Trot Guide July 2025 Update

For those of you coming in late, ‘Trot Guide’ is a brief survey of the various organised socialist (often Marxist) formations in Australia. As such, no, not all groups listed are in fact Trotskyist; indeed, some explicitly align themselves against the tendency. Nonetheless, given that Trotskyism or some derivation thereof is a majority influence on the groups examined, the term ‘Trot Guide’ is broadly applicable (and, besides which, I think it communicates the half-serious nature of the guide). That said:

I last reviewed the guide in January 2023 (FWIW, the first survey what I done was published in January 2006). Back then, I was encouraged to see a new, revisionist blog called ‘The Waterhole’ pop up but, sadly, it’s maintained silence since mid-2022. So too, the ‘Committee to Defend Chairman Gonzalo – Australia’ and ‘Red Eureka’ blogs.

Oh well.

In general, along with the usual de- and re-composition of various ‘far left’ groupuscules, if the polling I occasionally stumbleupon that suggests The Yoof are more inclined to some amorphous definition of ‘socialism’ over ‘capitalism’, it stands to reason that there may be continued growth on the (organised, far) left: who knows? (Certainly, the teenage boys being groomed online to join some variant of the far right could do much better for themselves than join a nazi kvlt like, say, the NSN.) Perhaps as a partial consequence of this (real or alleged) phenomenon, the Victorian Socialists have recently expanded into a national project. At the same time, AFAIK, there are no self-described socialists in any parliament in Australia … and surely thE fAr LeFt can have at least one MP, as a treat?

Otherwise:

Still having a crack :

1. (Alliance for) Workers’ Liberty
The AWL retains a franchise in Australia, but it’s been very quiet of late, and I fear for its future.

2. Australian Communist Party
The ACP split from the CPA in 2019. It subsequently helped to spawn the Community & Union Defence League (CUDL), and related projects include the Black Peoples’ Union (BPU) and ‘Green Guerillas'(?), supplemented by a public housing campaign. Well, kinda. In any case, things seem to have been rather quiet in the intervening period.

Bolshevik-Leninist
Alas, ‘the Bolshevik-Leninist has fused with the Spartacist League of Australia’. Good news for the battling Sparts; bad news for spotters.

2 1/2. Class Conscious
As was the case last time, ‘CC remains more of a blog/website than a groupuscule, one armed with a political perspective which closely mirrors that of the International Committee of the Fourth International (SEP)’. (I dunno what became of ‘Anti-War Victoria’).

3. Communist League
After consolidating its forces in Sydney and closing its New Zealand branch, the Australian franchise of the US party has presumably since been able to ‘respond boldly to key developments in politics and working-class struggles not only in Australia and New Zealand but throughout the Pacific region’, though you may have missed it. In general, however, the CL is distinguished from its ostensible comrades elsewhere on the left by its pro-Zionist perspectives, most recently on display in its glowing account of a smol Zionist rally in Sydney earlier this month; one in which the ‘Australian Jewish Association’ (AJA) starred. This particular form of communist solidarity with the AJA was seemingly required partly on account of the alleged fact that:

Weekly actions organized by middle-class leftists and Jew-hating Islamists have occupied city centers urging support for Hamas.

“It is a deadly illusion that the existing capitalist government can be relied on for protection,” Robert Aiken, Communist League candidate in the 2025 federal election, told the Militant. “Workers and our unions must organize to protest against these rising Jew-hating attacks and to defend synagogues and Jews.”

Be that as it may (a dubious prospect in my book), I can find no evidence that Mr Aiken actually ran in the election(?).

4. Communist Party of Australia
What is there to say? Formerly known as the Socialist Party of Australia, the CPA continues to roll along, although its presence in Melbourne/Naarm seems reduced and ‘while having a presence of some sort in every state’, the CPA’s centre of gravity would also seem to remain Sydney(?). Of the 2025 federal election, ‘The CPA Central Committee believes that Greens, left, progressive and independents should work in a more coordinated and united way to confront the undemocratic, Two-Party electoral system. The Australian electoral system is sponsored by millionaires who can only be defeated by working together in an electoral coalition for People’s democracy.’

5. Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
Founded in March 1964 as a split from the CPA, the Mysterymen of the CPA (M-L) concluded their 16th Congress last year. Whether or not The Yoof will join the party in continuing to maintain the legacy of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and E.F. Hill remains uncertain. More recently (July 5), the party reported that a group of retired unionists in Adelaide ‘is calling on the ACTU and State and Territory peak union bodies to conduct anti-far right training’, which is interesting.

6. Communist Workers Party of Australia
A tiny split from the CPA (?) based in Newcastle, the CWPA continues to publish ‘The Agitator’ (I assume) but, sadly, its website is currently down.

7. Freedom Socialist Party
As in 2023, in 2025 ‘the FSP (Melbourne) continues to trundle along and to advocate for socialist feminism’. Its ‘Solidarity Salon’, relocated to Reservoir, remains an ongoing project, but I’m unsure what’s become of ‘PUSH! Organising and Educating to Build a United Front Against Fascism’ (which the MAC-G joined back when).

8. Internationalist Communists Oceania League of Internationalist Communists
The ICO were ‘a group of workers based in Australia who organise around and defend Internationalist Communist positions’. But that was Then and this is Now (February 2024): The League of Internationalist Communists. You can read the LIC’s 2025 draft program here. See also : Internationalist Communist Tendency / Left-Wing, Anti-Bolshevik and Council Communism.

9. ISA Australia
In 2023 I wrote: ‘Ultimately derived from the defunct Socialist Party, the International Socialist Alternative Australia announced its existence in early 2021 and is a split from/successor to Socialist Action. Its creation was one outcome of internal battles within the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), which produced both a NEW! IMPROVED! CWI and International Socialist Alternative.’ In 2025, however, it appears that the ISA Australia — now simply Socialist Australia (?) — has (re-)aligned itself with the ‘Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International’, another international which formed at the end of August 2024.

10. New Communist Party of Australia
Aww yiss: a NEW! entry. The NCPA has seemingly emerged from a brief spark known as the Eureka Australian Workers Movement on the basis that: ‘It is a necessary and vital task to establish a revolutionary party in Australia based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism. It is imperative to establish a party free from the deviations that pervade other parties that use the title “Communist”.’ FWIW, I don’t have great confidence it will last until the next edition of the Guide.

10 1/2. Platypus Melbourne
Yes, the Platypus Society has established a chapter in Melbourne (UniMelb). In 2025, there’s apparently also a chapter in Canberra (ANU). As in 2023, the Society ‘continues to host conversations on the death of the Left (which is some kinda uncertain cat, I think?) and examines left history and ideology with a view to resurrecting it as a real social force for revolution (like some kinda old mole, maybe)’. According to Comrade Demarty (writing in January this year):

Platypus was formed in 2006 (out of a seminar run by Postone at the University of Chicago) by Cutrone and others who thought it was necessary to do something other than run a seminar at the University of Chicago. To do what? The Platypus template was formed early, and has remained strangely unvarying ever since. They organise almost entirely on campuses. They do panels: they invite a few people of often wildly varying political and institutional backgrounds, ask them a few questions in slightly stilted academese, and run what looks for all the world like a moderated session at an academic conference.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

See also : The Platypus Affiliated Society: A pro-imperialist trap for students and young people, Owen Howell and Oscar Grenfell, World Socialist Web Site, December 19, 2024.

Progressive Labour Party
Yes, the PLP remains deaded, having decided to merge into the Australian Progressives in 2022. And, while last time I added that the PLP was unlikely to return to the Guide, it’s worth noting that the AP states that ‘We don’t identify as ‘left’ or ‘right’ – we’re about moving forward, ie. PROGRESS, underpinned by principles and values’.

11. Red Ant ~versus~ Red Spark
In 2023, Red Ant was classified more as a blog than a party, but it endures and, possibly, grows. Unfortunately, following a reportedly ‘electrifying’ tour by Vijay Prashad in January this year, ‘a minority faction of Red Ant, calling itself “Red Spark” … departed from the collective, citing “irreconcilable differences”’. Good news for spotters; bad news for Red Ant.

Whose scarlet-coloured ideological cuisine will reign supreme?

12. Revolutionary Communist Organisation
One of the newer kids on the revolutionary bloc, the RCO was founded in January 2023. It publishes a zine called Partisan, continues to elaborate its political line (in May last year, a member commented that this resembled a form of orthodox or ‘centrist’ Leninism which engages with the perspectives of people like the CPGB’s Mike Macnair and publications such as Cosmonaut), but I was tickled by the RCO’s strategy (adopted at its 2024 congress) of ‘winning hegemony for partyist Marxism against the Bakuninist and Coalitionist wings of the workers[‘] movement’.

12 1/2. Socialism Today
ST still ‘looks very much like a blog seemingly produced by what remains of the Socialist Party after the split in the CWI’.

Socialist Action
Socialist Action would appear to be deaded, leaving Socialist Australia and Socialism Today as the remnants of the CWI tendency in Australia. See also : Melbourne Calling | Stephen Jolly.

13. Socialist Alliance
In 2025, SAll remains a federally-registered party, publishes Green Left on a fortnightly basis, contested the 2025 federal election (experiencing some modest gains) and is holding its now-annual Ecosocialism conference in September. Probably the largest socialist organisation outside of SAlt, and with a national reach, the Alliance has expressed some ambivalence about the expansion of the Victorian Socialists into a national project but ‘[w]e remain open to further discussion about how to advance cooperation and greater unity’.

14. Socialist Alternative
In 2025, SAlt remains the largest (neo-)Trotskyist political formation/’ostensibly revolutionary organization’ in Australia, and publishes Red Flag and Marxist Left Review. While CARF has been placed on the back-burner, in the last few years much political energy has been devoted to promoting the electoral platform known as the Victorian Socialists. As noted above, this has become a springboard for the formation of similar groups in other states, a project currently being promoted on a national tour starring ‘Purple Pingers’ AKA Jordan van den Lamb.

15. Socialist Equality Party
Descended from the Socialist Labour League (1972–2010), the SEP modestly declares itself ‘the leadership of the world socialist movement’. De-registered as a federal party in February 2022, it remain so in 2025, much to the party’s chagrin. A Troyskyist organisation, the SEP may be distinguished from other such parties by (alter alia) its rather more vigorous critique of trades unionism and its excoriations of the ‘pseudo-left’.

16. Solidarity
Solidarity is still here in 2025, and mostly concentrated on the east coast (Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney). It also remains the Australian member of the (sometimes termed Cliffite) International Socialist Tendency.

17. Spartacist League of Australia
In 2023, The Sparts — AKA The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) — were undergoing a minor crisis as a result of the death of its lvl boss, James Roberston (1928–2019). Hence ‘[i]t is no secret for anyone following our organization that we have been conducting intense internal discussions and qualitative political realignments over the last few years’. In good news for spotters, SLA has resurrected itself, fused with Bolshevik-Leninist, and instead of Australasian Spartacist now produces Red Battler. Curiously, with regards the 2025 Australian federal election, The Sparts called ‘on workers and the oppressed to support Socialist Alliance (SA) and Victorian Socialists (VS) in the upcoming elections as both are standing against the major parties on a pro-working-class basis’. See also : International Bolshevik Tendency / Bolshevik Tendency.

18. Trotskyist Platform
TP emerged as a split from the Spartacists some years ago now, but remains staunch and may even outlast them, who knows? Last time I noted Trotskyist Platform’s Article About Genuine Trotskyism in the 21st Century Has Now Been Issued in Print Form. In 2025, I draw the reader’s attention to Resist Racist Violence and Strengthen Our Workers Movement! (June 27, 2025).

19. Victorian Socialists
Since forming a few years ago, VS has won and lost a local councillor and contested several federal and state elections, each witnessing a modest increase in their vote. Dominated by SAlt but including other, unaligned or independent socialists, VS once included a caucus group called ‘Socialist Unity’ (now seemingly dissolved). As in 2023, ‘In general, assuming VS can keep the band together and the underlying upward trend in votes remains, it seems possible that it may obtain an Upper House seat at some point in the future’: certainly, in 2025, its proposed extension into other states is ambitious. See also : ‘The Socialist Macro-Sect in the ‘Digital Age’: The Victorian Socialists’ Strategy for Assembling a Counter-Public’, Ian Anderson, tripleC, Vol.18, No.2 (2020).

20. Workers League
In 2023, I wrote that ‘the blogger known as the Workers League poses serious questions to the proletariat in Australia. For example, ‘Wieambilla Shootings: Tragic Incident or False Flag?’: The MSM reporting of this incident raises instant suspicion. More recently, the WL — via Red Fire — has taken the time to examine The RCO and “Putting the Cart before the Horse”, an article which explores recent polemics between the RCO and the SLA.

See also:–

• Gong Commune: is a blog by radikals in Wollongong.
• Surplus Value: is ‘a network for Australian Marxian thinkers and activists’.
• The Banner Bright: is ‘a weblog about politics and social issues, with a focus on the need to build a more equal, democratic society’. Also quiet since August 2023.
• The Word From Struggle Street: is … communist?
• Workers Bush Telegraph: ‘provides a class analysis of workers[‘] struggle’.

• C21stLeft: Against The Pseudo-Left!
• Red Eureka Journal: is ‘published by the National Preparatory Committee of the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party of Australia, whose mission is to reorganise the Communist Party in Australia’. YUGE fans of Unkle Ted Hill.
• Strange Times: Against The Pseudo-Left!

See also : Anti-Revisionism in Australia.

Finally, Comrade Evan Smith is continuing to assemble radical online collections and archives, including much of relevance to (so-called!) Australia.