Marx Talks

In 1917, the Russian Bolshevik Party led millions of workers and peasants in overthrowing the capitalist state and establishing soviet power. This session will explore how a party which had the politics, experience and organisation necessary to argue to and win the leadership of a revolutionary working-class movement was built. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First articulated in the 1980s, intersectionality has its origins in legal theory. It has since been taken up by progressives and others, ostensibly as a way to integrate different forms of oppression into political theory and practice. But like most buzzwords, intersectionality means different things to different people. This session will look at whether it adds anything new to the fight against oppression and the system that causes it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the turn of the 20th century, Germany was one of the world's most advanced capitalist countries, yet also one of the youngest. Economic and military competition between Germany and the established empires of Britain and France helped to foster a crisis in the global system which would eventually break out into WWI. It also drove the organisation and radicalisation of the German working class, who would eventually end the war by overthrowing their old rulers in the November Revolution of 1918. This session will discuss the experience of revolutionary socialists in Germany as they attempted to clarify their tasks and strategies at a time of unprecedented turmoil. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is it even possible to overthrow capitalism today? It’s often argued that workers are too apathetic or disorganised, that the capitalist state is too powerful, the media too influential. Revolutions might happen in countries with extreme poverty and repressive governments, but wealthy liberal democracies like the US and Australia are too stable to be challenged. Accepting arguments like these means accepting that change is only possible within the existing system, if at all. Fortunately, the Marxist theory of revolution helps us to understand that even long periods of stability can only ever be temporary for capitalism. Economic, political and social crises will always threaten a system based on competitive profit-seeking. This session will explore how this can shake up the status quo and compel workers to fight back, as well as the crucial role of revolutionary politics and organisation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From below-inflation wage 'rises' to the end of progressive income tax, from privatisation of public housing to further restrictions on the right to strike- the ALP and the Australian capitalist class today in lock-step attacking workers. How do we explain Labor's appalling record, and what can activists and workers do to build resistance to a right wing Labor government? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Issues of gender and sexuality—whether it be abortion rights, marriage or who uses what bathroom—have become a particular focus of the Christian right both here and in the United States in recent years. To defend the important gains that have been made in these areas over the last few decades, it is essential for the left to effectively confront and defeat the right. This session will look at how we can best do that. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Israel’s brutal war on the Palestinians has strengthened the already growing interest amongst left wing people in the interconnections between colonialism, imperialism and capitalism in the Middle East and beyond. For many, this has meant an engagement with settler colonial theory. However, settler colonial theory is not a useful guide to understanding colonialism, imperialism and racism in today’s world. The emphasis on the cultural and ideological similarities between different imperialist projects - rather than the material and structural roots is disorientating. As is settler colonial theory’s dogmatic assertion that Israeli Zionist settlers and non-Indigenous workers in Australia are both privileged colonizers. The intellectual roots of settler colonial theory lie in the postmodern turn away from Marxism and the suspicion of socialist politics that this produced. This talk will explore the pitfalls of settler colonial theory, drawing attention to how it obscures the role that capitalism plays in reinforcing racism and imperialism and the disorienting impact it has had on developing strategies and movements to fight for a better world. Speaker: Jordan Humphreys is a socialist activist and the author of Indigenous Liberation & Socialism (Red Flag Books). He has written widely on Indigenous history and politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today China and the US are locked in a strategic conflict for global dominance. However, it was the US that helped transform China into the economic powerhouse that now challenges American hegemony. How did the US-China conflict emerge? And what does it tell us about the contradictions of global capitalism in the 21st century? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Insurrection is a term that rarely enters debates on the left today. But revolutionary Marxists have long insisted that the capitalist state must be consciously dismantled if workers are going to overthrow the capitalist class and build socialism. This session will explain why socialist revolution necessitates insurrection, what it would look like and how socialists can organise for it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are few historical figures who have been subject to as much abuse as Leon Trotsky. In Stalin's Soviet Union he was slandered as a Nazi collaborator or agent of Western imperialism. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, labelled him the “ogre of Europe” for fighting to extend socialist revolution across the continent. The ire that Trotsky has provoked in defenders of the status-quo stems from his uncompromising struggle against a world built on exploitation, violence and oppression. He dedicated his life to the socialist revolution and held a profound belief that the working class has the ability to lead it. This talk will explore Trotsky's life and role in the Russian Revolution, and his fight against the counter-revolutionary crimes of Stalinism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The COVID pandemic, economic crisis and climate catastrophe have all exposed the continued and seeming irresolvable divide between the first and third worlds. To many, this divide can be explained as a simple case of rich countries getting rich off the back of poor ones. This can find echoes in the left in concepts like 'unequal exchange' and the 'labour aristocracy', which argue that first world workers benefit alongside their bosses from the exploitation of the third world. This talk will provide a critique of these ideas and argue that the central divide is the same across the globe- one between the bosses that organise exploitation, and a working class who have an interest in ending it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Latin American politics is marked by polarization. The new left government in Chile has suffered a series of defeats from a revived right wing. Lula has been re elected in Brazil in a rejection of the far-right leader Bolsonaro but remains committed to the same neoliberal economics as his predecessor. Argentina has seen the rise of a new far-right party as the centre-left struggles with skyrocketing inflation and responds only with austerity. Peru and Colombia have seen protest movements while in other countries the level of struggle remains low. This talk will explore the varied nature of contemporary Latin American politics caught between the past and an uncertain future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Australia is one of the most expensive places to live in the world. Data shows that the cost of housing has increased 412% over the past 25 years. After an endless construction boom, housing is more unaffordable than ever, mortgage and rental stress have increased and homelessness is on the rise. How did it come to this? This talk will explain the market failure at the heart of the housing crisis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For Marxists, class is about more than the divide between rich and poor. Class plays a fundamental role in determining what gets made, how we live, the ideas that dominate society, and even the ways oppression is enforced. Find out what class really is, how it functions, and how recognising the divide between the working class and the capitalist class is the starting point for socialist politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Revolutionary Socialist League is a Marxist organisation, founded in Kenya in 2018 by radicals who rejected the pro-China politics of the Communist Party of Kenya. This session will feature RSL activists who will outline their struggle to build an internationalist and socialist left in Africa. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine to growing US-China tensions threatening conflict between two nuclear-armed superpowers, we are faced with constant reminders that war is in the DNA of capitalism. This session will explain why the capitalist system produces war, and how socialists have historically fought against militarism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The tensions between the US and China have been steadily escalating under the Trump and Biden administrations. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of microchips, where the US has been making it increasingly difficult for China to acquire cutting edge equipment and knowhow. This matters because chips are vital to nearly every sector of the economy, from AI and telecommunications through to the military-industrial complex. At the same time, China is the biggest customer for the major US chip firms. This talk explored the implications of these various conflicts and contradictions for the future of the world system. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Industrial Workers of the World were one of Australia's earliest revolutionary organisations. Their iconoclastic, rabble rousing approach to organising workers gained them the trust of many thousands. This session looked at the rise and fall of the 'Wobblies' (as they were known.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marx has often been accused of a lack of interest in the questions of colonialism. This session refutes such claims by exploring Marx's attitude to the Irish question. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Georg Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness, published in 1923, is primarily seen as one of the great works of Marxist philosophy. But Lukács was also a commissar in the failed Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 and a political leader in the exiled Hungarian Communist Party in Vienna throughout the 1920s. Along with labour leader Jenö Landler, Lukács led a faction opposing an ultra-left sectarian orientation represented by Béla Kun (at that time also associated with Comintern chairman Zinoviev, later aligning himself with Stalin). This session explores History and Class Consciousness and his work in the 1920s through the lens of this factional struggle and the degeneration of the Comintern, examining it as an attempt to reconstruct the theory and practice of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, understand the leading role the working class must play in the struggle for democracy in Hungary, and rebuild the Hungarian Communist Party along these lines. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The ideas of Mahatma Gandhi have had a lasting impact on the left, from the civil rights movement of the 1960s right through to the movements against corporate greed and racism that are developing today. Many see Gandhi as the embodiment of politically-effective pacifism.The success of his nonviolent strategy, however, is largely a myth. This talk discuss' the relationship that Gandhi had to the Left and the debates between them in the context of a struggle for independence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The dominant explanation for why the British colonised Australia is that their prisons were overflowing and they needed the space for transportation, but is that the whole picture? This talk will offer a Marxist explanation for the colonisation of Australia by Britain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tsarist rule in nineteenth century Russia consisted of brutal oppression and political repression. Attempts at liberalisation were farcical and the society was extremely backwards in comparison to most European countries. In this context emerged a layer of student revolutionaries drawn mainly from the nobility. They wanted a fundamental overturning of Russia's political and economic structures. Throughout the period from 1860-1880 they dedicated themselves to this task with tremendous bravery, creativity, integrity and daring. They began with propaganda work among the peasants, trying to stir them into action but, the failure of this strategy and the experience of extreme repression, led them to terrorism. The populism and terrorism of this time were ultimately hopeless, and were superseded by Marxism and working class organising in the following decades. However, this movement helped to build a revolutionary tradition in Russia. This talk will look at the strengths and weaknesses of this early revolutionary movement, and discuss the impact it had on the Bolsheviks and the two workers’ revolutions that swept Russia in the first decades of the twentieth century. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The overturning of Roe vs Wade (and therefore the banning of legal abortion in much of the USA) sent shockwaves throughout the world and in Australia prompted a reinvestigation of our own abortion rights. This session will look at successful campaigns for abortion rights in a number of countries and ask how they might inform our own struggles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

History's forgotten heroes don't get much more radical than the legendary John Brown. Born during the time of the great revolution of the Haitian slaves, he believed he was "an instrument of God", raised up to strike the death blow to American slavery, a "sacred obligation". He attempted to lead a slave revolt when he raided an armoury at Harpers Ferry - an act which help push the country inexorably toward the Civil War. But this was only the final act of a man who had committed his life to the destruction of slavery and an uncompromising hostility to oppression of all kinds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stalinist counter revolution was experienced in all aspects of life, both in the USSR and in the global Communist movement. As part of the project of establishing political hegemony the Stalinist bureacracy sought to develop and enforce particular styles of cultural production. In literature the preferred style was socialist realism. This session will start by discussing debates that occurred in and around the Soviet Writers Congress of 1934 about the nature of proletarian art, modernism and socialist realism and conclude with an investigation of the politics of the Popular Front. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do revolutions have the potential to create an entirely new kind of society, or do they merely replace one type of government with another? There have been countless revolutionary moments in which mass movements toppled dictators and smashed powerful empires, but left capitalism fundamentally intact – Germany 1918; Portugal 1976; Egypt 2011 and many more. No revolution begins with millions of people simultaneously deciding to destroy the existing system completely, yet struggles like these can raise issues and questions which point the way to a socialist solution. This session will discuss how political struggles can undermine the broader capitalist system and make possible the total transformation of our social reality, as well as the obstacles to be overcome for such a transformation to take place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For almost five decades, racial segregation was enshrined and institutionalised South Africa. Apartheid was a system based on brutal racism which oppressed and exploited the majority of Black workers while maintaining the enrichment and rule of a white minority. This session will discuss what it took to overthrow apartheid - the heroic resistance within South Africa along with the solidarity of workers and student movements across the globe, as well as explore the broken promises and betrayals of the ANC. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fortunes of NATO – pronounced "braindead" only a few years prior – have been miraculously revived. The alliance, buoyed by surging European military budgets and inflows of combat-ready troops and cutting-edge hardware, looks forward to welcoming additional member states. This militarisation of Europe will only add further fuel to an increasingly unstable international system riven with political tensions. This talk will explore why European militarism is on the rise and the dangers it poses for the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.