Communist Review : organ of theory and practice of the Communist Party of Australia (Sydney, Forward Press, 1934-1966)

This was the "Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia." Publication was suspended from June, when the Party was banned, to December 1940, but re-commenced in January 1941. Copies were still being seized, as the ban on the Party was not lifted until December 1942.

On display are copies for May, September and November 1941. The May 1941 issue begins with "Notes of the month", the first of which refers to Dunkirk, and the threat of German invasion of Britain. The piece ends,

The further the war develops, the more the very stones cry out that it is an imperialist war and expose the hollow lies of the Labor Party leaders that this is a "war for democracy and a new order", that at the end of this war, the British capitalists, imperialists and fascists are politely going to commit suicide and allow the people to take control.

The September issue, in the aftermath of the German invasion of Russia, gives a different slant on the war. An article entitled, "For a people's war for the defeat of fascism" begins,

The aggression of the fascists against the land of Socialism has changed the nature and course of the war and presented the international labor movement with new and decisive tasks. The central issue now is to ensure at all costs, the victory over Hitlerism.

The November 1941 issue begins with an editorial, headed "Britain and the U.S. must act" which calls for a second front and for the entry of the United States into the war. On7^th December 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and America entered the war, but it was not until 6^th June 1944 that the second front was opened with the Allied landings in Normandy. The editorial ends in a flourish of rhetoric,

The working class movement uniting its own ranks demands the ruthless prosecution of the sacred war of independence and freedom, for the defeat of the new barbarism that threatens all lands.