Communism in Australia

[The text of a talk delivered to the conference A Century of Struggle — Laborism and the Radical Alternative. Lessons for Today. The gathering was held in Melbourne on May 30, 2009; it was organised by Socialist Alliance and sponsored by Green Left Weekly.]

The original Communist Party of Australia ceased to exist in 1991. (The present CPA is the renamed Socialist Party of Australia, the result of a pro-Moscow split from the old CPA in 1971.) So it is a long while gone. Many comrades here would have had no experience of it.

The Great Depression: Lessons for Socialists

[This is an edited version of a talk delivered at the World at a Crossroads Conference in Sydney, Easter 2009. It was organised by the Democratic Socialist Perspective and Resistance and sponsored by Green Left Weekly.]

It is widely recognised that the current global economic crisis is not a normal recession of the kind which characterises the capitalist business cycle — that is, it is not one of the periodic downturns which inevitably follow a boom period. Rather, it is a fundamental slump.