Workshops

for workshop times: click here to download agenda
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  • A history of the Vietnamese revolution
    - Andrew Martin
In August 1945, the Vietnamese people led by the Communist Party and President Ho Chi Minh won their independence putting an end to 80 years of French domination. However almost immediately the Vietnamese people were forced into a long, bloody and drawn out war that lasted for 30 years fighting off the French who were backed by the English army and finally a US invasion that caused the death of almost 2 million Vietnamese. This workshop will look at the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people, the lies used to justify the invasion, the motives of U.S imperialism and the ideology of the communist guerrilla's that were able to defeat the worlds most powerful military-industrial machine and regain independence for their country. It will also consider the historic significance of the victory in light of imperialism's current interventions in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Andrew Martin is a member of the RSP and an activist engaged in the refugee rights movement. He is also an active trade unionist and resisted the privatisation of Queensland Rail where he was a delegate for the AMWU. His first protest was M1 in 2001 where anti-globalisation protesters successfully shut-down the Sydney stock exchange despite the heavy handedness of the police. He currently resides in Perth and works as a Mechanical Fitter in the railways.

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  • Racism and the “population debate”
    - Tim Stewart
While 'climate action groups' talk about campaigning for individuals to reduce their 'carbon footprint' the emergence of the 'population debate' is gaining currency amongst campaigners. In essence it seeks to blame people in poorer countries (eg. India and China) rather than capitalism itself. Ideologues in the current 'climate action movement' such as Ian Lowe and Clive Hamilton enjoy support from Sustainable Population Australia, while Mark Diesendorf has written for Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population. This talk will counter some of the arguments currently put by these three prominent ideologues and explain why racism is at the heart of the 'population debate'.

Tim Stewart has witnessed a lack of debate and discussion allocated to this question at major climate action gatherings for the past three years.
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  • Egypt's Ongoing Revolution
    Sam King
While the international capitalist press has dropped Egypt from the headlines, mass struggles are ongoing for workers rights, to bring justice to human rights abusers, and to fully remove the old regime from power. The clash of powerful social forces is leading to contradictory outcomes such as the new military regime being forced to jail most leaders of the Mubarak dictatorship but at the same time repressing grass roots activists. Meanwhile revolutionaries trying to organise working people to take power into their own hands.

Sam King is a leading member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
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  • History of resistance in the military
    - Hamish Chitts
It’s impossible for capitalists to fight a war without soldiers and the hidden history of the working class has shown some great examples of resistance to war within militaries. Even the man at the centre of the warmongers icon 'Simpson and his donkey' was in reality a militant worker and conscientious objector. The most spectacular example of this hidden history is the movement against the Vietnam War that grew within the US military. By 1970, the US Army had 65,643 deserters — roughly the equivalent of four infantry divisions. In 1971 Marine Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr., a veteran combat commander wrote: “By every conceivable indicator, our army that remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non-commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous. Elsewhere than Vietnam, the situation is nearly as serious … Sedition, coupled with disaffection from within the ranks, and externally fomented with an audacity and intensity previously inconceivable, infest the Armed Services ...”

Hamish was an infantry soldier in the Australian army for 12 years and is a veteran of the East Timor campaign in 1999-2000. In 2007, he helped found Stand Fast - an organisation of veterans and service people that oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hamish is an active campaigner in solidarity with the Palestinian people and with the Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions. He also actively supports the struggle for Aboriginal rights, the campaign for abortion rights, solidarity with the Venezuelan revolution and many other social justice struggles. Hamish is a bus driver and a member of the Rail Tram Bus Union in Brisbane.
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  • Marxist theories of crisis
    - Allen Myers
Crises have existed as long as capitalism. While Marx did not live to complete a theory of the business cycle and the crises which punctuate it, his discovery of the fundamentals of capitalism has provided the framework for a continuing analysis that remains relevant more than a century after Marx’s death. There has been considerable debate within the Marxist movement as to whether “disproportion” or “underconsumption” should be considered as primary in causing crises, and this debate is reflected in bourgeois economists’ efforts to “manage” economies so as to avoid or mitigate crises. This workshop will examine crises as a product of all the contradictions of capitalism, and will seek to relate them also to the “long waves” of development and stagnation.

Allen Myers is the assistant editor of and a frequent writer for Direct Action. He taught Marxist economics at the Democratic Socialist Party’s cadre school in the 1980s and ’90s.
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  • History of the left in the Philippines
    - Gerry Rivera,
    President of the Philippine Airlines union and a leader of the Labor Party in the Philippines
Background articles: 

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  • The history of racism in Australia
    - Win Padauk Wah Han
Racial oppression has existed in this country since the arrival of the first fleet. Declared 'terra nullius' - a land without people, its original inhabitants were dispossessed, massacred and driven to the margins of society. 

Win Padauk Wah Han, a Burmese-Australian activist campaigning in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Burma, will discuss the origins of racism, the legacy of colonialism, the White Australia policy and the rise of nationalism.
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  • Marxism and the struggle for women’s liberation
    - Kim Comerford
Women’s oppression has not always existed – rather it arose at the along with class divided society and the state. This fundamental tenet of Marxist analysis is revolutionary – because if this oppression had a beginning then it can also have an end. This workshop will explain the Marxist analysis of women’s oppression and argue that true liberation will require the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the building of a socialist society.

Kim Comerford has been an activist in the women’s liberation movement over many years and a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
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  • Marxism and nationalism
    - Ian Jamieson
Marxists have always fought for an international solution to the crises of humanity. But in the dying age of imperialism, the national question still remains a fundamental issue – in every continent suffering from neo-liberalism and even in the Western world. The question continues to confound all, including leftists who can’t see the issue of who controls the state in the battle against imperialism.
What is nationalism? How do Marxists relate to the national struggle for self-determination? Is Australian identity and nationalism progressive? This workshop takes up the complex issue from an historical angle, the debates within the Marxist movement from a century ago to contemporary issues.

Ian Jamieson is an elected union delegate at DP World, convenor of the successful Rank and File team that has seen the WA MUA leadership team transform the union into a fighting unit. Founding member of the RSP and its predecessors, the Democratic Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers League in 1972. Currently on the National Executive of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
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  • Why capitalism scapegoats refugees
    - Kerry Vernon
This workshop will discuss how and why capitalism, in particular the Australian capitalist class, uses racism as a convenient scapegoat to divert and deflect attention from the resulting tide of human misery from the devastating wars, conflicts and exploitation it carries out pursuing profits for the few at the expense of the lives and livelihoods of the many. Scapegoating refugees is one way that the capitalist class benefits by helping to create racist divisions amongst Australian working people, ably supported by the racist nationalism of the Australian Labor Party and the class-collaborationist union bureaucracy. This helps to weaken Australian working people’s solidarity with Asian countries and their campaigns against the imperialist exploitation of their labour and resources.

Kerry Vernon is a National Committee member of the RSP and has been an active socialist and a feminist for nearly three decades, currently writing for Direct Action, a member of RAC and is part of a coalition of refugee rights supporters planning an end to mandatory detention march, rally & festival for World Refugee Day in Sydney on June 19.
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  • Vietnam today
    - Hamish Chitts
Many people have some knowledge of Vietnam's history or more particularly its war with the US but even among socialists in Australia there is little knowledge or understanding of Vietnam today. This workshop will examine Vietnam's post 1975 history with a focus on two main topics:
*Agent Orange / Dioxin poisoning
Despite the Vietnam War ending 35 years ago the US chemical bombardment of Vietnam is still claiming victims. The Vietnamese Red Cross estimates up to 3 million Vietnamese children and adults have suffered health problems related to Agent Orange exposure, and that there are a million victims in Vietnam today, many of them children born with serious deformities, as a result of their parents’ exposure to the chemical.

* Socialist Vietnam, Doi Moi, Lenin and economic planning
Many socialists today, in order to justify their own dogmas and schemas, say that because Vietnam has some foreign investment, it is no longer or never has been socialist. This is a serious mistake. Socialist Vietnam has shown consistent application of Marxist-Leninism in a world dominated economically by capitalism. A Vietnamese socialism for Vietnamese conditions that helps further our understanding that the struggle for socialism does not end with a revolution's military defeat of the old order. 

Hamish was an infantry soldier in the Australian army for 12 years and is a veteran of the East Timor campaign in 1999-2000. In 2007, he helped found Stand Fast - an organisation of veterans and service people that oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hamish is an active campaigner in solidarity with the Palestinian people and with the Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions. He also actively supports the struggle for Aboriginal rights, the campaign for abortion rights, solidarity with the Venezuelan revolution and many other social justice struggles. Hamish is a bus driver and a member of the Rail Tram Bus Union in Brisbane.
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  • Socialism and environmental reconstruction
    - Jon Lamb
Capitalism threatens the very future of humanity and the planet. Catastrophic climate change is predicted unless a dramatic reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions is undertaken within the next decade. Given the severity of the crisis and the consequences, the governments of the major polluting capitalist states are under pressure to act. But capitalism is incapable of fundamentally resolving this crisis. That can only be achieved through a system of environmentally sustainable production and distribution. A socialist future is not a utopian dream, but necessary to bring an end to the environmental vandalism of capitalism. This workshop will discuss some of the main issues and debates around the climate change crisis and present a Marxist view on how a sustainable, socialist world might function.

Jon lamb is a long-time solidarity and social justice campaigner, presently studying environmental science. He works as a sustainable transport planner.
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  • Introduction to Cuba’s revolution
    - Virginia Brown
Cuba's revolution continues to stare down the imperialist USA right under its nose, threatening capitalism's ability to portray itself as inevitable. Demonstrating an internationalism that is actually humanitarian, leading the world in sustainability and building a way of life that provides for all, Cuba's example explains why it has been the sustained target of capitalist aggression, including the criminal US blockade, since it took a proud stand for socialism. This workshop will discuss the factors that make this possible, including Cuba's participatory democracy, and its overthrow of US-backed capitalism. It will address some of the criticisms levelled at the Cuban revolution, and look at how the Cubans have used socialism to combat racism, homophobia, sexism and alienation, with these progressive struggles in turn strengthening the revolution and providing the working people of the world with the proof that another way is possible.

Virginia joined the socialist movement in 1995. This introduced her to a rich tradition of Marxist revolutionary struggle which illuminated her subsequent party activism in various fields, including the women's liberation and refugee-rights fronts. She also has myalgic encephalomyelitis and is consequently rather well-informed on capitalism's efforts to obscure well-studied disease processes in order to escape forking out for adequate healthcare.
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  • Is revolution in Australia possible?
    - Kathy Newnam
Capitalism is an economically, environmentally and socially unsustainable system. The exploitation, poverty, social injustices, discrimination and oppression faced by working people throughout the world are a direct product of the economic and social design of capitalism. The only way to build a society in which human liberation will finally be a possibility is through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. This will open the way to the construction of a socialist society - where the rule by the few over the many will be bought to an end and the wealth that is created by working people can be shared by all, not hoarded in the hands of a tiny minority. History shows us that such revolutionary change is possible. This lecture will explore the important lessons from the history of the revolutionary movement and argue that revolution is Australia is very much a possibility. It will also make the case as to why it is crucial to organise today for revolutionary change by building a socialist party.
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  • Lessons from DSP/RSP History
    - John Percy
This talk will look at a number of specific lessons of DSP history, from the perspective of what mistakes might have been made over the last three decades that laid the ground for the political degeneration of the party and expulsion of the Leninist minority in 2008 that led to the formation of the RSP.

John Percy first got involved in left politics during the campaign against the War in Vietnam, and was a founder of Resistance and the Democratic Socialist Party. He was DSP National Secretary from1991-2005, and is now National Secretary of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
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  • Class struggle and socialist construction in Venezuela
    - Roberto Jorquera
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  • The great recession and its economic and political aftermath
    - Doug Lorimer
The Great Recession of 2008-09 was widely acknowledged as capitalism’s most severe economic downturn since the 1930s Great Depression. Was it just a product of lax government regulation and the bankers’ greed, or was it a result of systemic problems at the heart of the capitalist system? In the midst of the Great Recession, the governments of developed capitalist countries ditched their previous rhetoric about de-regulation and “free markets” being the road to prosperity and adopted policies of greater state intervention into the capitalist economy (bank nationalisation, enormous government-funded economic stimulus packages, deficit financing, etc). Many commentators mistakenly heralded this as the end of “neoliberalism” and a return to the Keynesian policies of the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. However, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, these governments have launched a new round of social spending cuts and privatisation of state assets. Will this bring about a sustainable economic recovery or simply prepare the way for an even greater economic slump?


Doug Lorimer, author of Historical Materialism: The Marxist View of History and Politics (Resistance Books/Aakar Books), national executive member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and regular contributor to Direct Action.
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  • Feminism, gender and the fight for trans* liberation
    – Kathy Newnam
For the last two decades, the movement for transgender/transsexual liberation has gained significant ground. There is an abundance of historical and political writings from this movement which has created a new depth of analysis about gender and sex. Much of this analysis builds on feminist theory and also provides a powerful challenge to many of the sexist and trans-misogynist theories that still claim to be feminist, especially those propagated by some proponents of ‘radical’ feminism (eg. Sheila Jeffreys). This workshop will argue that it is well past time that the socialist movement in Australia caught up with and engaged with these political and analytical developments. It will also argue that it is time for socialists to take a strong stand within the feminist movement along with other activists who are fighting against trans-misogyny and other anti-trans* bigotry in the feminist movement.

Kathy Newnam is a long-time activist in the women’s liberation movement and leader of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
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  • Cuba: socialist consolidation or capitalism restoration
    - James Crafti
Socialist revolutions occur frequently in imperfect situations. Amongst 3rd world workers the need to create a socialist society is often more apparent than in the 1st world, yet when Marx raised the possibility of socialist revolution he fore sore it happening first in advanced capitalist countries. How does this translate to revolutions isolated by capitalism? There cannot be socialism in one country, yet at the same time socialist governments have to preserve their revolutionary ideals in practice, while waiting for and facilitating revolutionary struggles in other countries. Find out how Cuba's socialist revolution is navigating against a sea of capitalism, trying to move forward whilst attempting not to fall into the pit of capitalism that countries like China have fallen into.

James Crafti is Creative Arts graduate and a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party. Crafti is part of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, Refugee Action Collective and the Health and Community Sector Union. He was a journalist in Palestine and Egypt in 2006. Crafti writes reviews and analysis on films for Metro magazine and organised a Cuban Film Festival in 2008.
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  • The rise of China
    - Ben Reid
The increasing role of the People’s Republic of China in the world economy poses important issues for Marxists. China has developed increasing trade foreign, investment and aid ties with a range of Third World countries since 2000. This and the progressive restoration of private capitalism since the early-1990s has led some to even argue that China has now emerged as an imperialist country in its own right. These claims are tested against the definitions of imperialism given by Marxists writers such as Lenin, Luxemburg and Bukharin. The historical and statistical evidence suggests that although China’s domestic capital accumulation and relations with the Third World are growing, it remains a marginal player in comparison to the wealthy-imperialist countries. China’s actions are perhaps better understood as a form of sub-imperialism where it remains in a subordinated position within the international division of labour.

Ben Reid is a member of the RSP and a long-time socialist political activist. He has conducted extensive research on and published articles and one book on politics and economics in the Asia Pacific region.
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  • Capitalism and the countryside
    - Tim Stewart and Nathan Renault
While a grass roots campaign to stop climate change has been effectively blocked by organisations such as the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, Get Up, 350.org, One Million Women, the NSW Conservation Council, and the Australian Conservation Foundation who now run rallies to support the Labor Party's new carbon tax on working people, new potential allies and alliances are being formed against big capital in the countryside. A fight between farmers and landholders and mining corporations exploiting coal and gas reserves in agricultural areas from the Hunter Valley (north of Sydney), through to the Western Downs (west of Brisbane) is inspiring activist coalitions and direct actions such as the recent People's Blockade of Tara. This workshop will offer some insights into the struggle against coal and coal seam gas mining in the context of agribusiness, sustainable farming and the broader fight for sustainable, low carbon future.

Tim Stewart has suffered the bureaucratic blocking at the last two climate action summits in Canberra and has visited blockades and protests against coal and coal seam gas mining from Liverpool Plains to the Keerrong Valley in NSW.

Nathan Renault is a media studies student following rural action groups fighting coal and coal seam gas from Toowoomba to Tara in Qld.
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  • The struggle for Aboriginal rights
    - Kim Bullimore
White Australia has a black history. Kim will look at the history of systematic racism in Australia and the struggle for Aboriginal rights in Australia from 1788 until today. She will discuss how the current Northern Territory intervention is a continuation of these racist policies and how we can be part of the struggle for Indigenous rights in Australia.

Kim Bullimore is a long-time socialist, political activist and anti-racism campaigner. Kim is a Murri woman from North Queensland and is an active campaigner for Australian Indigenous Rights, as well as Palestinian self-determination and human rights and other social justice issues. Kim is a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service, the only all women international peace team working on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. She also writes regularly on the Palestine-Israel conflict for the Australian newspaper, Direct Action, as well as a range of other web-journals and magazines. Kim recently co-organised the first national Australian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Conference in support of Palestine held in Melbourne. She is a member of the National Committee of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
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  • The ideas of Malcolm X
    - Melanie Mayze
Having left the separatist and cultish Nation of Islam, Malcolm X developed rapidly towards a revolutionary class analysis. His final speeches identified the need for the oppressed to unite against the capitalist system as a common enemy and the greatest source of inequality. This workshop will discuss how Malcolm X's ideas can provide an example for the struggles of the oppressed and how his strategies and tactics might be applied to the work of revolutionary activists today.

Melanie Mayze is a student of History and Politics at Macquarie University with a particular interest in post-colonial societies and the provision of public health. Melanie is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
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  • Culture and revolution in the 21st Century
    - Van Thanh Rudd
Is graffiti art and creative actions on the streets, combined with social media technology proving to be a serious challenge to capitalism's cultural dominance? The large amount of artistic creativity that came from around the globe inspired by the democratic revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia was a sign that revolutionary art is alive and flourishing. Much of it was viewed on the internet. In looking at a few examples of artistic resistance from around the globe, this workshop aims to point out the contradiction of capitalism's drive to expand into larger, new media markets, while creating larger potential for peoples' ability to collectively create anti-capitalist propaganda.

Van is a practising visual artist and activist based in Melbourne. He exhibits his artworks regularly throughout Australia and overseas. He uses his art to strengthen social justice campaigns and to provide a voice to challenge the capitalist system on various fronts. He is a member of Australian Artists Against Apartheid and the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
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  • Labour and the united front
    - Ian Jamieson
The success of the WA MUA in recent years has paved the way for the union movement in Australia to take up the battle for union and working class rights. Can the success in industrial battles be the MUA have been involved with be replicated? Can other unions follow the example? There was a concerted need by the MUA to reach out to social movements, to involve members in campaigns. How do, and why do, unions need to broaden their agenda. What does that mean when unions are generally locked into the ALP’s neoliberal agenda. Do the Greens represent something different? What is a united front? What does unity really represent and how can we organise to get the best outcome. What is working class independence mean?

 Ian Jamieson is an elected union delegate at DP World, convenor of the successful Rank and File team that has seen the WA MUA leadership team transform the union into a fighting unit. Founding member of the RSP and its predecessors, the Democratic Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers League in 1972. Currently on the National Executive of the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
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  • Introduction to Marxism & the Revolutionary Socialist Party
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