The United States is in desperate economic and military “competition” with China and has lost a lot of ground fast but is it losing its grip?

The following article is based on selected excerpts from Building Red Spark in 2025, a report adopted by the Red Spark national conference held in June, 2025.

This is the fourth and concluding part of a series reflecting on Douglas Greene’s, The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky: The Renegade’s Revenge (Routledge, 2024). The review-essay examines the New Kautskyists, Trotskyism, Stalinism, and the challenges facing socialists in the 21^st Century. The views are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Red Spark.

On the one hand, there is a fairly rapidly maturing historic crisis, at least of the legitimacy of bourgeois politics in Australia. Internationally, the imperialist system is becoming increasingly chaotic and exposed. On the other hand, the long downturn in social movements and left political organising means that, despite the increasing chaos no big change or crisis has occurred here yet. Australian imperialism keeps tottering onwards without any immediate, foreseeable threat to stability.

This is the third part of what is now a four-part series reflecting on Douglas Greene’s, The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky: The Renegade’s Revenge (Routledge, 2024). The review-essay examines the New Kautskyists, Trotskyism, Stalinism, and the challenges facing socialists in the 21^st Century. The views are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Red Spark.

This is the second of a four-part series reflecting on Douglas Greene’s, The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky: The Renegade’s Revenge (Routledge, 2024). The review-essay examines the New Kautskyists, Trotskyism, and the challenges facing socialists in the 21st Century. The views are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Red Spark.

This is the first of a four-part series reflecting on Douglas Greene’s, The New Reformism and the Revival of Karl Kautsky: The Renegade’s Revenge (Routledge, 2024). The review-essay examines the New Kautskyists, Trotskyism, and the challenges facing socialists in the 21^st Century. The views are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Red Spark.

The period of building a revolutionary party in Australia that I have direct experience of is from the late 1960s until today. There were a lot of experiences and learning in that time. Things that appeared obvious to us in the early 1970s have proven to be not so. I am going to try to use broad strokes to convey some of the experiences and learning. There will be many holes, so I hope others fill in the gaps.

Of the world’s total of more than 200 countries, only about 20 are usually considered to be highly “developed”. The roll-call of the world’s rich, powerful states has undergone startlingly few changes over the past century, and claims that poorer countries and populations are now “closing the gap” are no more than ambiguously correct.

I should say first of all that this talk I’m going to give, hasn’t been discussed through Red Ant formally as an organisation, so it’s not the position of Red Ant per se; it’s more my own views – although some aspects of what I’m going to say have been reflected in articles published on the Red Ant website.