This week Australia’s communist groups led protests across the nation against the jailing of a left-wing activist who blocked the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Protests were held in Brisbane, Sydney and Perth and as usual, when the indefensible is being defended, Australia’s Marxist activists were front and centre.

Violet Coco decided to block the Sydney Harbour Bridge with a van during peak hour traffic back in April in an attempt to make the government fix the weather. As with similar traffic-disrupting protests by privileged attention-seeking brats, this annoyed almost everyone in Australia.

When Violet was sentenced to 15 months behind bars on Friday with a minimum non-parole period of eight months nearly everyone in Australia silently (or not so silently) applauded, the only exceptions apparently being journalists, Marxists and other far-left activists (but I repeat myself).

Even the terminally spineless Premier of NSW Dominic Perrottet felt safe enough to have a bit of a gloat, stating:

“If protesters want to put our way of life at risk, then they should have the book thrown at them and that’s pleasing to see… we want people to be able to protest but do it in a way that doesn’t inconvenience people right across NSW… my view is that those protests literally started to grind our city to a halt”.

But as normal our hammer and sickle-loving friends and their crusty fellow travellers decided that Violet being locked up for breaking the law was wrong because she was doing it for a left-wing cause, even if she infuriated half the city of Sydney while doing so. So they packed their banners, applied the blue hair dye, and prepared to hit the streets.

In Brisbane, the revolutionary Marxist group Socialist Alternative led the protest with banners and “Marxism” t-shirts as they wandered around King George Square yelling at people through megaphones.

In Sydney, Socialist Alternative was again at the forefront, but with a small contingent of their mostly elderly rivals from the Socialist Alliance waving placards as well.

At the Sydney event, a familiar face was leading most of the all too familiar chants, Lily Campbell (in a rather dishevelled black tank top). Lily has been a prominent organiser with Socialist Alternative, Extinction Rebellion and the Socialist Alternative front group “Uni Students for Climate Justice” for years now. Lily first shot to wider public attention when she appeared on Sky Australia to argue the case for Marxism and got even more of her 15 minutes of fame when she was justly arrested after deliberately blocking traffic in central Sydney back in 2019.

The co-chair of the Sydney rally was Rachael Evans of the Socialist Alliance national executive, a woman with a well-known record of Marxist activism going back decades. Interestingly this didn’t stop Greens Sydney Deputy Mayor Sylvie Ellsmore from speaking alongside her.

Funny that.

In Perth, the Socialist Alliance was on the list of official organisers and the once mighty (now much diminished) Socialist Alliance newspaper Green Left Weekly reported breathlessly from the scene that:

“WA stands in solidarity with jailed climate activist Violet CoCo!”

Which seems a slight exaggeration seeing as their protest outside the Perth Magistrate’s court only got about 15 people, and that one of these people was aboriginal activist Megan Krakouer who tried to hijack the event for her own crusade against the proposed Perth Entertainment Precinct laws.

The local Socialist Alternative branch did show up though with a large-ish banner though and hung around on the edges of the embarrassingly small crowd. Say what you like about the unsung malodorous heroes of Australian Trotskyism, they certainly do pay attention to their arts and crafts.

So why are Australia’s communists hitting the pavement for the poor imprisoned Violet Coco? Well, partially it’s because if there is any left-of-centre protest the Trotskyists simply must show up to it and try to take it over. I imagine some of their more fervent activists stay awake at night in a cold sweat thinking about the consequences if a single leftie event was allowed to occur without glassy-eyed Marxist uni-kids selling newspapers and person-ing red flag-covered trestle tables.

But the other side is that they’ve been in on the last few years of climate protests from the ground floor. Since the “school strike for climate” began a few years back the majority of spokespeople and organisers for the majority of large “climate action” protests in Australia have been members of one Marxist group or another, and usually of Socialist Alternative.

Violet Coco isn’t a member of any organised Marxist faction, however; she seems more of a little rich girl crying out for attention in the most obnoxious and self-righteous way imaginable. But she certainly isn’t averse to her communist comrades, as the picture below of her at her court case posing with a communist clenched fist salute in front of a Socialist Alliance placard attests.

Both Socialist Alternative and the Socialist Alliance originated in groups formed in the late 60s and early 70s. Over all that time the activists from these groups have been working towards a communist revolution in Australia.

It’s probably time more people woke up and realised who they’re supporting when they go along to some of these seemingly harmless protests.