More than 1,500 people attended the Marxism conference at the Melbourne Showgrounds over the Easter weekend.
A revolutionary socialist gathering of this size is a precious contribution to building the left we so desperately need. The conference was a clarion call for a new world, and a place for serious discussions about the politics needed to win it.
The opening night panel introduced the event’s theme: Marxism for a new left. It covered the rise of the far right in Australia and internationally, the escalation of war, racist nationalism and military spending, and the accelerated assault on working-class living standards.
A keynote session on Saturday focused on the attacks currently being levelled at Palestine activists and the need for defiance in the ongoing struggle for a free Palestine, from the river to the sea.
On Friday, legendary activist Dr Gary Foley moved young and old with his tales of resistance and solidarity and paid tribute to the radical firebrands who built the Black power movement. Foley returned for a second, packed out, session the following day at which he regaled the audience with stories of spies, hacks, troublemakers and the value of ASIO files.
Some of the best-attended and liveliest discussions happened in the Marxist fundamentals sessions, with most attracting well over 200 people. Around 300 attended the electric final session of the stream, titled “Why we need socialist organisation”.
The Friday evening panel was about why the working class can change the world. More than 800 people heard from an Egyptian comrade who revisited the lessons of the 2011 revolution and argued that the Arab working class can and will rise again. This was followed by Federico Moreno from the Movimiento Socialista de los Trabajadores in Argentina, who drew lessons from workers’ insurgency during the Argentinazo, and discussed the push and pull of the current war between the Milei government and the left and the workers. Jasmine Duff from Socialist Alternative concluded the panel, putting forward an argument that the current weak state of the Australian working-class movement can be turned around, citing the breakthroughs in Italy and Minneapolis as examples of how breakthroughs are possible, and that the perspective of working-class revolution is key to any challenge to the capitalist order.
Participants also heard from rank-and-file socialist trade unionists in the education, healthcare, hospitality and construction industries and the important steps they are taking to rebuild class consciousness and argue for strikes. There was a stream of sessions about socialist union strategy, attended by many young workers new to the socialist movement. There were also sessions exploring high points of class struggle, from momentous strikes to revolutionary uprisings like Hungary 1956, the Spanish civil war, the Mexican revolution and the Russian Revolution.
Post-revolutionary Russia, revolutionary theory and strategy, how Marxists tackle oppression, critiques of liberal theories and frameworks and the tactics and politics of party building were also all explored extensively throughout the weekend. Once again, the Marxism conference was a place for international comrades to meet and exchange ideas. We were lucky to be joined by comrades from France, Egypt, Argentina, Indonesia, the Spanish state, Greece, the US and China.
Disgracefully, two of our international guests, Purity Machogu from the Permanent Revolutionary Congress in Kenya and Sanaa'i Muhammad from Struggle in Pakistan, were denied entry to the country, another clear indication of the uptick of racist nationalism.
Shortly after the conference, we received the tragic news of the death of a comrade who spoke at the 2025 conference, Muzan Al Neel. Muzan was a Sudanese socialist with impressive analytical skill who, despite the vicious reaction in Sudan, never wavered in her conviction that revolutionary hope would return.
Beyond formal session slots, campaign groups and organising workshops sprawled across the lawns. Some of this even began before the opening night of the conference: Marxism Fringe attendees learnt how to screen-print and collage their way towards activist poster design skills, and were able to join a special meet-and-greet with Marxism 2026’s international guest speakers.
In the Saturday lunch break, Marxism 2026 hosted the first national meeting of Socialist Party members from different states, who discussed how to strengthen and draw together opposition to One Nation’s vile racist politics.
Students for Palestine held a workshop coordinating their freshly launched Weapons Off Campus campaign, and the incredible young founders of High School Anti-Capitalists ran one of their inaugural collective meetings. Recently formed Socialist Party union groups also convened. Socialists in Healthcare and the teachers’ group Socialists in Schools were alive and bustling with new supporters following recent strike actions. Every generation of fighters for a better world came together at the Marxism conference.
The final session was a panel about the need for a serious socialist alternative and what that looks like concretely. Lily Campbell, organiser of Socialist Alternative’s newly formed Newcastle branch, made the case for people to resist the malaise and to be defiant rebels (with a cause). Omar Hassan, Victorian Socialists Northern Metro candidate, explained the vital role of socialists: the first to take up a fight, the last to leave the battlefield and the force that can offer the strategies and politics needed to win.
The feeling at the end of the conference brought to mind Friedrich Engels’ hopeful words: “Youth has never before flocked to our colours in such numbers ... the thought which dominates us has never before unfolded itself so richly ... courage, conviction, talent have never been so much on our side as now”.
The conference organisers would like to extend our sincerest thanks to everyone who attended, built, organised and participated in this wonderful festival of socialist politics. We hope it left every participant with ideas and arguments that will sustain and inspire them over the coming period.
