Back in the late 1980s, I used to regularly read The Socialist, the monthly newspaper of the International Socialist Organisation, a rather eager and motley crew of Trotskyists.
I read it mostly for the movie reviews, which used to amuse me greatly. The Socialist’s movie reviewer was a very angry man (or perhaps woman – I do not recall any byline), who expressed his anger through his Marxist analysis of various movies, either to criticise our patriarchal capitalist society, or to expound that bitter reality was nothing like the suspension of disbelief required in the movies.
I particularly enjoyed the review of The Year My Voice Broke, a critically acclaimed Australian movie, where the main characters are, purportedly, oppressed by our non-socialist society, and of the Schwarzenegger hit The Running Man. How can anyone believe the ending of this film, where the masses rise up in revolt after Schwarzenegger’s character reveals the truth of this society to them? In real life, journalist John Pilger was doing documentaries showing Prime Minister Bob Hawke hobnobbing with the super rich, and the people ignored it.
The ISO used to have a table in the Bourke Street Mall, where they would wave their newspapers around. At one point, I remember the elderly seller at the more conventional newsstand wickedly calling out ‘None of your commo papers here’.
I’m not sure what happened to The Socialist, as I would dearly love to buy a more recent edition and read it, and see if they still have such entertaining movie reviews.
But one very ironic thing that the ISO has in common with many publicly listed capitalist companies it that it has gone through as many splits and mergers in the intervening four decades as BHP or Westpac Bank or Treasury Wine Estate, just to name a few.
One of their more visible successor organisations is The Victorian Socialists, which appears to be the electoral vehicle for a group called Socialist Alternative.
A few weeks ago, the next door neighbours put up an election poster on their front fence line. To my relief, it was for the local Victorian Socialist Candidate, rather than for Ben Carroll, the premier and local Labor MP. That could have been awkward, given that I have posters up on my fence supporting the local Liberal candidate. [Happily, these neighbours are only tenants, and their landlord has a pattern of replacing tenants every 12 months.]
Anywho… the Socialist poster disappeared a couple of days later. And no, that was not of my doing – I am a little too mature and respectful of civilised political debate in a democratic society to do something mischievous.
But there are a lot of Victorian Socialist posters up everywhere, more than what the local Labor MPs have placed, including some very large ones of A1 size, rather than the usual A2.
And that suggests not only that they have a fairly large network of supporters (hopefully not of voters however), but that they are well resourced financially.
Which begs the question of where they have obtained all this filthy lucre they are spending on printing costs?
I was discussing this over luncheon at my Club a few weeks ago with a couple of friends who mostly share my political opinions, one of whom, as a Northcote resident, has a front row seat to socialist political activism in his area and could see the large party headquarters and other manifestations of money spent on political activities. To him, it was a mystery.
I postulated two possibilities.
First, in his pre dictator days, Stalin, the enemy of their idol Trotsky, helped to fund Marxist revolution through bank robbery. I somehow doubt our modern socialists are as committed as Uncle Joe to resort to such techniques.
Second, the socialists have decided, in their utter dedication (but not to the point of bank robbery) to donate much of their own income and assets to the Cause. This would be more plausible.
Whilst there are more of us than them, petty bourgeoisie like myself are more likely to spend our money on mortgages, share portfolios, superannuation funds, and Club memberships rather than on donating to the Cause (well, I did donate $25 to some anti Ben Carroll advertising campaign). Marxists are more likely to despise such financial pursuits, and spend a much larger proportion of their money on political activism. Also, the more aged of the Marxist population are more likely to compose wills leaving large chunks of their estate to their political cause, rather than to their family.
After all, they are not making the big bucks out of newspaper sales.
