Communist Party of Australia

Guardian #1945 – December 14, 2020 – click here for PDF.

2021 A Year to Deepen the Struggle for Socialism!

The year 2020 will remain in people’s memory forever and become a reference point for future historians. In the same way we revisited what happened during the so-called Spanish flu a century ago, history books will note the disaster created by the Covid-19 and the failures of capitalism. more ...

Year in Review: 2020

It can hardly be argued that 2020 doesn’t rank among the top three most definitive years of this young millennium to date (2001 with 9/11, 2008 with the GFC, being notable inclusions). more ...

Bill of Rights urgent

The recent involvement of Australian military forces and Reservists in domestic affairs looks harmless enough. Indeed, there was a great deal of public support for their assistance during last season’s bushfires and more recently during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the involvement of the military in domestic affairs is creeping in with legislation before Parliament that would give Australian and foreign forces the power to intervene in civil affairs at the call of the Defence Minister. more ...

Australia's shameful deflection

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has deflected focus on the recent Australian war crimes in Afghanistan by demanding an apology from the Chinese government, after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian posted an artwork depicting the seriousness of the crimes, with an Australian soldier holding a knife to a child’s throat. The Chinese computer graphic artist, Fu Yu, is well-known in Chinese communities for his edgy, political art. more ...

An examination of the RCEP Agreement

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was signed 15th November by fifteen countries: the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus Australia, New Zealand, China, South Korea, and Japan. RCEP is the world’s largest free trade agreement (FTA), comprising approximately thirty per cent of the world by both GDP and population. more ...

India on strike for its farmers

The Indian working class, organised under trade unions, progressive groups, and left parties, is preparing to begin its day-long strike as this article is being written on the 8th December, 2020. Calling it “Bharat Bandh,” which literally means “India Closed,” this strike is taking place as a show of solidarity for the Indian farmers that have been in an intense showdown with the Modi government for several days. more ...

France resists global security bill

Weekly protests have broken out across France since President Macron attempted to introduce the deceptively titled Global Security bill. The protests swiftly grew in numbers, eventually being organised across seventy cities, with highest estimates recording just over half a million protestors in Paris alone. Article 24 of this bill outlaws protestors, the general public, and journalists, from filming police officers if the filming is deemed “ill-intentioned,” a vague and meaningless term. Anyone caught filming could be sentence to one year in jail and a €45,000 fine. more ...

Art and the People

(1943) In all epochs of history, art drew largely for its material on the life of the people. Capitalism provides a striking exception with its “bourgeois art.” more ...

Decadent art is fascist weapon

Asked by Mr. Egon Kisch to comment on Joyce’s Ulysses Mr. L. Sharkey described it as a “masterpiece of literary decadence.” He added that the book was, among other things, a good example of bourgeois sophistication turned inward on itself. more ...

“Unite the masses!” is the main task in 1938

(1937) I gladly take advantage of the offer of space in the “Weekly” to send greetings to all Party members and all readers on the eve of a new year. By the time this issue of the “Weekly” is in the hands of most readers, the practical work of the year will have come to an end and everyone will be preparing to make the most of the holiday period. I hope that so far as circumstances permit, everyone will have an enjoyable time and return to the daily tasks of 1938 with renewed vigour. more ...

US “War on terror", part 3

Creating Refugees: Displacement Caused by the United States’ Post 9/11 Wars, was released on 21st September, 2020. Published by Brown University, it calculates that over the nineteen years of the US War on Terror, more than thirty-seven million people – probably more – have been displaced, and the wars on terrorism (so-called) have decimated the nations involved, causing 5.3 million Afghans; 3.7 million Pakistanis; 9.2 million Iraqis; 1.2 million Libyans; 7.1 million Syrians; 4.4 million Yemenis; 4.2 million Somalians; and 1.7 million from the Philippines to become refugees. And the colonisation of Palestine must be considered here even though it can’t officially be recognised as a war on terror. more ...

Peace for disability justice

This article is the edited script for 3CR Alternative News program for the International Day of People with a Disability produced on Sunday 6th December. more ...