Letters

Dear comrades

It was a real joy to receive the latest issue of

Lalkar

after putting up with a week of Trotskyite stodge at a union conference. Of course some

Lalkar

articles are a bit too long and wordy but it was good to see some solid Marxist Leninist class analysis.

However I would take issue with the use of the phrase “

Australian Imperialism

” in the article on East Timor. Surely rather than being an imperialist power itself Australia is actually a satellite state of US imperialism. Australia has US bases on its soil and its economy is dominated by US owned multinationals.

Yours fraternally,

Dermot Hudson.

______________________

Dear Comrade Hudson,

Thank you for you letter in appreciation of the last issue of

Lalkar

for

“… solid Marxist Leninist class analysis

” therein.

As to the nature of Australian capitalism, we have not the slightest doubt that it has all the characteristics of monopoly-capitalism, viz, imperialism, as defined by V.I.Lenin.

Australia is a middling imperialist country. The fact that its economy is dominated by US multinationals, that the US maintains military bases on Australian soil, and that the Australian ruling class plays a subservient role to the US, no more detracts from the imperialist character of Australian capitalism than similar facts do from the imperialist character of a number of European imperialist countries such as Belgium, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and the whole of Scandinavia, to name just a few of them.

In fact, the same applies to Britain, whose territory is home to US bases, half of whose corporations are owned by foreigners, and whose foreign policy is often subservient to that of US imperialism. For all that, Britain is possibly the second most powerful imperialist country and it would occur to no one, except perhaps the Troto-revisionist fraternity to deny this self-evident truth.

As to military bases, both Japan and Germany, powerful imperialist countries indeed, are home to US bases.

Fraternally,

LALKAR.