The main meeting of the revolutionary left in Australia is organized by Socialist Alternative. Hundreds of participants from all over the country. Conferences on the most diverse themes from a socialist perspective. International guests and among them our participation on behalf of the International Socialist League.

By: Mariano Rosa

During 3 consecutive days from April 18 to 20, with an opening on Thursday, April 17, with militant energy and socialist ideas for the revolution, a new edition of the Marxism 2025 Conference took place at the University of Melbourne. This initiative carried out by Socialist Alternative, the most important left organization in the country, is the meeting point of young activism fundamentally, and of the best elements of the vanguard of social movements and representations of the radical working class of the country. At the opening of the event, the fundamental issues that gravitate in the world and Australia were highlighted:

*Trump and the new stage he opens with his ultra-reactionary and imperialist offensive policy.

*The struggle of the heroic Palestinian people and the mobilizations around the world resisting the right-wing wave that attacks historic conquests.

*The need for the new generations, learning from present and past struggles, to lead the construction of a political alternative to defeat the rich, their governments and impose a workers’ way out.

In the central auditorium of the University that marked the functioning of the Conference, the following three days turned into a true school of Marxist political formation, of revolutionary left and for the structural transformation of the world.

From historical and theoretical issues of the labor and socialist movement of the world, including Australia, to sessions on Marxism for beginners, processes of class struggle and revolutions that marked the twentieth century and so far in the twenty-first, as well as debates on the national and international situation. This meeting of activism and socialist militancy was nourished by all these debates.

The world, its contradictions and challenges

The world situation was present from the beginning and in many of the panels in the presentations made. There were international guests from Egypt, France, Germany and our case, Argentina on behalf of ISL:

*Hossam el-Hamalawy, Egyptian journalist and socialist activist, who addressed the struggles in the world from the perspective of the Arab Spring.

*Mathis Aversenq, member of the French NPA-R, who described the situation in that country, the rise of the far-right and the tasks of the revolutionary left.

*Willi Schulz, member of Workers Power Germany – League for the Fifth International, who elaborated on the situation in Europe and the experience in his country against the rise of Alternative for Germany, the election results of Die Linke and the experience of his organization in the class struggle, including a very correct policy towards Die Linke.

All the international sessions were crowded by an eager audience of the vanguard in Australia to understand, voice their opinion and engage in the struggles against capitalism, the far-right and all its manifestations beyond the borders of the huge country in which the event was held.

The presence of numerous contingents of migrants from Asia, the Middle East and other parts of the world, with the expression of participants in the Conference, set the tone of an initiative where there was no lack of debate on China and the inter-imperialist dispute with the US, Palestine, the processes in Syria, Sudan and other regions of the planet.

Due to the xenophobic and anti-immigration policies of the Australian Labor government, Ochievara Olungah, a comrade of the International Socialist League of Kenya, was prevented from entering the country. However, references to the processes of rebellion against the imperialist intervention in Africa were not lacking either.

An experience to be highlighted, which was part of the debates of the Conference and which was present throughout the event, is the political-electoral project of “Victorian Socialists”, carried out by Socialist Alternative. It is an electoral confluence with independent left-wing personalities, social activists and activists of the agenda of workers and youth, with which the organization is playing to dispute in the State of Victoria electoral space to the left of Laborism in the next legislative elections on May 3. We participated in the Conference and once it was over in a “branch” plenary, where militants of Socialist Alternative together with new militants coming from the experience of Victorian Socialists, discussed the world situation (where we were invited to intervene) and the tasks of political-electoral orientation to fight for the voice of the revolutionary socialists to be heard in the difficult field of the bourgeois elections. This experience, convened by Socialist Alternative as the main force of the left in the country, is regrouping independent left activism, but also disappointed ones from the Green Party and Labor who are looking to the left of these formations. This is an important laboratory of tactics and strategy of dispute and organic building, to be followed internationally.

ISL in Australia: Milei’s experiment, debates on the left and the need for international regrouping

For several years Socialist Alternative and the ISL have been linked by a relationship of political exchange, collaboration and common confidence building in the internationalist struggle. The invitation to participate in this Conference is part of this process between our organizations.

In this opportunity, we traveled from Argentina to present the situation in our country, the characterization of the ruling far-right phenomenon and the politics of the revolutionary left:

*We explained neo-colonial libertarian trumpism in the light of the tendency towards world polarization, as well as the failure of the ruling progressivism and the structural crisis of the whole political-union-institutional regime in Argentina.

*We gave a historical overview with the thick strokes of the twentieth century until the fall of the genocidal dictatorship, 2001 and the present.

*We located the tensions and uncertain perspectives of the Milei government and its accomplices.

*We also presented in a very clear way, the two visions that cross the debate in the left on how to confront the far-right, taking advantage of the crisis of Peronism and deploying the potential of the FIT-Unity.

*We explained that the polemics with the PTS – Trotskyist Fraction is not an “Argentine” debate, but two concepts on how to build revolutionary force in the world: sectarianism, self-proclamation, parliamentary adaptation and non-dispute with Peronism and the traitorous leaderships or audacity to take advantage of the opportunities of the class struggle and regroupment of the vanguard on anti-capitalist and socialist bases, beyond the bourgeois elections.

Finally, we highlight the decisive role of the International Socialist League as support to the orientation of its Argentine section, for the understanding of the Milei phenomenon in the light of world tendencies, as well as for the left to turn into a pole of real reference with mass influence for the dispute of power and a workers’ government in transition to socialism. We presented the tasks of the Argentine party, the MST in the FIT-Unity, as part of the international struggle of the ISL to regroup the revolutionaries of the world in a project on principled bases and a program for the revolution, bringing together different revolutionary traditions which, through a healthy functioning of coexistence of the different revolutionary traditions, will be a real reference pole for the struggle for power and a government of the workers in the transition to socialism, through a healthy functioning of centralized coordination for the realization of militant campaigns, internationalist support and the formation of new leaders, places special emphasis on the internal democracy of the organization, overcoming all the disastrous experiences of the past, bureaucratic and single-minded in the international construction. The strategy of converging the best of each revolutionary identity in a new synthesis for the XXI century as a mark of the ISL, was received with special interest by the participants of the conference that we headed and in each of the multiple panels to which we were invited, as well as in the after hour with delegations from Sydney, Brisbane and other regions of Australia.

Militant internationalism, apprenticeship and camaraderie

Although our participation in events of this type is not new, we would like to highlight several very important issues that this trip we made has left us with as a conclusion:

*On the one hand, to note the points of agreement in the vision of the world stage and the priority need to build revolutionary organization without sectarianism, without opportunism and at the same time, with the audacity to take advantage of every crack that appears in the reality of the class struggle.

*The common vision of training revolutionary militancy, with dedication and professional consciousness, to defeat capitalism, its parties, bureaucracies and overcome the nefarious reformisms that act to contain the energy of the masses.

*The crucial of the ideological struggle, the theoretical-political formation, to explain our socialism, our project of revolution, our proposals and to win the best of the activism and the vanguard for our strategic positions.

*It was very important the team work with the German comrade, Willi Schulz of the L5I, with whose organization we explained that we are in the process of integration with the ISL and focusing on the points that unite us, while clarifying nuances or differences, showed in real time that the orientation of the international regrouping that we raise is not propagandistic or declarative but real and concrete political.

Undoubtedly, these experiences leave a mutual learning, since those of us who travel collaborate by contributing to the collective debate, and at the same time, we take with us much of the political work, of constant and patient construction, of organizations such as Socialism Alternative, from which we learn and value in every contact we have.

We said it at the Conference and we repeat it again here: the comrades of Australia have the merit of having set up, in a complex country, of years of bourgeois stability and a solid labor bureaucracy, a dynamic, extended and hegemonic left force in that country.

Surely this trip strengthened our relationships, mutual trust, incentives to continue collaborating in depth, and a perspective of working together with a lot of potential.

Obviously, of course, it remains to recognize the camaraderie of the leadership of Socialist Alternative, its cadres and militants in dealing with us, to the point of feeling effectively “at home” in Melbourne, which after all, is the most concrete proof of the internationalist political harmony that unites the comrades.

Thank you for that and congratulations for the powerful “Marxism 2025” Conference.