Asia Pacific solidarity conference
Sydney, Australia • April 10-13, 1988 representative of the Free West Papua Movement.
The conference aims to be a unique gathering of activists, researchers and academics. Your support, attendance and participation is what will make this conference a success. For more information contact the Conference Secretariat, P.O
Box 515, Broadway 2007, Australia. Tel: 61-02-96901320; Fax: 61-02-96901381
Struggle and New Thinking
Governments, corporations, banks and international financial institutions, all talk of Asia and the as a region of miracle growth, of accelerated development, of economic boom. For millions of other people, the picture is different: political and social struggle for basic human rights, for a sustainable economic and social order.
These conflicts include the massive worker and student struggles in South Korea against new labour laws; a sharpening struggle against the dictatorship and cronyism in Suharto's Indonesia; the continuing of the East Timorese
Issues and Topics
The struggle for democracy and the end of the Suharto dictatorship • Self-determination: East Timor, Sri Lanka, West Papua, Bougainville • Indigenous people's struggles and land rights in Australia and New Zealand • Labour and the struggle against neoliberalism • Neoliberalism and its social impact • APEC and counter-APEC • Asian Tigers and NICs - who's benefiting, who's battling • Women's liberation, development and democratisation • NGOs, political movements and the universities • Democratisation, development and social class • Global capital's economic police -the World Bank, IMF and WTO Country Reports Australia • Bougainville • Burma • China • East Timor • India • Japan • uprising
The Institute people for self-determination;
labour struggles and renewal in the
Philippines in the face of the neoliberal Philippines 2000 offensive;
the ongoing war on the island of
Bougainville; and the conflict in Sri
During February to May 1997 a range of individuals involved in political movements, community organisations and universities consulted over the need for
Indonesia • Malaysia • New
Zealand • Pakistan • Papua New
Guinea • Philippines • South Korea
• Sri Lanka • Thailand • West Papua greater regional co-ordination and dialogue regarding the
Lanka over the national rights of current struggles against authoritarianism, violations of the right to self-determination and the social and economic impacts of the the Tamil people and authoritarian government.
An interim council was formed to establish the Asia Pacific
Institute for Democratisation and Development. The provisional
Attacks On Democracy
• To promote research and disseminate ideas on the issue of how to ensure a socially just and environmentally sustainable development as well as
The strengthening of authoritarian practices as a means of de-
• To facilitate dialogue and cooperation between the academic comfending austerity and economic remunity, the NGO community and the peoples' movements (parties, trade unions, campaign committees, etc) The interim council comprises structuring policies have become academics, political leaders and community activists from Indonesia, the Phimajor concerns throughout the lippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand. It is proposed to expand region. Laws to ban trade union this initial list to include East Timor, Japan and South Korea.
organisers from worksites in Australia; outright bans on independent trade unions in Indonesia; restric-
The Participants tions and harassment of NGOs in
Malaysia form a pattern of general
Participants who have confirmed their interest include:
resistance to democratisation by
• Dr Syed Husin Ali, scholar, writer and president Malaysian People's Party (PRM); API interim governments throughout the council member. › Renato Constantino Jr., founding convener Asia Pacific Coalition on East
Timor (APCET); president, SANLAKAS, Filipino Federation of Democratic Mass Organisations in region.
the Philippines; API interim council member. > Dr Francisco Nemenzo, founding president
BISIG, (Union for Socialist Ideas and Action); professor of political science, University of the
Community Resistance
Philippines; API interim council member. › Anna Maria Nemenzo, convener Women's Health
Movement, the Philippines; API interim council member. › Jose Ramos-Horta, special repre
There are innumerable initiasentative to Xanana Gusmao; 1996 Nobel Peace Prize co-Laureate. › A senior representative of the External Delegation of FRETILIN> Nico Warouw, International Representative, Peoples tives to fight this trend. New
Democratic Party of Indonesia; API interim council member. > Edwin Gozal, Indonesia Centre political movements have emerged for Labor Struggle (PPBI), Indonesia. » Dr Sunil Ratnapriya, director, Sri Lanka Institute for in Indonesia; old movements are
Occupational Health and Safety; national executive member of the New Socialist Party of Sri transforming themselves in the
Lanka; API interim council member. > Matt Robson, MP, Foreign Affairs Spokesperson for the
Philippines; an unofficial trade
New Zealand Alliance; API interim council member. > Max Lane, national coordinator of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor; lecturer, Department of Southeast Asian union movement can force the
Studies, School of Asian Studies, University of Sydney; APl interim council member. › Dr Helen
South Korean government to
Jarvis, Head, School of Information, Library and Archive Studies, University of New South retreat; Malaysian democrats rally
Wales; researcher on Cambodia killing fields project; API interim council member. » Moses to the cause of the East Timorese;
Havini, representative of the Bougainville Interim government. > John Ondawame, the Burmese democrats still refuse to surrender; and anti-neoliberal activists have been elected to the
New Zealand parliament.
These are just a few of the many examples of democratisation initiatives in the region.
world-wide neoliberal offensive.
aims of the Institute are rounded democratisation.
better-known works. Reading the selections Le Blanc has chosen will provide students with a good base of knowledge, a strong foundation for further learning. Books like What Is to Be Done? and State and Revolution are easily available in various editions. Also, the annotated bibliography included in From Marx to Gramsci will help guide those students and socialists who wish to continue and deepen their studies.
Le Blanc has not made an idiosyncratic or tendentious selection. He accurately highlights the revolutionary continuity that spans the century from The Communist Manifesto to the assassination of Leon Trotsky. Friedrich Engels, in his "Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx," noted that Marx was before all else a revolutionist. His real mission in life was "to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the state institutions which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the modern proletariat."
That statement from Engels sums up the spirit which animates this collection of Marxist literature. Le Blanc's book, then, is a corrective to the prevailing trends in Marxology, of academic Marxism. Advocates of these views utilise Marxism only as a method of study, for analysis of literature, cultural studies, and so forth. However much Marxism may be applied in this way, Le Blanc rightly asserts the primacy of Marxism as an instrument of revolutionary political struggle, as Marx himself would have wished.
In Part One, a 122-page "Introduction to Revolutionary Marxist Politics," Le Blanc identifies and explains the essential concepts of revolutionary Marxist theory. Readers will find a carefully detailed outline of Marxism as a philosophy, theory of history, analysis of capitalism, and a political program leading to a vision of a socialist future. In addition, Le Blanc provides simple capsule summaries of Social Democracy, Stalinism, Maoism, fascism, and concepts like Marxist theories of imperialism, permanent revolution, uneven and combined development, and much more. In effect, Le Blanc's Introduction constitutes a concise Marxist encyclopaedia.
In this work Le Blanc presents no new or startling discoveries, nor does he advance any singular theory. This observation should not suggest a weakness in the content and design of the book, whose purpose is to provide readers with a solid grounding in Marxist theory. Originality in this domain would be capricious. Le Blanc firmly and clearly asserts the revolutionary tradition established long ago by the writers included in this volume. He develops a tightly woven, richly documented argument to show the underlying continuity of theoretical orientation and practical political perspective which unites the founders and builders of revolutionary Marxism. As he is widely read in the literature of and about Marxism, Le
Blanc is able to draw on his extensive knowledge to illustrate the continuity and development of revolutionary Marxist ideas.
Clarity is the primary virtue of Le
Blanc's prose style. Complex ideas are broken down and their basic elements are enumerated, so that the theories can finally be grasped in their fullness. Le Blanc's writing style highlights the logic of the ideas under examination, developing these step by step. Each chapter in his historical overview is heavily and usefully footnoted. These numerous references are well integrated into the text. A reader does not feel that Le Blanc's encyclopaedic knowledge is demonstrated for its own sake; his plentiful references help to show the development, the controversial nature, or the multi-sidedness of the theories under discussion.
To do less would be to oversimplify, but Le Blanc is not guilty of condescending to his readers. Le Bland's writing strikes and maintains a balance between simplicity and complexity: clarity in exposition that respects and reveals the depth of the theories. Much of the success of Le Blanc's historical overview is due to his ability to write in an informed and clear style.
As a result of these numerous qualities, this anthology is especially recommended for college students or participants in radical study groups. Socialist veterans, also, will find in this book a useful tool to sharpen their understanding of Marxist fundamentals.
Part One concludes with a timely question in a chapter entitled, "Does Revolutionarv Marxism Have a Future?" Le Blanc concedes the failure of revolutionary Marxism in the late 20th century, acknowledging that it has failed to achieve the goals advanced by the theorists on whom we have focused our attention - Marx, Engels, et al.
Do these setbacks confirm the views of those who proclaim that History ends with a triumphant capitalism? Here Le Blanc considers the theoretical objections to Marxism raised by informed, prominent critics like Sidney Hook, Bertram D. Wolfe, and James Burnham. They considered Marxism as elitist and undemocratic, with Stalinism as the inevitable, if unintended, outcome of Marxist doctrine. Eventually they all rejected
Marxists are able to refute these conclusions, and Le Blanc presents the necessary rebuttal in these words:
"The fact that post-capitalist societies created through popular revolutions have resulted in bureaucratic dictatorships instead of socialist democracies can be explained not by the impossibility of socialism or demo cracy but by specific historical circumstances which were not inevitable and which can be overcome. Socialism can only be realised on a world scale, and particularly requires that advanced industrial countries be involved in bringing it into being."
Le Blanc also considers the prognosis for
Marxism in light of the fall of the Communist regimes in the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe. He offers a coolly objective political assessment and does not minimise the problems that loom large for those who advocate the revolutionary Marxist perspective, noting especially that the power of a correct theory generally has much less impact on popular consciousness than the power of a mighty collapse.
Le Blanc does not predict the future, nor reviews * does he promise that revolutionary Marxism will be transformed into a relevant plan of action. He does, however, convincingly demonstrate that Marxism is one of the most comprehensive and intellectually powerful prescriptions for social change ever developed, showing that the revolutionary Marxist perspective adds up to an approach to reality and a body of thought which is irreplaceable for those wishing to come to grips with the past and the future.
Marxism cannot be learned solely from books, and a cadre cannot be developed in the library. Experience in political movements and in the class struggle is also necessary to fully understand Marxist concepts and to develop revolutionaries. Yet Marxists do not exalt activism at the expense of theory. There is much to learn and there are many books to read. But if one book can be recommended as the starting point, it is this anthology. * Humanities Press, (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.) 1996, $22.50, Strife: Sex and Politics in Labour Unions. Edited by Barbara Pocock
This is a collection of essays about gender politics in unions in Australia, England, Canada and the US. It casts a searching eye over trade unions and challenges they face with respect to gender politics in organising, unions' industrial objectives, and in their internal culture.
The authors recognise the progress made in unions with respect to women. But they argue that taking that change past the policy stage, and to a new level which challenges union culture more fundamentally, remains a challenge in many places.
The authors are union activists and feminists. The questions they ask arise from the contest between their unionism and their feminism. The book reflects about the habits of unionism and their effects upon gender politics, including factionalism, the power of incumbency, merit versus experience, the definition of the 'good' union official, leadership and the training of leaders, pressures on women unionists - in the press, and in their lives, their public representations, questions of sameness versus difference and sexuality and sexual difference in the union *. Chapter titles and authors include: Gender, strife and unions. By Barbara Pocock • Gender and union organising in Australia. By Sally McManus • Organising and representing women: Lessons from the United States,
By Margaret Hallock. • Moving on from masculinity?
Australian Unions' industrial agenda. By Claire Thomson and Barbara Pocock • A rising voice: Canadian women get organised. By Julie White • Making democratic unions: From policy to practice. By Jude Elton • Sexual politics in trade unions. By Suzanne Franzway • Women union leaders: Mongrels, martyrs, misfits or models for the future. By Leena Sudano • Difference or deficiency:
Gender, representation and meaning in unions. By Kathie
Muir • Women's self-organising and union democracy in the UK: Proportionality and fair representation in UNI-
SON. By Marian Mann, Sue Ledwith and Fiona Colgan.
Allen & Unwin, June 1997 For further details contact Dr
Barbara Pocock, Labour Studies, University of Adelaide,
Adelaide South Australia, Australia 5005 Fax 61 8 8303
4346 email bpocock@arts.adelaide.edu.au
33
* reviews
Devil's Pact - Inside the
World of the Teamsters
Union, by F.C. Duke Zeller reviewed by Charles Walker
This insider's account of sleaze and corruption at the highest echelon of the US
Teamsters union bureaucracy confirms many of the rank and file's worst suspicions. The insider is Duke Zeller, formerly the communications director (for 14 years) of the
USA's largest private sector union. The book is chiefly a portrayal of Jackie Presser, the one-time Teamsters president, mob associate, and FBI informant. (Presser's history was more extensively detailed in Mobbed Up, by