Our party congress was held not much more than three months ago, and discussed thorough reports on perspectives for our work in Australia and for our international work. But some matters were left unresolved, with question marks over them. For example, we didn’t make firm projections for our election work. And we raised the question, “Let’s wait and see if the ISO here follows the line of the SWP in Britain.” We didn’t have long to wait. Certainly there’s been a rapid resolution on that front, with big developments in Australia.

Revolutionary Marxists are internationalists. Our goal is the unification of the working people and oppressed of the world in the complete overthrow of the capitalist system and the ushering in of a classless, socialist society. But capitalist power is concentrated at the level of state power in national states, so the instruments we need to overthrow that power are nationally based revolutionary working class parties.

As we celebrate the first May Day of the new century, the glaring inequalities and injustices and contradictions of global capitalism appear more acute than ever. The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Images of obscene wealth and disgusting luxury and waste contrast with pictures of starving populations on our nightly TV screens.

As we reflect on the tumultuous twentieth century – “wars, revolutions, crises and constant technological change – we have to reaffirm that socialism, now more than ever, is necessary for the future development of humanity. In fact, it’s necessary for preventing society’s collapse into barbarism and the ecological destruction of the planet. Marxism not only has continuing relevance; it’s more applicable than ever. Society continues to be divided into economically opposed classes. Capitalism expropriates the wealth created by working people through their labour.

Whose century was the 20th, and whose century will the 21st be? As the millennium draws to a close, we should reflect on this. Capitalism is still in power across most of the globe. Capitalists in the imperialist countries have accumulated unprecedented wealth. They have previously undreamt-of military power and weapons of mass destruction at their disposal. Some think they can act with complete impunity, slaughtering millions in Iraq with bombs and brutal blockades or raining destruction on Serbia from a great height, free from retaliation.

The Democratic Socialist Party has called on supporters of democracy in Australia to mobilise to demand that the UN and/or the Australian government immediately send troops to East Timor to help the East Timorese people resist and defeat the Indonesian occupying army’s genocidal campaign to physically extinguish the East Timorese people’s struggle for liberation from Indonesian rule.

May Day, the day commemorated for more than a century as the international workers’ day, began as the fight for the 8-hour day in the USA in 1886. But our socialist celebration of May Day is more than just an assertion of economic and social rights for the working class within the framework of capitalism. It’s a challenge to the rotten profit system itself. It’s an affirmation that history will not end with this racist, brutal society and that a better world is indeed in birth.

The Asia Pacific Solidarity Conference taking place in Sydney, April 9-13, will bring together nearly 70 international speakers and participants from parties and movements in Asia, the Pacific, Europe and the Americas, and hundreds of activists from around Australia. It has proved to be an extremely timely initiative, exceeding even the initial ambitious plans of the organisers.

The immensely successful Asia Pacific Solidarity Conference, held in Sydney on April 10-13, was an historic event for the left, both for Australia and the region.

More than 750 people participated. In addition to Australian activists, there were 67 representatives from Asian, Pacific, European, Latin American and United States left parties and other organisations.

As revolutionary Marxists, our internationalist outlook is fundamental. It’s not just being aware of international events and struggles, but totally identifying with the oppressed of the world, and willing to be part of their struggle.