I'd disagree with the notion that Marxism has been discredited, Marcuse is the cancer rotting the Left, people still respond to Marxist Leninism if it's presented in the right way.
The pseudo Left, Socialist Alliance, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Equality Party etc are bourgeois opportunists who've hijacked working class institutions, Trades Hall for example. It's these "progressives" who have given the Left a bad name among the White working class and marginalised minority, not Marx,Lenin or Stalin.
I mean think about it for a second, we're expected to believe that the workers in an advanced multicultural society are automatically responsive to Hitler if his very narrow, ethnocentric ideals are presented in the right way but not to Lenin's?
So called "educated" people are an extreme minority in this country, sorry to say but the vast majority are dumb and unwilling to embrace progressive ideals, the ALP has nothing to offer in that regard and their alliance with the Greens only antagonises the lower classes.
As I said, if the ALP want the workers then adopting Nationalism, immigration restriction and trade protection will hand them victory on a platter.
Occupy the centre and expand outward and upward, if those conditions are met then the so called "Fascists" you so fear won't have a chance.

sorry for typos ; last post should have read "running water" ;

on the beach : what's 'sedition' for you? The Marxist social democrats were among the first to fight for free universal and equal suffrage. If fighting for democracy and the sovereignty of the people is 'sedition' then you can count me in. lol.

I also believe the far Left is finding it very hard to set down roots in the working class in this country. The ALP is losing its grip there as well. As far as the ALP is concerned its decades of spurning class politics and distributive justice in favour of a 'reconciliation' that in practice means surrender.

But its also the post-Fordist workplaces we're living in which makes it so hard to organise and develop class or social democratic consciousness. Some (not all) union leaderships that put their careers and political influence ahead of the immediate needs of their members are problematic as well. The Liberals want to take advantage of this to destroy organised labour in this country. And in the process to destroy what possible is democracy's last line of defence.

I'd also suggest the far right has a base amongst the lumpenproletariat in this country. Nothing unusual there. Except the Left is partly to blame for its own failure to connect with these people. There's a book "Dear Hunting with Jesus" by Joe Bageant which explains how the US Left speaks down to these people, and constantly uses class-based-putdowns. (eg: 'white trash') And therefore gets these people to vote against their class interest and the basis of opposing 'political correctness', 'gun control' and the like.

We could do better I think. But not on the basis of Stalinism or Leninism. Though the far left continues to be Leninist - and in such a way narrows its potential base.

typos again: "and the basis" should read "on the basis" ;

Also I think the 'political correctness" arguments are over-used. A lot of it is manufactured and exaggerated in order to control people and alienate them from the Left.

Though some of the Left's cultural politics are distant from the consciousness of the working class.

Tristan,
Obviously imitating the Bolsheviks is just Larping, standing in the street bearing a hammer and sickle flag with your fist raised in the air, as they do reinforces the idea that the Left are a dated joke.
From what point could those ideas be adapted to fit the present society?
We live in a world where even the unemployed people mostly live in air conditioned homes and battle obesity as opposed to hunger, the average unemployable White slob consumes more calories in a day than Russian peasants were getting in a week.
The Lumpen Whites are fed up with being ridiculed and spoken down to, they want a fight, relative to the Left the UPF are succeeding in mobilising them and from what I know of their Fortitude party platform for the upcoming federal election it's going to be very middle of the road and very attractive to working class people.
The characterisation of these Lumpen people as "reactionary" is totally wrong, among genuine reactionaries and Nationalists they're called "Bangkok Bogans", colour blind, largely unconscious on racial, class and political issues, tolerant to a fault and dissolute in their personal habits.
However that's the majority born of 50 years of Liberal multiculturalism, the UPF are embracing these people warts and all and promising to fortify them against the elites and their minions, the ALP and the hard left are stalking, bashing and deriding them at every opportunity.
Go and have a look at Clementine Ford's latest stunt, it's up on her Facebook, how is that going to generate anything but rage among working and marginalised Whites? If that guy loses his job I'm going to suggest that we picket his employer and have him reinstated, would you be prepared to join me?

Even though I'm not sure I agree 100 per cent with how Ford handled the situation I do think the abuse she was subjected to was appalling. I don't like some of the things Ford has said - though I'm informed it was parody. I guess I just feel some things you don't joke about. Anyway we're diverting from discussion of the topic.

Triatan,
It's not really a deviation, you're discussing the Left, at the moment the Left is infested with people like Clementine Ford, who is clearly mentally ill and unfortunately for real activists like you they're it's public face.
The ALP will be obliterated if they continue their dalliance with the Greens and the Social Justice Warriors who for all their bluster have no political program and no theories which could be presented to the working and marginalised Whites as practical measures.
Progressivism, Social Justice, Feminism and Internationalism all work against the interests of working and marginalised people because those groups are by nature conservative, patriarchal and parochial, egalitarian ideals undermine our society, hence the growing hostility toward anyone associated with the Left.
Your think tanks can come up with all the theories in the world but if they're not practical they're of no use to anyone, impractical theories are rightly just seen by those classes as antagonistic.