Theory & History

By Owen Richards

“I’d do it exactly the same all over again”, Fidel Castro insisted on July 24, making one of his first public appearances since a devastating intestinal illness in 2006 forced him from the public eye. The former president was referring to the failed 1953 attack he led against the Moncada Barracks in Oriente province, which proved to be the opening salvo in the Cuban Revolution. Castro was visiting the municipality of Artemisa to pay tribute to Cuba’s July 26 martyrs. He read a commemorative message to the crowd, describing July 26, 2010, as the “attainment of 57 years of struggle without surrender for the independence of our homeland”.

By Allen Myers

It’s easy enough to see that there are many things in this world that need changing. Figuring out how to change them is a bit more complicated.

North Star — A Memoir
By Peter Camejo
Haymarket Books, Chicago, 2010

Reviewed by Barry Sheppard

By Allen Myers

“Socialism sounds like a great idea, but it’s not really feasible. At least in the developed countries, workers are too brainwashed by the system, and the ruling class is just too powerful to be overthrown.” That is not a precise quotation from any specific person, but socialists frequently encounter arguments to this effect. It is a widespread view in developed capitalist countries like Australia. How accurate is it?

By John Percy

Thirty-five years ago the monstrous US (and Australian) war against the people of Vietnam finally came to an end. On April 30, 1975, Vietnamese forces entered Saigon. There were memorable scenes — the Vietnamese tank smashing through the gates of the puppet presidential palace; people streaming to the roof of the US embassy to catch the last helicopters out of Saigon; helicopters being pushed overboard from US aircraft carriers off the coast to make way for more fleeing helicopters.

By Allen Myers

Australia has been much luckier than most countries in the current international recession. While unemployment has certainly increased, it has not risen as much as in most of the world and, at 5.4%, it is still lower than it was throughout the 1990s. Partly this is because some unemployment is disguised as underemployment (people not being able to work as many paid hours as they would like), or because the official statistics don’t count people who have given up looking for work. Mainly, however, it reflects the particularly fortunate position of Australian capitalism, which has raked in huge fortunes over the past two decades by selling vast quantities of raw materials to countries in Asia, particularly China.

By Allen Myers

“Why can’t the left get together? Why are there so many different socialist groups?” Sometimes these questions are just an attempt to belittle the socialist left by right-wingers (who nevertheless think it perfectly normal that there should be many pro-capitalist parties). But it is also a serious question from unaffiliated leftists.

By Kerry Vernon

In a March 19 article on the website of the Socialist Alternative (SAlt) group, the largest Australian organisation claiming to be Marxist, titled “Why men don’t benefit from women’s oppression”, SAlt member Kate Jeffreys repeats a gross distortion of the Marxist analysis of the oppression of women under capitalism. In arguing, correctly, that it is the capitalist class that is the cause and chief beneficiary of women’s oppression, Jeffreys also claims working-class men do not benefit in any way from capitalism’s sexist oppression of working-class women, despite the fact that working-class men have higher wages than working-class women, are more unionised and have more valued skills. They also don’t do anywhere near their fair share of unpaid housework and hardly ever suffer sexual harassment and assault.

By Hamish Chitts

When the visit of US President Barack Obama was announced last month, an official White House statement said he “is looking forward to commemorating the 70th anniversary of Australia-US relations”. Far from being a cause of celebration, the anniversary represents 70 years of cooperation in attacks, invasions and occupations in the pursuit of economic dominance and profit for a handful of obscenely rich people in both countries — a 70-year axis of evil pitting working people from Australia and the US against working people resisting imperialist exploitation.

By Allen Myers

An Australian Associated Press report a few months ago unintentionally pointed out one of the absurdities of modern capitalism. This is that a good part of the so-called wealth of capitalist societies doesn’t really exist. According to the report (as printed in the October 1 Sydney Morning Herald), the outbreak of the international economic crisis in 2008 caused personal wealth (excluding housing and self-owned businesses) in Australia to drop by 27%. It quoted the multinational Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as saying that Australian personal wealth fell by more than $600 billion from the year before. And — shed a tear for them — 32,790 households stopped being millionaires (leaving only 49,452).