of thousands of Haitians spontaneously poured into the streets of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, on the morning of March 12, 2007. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez had just arrived in Haiti all but unannounced. A multitude, shrieking and singing with glee, joined him in jogging alongside the motorcade of Haiti’s then President Rene Preval on its way to the National Palace (later destroyed in the 2010 earthquake).

When Hugo Chávez triumphed in the 1998 presidential elections, the neoliberal capitalist model was already floundering. The choice then was whether to re-establish the neoliberal capitalist model — clearly with some changes including greater concern for social issues, but still motivated by the same logic of profit seeking — or to go ahead and try to build another model.