Australian Marxist Review • AMR #74 • March 2023

The editorial board of the AMR has collected some interviews and articles to assist its readers in gaining an understanding of the developments in the international workers movement. The setback to Socialism in Europe with the reclaiming of whole nations by the imperialists and the building towards imperialist encirclement of China is part of the struggle in what we still see as the era of proletarian revolution.

The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was historically significant for the fundamental revision of Lenin by the introduction of an idealist concept that the proletariat could surrender state power to the whole people and that this voluntary liquidation of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat could happen and still lead to communism.

The following interview with a Party member was held in early January of 2023. Most of the interview concerns the everyday experiences of a communist family in the 1950s and 1960s. It is told from the perspective of one of the children of parents who were active members of the CPA, and is based on the vivid experiences that have been clearly remembered, on written autobiographical material from the father, and from ASIO files on the family that were obtained.

Comrade Jim “Jimmy” Donovan is a lifelong member of the Communist Party of Australia where he is a member of the Maritime branch in Sydney and is also the President of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) Veterans Organisation.

The decision to construct a thesis on Continuity came about as a response to the study of Marxism-Leninism in the context of the working class struggles in Australia. It is a response to the liquidation and misrepresentation of Marxism and the presentation of errors as Marxism.