Revolutionaries and reformists in contemporary Australia – by Max Lane
By Max Lane — Rosa Luxemburg wrote the booklet Social Reform or Revolution in response to the writings of Eduard Bernstein. Bernstein was advocating an “evolutionary” path to socialism, counter-posed to revolution. “Reform or revolution?” became a fundamental question for the socialist and labour movements at the beginning of the 20th century. Defining the division between revolutionary and reformist politics remains a fundamental aspect of political life on the activist left today.
When Luxemburg wrote in 1899, this fundamental question had a historical concreteness. The socialist movement and parties of the day, having developed in a period when they were heavily influenced by the ideas of Marx, were heading towards a huge split, consummated after the outbreak of World War I. Luxemburg’s pamphlets, not to mention Lenin’s critique’s of Bernstein, were a part of resistance to a strengthening trend of a conservative opportunism. From World War I onwards, the labour movements in most countries of the world, and especially in the imperialist countries, have been dominated by reformism, embodied in the class-collaborationist trade union and labour and social democratic party bureaucracies.
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Mixing Marx and Indonesia by Mohammed Cohen
BALI – Max Lane is a Marxist and leading authority on Indonesia. That’s somewhat ironic since Indonesia has been a bulwark of anti-communism since the 1965 coup that brought General Suharto to power and led to the killings of up to 3 million alleged communists. Yet Lane says that Indonesia turned him into a Marxist. Read more
October 3 National Strike: Indonesia’s Political Terrain Changing by Max Lane
- One of the October 3 mobilisations in Jakarta
In its press statement on October 3, the Indonesian Workers and Labourers Assembly (MPBI) stated that 2 million workers mobilized for the national strike it called for that date, with mobilisations in industrial areas or outside government offices in 21 cities and towns. Press and various blog reports separately estimate hundreds of thousands of workers mobilized in Jakarta’s various industrial estate areas, gathering at many different rally points. It is reported that tens of thousands of others gathered in Indonesia’s larger cities and thousands in smaller towns. The strike was scheduled to go for a few more days but the MPBI leadership called it off after one day, following another round of meetings with the Minister for Labour. The MPBI has given the government two weeks to come up with a satisfactory answer to its demands, or the strike will resume. The demands articulated by the MPBI, and supported by other unions outside this formation, including the more overtly left, but much smaller, Workers Secretariat, are for an increase in wages, and end to “outsourcing” and the full implementation of health insurance legislation which would guarantee coverage to all workers, with employers paying the premiums.
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Reflections on starting “anew” in Australia: some experiences from the Australian Left – by Max Lane
It has been almost five years since I was expelled in 2008 with 35 others from the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) or ‘Perspective’, as it had become by then. (And I think there were another dozen or so who had to leave in other ways.) It was a sad, angry and frustrating moment. I joined the DSP in 1981. Of the 27 years I was a member, I spent more than 13 years in full-time political activity, organizing and writing, and helping put out a newspaper. All of us in the DSP, more than 300 of us by 2007, had built a small but still substantial activist left group, for most of the time grounded in a revolutionary political outlook, at least until 2005. While I had been involved in several different kinds of activities, as a party branch activist, party newspaper person and a national leader, most of my energies had been related to international solidarity, especially with the progressive and left movements in Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor as well as the national liberation movement in East Timor. This work, and a lot of work by other comrades, enabled us to help build some good campaigns in solidarity with East Timor and the Indonesian democratic movement against Suharto, as well as organize some great international conferences in Sydney in 1998, 2001, 2002 and 2005 – the Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conferences.
But in 2008, the 35 plus of us were out of the DSP, a party we had helped build, and starting again with our experience as our only resource. We had fought a 5 year struggle against a trend heading towards liquidation of the party, but lost that battle. In January 2010, less than 2 years after we were expelled, the DSP dissolved itself into the Socialist Alliance, an organisation very different from the DSP, among other things, no longer basing itself on prioritizing the public defense of revolutionary politics. Trying to build that new (from 2002) organisation became the activity of our former comrades. We had the task of starting “anew” on our own project. Read more…
MARXISM 2013 Conference
MARXISM 2013 Conference details here
MARCH, 2007 article: 2007 East Timor Presidential elections – interview with Avelino do Coelho
On April 9 East Timor will have its second Presidential elections, elections which will precede parliamentary elections soon afterwards. The East Timorese political system combines a President, who is commander-in-chief of the army and who has veto powers over legislation, with an executive cabinet, headed by a Prime Minister, elected by the parliament. In the coming Presidential elections there are 9 candidates, compared to two at the last elections, The nine candidates are Francisco Guterres Lu-Olo from FRETILIN , Avelinho Maria Coelho for the Socialist Party of Timor (PST), Francisco Xavier do Amaral, Manuel Tilman , Lucia Maria Brandao Freitas Lobato, Jose Ramos Horta, Joao Viegas Carascalao and Fernando de Araujo Lasama. Read more…
Max Lane: Selected coming and recent publications. (2008-2013) EXCLUDING blog articles
Sole authored books scheduled for publication in by Djaman Baroe in 2013 are:
Bangsa Yang Belum Selesai (new edition with three new chapters) (April, 2013)
Indonesia tidak ada di Bumi Manusia (a book on the works of Pramoedya Ananta Toer) (June, 2013)
W.S. Rendra: sastera kepeloporan dan kontradiksinya, 1970-78 (a book on the 1970s works of W.S. Rendra) (October, 2013)
Sole authored books:
Max Lane, Unfinished Nation: Indonesia before and after Suharto, Verso, 2008
Max Lane, Catasrophe in Indonesia, Seagull Books, (University of Chicago), 2010
Max Lane, Bangsa Yang Belum Selesai: Indonesia sebelum dan sesudah Suharto, Reform Institute, Jakarta, 2007. Being reprinted with three new chapters in 2013, Djaman Baroe, Yogyakarta.
Max Lane, Wedastera Suyasa, 1945-72 di Bali: dari politik karismatis pada gerakan socio-budaya, Universitas Mahanedratta, Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, January, 2009
Journal article
“Indonesia And The Fall Of Suharto: Proletarian Politics In The “Planet Of Slums” Era” in Working USA Journal of Labor and Society, Volume 13, Issue 2,pages 185–200, June 2010
Book Chapters
“Paradigma-paradigma untuk sejarah alternative: Ketiadaan Analisis Kelas dalam Studi-studi Sejarah Kontemporer”, pp 421 -489, special Epilogue chapter in Malcom Calkdwell and Ernst Utrecht, Sejarah Alternatif Indonesia, Sayogyo Institute and Djaman Baroe, Yogyakarta, 2011
“Suatu Sejarah Alternatif Indonesia”, pp 17-25 in Malcom Caldwell and Ernst Utrecht, Sejarah Alternatif Indonesia, Sayogyo Institute and Djaman Baroe, Yogyakarta, 2011.
“Indonesia” in The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, edited by Dr. Immanuel Ness, Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Wiley-Blackwell, USA, 2009.
“Pramoedya Ananta Toer” in Dictionary of Literary Biography – Southeast Asian Writers, edited by Dr David Smyth, University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, published by Bruccoli Clark Layman, Columbia, USA, 2009.
“Nation Building”, Pembebasan Nasional dan Trisakti Soekarno di Abad 21,” in Liber Amicorum 80 Tahun Joesoef Isak , collection of essays edited by Max Lane and Bonnie Triyana, published by ISAI, Komunitas Bambu, Perkumpulan Praxis, July, 2008.
“Pramoedya, Socialism and Racialisme” in Pramoedya Ananta Toer, The Chinese in Indonesia, Select Publishers, Singapore, 2008
“Introduction”, in Arok of Java, by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, translated by Max Lane, Horizon Books, Singapore, 2007
“Sastera adalah milik seluruh rakyat – seharusnya”, pp.xiv-xxviii in Edi Haryono (ed), Menonton Bengkel Teater, Kepel Press, Jakarta, 2005.
Edited books
2008 Liber Amicorum 80 Tahun Joesoef Isak , collection of essays edited by Max Lane and Bonnie Triyana, published by ISAI, Komunitas Bambu, Perkumpulan Praxis, July, 2008
Book length translations
Arok of Java, (a novel) by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, translated and with an Introduction by Max Lane, Horizon Books, Singapore, 2007
The Chinese in Indonesia, by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, translated and with an Introduction by Max Lane, Select Books, Singapore, 2007
Social Sciences and Power in Indonesia, edited by Vedi Hadiz and Danial Dhakidae, published by Equinox Books, Jakarta, Indonesia, published in 2006.
Other
“Rendra Knew On Whose Side He Stood”, in INSIDE INDONESIA, July-September, 2010
“Book bannings spur struggle for free speech in Indonesia”, Sydney PEN Magazine, May, 2010
“The dry eel of Indonesia”, (a poem), Sydney PEN Magazine, May, 2010