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Letters to the Editor:

Not outdated

First we must ask the question: Has Richard Titelius ever read 
any Marx or Lenin? Or if he has: Did he understand it?

One of the basic tenets of the ideology put forward by these two 
great thinkers is that socialism — Marxism — must be built 
according to the unique conditions that exist in each country.

Richard provides us with three examples of international parties 
who are doing exactly as Marx and Lenin advised!

In Venezuela Chavez and the Bolivarian movement must tackle the 
poverty crisis which grips the majority of the country's people. 
It must do so under the threat of US-sponsored coup d'etat or 
even an all-out US invasion.

In El Salvador the people have just emerged from decades of mass 
murder by a most brutal and reactionary regime. The primary 
function of the FMLN in such conditions would be to re-establish 
the most basic democratic freedoms and institutions.

In Cuba the people are building socialism whilst tackling a 40-
year-old international trade embargo that prevents them from 
importing many of the basic necessities of life, also under the 
threat of a US invasion.

Lenin never said "Establish a copy-cat Soviet Union in your own 
country". In fact he consistently advised Communist Parties in 
other countries against doing that.

And so the Communist Party of Australia also follows Lenin's 
advice in its 2001 Congress Political Resolution.

It came out of months of analysis by Party members and 
organisations all across the country, who each offered insight 
into their local conditions and the level of political 
consciousness of the Australian people.

That document, if Richard has read it, also looks at "the success 
of the movements for social and political change" overseas.

That document applies a Marxist-Leninist analysis and there is 
nothing outdated about it.

Julie Messenger
Sydney

Last week I received a personal letter from the Deputy Prime 
Minister of Australia, Mr. Anderson. He was "most concerned" 
about a letter I had previously written which stated that the 
government had not been given any delegated authority by the 
people to sell their assets and that the best way to determine 
wether Telstra should be fully privatised or not was to ask the 
people at a referendum.

I can see no benefit to the people or the nation from the 
privatisation. It will see our country degenerate further into a 
form of feudalism not seen since the nineteenth century.

The existence of publicly-owned enterprises provides a 
stabilising influence in terms of costs to the consumers and 
generally sets the standards that those in the private sector 
have to meet. It protects the public against the excesses of 
unrestrained free enterprise, it balances public need against 
private greed, and it does this because its primary objectives 
are to provide services to the public, not to generate dividends 
for shareholders.

For many, the cost of insurance in Australia has skyrocketed. 
Many sporting events and public functions have had to be 
cancelled because the cost of insurance has become prohibitive.

What is the cause of this dramatic escalation in the cost of 
insurance?

Was it the failure of H.I.H., the demutualisation of the NRMA or 
was it the privatisation of the GIO (Governments Insurance Office 
of NSW)?

The GIO was created in the 1920s by the Labor government of Jack 
Lang. At that time all the insurance companies were British owned 
and insurance was unaffordable. In one of his writings, Jack Lang 
states that even after undercutting the private insurers, it was 
amazing just how profitable the [GIO] business was.

So the people gained affordable insurance and a new public 
enterprise, but the anti-socialists who maintain that nothing 
should be publicly owned set about destroying it.

In 1933, during the darkest days of the Great Depression a 
conservative government in NSW attempted to sabotage the GIO. 
Government-printed letters were sent to all GIO customers stating 
that their insurance policies would not be renewed.

In fact, this action was only a scare tactic, because anybody who 
bought their policies into the Office had them renewed. However 
the damage was done and the GIO's revenue and viability declined 
dramatically during this period.

When the McKell Labor Government came to power during WW2, they 
enacted legislation to make the GIO independent of Ministerial 
control. It functioned for the people right up to the 1990s, when 
a conservative Labor Government led by Bob Carr sold it to 
private enterprise.

The mayhem that followed in the insurance industry is a direct 
result of privatisation. There was a similar effect when the 
Commonwealth Bank was privatised. When Telstra is fully 
privatised we should expect no less in the telecommunications 
industry. The poor standard of service we currently receive will 
actually get worse.

Gary Edwards
Gilgandra, NSW

As the Howard Government relentlessly promotes militarism, 
nationalism, xenophobia and their natural extension — 
warmongering, it is instructive to recall the roll of Indigenous 
Australians in the wars now being glorified. Many Indigenous men 
fought and died in both world wars.

They fought for a country that did not recognise their rights as 
citizens. Darren Godwell, writing in the Koori Mail (19/11/03) 
makes some very interesting points that I would like to recount 
here.

He reminds us that the refusal to recognise Indigenous 
Australians as citizens continued for more than 50 years after 
World War 1; more than 50 years after the creation of the Anzac 
legend that John Howard is so fond of conjuring up.

Furthermore, when these Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 
soldiers came home from the terrible cauldron of conflict they 
were denied returned soldiers' entitlements. Some were even 
denied membership of their local RSL branches.

These are issues that Mr Howard conveniently overlooks while 
intensifying his Government's attack on Indigenous rights. In 
marking Remembrance Day on November 11, the day when conflict was 
officially declared to be over in World War 1, we should also 
remember that this war was fought between contending empires for 
imperialist gain.

As Mr Godwell so succinctly puts it, although Australia did not 
have a stake in the issues involved, our status as a British 
colony meant the powers in the ruling establishment were 
determined to commit us to the war: that if England was at war 
then Australia too was at war.

Australia had a colonial mindset, so we sent our youth to fight 
England's war. Now, almost 100 years later and we have a 
Government which has committed us to another imperialist war, 
nothing less than "endless war".

This, in spite of millions of Australians taking to the streets 
to say "NO" to war. Furthermore, racism is still rampant, 
promoted by the federal government against Indigenous Australians 
and refugees.

Jo Dunleavy
Wodonga

Richard Titelius' attention must be drawn to an example of a 
Communist Party that did exactly what Richard is exhorting the 
CPA to do.

In the late 1960s and on through the '70s the old Communist Party 
of Australia abandoned Leninism. It believed that by doing so it 
would "arise from obscurity and capture the popular will of the 
people".

It abandoned the workers' struggle, and rewrote its ideology so 
as to appeal to more "fashionable" and "popular" movements of the 
time. The Party adopted New Left authors of the ilk Richard 
exhorts us to read to guide them in their struggle.

The Socialist Party (as the present CPA was initially called) was 
established by those brave people who went against this New Left 
trend and held true to Marxism-Leninism and the class struggle.

Where did these diverging paths lead those parties?

The "old" Communist Party that adopted the trendy ideologies and 
policies did not last. It disintegrated as its members, without a 
solid underlying working-class ideology, splintered into special 
interest groups. It did not become "popular" and "fashionable" as 
its leaders supposed.

In the end it considered the whole concept of communism outdated, 
and abandoned the name "Communist" as an embarrassment. It 
disbanded altogether.

The Socialist Party, on the other hand, survived. It weathered 
the disintegration of the Soviet Union and East European 
socialism. In 1996 it proudly adopted the name "Communist".

Although small, the Party enjoys the respect and admiration among 
progressive forces for its hard work, and is widely recognised as 
a genuine, reliable and consistent workers' party.

Let's hold to the path of Lenin because it is the only 
demonstrated — and possible — way to bring about socialism.

Jules Andrews
Sydney