Marxist Writers: Tom O'Lincoln

Marxists’ Internet Archive

Tom O'Lincoln

(1947 – 2023)

"I have been a Marxist for half a century. In that time I have participated in and been witness to great struggles and momentous historical events. I’ve had the privilege of standing shoulder to shoulder with selfless fighters around the world. Those events and the people involved only confirmed in my mind that human liberation can be won through the mass struggles of the working class..."
The highway is for gamblers: a poltical memoir, 2017


Tom O'Lincoln

Biography:

Tom O’Lincoln joined the radical student movement in Germany in 1967 and was subsequently a socialist organiser, unionist, linguist, educator and journalist. As an activist, Tom was a leading figure in the establishment and growth of the International Socialist political tendency in Australia.

As a writer, Tom’s work spanned several decades of commentary and analysis of government and working class politics. In longer publications, Tom’s work covered political economy, Australian history and Marxist theory.

His works include Into the Mainstream: The Decline of Australian Communism, Australia’s Pacific War: Challenging a National Myth, The neighbour from hell: two centuries of Australian imperialism, and Years of Rage: Social Conflicts in the Fraser Era. His political memoirs, The Highway is for Gamblers, were published in 2017. Tom died in October 2023.

Obituaries


Works:

June 1974: Russia: what class of state?

1976: The fight for worker's power (pamphlet)

December 1976: Radical education dossier? (Review)

February 1977: Fraser’s money policy: when in doubt, aid the cockies

June 1977: The struggle at Fairfax: anatomy of a strike

June 1977: Radical feminism: a critique. (review) (with Janey Stone)

1980: An imperialist colony

1980: Women and the Communist Party of Australia, 1946-1968

March 1980: The people behind a thirty years struggle

1981: Victory at Philip Morris. (pamphlet)

1982: Rank and file: three essays on the trade unions (unpublished pamphlet)

1984: State capitalism and Marxist theory (pamphlet)

1984: Asians are welcome here! The fight against racism (pamphlet)

1985: Into the Mainstream: the decline of Australian Communism (book)

1986: The Militant Minority: organising rank and file workers in the thirties (pamphlet)

1986: Labor’s Accord: why it’s a fraud (pamphlet with Liz Ross and Graham Willett )

1986: Nicaragua: the Sandinistas, capitalism and socialism (pamphlet)

November 1988: Gorbachev and the fate of socialism

December 1988: There’s scandal galore in our ugly society

1989: A Soviet historian speaks out (pamphlet)

October 1989: Profitability and economic crisis (With Rick Kuhn)

1990: Mariátegui, Peruvian revolutionary

1991: The new Australian militarism

1992: The rise and fall of Whitlam

1992: Marching Down Marx Street: The International Socialists in Australia

June 1992: Debate about ‘state capitalism’ (with Phil Hearse)

1993: Years of Rage: social conflicts in the Fraser era (book)

October 1993: Debutante nation: feminism contests the 1890s (review)

July 1994: Cuba at the crossroads

Autumn 1996: Our infant might: working class struggle before the gold rushes (pamphlet)

1996: “Wealth, ownership and power: the ruling class” (chapter in Class and Class Conflict in Australia)

1997-1998: Sosialisme di Dunia Modern (Socialism in the Modern World) (pamphlet written in Bahasa Indonesia)

1998: “Against the stream: women and the left, 1945-1968" (chapter in Rebel women in Australian working class history)

Winter 1998: Workers and the state in New Order Indonesia

2000: Mana Tradisi Marxis Yang Sejati? (translation of John Molyneux's What is the Real Marxist Tradition?

2000: Sosialisme revolusioner: gagasan strategi dan taktik (with Setiabudi)

2005: United we stand: class struggle in colonial Australia (book)

2011: Australia’s Pacific War: challenging a national myth (book)

2014: The neighbour from hell: two centuries of Australian imperialism (book)

2015: 'The Expropriators are Expropriated' and other writings on Marxism (book)

2017: The Highway is for Gamblers: A political memoir (book with Janey Stone)

 

Last updated on 30 January 2024