The Marxist cult agenda - Destruction and Chaos
Marxists' seek chaos. They use any issue (social, economic, political etc) to ferment chaos. This is their cult agenda!
In the latest in my series on understanding Australian Marxism I asked What’s Wood got to do with Marxism? (10 March 2024) and explained that Australian Marxists (are) Rowing their own boat (2 April 2024).
In this post I’m pulling together what I learnt from attending Marxism Conferences 2023 and 2024, both held at Melbourne University during both Easters, and both attended by around 1,000-or-so eager Australian Marxists. My attendance at the conferences had one motivation: To understand.
What I now understand, and understand quite well, is something I don’t like. And it’s something that must be opposed if we are to live in a peaceful, happy and harmonious society.
Marxists core cult agenda
The central lesson is this. Marxism is a political cultish movement that glorifies destruction and seeks chaos across every level of our society.
Understand that simple point and the noise, the anger, the fog of screaming and chanting and the blatant manipulation of facts, history and logic (which are the marketing techniques of the Australian Marxist movement) all fade away to reveal its essence.
Marxism has one all-encompassing mantra: ‘Capitalism is the source of all evil in society and the world’. Destroy capitalism and humanity will enter a glorious age. And the technique for destroying capitalism is the creation of chaos across society.
This Marxist mantra was the persistent ‘vibe’ at both conferences. It was promulgated through (exhausting) convoluted, academic dissertations, emotional ‘rev-ups’, ‘gentle’ chats over coffee and an overwhelming volume of publications.
There’s nothing new about these insights. Any long-term student of Marxism/socialism will be fully aware of the foregoing. But Marxism is undergoing a rebirth in Australia following its apparent decline around the 1980s. I’ve wanted to understand the re-birth, how it’s playing out and, from that, formulate how it can be countered. I’ll discuss my conclusions about counteracting Marxism in a future post.
Modern Marxism in action
There’s a key point I want to make about how our society is portrayed to us, both through the traditional mass media and now through social media. Drama sells. Bad news attracts viewer ‘eyeballs’ on both traditional and social media outlets. Modern Marxists know this and have focused their campaign strategies on creating bad news. Bad news, news that creates the impression of society in crisis, in trauma and in chaos, is Marxists’ marketing ‘gold’.
The Marxist concept is that revolutions come from chaos. So, for Marxists, their tasks are to (a) become active in any cause or issue that evokes emotion and dissent and then (b) organise and agitate within any cause to whip up anger so that they create the impression of a society in chaos and (c) hopefully use this to bring about revolution that results in the downfall of capitalism.
The problem the Marxists have is that, for every revolution that has occurred since the ‘invention’ of communism/socialism in the mid-to-late 1800s, there is not one revolution that has sustained the communist/socialist ‘glory’ over time. The predictions of the ‘inventors,’ the two long-dead white men Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, have proven to be plainly wrong. Communism/socialism does not prevail post-revolutions and capitalism continues to reassert itself. This applies as much to the 1917 Russian revolution which Australian Marxists so idolise as it does to any other ‘revolution’ they cite. Let me give one recent example.
At Marxism Conference 2023 there was great excitement and discussion about the rising-up of French farmers against the government. The French protests involved large-scale road blockades by farmers and even the spraying of government buildings with manure. How very French! There was excited talk at the 2023 conference of this being the beginning of a new French uprising. It was clear from discussion that French Marxists had become active in the agitation. However, a brief Google search reveals that the farmers’ beef is about their treatment by the government over very capitalist issues—namely, diesel prices, higher taxes, and climate and green anti-agricultural policies harming their very capitalist farming businesses.
In fact, the farmers revolt is Europe-wide. In the Netherlands it’s resulted in the green anti-farming parties losing power and the new pro-farming (‘methane farting cows are good’) party forming government. Presumably the Marxists have fled from the farming lobby or have been booted out. The farmers’ ‘revolution’ has produced a ‘capitalist’ outcome not a Marxist one.
What this highlights is that the Marxists will join any disruptive bandwagon and agitate within the ‘bandwagon’ to foment, if possible, their Marxist revolution. Unfortunately for them, they just keep getting it wrong in terms of their desired outcome/s. They are reduced, instead, to perpetual ‘revolutionary’ activity in the hope that one day they will succeed.
What this means for us, the general public, is that it’s helpful to bring forth some ‘back of mind’ insight when we are bombarded with media coverage of agitation campaigns and protests. We need to understand that there is a high likelihood of dedicated Marxists working within any protest movement and that they are using the movement for their own Marxist revolutionary ends. What we need to seek to do is dissect the legitimate issues out from the noise and hype of apparent chaos, likely created by Marxists. Reasoned discussion on facts and issues is what we need in a society that wants to genuinely address issues.
Let me give an ‘inside’ example of the perverted use of a current issue by Marxists.
LGBTQIA+ a Marxist marketing tool
This year at Marxism Conference 2024 I attended the session ‘Marxism vs queer theory: fighting for sexual liberation’. The medium-sized lecture theatre where the session was held had probably over 100 attendees. The dress standard meant that wearing a dress did not denote sex/gender; blue, green, orange and any colour hair was ‘norm’; and nose rings, tattoos and painted nails were spread across the binary/non-binary, transgender, transexual, gay, diaspora of LGBTQIA+ plus any heterosexuals in attendance. For me, as a long-time resident of the inner-Melbourne CBD, the mix was normal and comfortable. But the discussion was unexpected.
What occurred was a highly detailed, academic presentation on the history and premise of ‘queer theory’. I’ll admit to being somewhat overwhelmed by the rush of detail. But Wikipedia informed me that queer theory challenges “…sex-based binaries and its goal is to undo hierarchies and fight against social inequalities.” ‘Good’, I thought. I might learn something of the specific issues and solutions facing LGBTQIA+ people, particularly given the audience’s (presumed) lived experiences. But no. Something else happened.
Queer theory was denounced. The attendees were in full agreement. The reason? Queer theory, if I’m understanding the discussion correctly, seems to argue that gender is an individualised state of mind, and that gender oppression is also an individualised ‘thing’ both felt and delivered. It is, of course, possible that I may have got this wrong. It’s complicated. But the Marxist’s fury seemed to stem from the view that gender theory harms the class-based mantra of Marxism, in which oppression of LGBTQIA+ people is oppression by the ruling ‘class’ against the oppressed LGBTQIA+ ‘class’. That is, queer theory undermines the legitimacy of the Marxist revolutionary agenda. Whoever would have thought?!
Here was Marxism intruding into one of the great social debates of the last few decades, namely the rights of LGBTQIA+ people to feel comfortable, accepted and safe within society and to receive the same legal treatment as anyone else. These are complex issues overlaying religious beliefs—whether LGBTQIA+ ‘rights’ interfere with non-LGBTQIA+ rights and so on. But here are the Marxists using the issues for a totally different purpose, to promote their class-based concepts for the purposes of revolutionary agitation to overthrow capitalism. You see, to the Marxists, capitalism is the cause of LGBTQIA+ oppression. Destroy capitalism and oppression is eliminated!
The queer theory exposé provides a telling insight into all other issues in which Marxists become involved. It brings into sharp relief the one thread common to all Marxist activity: the need for class-based chaos leading to war/revolution resulting in the overthrow of capitalism.
With this in mind, critical perspectives can be brought to key issues. Based on what I’ve presented above, here are Marxist interpretive perspectives on three issues.
Other Marxist marketing tools
The ‘boiling’ of the planet is a direct result of the profit motive of the capitalist system and capitalist behaviour. Capitalism must be destroyed to save the planet.
The housing crisis is a direct result of the profit motive of the capitalist system. Housing should be built according to the needs of the people, not capitalist profit. Capitalism must be destroyed before the housing crisis can be fixed.
(Now before you jump into debate as to whether this Marxist perspective will result in a worsening of the housing crisis or lead to more environmental degradation, remember the exercise here is to understand the mantra they seek to apply in their campaigns of agitation. What we need to do is to dissect the Marxist agenda from the practical issues of housing and the environment, for example.)
Look at the war in Gaza! At Marxism Conference 2024 the wearing of the Palestinian keffiyeh (scarf) seemed almost to be a required uniform. ‘From the river to the sea’ was an oft-repeated chant in any session. Here I’ll try and describe what I think is motivating the Marxists on the Gaza issue.
First, put aside the fact that the Middle East is a hotbed of centuries-old religious, ethnic, tribal, geopolitical and economic complexity, in which the Israel-Hamas war seems to be yet another horrid event. My sense is that the Marxist message ignores this complexity and drives for simplicity as follows. Marxists reason that (a) Jews are capitalists of the highest order therefore Jews are evil oppressors (b) consequently Israel is a nation of obsessive capitalist oppressors (c) Israel and Jews by virtue of being a capitalist nation/people are oppressing and will continue to oppress the Palestinians (d) therefore Israel must be destroyed and all Jews destroyed and/or expelled from the Middle East.
Within this ideological framework Australian Marxists are then able to ignore the 7 October 2023 Hamas massacre of Jews. That can be justified as part of the necessary war against capitalism. They are then able to rail against the Israeli military response as ironclad proof of capitalist/capitalisms (Jewish/Israeli) oppression. This reduction of Middle East complexity to Marxist mantra simplicity enables Australian Marxists to moralise against Jews and Israel’s right to exist. Destruction of Jews and Israel is the Marxist mantra, although they are strategic enough not to state that as bluntly as I have. Instead, their involvement in the Palestinian cause and their actions in agitation all point to that conclusion.
In the end, to me, the Marxist dogma, as now portrayed by Australian Marxists is decidedly ugly. It is something to be opposed. Resolution to issues the Marxists utilise for their revolutionary, ‘destroy capitalism’ agenda will never be resolved through the Marxist thesis. Resolution to these issues, where it can occur, is only possible through other means. But for sure, Marxism must be opposed. I shall talk about that in another Substack post.
I will finish this with some direct quotations from Red Flag, the official magazine of Socialist Alternative, the organisers of the Marxism Conferences:
“…capitalism cannot be reformed – it must be overthrown…”
“…oppression and exploitation can be totally eradicated only through a socialist revolution …”
“…environmental crisis is caused by capitalism. The relentless competition for profits among the ruling class … is destroying the planet.”
“We support and throw ourselves into movements to end oppression, including that based on sex, gender, race, religion and ability.”
“We need trade unions to defend and increase the wages of working people … Socialist Alternative members are union members and activists.”
“…we need a political organisation … a party that can lead the struggle to overthrow the ruling class and the capitalist state and create new institutions of workers democracy to run society.”