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Item 64 Proletariat : organ of the Melbourne University Labour Club |
"Communism"
An exhibition of highlights
from the Monash University Library
Rare Books Collection
16th March to 27th May 2005 |
Item
31
The Red corner book for
children
|
Introduction
This exhibition stands as testimony both to the range and
depth of the Monash Rare Books collection, and to the prodigious fund of
knowledge possessed by its custodian, Richard Overell. It covers the
phenomenon of twentieth century communism from its European origins to its
many manifestations across the world: France, Russia, Spain, the United
States, China, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and of course Australia. And it
reaches across time from the Paris Commune of 1871 to the radical chic 'music
revolution' of 2005.
In addition to the classic texts on display - the
Communist Manifesto, the "Little Red Book" of Chairman Mao, the
Australian Communist Party Dissolution Bill - scholars will find items to
amaze and amuse them. Americanists will enjoy the revelations in 1935 of the
anti-Communist Elizabeth Dilling (Mrs. Albert W. Dilling), author, lecturer,
world traveller and 'bourgeois housewife', who provides a detailed directory
of front organisations in the United States. European historians will be
diverted by Nora Murray's I spied for Stalin: Russian war-bride's dramatic
life story, by a Russian woman who worked for the Russian secret police
during the war. She fell in love with a British diplomat, one of her targets,
and fled with him when he left. Australianists will marvel at the revelation,
pointed out by Stuart McIntyre in his 1998 history of the Communist Party of
Australia, The Reds, that Herbert Moore, sent by the Comintern in 1925
to bring the Communist Party of Australia into line with Moscow, was in fact a
double agent. And students of Korean history may be surprised to know that
Wilfred Burchett's claim in 1952 that the Americans were
dropping plague and cholera infected insects in the North has recently been
verified by American scholars Endicott and
Hagerman.
The greatest rewards of the
exhibition are of course for those interested in communism and radical
socialism in Australia. Here too there is much that will be familiar: Egon
Kisch, Menzies and the Communist Party Dissolution Bill, the Petrovs - and
some surprises. The publishing details of many of the volumes on display
testify to the easily forgotten fact that radical Australians have always
lived in a mental world shaped not in Europe or Russia but in England and
increasingly in America. The yellow dust-covers of the Gollancz Left
Book Club dominated my father's bookshelves, for all his dislike of things
British. And Jerry Rubin's Yippie manifesto, We are everywhere,
published in 1971, coloured the imaginations of everyone who saw or hummed
along with the musical Hair:
Previous
revolutions aimed at seizure of the state's highest authority,
followed by the
takeover of the means of production. The Youth
International Revolution will
begin with mass breakdown of authority,
mass rebellion, total anarchy in every
institution in the Western world.
Tribes of longhair, blacks, armed women,
workers, peasants and students
will take over.
Visually this exhibition carries
some striking images, none more so than the portrait of Joe Stalin gracing the
cover of the 1945 Woman's Weekly. Richard notes in his catalogue that
'This was not a case of "radical chic" rather it was to promote an
image of an avuncular "Uncle Joe" our powerful ally during the final days of
the war'. The Weekly worked closely with government agencies,
promoting war-work when women were needed in the factories, and advising
readers how to clean the grease from under their fingernails and take up
cooking again when the war was over. Joe's smiling image reveals just how
politically and nationally aware the Weekly - and Australian women -
were expected to be in these times of national reconstruction. The image may
also be understood as catching the strong sympathies of Australia's artistic
community for Communism at this time. Australian artists have long been
sympathetic with a critical approach to Australian society. The cover designs
of the two Frank Hardy novels on display here make an interesting contract.
Power without Glory, published in 1950, has a dust jacketdesigned by Ambrose Dyson, from a family whose radical credentials were
first established in the 1890s (his father, also Ambrose, was a Bulletin
cartoonist). But the Dead are Many, published in 1975, and critical
both of Australian society and of the rigidity of Russian Communism, has a
cover designed by Charles Blackman, a much more modern radical.
The covers of Australian radical
pamphlets also tell a fascinating story of ideological and social change.
Early pamphlets seem to carry a mixed message: Frank Anstey's Red Europe,
for instance, published in 1919, featured a lurid cover of fighting and
bloodshed which might have graced an anti-Communist publication of the period,
rather than welcoming 'the drum-beats of the Armies of Revolution' as Anstey intended. Others like the heroic masculine images promoting One Big
Union adopted a social realist style, which again projected a universal rather
than an Australian message. The illustration on the dust-jacket of Dymphna
Cusack's Southern Steel is in Richard's words 'a masterpiece of
socialist-realist art, showing the young couple embracing against a background
of smoke stacks and a steel mill'.
But from 1944 the covers of Communist publications
changed dramatically in style and content: the CPA went to meet the
Australian Women's Weekly in a middle ground that is almost Norman
Rockwellian. A series of pamphlets published by the CPA towards the end of
the war was directed to specific groups within Australian society -
homeowners, returned soldier, farmers, women - to explain the communist vision
for a post-war Australia. Rather than boldly stylised, their covers are
positively homely, in the style of Weekly advertisements for cocoa,
milk, and arrow-root biscuits; the cover of Houses, slums, private
enterprise and the future would have looked entirely appropriate on an
advertisement for the State Savings Bank loan scheme.
This moment of cultural accommodation was of course all
too brief, and its historical legacy is not clear. Richard Overell's
exhibition captures many such surprising moments, all crying out for
historical investigation. I hope they attract the open-minded scholars which
they deserve.
Professor Marian Quartly
School of Historical Studies
Monash University
Preface
The aim of this exhibition is to indicate the range of
left-wing and Communist-related held in the Monash Rare Book Collection. We
have a large collection of pamphlets, books and posters, which we have been
gathering for many years. This includes boxes of material distributed at
Monash during the 1960s and 1970s when the University was a centre of student
unrest. Much of this was collected at the time by Library staff and by
academics such as Professor Harold Love of the English Department. Posters and
fliers distributed on campus are still collected by Rare Books staff.
Study of our extensive collection of pamphlets allows
researchers to follow controversies in fine detail.
The pamphlets and books have been acquired from many
sources, e.g. the International Book Shop, Camberwell Books, which sold us the
Herald press-cuttings volumes from the 1950s, as well as Norman W.
Saffin's collection. Donations have come from the families of W. H. Tregear
and Brian and Dorothy Fitzpatrick.
Radicalism is an area in which we continue to collect.
This enables Monash University Library to provide access to primary resources
in support of both undergraduate and post-graduate research into national and
international left-wing activities.
Richard Overell,
Rare Books Librarian.
Large Upright
Case
The Russian
revolution
The Bolshevik Revolution took place in Petrograd in late
1917. The crucial event was the uprising of 6th November in which
the Bolsheviks, led by their Military Revolutionary Committee, with the
soldiers of the Petrograd garrison, the sailors from Kronstadt and the
workers' Red Guard captured the winter palace and arrested the members of the
Provisional Government.
The War was still raging and the western press saw the
events in Russia in terms of the collapse of resistance to Germany from the
east. This was especially so as the Revolution had resulted from the Germans
transporting Lenin, and other revolutionary leaders from Switzerland through
Germany into Russia, obviously with a view to undermining the Russian war
effort.
1. "Anarchy in Russia", presented by our special
artist John Wladimiroff, The Graphic, 19 January 1918, p. 67-71.
The volume is open at a double-page spread of
illustrations showing, "The red revolution in Russia: scenes recalling the
terror and the commune"; and "The triumph of the Leninists: street fighting in
Moscow and Petrograd." Here we see the bombardment of the Kremlin and the
attack on the winter palace.
A later article in The Graphic, "The Russian
"peace" with Germany", (16 February 1918, p. 198) gives details of the tactic
of the Germans in concluding a separate peace with the Ukraine. This was later
formalised in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) thus giving Germany
the opportunity of diverting all its forces to the Western Front.
View virtual exhibition
2. "The Liberators", Punch, 10 February 1918,
p. 115.
Punch was from the beginning sceptical of the
idealism of the Russian revolution. Here we see two Bolsheviks standing amid
smoking ruins. The glowering man, bald, but bearded, is especially typical of
the Punch-style revolutionary.
View virtual exhibition
3. "The position in Russia", The Lone Hand,
2 July 1917, p. 379-380.
The Lone Hand was an Australian monthly edited by
J. F. Archibald, one of the founders of the Bulletin. It was a radical
nationalist publication, but was equivocal concerning the turn of events in
Russia. In March 1917 there was a general mutiny of troops in Petrograd. A
provisional government had been formed which included the Socialist, Kerensky
as the Minister of Justice. Czar Nicholas II abdicated on 15 March, leaving
the country under the control of the Provisional Government. By mid-1917 the
Russian troops were disorganised and in retreat.
The Lone Hand article reflects how the West had at
first welcomed the fall of the Czar, because, "naturally it was expected by
Russia's allies that the revolution would free Russia for greater activity on
the War." However this hope had turned to disappointment.
Kerensky and the Provisional Government were not in
favour of peace, but the Bolshevik elements were, and they were just about to
attempt to seize power.
The revolution was an
affair of the intellectuals and of Petrograd. The lower classes in the cities
found liberty thrust upon them and hardly knew what to do with it - except to
secure the vodka, which had been so long prohibited. (p. 379)
A section of the article has the sub-heading, "Lanine the
disturber". This is a reference to Lenin. It begins,
"One party of extremists that has been a source of danger
is that of the "international socialists" under the leadership of Lanine, who
are in favour of peace at any price." (p. 380)
"Lanine" [or Lenin] is described as "a chronic rebel and
belongs to a family of rebels. … He has been playing Germany's game in Russia
by opposing the war policy of Kerensky, but he has failed to swing the bulk of
the Russian socialists over to his side." (p. 380)
The October 1918 issue of The Lone Hand carried an
article, "Why the Russian revolution failed", by E. J. Dillon. It begins, "The
rapturous joy with which the downfall of Czardom was hailed, has changed into
a bewildered horror at the excesses of the Bolsheviki." (p. 457)
4. Litvinov, M. M. (Maksim Maksimovich), 1876-1951
The Bolshevik revolution : its rise and meaning / by Maxim Litvinoff ; with foreword by E.C. Fairchild. 2nd edition. (London : British Socialist Party, 1918)
Maxim Litvinoff was the Ambassador in Britain for the new
Russian regime. In his account of the Revolution he makes the case for the
Russian peace negotiations with Germany. He asks,
What else could the
Bolsheviks have done, with such a terrible legacy as they had received on
their hands, in the shape of hunger, lack of every necessity for war,
disorganisation of the State machinery, dislocation of the entire transport
system, and with all the bourgeois elements against them, especially in the
Ukraine, where they had gone so far as to make a separate peace with the
Germans and to invite them to march into their own country to help them
against the Bolsheviks and their own pro-Bolshevik popular masses? (p. 52-53)
There is a photograph of Litvinoff and his wife in The
Graphic, 12 January 1918, p. 38. The article, "Men and women in the public
eye" begins its section on Russia as follows, "The whimsical Russian situation
brings to the front many personalities quite unknown before to the general
public. … Lenin, for example, was for some time a great reader in the British
Museum." Of Litvinoff the writer remarks, "Mr. Litvinoff, the representative
they have chosen for the Court of St. James, has been living at Golders Green.
In 1915 he married Miss Ivy Low, a niece of Sir Sidney Low." (p. 38)
The British Socialist party, the publisher of Litvinoff's
booklet, was formed in 1911. Some members were keen to join the Second
International, while others wanted to amalgamate with the Labour Party. By
1918, the Russian Revolution had inspired a group of the members to form a
British Communist Party. In 1920 they decided to disband the Socialist Party
and to form the Communist Party of Great Britain.
5. Anstey, Frank, 1865-1940.
Red Europe / by Frank Anstey. (Melbourne : Fraser & Jenkinson, [1919])
Frank Anstey was a radical Labor politician. From 1902 he
was the ALP member for Brunswick, and was elected to Federal parliament as the
member for Bourke in 1910. He had been associated with various left-wing
organisations. In 1918 he visited Europe with the imperial press mission, and
spoke to prominent socialists. Red Europe is an account of his tour and
the conclusions he drew from it.
Despite the lurid cover, Red Europe is
pro-Communist. Anstey supported the revolutionaries in Russia and welcomed
them as signalling the beginning of a world-wide overthrow of oppression. His
book ends, "Capitalism listens with quaking soul to the drum-beats of the
Armies of Revolution. Those beats grow louder and louder - they draw nearer
and nearer." (p. 192)
View virtual exhibition
6. Marx, Karl, 1818-1883.
The Communist manifesto / by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. [Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei. English] (Melbourne : Proletarian Publishing Association, 1932)
This edition, published in Melbourne during the
Depression, includes the six early prefaces. The first is by Marx and Engels,
dated 1872, the remaining five, from 1883 to 1893 are by Engels alone as Marx
had died early in 1883. The first preface gives the background to the origins
of the Manifesto.
The Communist League, an
International Workers Union, which, owing to the conditions of its time, could
not but be of a secret nature, commissioned the undersigned at a Congress held
in London in 1847 to write and publish a detailed theoretical and practical
programme of the party. That was the origin of this Manifesto, the manuscript
of which was sent to London some weeks previous to the February Revolution.
First published in German, it has since gone through at least a dozen
different editions in Germany, England and America. (p. 3)
The Communist Manifesto is essentially a call to
arms. It begins, "A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism."
(p. 18), and ends,
The Communists disdain to
conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be
attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let
the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have
nothing to lose but their chains. They have the world to win.
Working men of all
countries, unite! (p. 51)
The economic programme of Communism is spelled-out,
The distinguishing feature
of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of
bourgeois property. But moderate bourgeois private property is the final and
most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products
that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the
few.
In this sense the theory
of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private
property. (p. 32)
The rhetoric of the Communist manifesto was
relevant for the Bolsheviks in 1917 and 1918, but became increasingly remote
in Western countries later in the twentieth century.
The Marxist economic theory was elaborated in Das
Kapital. This put forward a labour theory of value where Capitalist
society depended on "surplus value", the profit the capitalist made on the
worker's labour after paying the worker for his labour. Volume 1 was published
in 1867; volume 2 appeared posthumously, edited by Engels in 1885.
The
Forerunners
7. L'illustration, journal universel, 3 June
1871, p. 312-313. "Paris en feu" and "Les incendies de Paris."
Karl Marx saw the Paris Commune of 1871 as an example of
the people rising up against the "bourgeois Republicans" who had corrupted the
ideals of the French Revolution. The insurrection had taken place on 18 March
1871, during the Franco-Prussian War. The German army had Paris surrounded,
and the capital had capitulated. The revolutionary element in the city rose up
against the National Assembly and proclaimed a "Commune" formed of "the elixir
and chosen men of sansculottic patriotism", on the model of the Commune
of 1792. The Communards proceeded to burn the Palace of the Tuileries and
other public buildings, and put to death some "enemies of the people".
Clergymen in particular were targeted; even the Archbishop of Paris was
executed.
The regular French troops re-grouped at Versailles and, under the watching
eyes of the German army, suppressed the Commune, executing most of the
leaders. The engravings show some of the "incendiares"
being led along, under arrest; some of them being executed; and some of the
bodies and coffins laid out.
View virtual exhibition
8. Marx, Karl, 1818-1883.
The Paris Commune : including the
"First manifesto of the International on the Franco-Prussian War," the "Second manifesto of the International on the Franco-Prussian War,"
"The Civil War in France" / by Karl Marx ; with introduction by Frederick Engels ; with notes to the American edition by Lucien Sanial. (New York : New York Labor News, 1919)
These works were originally published by the General
Council of the International Workingman's Association; the two manifestoes on
the Franco-Prussian War appearing in 1870, and, the essay on the Civil War in
France, Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich, in 1871. The final paragraph reads,
Workingman's Paris, with
its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new
society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart of the working class.
Its exterminators, history has already nailed to the eternal pillory from
which all the prayers of their priests will not avail to redeem them. (p. 105)
9. Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, 1842-1921
The Commune of Paris.
(London : J. Turner, 1896)
Kropotkin was a Russian Prince who espoused anarchism and
renounced his title. He was jailed in Russia (1874-76) but escaped to England.
He also lived in Switzerland and France, where he was also imprisoned
(1881-86). While in England he wrote for such journals as the Nineteenth
Century, and Freedom, a journal of anarchistic communism. His work
on the Paris Commune was published by Freedom as number two in its
series of pamphlets. Kropotkin saw the Commune as beginning "a new era in that
long series of revolutions whereby the peoples are marching from slavery to
freedom." (p. 3)
Kropotkin was most impressed with the idea of the
Communards in governing Paris, and eventually France itself, as a series of
small local council units. He was intent on inspiring his readers with the
example of this uprising of the common people, brutally repressed by the
French middle classes.
Overthrown, but not
conquered, the Commune in our days is born again. It is no longer a dream of
the vanquished, caressing in imagination the lovely mirage of hope. No! the
"Commune" of today is becoming the visible and definite aim of the revolution
rumbling beneath our feet. The idea is sinking deep into the masses, it is
giving them a rallying cry. We count on the present generation to bring about
the Social revolution within the Commune, to put an end to the ignoble system
of middle class exploitation, to rid the people of the tutelage of the State,
to inaugurate a new era of liberty, equality, solidarity in the evolution of
the human race. (p. 7-8)
10. Nordhoff, Charles, 1830-1901.
The communistic
societies of the United States : from personal visit and observation :
including detailed accounts of the Economists, Zoarites, Shakers, the Amana,
Oneida, Bethel Aurora, Icarian, and other existing societies, their religious
creeds, social practices, numbers, industries, and present condition / By
Charles Nordhoff. (London : John Murray, 1875)
This is an account of cults existing in the United States
in the period immediately after the Civil War. Most of them are religious but
some are formed of believers of economic theories. All have a belief in
communal living and communal property.
One of the larger groups, the "Rappist, or Harmony settlement", was
situated at Economy, on the Ohio River. They were referred to as the "Economites". Founded by a German, George Rapp, they believed in the
imminence of the Millennium, and saw their settlement as the fulfilment of the
"Sun Woman" passage from Revelations (12:1-6). They were shrewd at
business and made large profits from the production of high quality wine and
beer. However, as they all took a vow of chastity, the settlement died out
early in the twentieth century.
11. George, Henry, 1839-1897.
Progress and poverty : an inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions, and of increase of want with increase of wealth : the remedy / by Henry George. (London : Kegan Paul, Trench, 1884)
Henry George was an American, born in Philadelphia. He
worked as a printer and journalist, though at one point in his life he was
reduced to begging to feed his family. He developed his own economic theory,
which was based on the fact, as he saw it, of the surplus value generated by a
community being absorbed in the rise in land values and the subsequent rise in
rent. His solution was for the State to apply a single tax on land and abolish
taxes on industry and personal income. This was first set forth in Our land
and land policy in 1870, which was followed by his major work, Progress
and Poverty, first published in 1879. His ideas were enormously popular
among working people and "Single Tax Leagues" were set up in the United
States, Britain, and Australia. He was particularly popular in Ireland and his
ideas underpinned the Irish National Land League led by Parnell and Davitt. He
made speaking tours of the world, visiting Australia and New Zealand in 1890.
Generations of socialist were influenced by his theories.
12. Morris, William, 1834-1896.
Communism : a lecture / by William Morris. (London : The Fabian Society, 1903)
This lecture "was written for delivery as a spoken
address to the members of the Hammersmith Socialist Society in 1893." (p. 3)
Although Morris is best-known as a writer, a craftsman,
and designer of wallpaper and fabrics with elaborate floral decorations, he
was also a committed socialist. In 1880 he joined the Democratic Federation, a
new socialist party with Marxist beliefs. By 1884 this group has split and
Morris became the leader of the more radical faction, which became the
Socialist League. He preached the overthrow of the status quo, and a
belief in a new social order where distinctions of class and nationality would
not prevail. The Hammersmith branch, where this lecture was given, was one of
the most active.
Many of the British radicals were members of the Fabian
Society. This had been formed in January 1884 to promulgate the principles of
socialism in Britain. Perhaps the most famous members were George Bernard Shaw
and the Webbs. Their tracts, of which this was number 113, were widely
circulated in an attempt to influence the British intelligentsia.
13. Grahame, Stewart.
Where socialism failed : an actual experiment. With illustrations and a map / by Stewart Grahame [pseud.] London : Murray, 1913.
This is an account of "New Australia" or, "Cosme" an
Australian socialist settlement formed in Paraguay in 1893. The leader was
William Lane, the author of the utopian novel, Workingman's paradise
(Brisbane, 1892). There were personality conflicts and Lane left in 1899. By
1905 the settlement had disintegrated although many of the people remained.
Some of their descendants still live in Paraguay.
Chapter 1 of Grahame's book begins with some background
to the Australian radical movement.
The Australian Socialist
party commenced its career as an active fighting force in 1889, the first
manifestation of its might falling like a bombshell, not at home, but in Great
Britain. When the London dock labourers came out on strike … it was freely
prophesied that sheer starvation would drive them back to work within a short
time. The prophets were disappointed however, for, to the surprise of most
people in England, including the strikers themselves, their meagre funds were
reinforced by a contribution of £30,000 cabled from Brisbane, and, thus
assisted, the dock labourers gained the day. (p. 1)
This donation was organised by William Lane, the editor
of The Boomerang, a radical weekly published in Brisbane, which
promoted the works of Karl Marx, Edward Bellamy, and Henry George. Lane was
the founder of the Australasian Labour Federation. The "Cosme" colony was
organised on communistic lines by Lane's New Australia Co-operative Settlement
Association. Apart from Lane himself, the poet Mary Gilmore was the most
prominent member.
View virtual exhibition
14. Schaack, Michael J.
Anarchy and anarchists :
A history of the Red terror and the social revolution in America and Europe :
Communism, socialism, and nihilism in doctrine and in deed : The Chicago
Haymarket conspiracy, and the detection and trial of the conspirators by
Michael J. Schaak, Captain of Police. (Chicago : F.J. Schulte & Company, 1889)
Terrorists were active in Europe, Britain, and the United
States in the second half of the nineteenth-century. Typically they saw
themselves as anarchists and the bombs they used resembled shot-puts with
wicks. Novelists such as Joseph Conrad, in The Secret Agent (1907), and
Henry James, in The Princess Cassamassima (1886) wrote about anarchists
and the fear they engendered into the populace of London.
Schaack's book has detailed descriptions of the methods
of the anarchists, for example the way in which they manufactured their bombs.
In 1889, when this book was published, the Chicago Haymarket riot was still
fresh in people's memories. This incident had taken place on 4 May 1886 when
radicals had met in Haymarket Square in Chicago to protest the actions of
police on the day before. On 3 May police had attacked a group of strikers who
had gathered outside the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company's works to
demonstrate against the use of scab labour. This was part of ongoing action by
workers seeking an eight-hour day. One of the strikers was killed in this
altercation. The Haymarket rally was peaceful until the police began to
disperse the crowd, then a bomb was thrown, and a riot started. Seven police
were killed. Eight anarchist labour leaders were arrested and found guilty.
Four were hung on November 11, 1887, and another
committed suicide. The remaining three were later pardoned, in 1893. There was
much debate surrounding the trial; some of the accused were not present at the
riot but were condemned for supposedly conspiring to commit violence.
This was a turning point in American labour history. Many
workers blamed the Knights of Labor, the major union pushing for the
eight-hour day, for being involved in the riot, and there was a general drift
towards the less radical newly-formed American Federation of Labor.
View virtual exhibition
The IWW
15. Pease, Frank Chester.
Revolution and the I.W.W.
/ [Frank Chester Pease]. (Sydney : Australian Administration of the Industrial
Workers of the World, [191-?])
Industrial unionism and politics. (Sydney : Issued by the I.W.W. Club, [1911?])
16. Boote, Henry E. (Henry Ernest), 1868-1949.
Guilty or not guilty? : an examination of the I.W.W. cases / by H.E. Boote. ([Sydney] : Labor Council of N.S.W., [1916 or 1917])
The Two wars. (Sydney : National Executive, I.W.W. Club, [1916])
17. Workers' International Industrial Union.
Revolutionary industrial unionism : tactics and plan of the Workers' International Industrial Union, the one great union. (Melbourne : Literature and Education Bureau of the Workers' International Industrial Union, [1918])
18. Cleary, P. S. (Patrick Scott), b. 1869.
The One Big Union : will it emancipate the worker? / by P.S. Cleary. (Sydney : Angus & Robertson, 1919)
19. Ross's monthly of protest, personality and progress. (Melbourne : Robert Samuel Ross, 1916-[1923])
The IWW (Industrial Workers of the
World) often referred to as the "Wobblies", were founded in
Chicago in 1905. They opposed the American Federation of Labor on the grounds
that the earlier organisation accepted capitalism and, because they were
formed by craft unions, did not represent non-skilled workers. They promoted
the idea of "One big union". The IWW line on World War I was that it was a
capitalist war and America should not become involved.
The IWW spread quickly to Australia and by 1907 there
were cells active in most states. They campaigned against the war, and in
particular against conscription, in fact against all kinds of recruiting. When
Thomas Barker, the editor of Direct Action, was imprisoned the IWW in
Sydney, they began to utter counterfeit £5 notes in an attempt to wreck the
Australian economy.
Their campaigns also included arson and when a policeman
was shot and killed in NSW, two of their members were found guilty and hung,
in December 1916. The organisation was banned in August 1917. Twelve of their
members were still in jail for offences such as sedition, committed during the
anti-recruiting agitation, and there were continuing representations made to
have their cases reviewed. The ALP, when it came to power in 1920, instituted
a Royal Commission. The findings were that some of the men were guilty, while
others were not, but most were released.
The IWW's style of revolutionary industrial unionism
proved unpalatable in Australia, although Bob Ross in his newspaper, Ross's
monthly was still pushing the "One big union" concept in the 1920s, as can
be seen from the cartoon on the front page of the issue for 9 June 1923.
View virtual exhibition
Communism in
Australia
The early
years
20. Ross, R. S. (Robert Samuel)
Eureka : freedom's fight
of '54 / by R.S. Ross. (Melbourne : Fraser & Jenkinson, 1914)
21. Friedum, S. F.
Constructive revolution : the Russian revolution and socialist industrial unionism / by S.F. Friedum. (Sydney : Worker Print, [1919])
View virtual exhibition
22. Ross, R. S. (Robert Samuel)
Revolution in Russia and
Australia : describing and discussing the Soviet system (political and
economic sides), the dictatorship of the proletariat (for and against), the
Australian alternative / by R.S. Ross. (Melbourne : Ross's Book Service,
1920)
View virtual exhibition
23. Communist International.
Communist tactics of revolution : the role of the Communist Party in the proletarian revolution. (Sydney : Communist Party of Australia, [1920])
24. Communist Party of Australia.
Party training manual
/ Communist Party of Australia. ([Sydney] : The Party, 1928)
There were Socialist parties formed in Australia in the
last part of the nineteenth century. In the early years of the twentieth
century these were brought together under the umbrella of the Socialist
Federation of Australia. However, most Australians committed to labour reform
were followers of the Australian Labor Party. This had grown from an
initiative of the Sydney Trades and Labour Council in 1891, and was one of the
major parties in Australian politics. The early Socialist parties split on the
question as to whether or not they should oppose the ALP or try to influence
it from within. After the Communist Party was formed in 1920, this issue
continued to divide party members.
Among the items on display we see an early attempt to
establish the Eureka Stockade as part of an Australian radical nationalist
tradition. Other pamphlets develop the relationship between the Russian
revolution and the Communist Party of Australia. Peter Simonoff, the first
Soviet Consul-General to Australia actively encouraged the Australian
socialists to form a Communist Party. The first meeting, on 30th
October 1920, was organised by the Australian Socialist Party and held at
their hall in Sydney.
The party spent most of the 1920s trying for a "united
front" with the Labor Party, but the ALP was extremely wary. In 1928 the
Comintern decreed that the Communist parties in the various countries around
the world must become the leaders of the workers' struggles. The Party
Training Manual from that year sets as its aim to equip party members
"with a working knowledge of revolutionary theory and practice … to more
effectively dispel the reformist illusions, which bind the mass of the workers
to the chariot of Capitalism." (p. 3) This manual evolved from classes in
Marxist theory given by party leader, Jack Kavanagh in 1926.
View virtual exhibition
25. "Labor spurns Communism's eye-wash" Labor Call,
14 January 1937, p. 1.
In accordance with changes in Comintern policy, local
Communist parties fluctuated in their attitudes to labor movements. During
some periods they denounced them as "capitalist lackeys" while at other times
they sought to form a united front with them.
Links to the Communist Party were always electoral
suicide and the conservative parties would make the most of public perceptions
of Communist infiltration of the Unions and the Labor Party in every election.
This front-page article of Labor call, the paper
of the Victorian branch of the ALP, begins,
In keeping with Communist
moves throughout the world to gain control of the workers by disruptive or
surreptitious methods, an abortive attempt has been made in England to
establish a "united front." Every Labor Party in the world has turned such
overtures down flat giving Communism a nasty jolt under the chin from which it
cannot recover.
Australia long since
applied the boot to Communist proposals, both wings of Labor having seen
through the anti-Australian smoke-screen of falsity.
View virtual exhibition
Communism in
Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was formed in
mid-1920, out of such groups as the Workers' Socialist Federation and the "Hands off Russia" Movement. Among the original members were people such as
Harry Pollitt and Rajani Palme Dutt.
26. Independent Labour Party (Great Britain)
The I.L.P. and the 3rd International : being the questions submitted by the I.L.P. delegation to the executive of the 3rd International and its reply (London, National Labour Press, 1920)
The fledgling Communist Parties sent delegates to meetings of the Third International (Comintern) set up by the Russian revolutionaries. The First International Workingman's Association, aimed at establishing socialism in all countries, had been set up by Marx in London in 1864. This had split over attitudes to Anarchism; and the Second International was instituted in Paris in 1889. The series of Congresses they organised concentrated on the means of achieving socialism, condemning co-operation with bourgeois liberals. In effect, it ceased to function with the outbreak if war in 1914. The Third International had as its aim the overthrow of world governments and the institution of international Communism. It was disbanded in 1943 as reassurance to the Allies during World War II.
27. Postgate, Raymond, 1896-1971.
How to make a revolution / Raymond Postgate. (London : Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1934.) [Jim Cairns
copy with his signature].
Raymond Postgate was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He was well-known as a writer on radical subjects. This work has chapters on the major revolutionary movements of the past, as well as a chapter on the general strike, on armed revolution and on Communist tactics. He gives advice as to which tactics he considers are likely to work and which tactics are useless. His chapter on Communism includes much criticism of the adherence of the Party in Britain to the dictates of the Comintern, which he believed were inappropriate to local conditions.
The book on display was published by the Hogarth Press, better known as the publisher of Virginia Woolf's novels. However, Virginia's husband, Leonard was a radical and published much left-wing material.
Early in the war Postgate became the editor of Tribune but was removed for his impatience and belligerence, being described by a friend as
"one of nature's dissenters, a man with a talent to annoy, fond of argument but immovable once he had taken up a position". He was also known as a man who, from his love of argument, would advance quite moderate issues with extreme passion. (see his DNB entry)
Although he remained a socialist, after the war he became famous as the instigator and editor of the Good Food Guide, which he published from 1951 to 1962.
View virtual exhibition
General
Strike
In 1920 the TUC and radical labour leaders had threatened
a general strike unless Britain ceased to support the opposition to the new
Russian state. The Communist Party had been successful in working within the
Miners' unions, particularly through the National Minority Movement.
The General Strike took place in Britain from 4th
to 12th May 1926. It was the result of a dispute over miners'
wages. The TUC (Trades Union Congress) called out members of other major
unions and the country came to a halt. The Baldwin government enrolled special
constables. Troops and volunteers ensured that essential services continued to
function and after nine days the TUC called the strike off, much to the
disgust of the miners who continued to strike until August.
28. The British gazette. (London : His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1926)
This was published by the British government for the duration of the general strike, May 1926. No. 1 (May 5, 1926)-no. 8 (May 13, 1926). It is accompanied by a collection of newspapers, which came out in Britain at that time.
View virtual exhibition
29. Fyfe, Hamilton, 1869-1951.
Behind scenes of the Great Strike / by Hamilton Fyfe. (London : Labour Publishing Co., 1926)
Hamilton Fyfe was the radical editor of the Daily Herald. The editorial board was dominated by Trades Union Congress members. Fyfe was sympathetic to their cause and believed that socialism was the way of the future. During the strike he edited a paper called the British Worker. The cover of his book on the strike carries the statement,
"For every 100 copies sold the Author gives a child's keep for two weeks to the
Miners' Fund."
30. Postgate, Raymond, 1896-1971.
A worker's history of the great strike : written from material supplied by Plebs correspondents in all parts of the country / by R.W. Postgate, Ellen Wilkinson, and J.F. Horrabin. (London : Plebs League, 1927)
As noted above, Raymond Postgate was a founding member of
the Communist Party of Great Britain. In addition, he was, like Fyfe, a
Daily Herald journalist. He also contributed articles to the journal
Plebs, published by the Plebs League, a workers' educational association.
The value of his account is that it draws information from workers involved in
the strike around the country.
View virtual exhibition
Communist
Youth
The Party was always conscious of the need to engage the
interest of young people. In Australia this took the form of the Eureka Youth
League. This group had originated in the 1930s as the Young Communist League,
which had changed its name to the less-transparent League of Young Democrats.
In 1941 it became the Eureka Youth League, appropriating the radical tradition
of the Eureka Rebellion of 1854.
31. The Red corner book for children. (London : Martin Lawrence, [ca. 1930])
This English children's book is presented as an annual,
along the lines of Eagle or the Tip-top Book for Boys. It
includes the usual mixture of adventure stories, comic strips, games and
facts.
The "Editor's Note reads,
The Red Corner Book is a
departure from the ordinary run of children's books. It endeavours to spur
their minds to the real issues life holds out - instead of drugging them with
a false glamour over ugly things.
Two great social forces
are in conflict: they have the children in their grip. This book designs to
stir in them an understanding of the workers' life, the social struggles and
the goal, which the workers have set themselves.
It includes "Stories of Lenin", as well as a piece on Wat
Tyler. Another group of articles, on Russia, is entitled, "Stories of
socialist construction." The volume begins with a poem, "A look at the world"
illustrated by cartoons. A typical stanza reads,
Russia is the first great
land
Where bosses and loungers
have all been banned,
A land of the working class victorious;
Where a worker's life is
free and glorious. (p. 14)
It is hard to imagine any child having their interest
stirred by such overt propaganda, and The Red Corner Book seems not to
have appeared again.
View virtual exhibition
32. Young, Richard.
The story of the
Eureka Youth League /
by Richard Young. [Sydney?] : Eureka Youth League, [1944]
The connection between the organization and the Eureka
uprising is put forward using the convention of mates yarning around a
camp-fire. This is meant to place the Youth League firmly in the Australian
nationalist tradition. The predominantly red cover illustration of men firing
on other men from behind logs is meant to portray the rebellion in the
nineteenth-century, but with the boy looking towards us in the foreground it
has a modern feel to it which is strangely unsettling. It is as if we are
looking at a scene from the Australian Revolution.
This pamphlet carefully avoids any admission that the
Eureka Youth League is connected to the Communist Party.
We are not affiliated to
nor do we pledge allegiance to any political Party. We do not raise the
question of parties amongst ourselves or with new members. …
But we do regard
ourselves as part of the great Labor Movement, which is not only the Labor
Party, but also the Trade Unions, Consumers' Co-operatives and the Communist
Party. Many of us are Trade unionists and some of our clubs are connected with
factories and Trade unions. …
Some people believe that there should be no politics in
the Youth Movement. We don't, because if you are not satisfied with the pay
many young workers have to live on - and we aren't - to do something about it
you've got to enter into politics. (p. 18)
The pamphlet has interesting details of the resistance
the League encountered from the media and the Catholic Church.
We find big business newspapers like the "Sydney
Morning Herald" attacking the League. This is part of the general attack on
democracy in Australia by big business. The millionaires are very worried
about the hundreds of young people now joining the League and are attempting
to frighten them away. Despite the fact that there are hundreds of young
Catholics in our League, some Church leaders are also on the hunt. In Victoria
and New South Wales these people have used the Catholic Church to organise
squads of young Catholics into basher gangs against the League. We know that
the majority of young Catholics have a high regard for the work that our
League does, and some have nothing but contempt for these people. The work of
these Church leaders in poisoning the minds of some young Catholics is not
much different from Hitler's poisoning of the whole generation and the
organisation of them into basher gangs - it boils down to the fact that they
are helping Hitler and Tojo to create disunity. (p. 19)
View virtual exhibition
33. Target : magazine of the Eureka Youth League. (Sydney : Eureka Youth League of Australia, 1962-1968)
The issue on display, for June 1964, has a photograph of
the Beatles on the cover and an article on "Beatles and Beatlemania." The
article stresses the working class backgrounds of the individual Beatles, and
ends with a reference to the then British Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas
Home, a Conservative, and the Labour Party leader Harold Wilson,
Sir Alec Home promptly claimed credit for them [i.e.
the Beatles] and was as promptly accused of political clothes-stealing by Mr.
Wilson. Conservative candidates have been officially advised to mention them
wherever possible in their speeches. (p. 3)
View virtual exhibition
Communist
Icons
We are used to seeing Che Guevara's face promoting
everything from the International Socialists to tissues, but Lenin, Stalin and
Trotsky have also been appropriated for their radical chic.
34. "Joseph Stalin", cover illustration for The
Australian Women's Weekly, 12 May 1945.
This was not a case of "radical chic" rather it was to
promote an image of an avuncular "Uncle Joe" our powerful ally during the
final days of the war. There was no article about Stalin in the magazine.
View virtual exhibition
35. "Joseph Stalin", cover illustration for
Fantastic adventures, vol. 14, no. 3, March 1952.
Here we see Stalin alongside a space-suited alien. The
issue of the magazine has the headline, "Flying saucers: Russia's secret
weapon?" The story is "He fell among thieves" by Milton Lesser. This has the
promotional line, "When this Martian crashed the Iron Curtain … He fell among
thieves."
The incidence of UFO sightings in the US in the 1950s was
unbelievably high and this story puts forward a reason: Russia had captured a
Martian who had helped them build flying saucers, and these were now being
used to spy on the US.
View virtual exhibition
36. "Che Guevara", cover illustration for Electric : Juan Atkins, Detroit USA, Friday Oct 17. [Melbourne : Electric, 1997]
Here we see Che Guevara being used to promote a dance
party in Melbourne, "The first anniversary of the Electric Revolution", to
mark the venue being open for twelve months. Also on display is a pack of Che
Guevara "designer tissues", made by Sniff, Meckenheim, Germany.
37. "Lenin", back cover illustration of The Age
(Melbourne) Magazine, issue #4, February 2005.
This is an advertisement for Bigpond music, with the
slogan, "Join the revolution." It appeared most notably as giant posters put
up around the city. The image is of Lenin wearing a pair of silver
head-phones.
38. "Lenin", illustration on a post-card for
Subversion.
Subversion is a night-club, with the slogan, "Everyone
if revolutionary." The portrait of Lenin accompanies a "5 week plan" which
gives details of performances over the coming weeks, all described in
revolutionary language, e.g. "July 15: Anarchy in the U.K. Punk it up for some
serious 3-chord nihilism. Tartan, Mohawks etc."
39. Herald
Press Cuttings
When the Melbourne Herald closed to amalgamate
with its morning equivalent the Sun, Monash acquired their press
cuttings volumes from the 1950s. The Herald was famously anti-Communist
but these volumes reflect a range of different views. They are arranged in
volumes according to subject, e.g. the Communist Party Dissolution Bill, the
Petrov Case, Spies and Sputnik. One of the Sputnik volumes is on display.
Sputnik I was the first man-made satellite to orbit the Earth. It was launched
on 4 October 1957.
Sputnik II was launched a month later, on 3 November 1957, and carried a dog,
Laika, the first creature to enter space. This caused embarrassment for the
Americans and in 1958 Eisenhower approved the formation of the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Wall Case 1
The Petrov
Affair
Vladimir Petrov, the Third Secretary in the Soviet
Embassy in Canberra defected on 3rd April 1954 and was granted
asylum. He was, he told ASIO, in charge of non-military espionage at the
Embassy and held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Soviet secret police,
the MVD. He brought with him many documents, some of which implicated
Australians in espionage activities. Having become fond of the Australian
life-style in the three years of his stay in Canberra, and being afraid to
return to Russia, as he was part of the now-discredited "Beria faction", Petrov had decided to defect. ASIO granted him £5000 to cover his expenses.
His wife, Evdokia, was ostensibly an accountant and
secretary in the Embassy but was in fact a Captain in the MVD, engaged in
coding and de-coding espionage messages. Apparently she was unaware of her
husband's intention to defect and when, by 6th April her husband
failed to return from a visit to Sydney she was told he had been kidnapped by
ASIO, and that for her own safety she was to be sent back to Russia. On
19April she was put on a plane at Mascot, Sydney airport, en route to Moscow.
There was a large anti-Communist demonstration during which the famous photos
were taken of Mrs. Petrov flanked by two Russian bodyguards. In the scuffle
she lost her shoe. When the plane landed next morning at Darwin to re-fuel,
her two bodyguards were disarmed and Mrs. Petrov was informed of her husband's
defection. It is likely that during these altercations Evdokia still thought
that the Australians were trying to kidnap her, as she believed they had done
to her husband. Now she was able to phone and speak to him, as a result of
which she sought asylum herself.
The Soviet Government recalled its Embassy and expelled
the Australian Consular staff from Moscow.
There was a Federal election scheduled for 29 May, and
the "Petrov Affair" as it became known inevitably favoured the sitting Liberal
government. Menzies duly won and the leader of the Opposition, Dr. Evatt, felt
aggrieved at the role he believed Menzies had played in manipulating the
defection of the Petrovs.
On 3 May 1954 a Royal Commission was appointed to enquire
into Soviet espionage in Australia. They met from 17 May 1954 to 31 March
1955. The hearings implicated members of the Communist Party of Australia as
well as three of Evatt's staff. One of the key exhibits became known as "Document J". This included a list of contacts friendly with the Soviet cause,
and was the source of the accusations against Evatt's staff. It had been
written inside the Russian Embassy by the Communist journalist Rupert
Lockwood. Evatt, against all advice, appeared at the Royal Commission to
represent two of his staff (the other, Fergan O'Sullivan, he had sacked as a
traitor, when it was found that he had written "Document H" also brought
across by Petrov)
Evatt's cross-examination and comments to the press did
much to destroy his reputation as a credible alternative leader of the
country. His behaviour was such that the Commissioners withdrew permission for
him to appear. He then wrote directly to the Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov,
naively asking him to assure the Commissioners that the documents revealed by Petrov were false. When this indiscretion became known, Menzies was able to
complete the destruction of the Opposition leader's credibility.
The Royal Commission found that the Petrovs were spies,
their documents were genuine, and the Soviet embassy had been used by the USSR
to operate espionage activities in Australia. Commenting on the local support
provided to the Russians, the Commissioners found that, "without Communism,
Soviet espionage could have no hope of success in Australia."
The Petrov Affair had serious repercussions for the Left
in Australia. The Labor Party split over attitudes to Communism soon after,
and they were unable to regain federal office until 1975. The Australian
public, faced with proof of Soviet espionage in Australia, became even more
distrustful of the Communist Party.
40. Brown, W. J. (Wilton John), 1917 -
The Petrov conspiracy
unmasked / edited and compiled by W.J. Brown. (Sydney : Current Book
Distributors, [1956])
Brown's thesis is that the Petrov affair was engineered
by Menzies to discredit the Labor Party and the Communist party. The graphic
on the cover makes this point clear. We see Menzies and the mask of Petrov's
face.
View virtual exhibition
41. Australia. Royal Commission on Espionage.
Report of the Royal Commission on Espionage 22nd August 1955. (Sydney : N.S.W. Government Printer, 1955)
On display is the copy from the Herald office,
with various annotations on the cover and throughout the text. For example
there is a note on the cover, "$25,000, p. 102" which refers us to the details
of the "Moscow Gold" allegation that Sharkey was paid $25,000 as a donation to
the Party. Also from the Herald Library we have the interim report, the
five volumes of transcripts, and several indexes.
42. Petrov cross-examined : evidence and statements
before Menzies' Royal Commission. (Melbourne : printed by G. Wheeler :
[1954])
As is made clear from the cover, this is an attempt to
show that Petrov's evidence was coloured by the ASIO payment to him of £5000.
The dialogue box reads, "First I got the £5000 then I handed over the
Documents."
View virtual exhibition
43. Lockwood, Rupert, 1908-1997.
What is in Document "J" / [by Rupert Lockwood] ("The Everglades", Canberra : Freedom Press, [1954])
Reference has been made above to the significance of
"Document J" and its contents. Here Lockwood admits to having written it but
in seeking to recall what is in it, refers mainly to the material concerning
Japanese espionage during the war and to the activities of anti-Communists
such as the politician, W. C. Wentworth and the Sydney newspaper columnist
Frank Browne, "a former dog-racing writer from the Norton press" [i.e. The
Truth]
View virtual exhibition
44. Petrov, Vladimir Mikhailovich, 1907-1991.
Empire of fear, by Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov. (New York : Praeger, 1956)
This is the ghost-written account of the experiences of
the Petrovs in Russia and Australia. Michael Thwaites was engaged to write the
book. This is the American edition. The defection of the Petrovs was
international news, as can be seen partly from the fact that the photographs
reproduced in this case are from the Saturday Evening Post.
View virtual exhibition
Wall Case 2
Vietnam
Perhaps the most significant political issue in the 1960s
and early 1970s was the Vietnam War. Communist groups had been influencing the
Vietnamese nationalist movement since the 1930s and this influence was
strengthened by their leadership of the resistance during Japanese control in
World War II. When the French returned after the war the struggle continued,
leading to defeat for the Colonial power at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
However, in the context of the rise of Communism in China
and Korea, the United States felt it was important to contain its spread
southwards, and they began to provide support to the South Vietnamese under
Ngo Din Diem. The Geneva Accord of 1954 had divided the country at the 16th
parallel. The Communist North, under Ho Chi Minh, had their capital at Hanoi.
The Southern capital was at Saigon.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s there was a cease-fire
but guerrilla warfare gradually increased, and by 1962 there were 10,000 U.S.
"advisers" in Vietnam assisting the South. The same year, Australia began to
send advisers as well. Diem was assassinated in 1963, to be replaced by
Marshall Ky, and in 1964 the Viet Cong stepped-up their offensive against the
South. President Johnson began openly to commit US troops, and Australia also
sent soldiers.
Conscription was the issue, which had immediate impact on
young people in America and in Australia. It was the trigger which set-off a
groundswell of demonstrations, particularly on campuses. Public
dissatisfaction at the war was fed by the TV coverage; especially the stories
of atrocities such as the My Lai massacre. Moratorium marches led by such
prominent political figures as the ALP's Dr. Jim Cairns became a feature of
the Australian cities.
The growing unpopularity of the war eventually led to the
withdrawal of US and Australian troops in 1972. Gough Whitlam had made it a
plank of his election platform in that year. A cease-fire was signed on 28
January 1973 and by 1975 the Communist government ruled all of Vietnam.
The Communist Party of Australia naturally wished to
support the North and oppose the war. As a result of involvement in
anti-Vietnam activities, a new generation of students became interested in the
CPA.
45. Hò· Chí Minh, 1890-1969.
Prison diary / Ho Chi Minh ; translated by Aileen Palmer.
Hanoi : Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962.
Ho Chi Minh was the founder of the Communist Party in
Vietnam and was the leader of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 1945 to his death in 1969. His Prison Diary
is a collection of poems written in a Chinese jail where he had been
imprisoned for eighteen months by Chiang Kai-shek during World War II. Aileen
Palmer, the daughter of the Melbourne left-wing writers Vance and Nettie
Palmer, translated the poems published in this edition.
View virtual exhibition
46. The People of Viet Nam will triumph! : U.S. aggressors will be defeated! The heroic struggle of the South Vietnamese people. (Peking : Foreign Languages Press, 1964-1966)
This was an annual publication. On display is the issue
for 1965, showing an American airman sitting on the wing of his plane, which
has been shot-down, being guarded by Viet Cong soldiers.
View virtual exhibition
47. Viet protest news : bulletin of the Vietnam Day Committee (Vic.) (Parkville, Vic. : The Committee, 1966-1969) From the collection of N. W. Saffin.
We see vol. 1, issue no. 8 with its cover photograph of
Vietnamese women and children. Some of the most famous images from the Vietnam
War featured the plight of the innocent victims. As well as giving details of
anti-war demonstrations this newsletter provided excerpts from other anti-war
publications and articles such as, "Influencing the young: pro-war propaganda
in schools", by David Hudson, v.1, no. 7, p. 3-4.
View virtual exhibition
48. Burchett, Wilfred G., 1911-1983
North of the seventeenth parallel /
by Wilfred Burchett. (Hanoi : The Author, 1955)
49. Burchett, Wilfred G., 1911-1983.
My visit to the liberated zones of South Vietnam / Wilfred Burchett. 2nd ed. (Hanoi : Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1964)
View virtual exhibition
50. Transcript of an interview between Bui Cong Tuong
and Nguyen Van Quy in Studio B of the Joint US Public Affairs Office, Saigon,
15 July 1971. (from the Denis Warner papers)
Wilfred Burchett was an Australian journalist who had
been working in Korea, covering the War. His books and articles were openly
pro-Communist, to the point where he was accused of being a traitor. He
justified his actions as support for countries seeking self-determination, and
being able to report from within the "enemy" lines gave him an advantage as a
journalist. From Korea he proceeded to cover the situation in Vietnam, basing
himself in the North.
The interview comes from a large collection of material
collected by the journalist Denis Warner while working as a foreign
correspondent in South-East Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. Bui Cong Tuong
was a Viet Cong defector who had been Chief of Propaganda, Culture, Education
and Training in the Ben Tre (Kien Hoa) Province. Tuong tells of meeting
Burchett and how impressed he was at Burchett's entourage and apparently
unlimited access to the upper echelons of the North Vietnamese bureaucracy. He
was told Burchett was only ever to be referred to as a "Neutralist", but that
he was a "positive Neutralist." The privileges Burchett enjoyed were, Tuong
was told, a result of the fact the he was a high-ranking Communist Party
member, and industrious propagandist for the regime. Tuong makes particular
mention of the fact that Burchett always insisted in wearing the Viet Cong
uniform, the "black pyjamas", in which he can be seen on the cover of the copy
of My visit to the liberated zones on display.
51. "Grandpa Nam and his bamboo spikes" and "Spikes of
revenge", ink-brush paintings by Tung Chen-sheng; "Little Boi kills a tyrant",
woodcut by Ksing An-Ju; "Human support for a Bridge", woodcut by Han Ko.
North Vietnam propaganda posters from the collection of
Denis Warner.
The use of pits with bamboo spikes placed in the bottom
was a feature of the Viet Cong guerrilla campaign.
View virtual exhibition
52. Liberal Party of Australia.
It's your choice: where
do you draw the line against Communist aggression? (Canberra : Liberal
Party, [1966])
This was a piece of election propaganda distributed by
the Liberal Party during the Federal election on 26 November 1966. The graphic
shows the encroaching "red menace" coming southwards from China through
South-east Asia towards Australia.
View virtual exhibition
Wall case 3
The New Left
This was the name used to describe groups of young
radicals who wished to distinguish themselves from the "old" Left. They
fiercely opposed the Vietnam War and believed in anti-Establishment issues
under the broad banners of anarchism and utopianism. In the United States, one
of the prominent New Left groups was the "Yippies" (the Youth International
Party). This was formed in 1968 by Abbie Hoffmann and Jerry Rubin. In that
year the Yippies disrupted the Democratic Convention at Chicago and both
Hoffmann and Rubin were convicted of crossing state lines with intent to riot
at the "Chicago Seven Trial" in 1969. Although this conviction was
subsequently quashed, Hoffmann was later arrested on cocaine charges (1973)
and served time. He spent the remainder of his life working for environmental
causes and died in 1989.
Jerry Rubin became a promoter of human potential courses
and ginseng products and died in 1994.
In France the equivalent movement among the young
radicals resulted in the events of May 1968. A series of strikes by students,
demanding a loosening of France's restrictive educational system and the right
to demonstrate led to a general strike which quickly took on almost
revolutionary proportions. The unrest subsided when the French Confederation
of Trade Unions and the French Communist Party convinced the workers to return
to their jobs. The left wing students saw the government of General de Gaulle
as repressive and the Parti Communiste Francais reactionary. Their own
ideas wre a mixture of anarchism, sexual liberation and anti-war sentiments.
One of their most prominent leaders was Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
53. Hoffman, Abbie.
Steal this book / by Abbie Hoffman ; co-conspirator, Izak Haber ; accessory after the fact, Bert Cohen. (New York, N.Y. : Pirate Editions : Distributed by Grove Press, 1971)
This is a guide to living cheaply, providing tips on how to obtain things for free or at a small cost. As could be predicted, most of the publishers approached declined to publish such a title, and Hoffman lists the 30 firms who rejected the book on the back cover.
View virtual exhibition
54. Neville, Richard, 1941 -
Play power / Richard Neville. (London : Cape, 1970)
The English and Australian equivalent to Hoffman's book was Richard Neville's Play power. Richard Neville was the editor of Oz magazine and espoused hippie ideals of personal liberation and legalisation of marijuana. He later became the editor of the counter-culture newspaper, Living daylights; a talk-show personality and the biographer of the Asian murderer Charles Sobrahj. The first edition of Play Power
on display comes with a board-game in the back pocket, "Headopoly". This encouraged drug use and was banned from sale with the book in Australia.
View virtual exhibition
55. Rubin, Jerry.
Do it! : scenarios of the revolution / Jerry Rubin. [New York?] : Erectile Press, [1970?]
View virtual exhibition
56. Rubin, Jerry.
We are everywhere / Jerry Rubin. (New York, Harper & Row 1971)
Do it is a Yippie manifesto. It is written in a
prose style verging on hysteria, influenced by Walt Whitman and Jack Kerouac,
pop music lyrics and drugs. It ends with "Scenarios for the
Future/Yippieland",
Every high school and college in the country
will close with riots and sabotage and cops will circle the campuses, standing
shoulder to shoulder. The schools belong to the pigs.
Millions of young people will surge into the
streets of every city, dancing, singing, smoking pot, fucking in the streets,
tripping, burning draft cards, stopping traffic.
The Pentagon will send troops to fight
spreading guerrilla wars in Laos, Thailand, India, the Congo, Bolivia, South
Africa, Brazil, France.
High government officials will defect to the
yippies.
The State Department will discover its highest
ranks infested with the yippie symps. Black cops will join the black-and-white
liberation army in the streets.
High school students will seize radio, TV and
newspaper offices across the land.
Police stations will blow up.
Revolutionaries will break into jails and free
all the prisoners.
Clerical workers will ax their computers and
put chewing gum into the machines.
Army platoons and National Guard will desert to
the revolution, bringing their guns with them.
Workers will seize their factories and begin
running them communally, without profit.
Shorthairs will become longhairs over night.
positions with LSD gas.
The Pentagon will strafe yippie bases, and we
will shoot the planes out of the sky.
Kids will lock their parents out of their
suburban homes, and turn them into guerrilla bases, storing arms.
We'll break into banks and join the bank
tellers in taking all the money and burning it in gigantic bonfires in the
middle of the city.
Previous revolutions aimed at seizure of the
state's highest authority, followed by the takeover of the means of
production. The Youth International Revolution will begin with mass breakdown
of authority, mass rebellion, total anarchy in every institution in the
Western world. Tribes of longhair, blacks, armed women, workers, peasants and
students will take over.
The yippie dropout myth will infiltrate every
structure of Amerika. The revolution will shock itself by discovering that it
has friends everywhere, friends just waiting for the Moment.
At community meetings all over the land, Bob
Dylan will replace the National Anthem.
There will be no more jails, courts or police.
The White House will become a crash pad for
anybody without a place to stay in Washington.
The world will become one big commune with free
food and housing, everything shared.
All watches and clocks will be destroyed.
Barbers will go to rehabilitation camps where
they will grow their hair long.
There will be no such crime as "stealing"
because everything will be free.
The Pentagon will be replaced by an LSD
experimental farm.
There will be no more schools or churches
because the entire world will become one church and school.
People will farm in the morning, make music in
the afternoon, and fuck wherever and whenever they want to.
The United States of Amerika will become a tiny
yippie island in a vast sea of yippieland love.
View virtual exhibition
Wall Case 4
Student
Activism
During the late 1960s and early 1970s University campuses
around the world became centres for political unrest. In Australia, Monash
University was one of the most active. Classes were disrupted; there were
sit-ins and occupations of Administration offices. Albert Langer was the most
prominent figure at Monash and came to symbolise student activism for the
general public in Victoria.
The issues began with the war in Vietnam but also
included attacks on Capitalism and the Establishment in general. The Communist
Party, often through front organizations, was active in encouraging the
protests.
There is a continuing tradition of student protests,
which can be seen in the large anti-globalisation demonstrations of the late
1990s.
57. "The Maoist from Melbourne", by Mungo MacCallum,
Australian, 14 May 1969, p. 11.
This the first article in a series on "The student
revolt". It profiles Albert Langer, who we see in the accompanying photograph
in front of a Maoist poster.
View virtual exhibition
58. Lots Wife : Monash University students' newspaper,
13 May 1970.
The files of Lots Wife trace the activities of the
student revolutionaries not only at Monash but also Australia-wide. The issue
of Lots wife previous to this one was a combined publication with
Rabelais (Latrobe University) and Farrago (Melbourne University).
The Lots Wife front cover shows a scene from the Moratorium march of 7
May, while the back cover of the combined issue features the famous image of
the Viet Cong guerrilla being executed in the streets of Saigon.
View virtual exhibition
59. Hansen, Soren.
The little red school
book / Soren Hansen and Jesper Jensen ; Translated from Danish by Berit
Thornberry. (Adelaide : A. Taylor in association with Brolga Books, 1972)
This was first published in Denmark in 1969. The first
Australian edition was 1972. The book was aimed at high school students. It
begins with a chapter headed, "All grown-ups are paper tigers." Other chapters
deal with child molesters, homosexuality, drugs and abortion. This book was
often reprinted, in student newspapers for example, and widely distributed.
View virtual exhibition
Flat Case 1
The
Depression
The great economic depression of the 1930s seemed like
the fulfilment of the Communist rhetoric of the failure of Capitalism. The
situation in Australia was widely seen as the result of Australia's dependence
on overseas investors, the "British bond-holders." This caused a renewed
interest among workers in alternative models such as socialism. The ALP was
becoming more radical, but in accordance with the prevailing Comintern line
the Communist Party of Australia was opposed to any co-operation with
left-wing bourgeois parties and the CPA membership still numbered less than
3000.
60. Varga, Eugen, 1879-1964.
The great crisis and its
political consequences; economics and politics, 1928-1934, / by E. Varga.
(London, Modern books limited [1935?])
Eugen Varga was the Director of the Institute of World
Economy and Politics in Moscow.
61. Trinca, Frank.
Science and democracy :
adjusting the laws of advancing mechanization to the objectives of civilized
policy / by Frank Trinca. (Melbourne : Brown, Prior, 1933)
During the depression many people put forward their own
ideas for a solution to the economic crisis. Melbourne doctor, Frank Trinca
published his proposals in this wide-ranging survey of "the origin and life
history of boom and depression cycles in industrial and social evolution."
(Foreword) This is a presentation copy to another Melbourne doctor, H. Boyd
Graham. It includes Graham's manuscript annotations, including the following,
commenting on one of Trinca's paragraphs in the Foreword,
Written in the trough of
the world depression when chaos seemed inevitable, & some of us were members
of a White army under one of Australia's greatest AIF leaders - just in case
the restless communists revolted.
This is a reference to the right wing militia groups,
which were a feature of the anti-communist movement in the early 1930s. The
New Guard was the best-known.
Demonstrations against itinerant unemployed were
organised mostly in country towns in New South Wales and Victoria. The most
famous action of the New Guard was by Francis de Groot who cut the ribbon at
the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge before the official ceremony with the
Labor Premier Jack Lang. The White Army was supposedly led by General Blamey,
presumably the "AIF leader" referred to by Graham. On the evening of 6 March
1931 they mobilised themselves across Victoria in readiness for a Communist
revolution which did not eventuate.
62. Moore, Herbert.
Australia and the world
crisis : political report delivered to the Tenth Congress of the Communist
Party of Australia, April 5, 1931 / by Herbert Moore. (Sydney, N.S.W. :
Communist Party of Australia, 1931)
Herbert Moore was an American who was sent to Sydney by
the Comintern to discipline the party and bring it back in line with Moscow.
His real name was Harry Wicks. CPA leader, Jack Kavanagh, himself a Canadian
who had arrived in Australian in 1925, claimed to recognise Moore from America
as a Ku Klux Klan member. After the war Moore was expelled from the American
Communist Party as a spy and it seems that he was an undercover anti-Communist
agent throughout his career in the Party.
View virtual exhibition
63. "De-registration for employment and sustenance for
various reasons." Central Unemployed Committee. Circular. Melbourne 5th
November 1936.
This is part of the collection of left-wing material put
together by Norm Saffin. It gives details of offences and penalties for relief
workers in labour camps, which incurred suspension of sustenance payments.
View virtual exhibition
64. Proletariat : organ of the Melbourne University
Labour Club. ([Melbourne : The Club], 1932-1935) 4 v.
Contributors to Proletariat included Communist
such as Ralph Gibson and Guido Baracchi. There were many articles on life in
the Soviet Union, including one by Gibson in the first issue, "The depression
and the five year plan." The issue for October 1933 on display has as its lead
article, "The world economic crisis", by the editor, Ian C. Macdonald.
Part of the significance of the journal lies in its cover
art. The issues on display feature art by Jack Maughan, showing a worker
holding aloft the world, with the USSR high-lighted in red; George Finey
showing workers toiling to lift the world; and, by an unidentified artist a
representation of a worker with a pick striking a capitalist in a dinner suit,
carrying a package which reads "Work for the dole".
View virtual exhibition
Flat Case 2
Egon Kisch
In 1934 Egon Kisch, a radical Czech journalist was
invited to Australia to address an Anti-War Congress organised by the Movement
against War and Fascism. This was a Communist Party front organization, formed
in 1933 from their unsuccessful League against Imperialism. When Kisch reached
Australia he was refused permission to land by the Immigration Department.
Kisch jumped ship in Melbourne and broke his leg, but was put back on board.
Although Kisch could speak many European languages, a dictation test in Gaelic
was administered when the ship reached Sydney, to provide a pretext for
formalising the ban. He failed the test, but the public outcry raised by the
press and prominent Australians such as Vance and Nettie Palmer and Katherine
Susannah Prichard made the Kisch case a cause celebre. Legal
representation was arranged and he was allowed to speak at rallies, where he
appeared on crutches, to loud public acclaim. He later wrote an account of his
visit, Landung in Australien translated as Australian landfall
(1937).
Part of the significance in organising the Anti-War
Congress was to have it coincide with the 1934 Melbourne centenary
celebrations, in particular, the opening of the Shrine of Remembrance in St.
Kilda Road by the Duke of Gloucester.
65. Kisch, Egon Erwin, 1885-1948.
Kisch's message from the
World Committee to the Australian workers / issued by the National Council
Against War and Fascism. (Sydney : The Council, [1934] (Sydney : Wright &
Baker)
The illustration on the cover of this pamphlet shows
Kisch waving from on board ship. His talk, which he was finally able to
deliver, not to the Congress in Melbourne, but to a large rally in Sydney
Domain on 18 November, tells of the persecution writers had to suffer in Nazi
Germany.
View virtual exhibition
66. Kisch, Egon Erwin, 1885-1948.
Landung in Australien
/ Egon Erwin Kisch. (Amsterdam : Verlag Allert de Lange, 1937)
This was Kisch's account of his visit to Australia. It
was translated into English and published by Secker and Warburg in the same
year. He visited to all the mainland states and his book is quite different
from the usual traveller's account. He looked at Australia through the eyes of
a European radical and saw inequalities and cruelties, which would have gone,
unnoticed to an Englishman. He has for example a chapter on the treatment of
the Aborigines, which gives detailed accounts of the various massacres.
67. Smith, Julian.
Newspaper reporting and
modern reportage : a lecture to the Writers' League / by Julian Smith,
with notable examples from the works of Egon Erwin Kisch. (Sydney : Australian
Writers' League, [1935])
Kisch was a charismatic figure and had captured the
attention of the Australian public in general and Australian writers in
particular. Therefore it was topical for Julian Smith to refer to him in his
lecture on reporting. Kisch was well-known as a radical journalist in Europe,
famous for his "reportage" style of engaging with the subject.
Included in this pamphlet was a report of the First
National Writers' League Conference, with a statement of their principles.
This includes an account of the Conference by Katherine Susannah Prichard and
the Presidential address by Jean Devanny, both of whom were prominent
Communist writers.
Flat Case 3
Spain
In 1936 there was a military coup against the Socialist
Republican government of Spain. The coup was only partly successful and a
Civil War ensued, lasting until 1939 when the Nationalists (Falangists) under
General Franco gained control of the country. The Republicans were helped by
the Soviet Union, while the Nationalists received aid in the form of troops
and equipment from Germany and Italy.
The Comintern directed Communists to support the
Republican cause and the International Brigade was formed. Left wing writers
such as W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender wrote in favour of the Republicans
while writers such as Roy Campbell took the opposing side. Hemingway and
Orwell both wrote of their time fighting for the Left in Spain.
Australian left-wingers who served included Vance and
Nettie Palmer's daughter, Aileen.
68. The Spanish people are fighting for you
(Melbourne, Victorian Council Against War and Fascism [1937?]) 1 leaf. [from
the collection of N. W. Saffin]
The Victorian Council Against War and Fascism, which
published and circulated this single-leaf flier, was a Communist front
organization. The Labor Party threatened any of their members who were also in
the VCAWF with expulsion.
The flier has a graphic featuring the Spanish republican
war-cry, "They shall not pass". Nettie Palmer is quoted on the virtues of the
Spanish government, "It showed, in the words of Nettie Palmer, the Australian
writer who was in Barcelona before and during the rebellion, 'complete
toleration as regards the church.' "
Awareness of the denominational divide over the Spanish
War is evident in the plea printed on the flier, "Australians! Protestants and
Catholics! Men and women of all parties! You have a great tradition of
liberty!"
View virtual exhibition
69. Spain: the Spanish people present their case :
Australian nurses' response, with special article by Nettie Palmer
(Camberwell, Vic. : Spanish Relief Committee, 1936)
This includes a first-hand account by Nettie Palmer of
her experiences in Spain from which she had just returned. Her daughter Aileen
was with her, and stayed for two years, working as an interpreter with a
British medical unit.
The Spanish Relief Committee included Maurice Blackburn,
a Federal Labour MP who was disciplined for his membership of the VCAWF,
Nettie Palmer, and the Communist Len Fox.
View virtual exhibition
70. Albiston, Walter.
The Spanish Civil War and the Roman Catholic Church :
the press and
Roman Catholic action / by Walter Albiston. (Melbourne : Victorian
Protestant Federation, (1936?])
The Rev. Albiston begins with an extensive quote from
Nettie Palmer's speech in Scots Hall, Melbourne on 15th October
1936, where she emphasised that the Republicans had destroyed churches but
only because the rebel forces had taken refuge in them, "using the towers to
shoot from and using the building as dumps for ammunition." (p. 1)
Part of the thrust of the pamphlet is to encourage the
ALP to ignore the calls from Rome for all Catholics to support Franco and the
rebels against the Republicans in the Spanish war.
We are satisfied that the Labour Party, which
has been dominated too long by Roman Catholic influence, will not, in the case
of Spain allow the Church to dictate its policy. The time has come for Labour
to shake itself free from the crippling hand of the Roman Catholic Church, and
the situation in Spain may be the means of official Labour in Australia seeing
clearly that the Roman Catholic Church has always been the enemy of the
working people in every land and in all ages. …
We issue this pamphlet as
a challenge to the attitude and claims of the Roman Catholic hierarchy
throughout Australia, who have been endeavouring to pull the wool over the
eyes of the community at large, and who have deliberately trailed a red
herring across the situation, in the form of Communism. (p. 12)
71. De Blacam, Aodh, 1891-1951.
For God and Spain
: the truth about the Spanish war / [by Aodh de Blacam]. (Melbourne :
A.C.T.S., 1936)
This Catholic Truth Society pamphlet put forward the
Church's view on the war. The Foreword begins by quoting from the Pope's radio
broadcast of 14 September 1936,
His Holiness, in words of
such eloquence as seemed to come from the very soul of the Church, blessed
those "who have taken upon them the difficult and dangerous task of restoring
the law of God and the rights of conscience," and counselled them to do all
things in charity and without wrath. (p. 1)
The author clearly warns his readers that "Godless
Communism" is behind the conflict,
Let all remember that
Spain is fighting for the cause of all Christendom, when its soldiers strive
to hold back the atheistic materialism of Moscow, and the church-burning,
culture-destroying fury. For the freedom of our Faith, and the life of our own
grave Christian civilisation, the parties of the Right and their soldiers are
waging the Last Crusade. (p. 1)
72. Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973.
Spain (London,
Faber and Faber, 1937)
Most of the young writers in England were pro-Republican,
and the most famous poem about the conflict was W. H. Auden's "Spain." Indeed
it was one of Auden's most popular and widely-anthologised works, although he
later refused to allow it to appear in his Collected Works.
According to a note on the inside flap, "all the author's
royalties from the sale of this poem go to Medical Aid for Spain."
Part of the poem's effectiveness relies on the stance of
the man-of-feeling setting aside his pleasures in favour of urgent action,
To-morrow for the young
the poets exploding like bombs,
The walks by the lake,
the weeks of perfect communion;
To-morrow
the bicycle races
Through the suburbs on
summer evenings. But to-day the struggle.
To-day the deliberate
increase in the chances of death,
The conscious acceptance
of guilt in the necessary murder;
To-day
the expending of powers
On the flat ephemeral
pamphlet and the boring meeting.
TTo-day the makeshift
consolations: the shared cigarette,
The cards in the
candlelit barn, and the scraping concert,
The
masculine jokes; to-day the
Fumbled and
unsatisfactory embrace before hurting.
TThe stars are dead. The
animals will not look.
We are left alone with
our day, and the time is short, and
History to
the defeated
May say Alas but cannot
help or pardon. (p. 11-12)
73. Programme of the new Spain (London, F. G.
Sturrup, 1938)
This is a twenty-six point programme for the future of
Spain under the Falange Espaniola Tradicionalista, or Nationalist regime.
In the section headed, "The State and the individual
liberty", point 6 reads,
Our State will be a
totalitarian instrument in the service of National integrity. All Spaniards
will take part in it through their family, municipal and syndical functions.
No one shall take part in it through any political party. The system of
political parties will be implacably abolished, with all that flows from them
- inorganic suffrage, representation by conflicting parties and parliament of
the familiar type.
The section on "Economy, work, class-warfare" includes
point 10,
We repudiate any capitalist system, which ignores popular necessities,
dehumanises private property and huddles workers into shapeless masses ripe
for misery and despair. Our spiritual and national sense also repudiates
Marxism. We shall organise the impulses of the working-classes, led astray
to-day by Marxism, by exacting their direct participation in the great task of
the national State.
View virtual exhibition
74. Negrin Juan.
Spain desires her independence and freedom / [Juan
Negrin]. (Barcelona : Ediciones Espanolas, 1938) [from the collection of N. W.
Saffin]
"Declaration of Doctor Negrin, the Prime Minister, on
April 30th, 1938".
Juan Negrin was the Prime Minister of Spain from 1937 to
the end of the war in 1939. He was a Democratic Socialist but his dependence
on the Communists alienated the other Western powers. The Soviet Union was the
only ally the Republicans had, so they were forced to go to them for arms.
Negrin oversaw the shipping of much of Spain's gold reserves to Russia. Even
after the fall of Catalonia in January 1939 he tried to fight on, but had to
accept defeat after an anti-Communist uprising in Madrid.
The cover title, "The thirteen points for which Spain is
fighting", indicates that this manifesto was possibly drawn up, and published
in April 1938, in answer to the Falangist's twenty-six points published in
January of the same year.
Flat case 4
World War II
When the war started in September 1939 the Communists in
the West were still trying to come to terms with the Soviet-German
non-aggression pact which had, surprisingly been signed in the previous month.
There was a general tendency on the Left to condemn the war as a
capitalist-imperialist struggle in the same terms used during World War I.
However, in Australia, at least initially, the Communist
Party was strongly supportive of the war, believing the Fascists were the
natural enemies, and the workers of Poland must be defended. When it became
obvious that German and Russian forces had in fact divided Poland, the
rhetoric changed to reflect the supposed liberation of the Polish workers, at
least in the east, by forces of the people's Soviet. Russia then proceeded to
invade the Balkan states. Russia was, to many ordinary people, the enemy in
the same way as Germany, and the Communist Party suffered a further decline in
popularity.
During this first period of the war Communists were
instructed by the Comintern to oppose their country's involvement; clearly an
unpopular move when the countries were under threat from the Axis powers. In
Australia the Party was banned under wartime emergency powers.
The official attitude of the Australian Communist party
changed abruptly when, in June 1941, Hitler ordered an attack on the USSR.
After this local Communist Parties world-wide were loud in their agitation for
a "Second Front".
After Russia entered the war on the Allied side, Stalin
disbanded the Comintern as a sop to the West. The local Communist Parties
began to gain in popularity, and by 1945 in Australia they boasted a
membership of 23,000. However, under peace-time conditions their appeal
rapidly faded. Fifty per-cent of the Australian members had left by 1947 and
by 1958 there were only 5850.
75. 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. On7th December 1941 the
Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and America entered the war, but it was not
until 6th 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.
View virtual exhibition
76. Congress report on the work of the C.C. from
the 12th to the 13th Party Congress / compiled by L.L. Sharkey. [Sydney :
Communist Party of Australia, 1943] (Sydney : Dimitrov Press)
This is Sharkey's report on the work of the Central
Committee of which he was General-Secretary.
The Party's attitude to the war was discussed and Sharkey
reports on this in a section headed, "The war becomes a people's war". This
includes mention of the apparent change of policy after the German attack on
Russia,
The enemies of our Party
allege that the Party "somersaulted" but the policy of alliance with the
Soviet Union against the fascists is, and always has been, our policy. It was
those who had opposed collective security, who fought the peace policy of the
Soviet Government, who were compelled to somersault. In the end it was the
pro-fascists, appeasers and isolationists who were defeated and compelled to
accept the policy of Unity against the fascists. Certainly the Party changes
its line, just as Marx, Lenin and the Bolsheviks frequently changed immediate
policy, but never the ultimate aim, Socialism. It is true that our reformist
critics never change their fundamental line, namely, support for whatever
policy the bourgeoisie is following: class-collaboration.
77. Soviet-German non-aggression pact explained
/ by Molotov, Voroshilov, Zhdanov, with an introduction by E.W. Campbell.
(Sydney : Central Committee, Communist Party of Australia, [1939])
Ernie Campbell had studied at the Lenin School in Moscow
in 1934 and on his return was given responsibility for teaching new recruits
the fundamentals of Marxist theory. In his introduction he begins by admitting
that, "A great deal of confusion exists about the real nature and reasons for
the conclusion of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact." His intention, he
says, is to dispel "the false impressions which have been created."
To clear things up, we are
re-publishing statements by M. Zhdanov, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Commission of the Supreme Soviet; V. M. Molotov, Prime Minister and Minister
for Foreign Affairs; and Marshall Voroshilov, People's Commissar for Defence.
78. Second front. (Melbourne : Australia-Soviet
Friendship League, 1941)
View virtual exhibition
79. The Red Army. (Melbourne : Australia-Soviet
Friendship League, [1941])
The Australia-Soviet Friendship League was a Communist
front organisation, which had originated in 1930 as the Friends of the Soviet
Union. The Party used it to promote awareness among Australians of the need
for Allied support for the Russian war effort.
The A.S.F.L feels that the
possibility of opening of a second front is not being considered by many
influential people in Britain, who are prejudiced against the Soviet Union -
perhaps by some members of the British Cabinet - simply as a military
question. Are some of these Cabinet members, for example, under the influence
of the ideas expressed by the Minister for Aircraft Production, Lieut.-Col.
Moore-Brabazon, when he said that the German and Russian armies would
exterminate each other and that this would enable Britain to gain the
dominating power in Europe? (see "Herald" September 11th)
Anyone in Britain who
dreams that Britain should stay more or less aloof and fully-armed while the
Soviet Union and Germany weaken each other, leaving Britain safe, sound and
unscathed, is a madman or a Nazi agent. (p. 3)
The Red Army begins with a sense of urgency, "As
this is written, the calendar shows June 26th 1941. Less than a
week has passed since Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union." (p. 2) The
message of the pamphlet is how well-trained and disciplined the Red Army is
and how high their morale.
The final section is an account of the Red army's
invasion of Lithuania. This had taken place in 1940 after the Soviet-German
Non-Aggression Pact had been signed. This had enabled Germany and Russia to
divide Poland, and Russia to invade Finland and the Baltic States, including
Lithuania. The ASFL pamphlet quotes Anna Louise Strong's account of the
invasion. Miss Strong was a Communist journalist of long-standing, and had
been a close friend of several senior Soviet officials. She lived in Russia
and edited the Moscow News. According to her account,
Lithuania became
transformed, without the shedding of one drop of blood, into a people's
Socialist Republic and a member-Republic of the U.S.S.R.
One thing only made this peaceful transformation
possible - the presence of the Red Army inside Lithuania. (p. 19)
View virtual exhibition
80. Julius, M. N.
The Truth about the Brisbane line / by M.N. Julius. (Brisbane : Queensland State Committee, Communist Party of Australia, 1943)
The "Brisbane Line" was notorious in Queensland as being
a policy put forward by Menzies that stated that if Australia was to be
invaded the troops would fall back to a line through Brisbane and defend
Australia from there, ceding all areas to the north to the enemy.
The introduction to the pamphlet is by Fred Paterson, a
radical barrister who later became the only Communist ever to be elected to
Parliament in Australia; he was the member for Bowen in the Queensland
Legislative Assembly from 1944 to 1950.
The graphic on the cover shows Menzies as a washerwoman
washing his army tunic with the legend on the back reading, "Resigned Militia
commission 1914". The clothes on the line, staked out across Australia from
Adelaide to Brisbane, refer to the "scrap-iron that came back", a reference to
the pig iron for Japan which Menzies insisted be shipped despite the protests
from the Wharfies; "praise for Hitler"; "Munich" and "non-intervention to help
Franco"; all of which refer to Menzies sympathies with right-wing totalitarian
regimes and the policy of appeasement.
View virtual exhibition
81. The Communists were right! : Why was the second
front delayed? Could the war have been prevented? (London : Communist
Party of Great Britain, [1946])
This pamphlet arose from evidence presented at the
Nuremberg trials, in particular by General Jodl who gave as his assessment
that it was "totally incomprehensible that the Anglo-Americans should have
avoided forming the Second Front in the West." (p. 5) The Communists blamed
Churchill for his insistence that the campaign continue in the Mediterranean
rather than mounting an invasion across the Channel. In the immediate
aftermath of the war, they warned,
The Fascists are crawling
out of their holes. Attempts are being made to break up our alliance with the
Soviet Union.
Against all this, the
Communists will fight, as they fought against the spirit of Munich. But they
can do so a thousand times more effectively in their rightful place, as an
affiliated organisation of the Labour Party. (p. 15)
The call was going out once again for a popular front
with the other parties of the left, but as had been the case in the 1920s and
1930s the reformist parties were not interested.
Flat Case 5
Post-War
Reconstruction
The proposals for changes in society after the war began
to be put forward and considered from about 1943. In their striving for the
reform of society, the Communists often had detailed schemes to promote.
Their Utopian inclinations are evident in such works as
Ralph Gibson's Socialist Melbourne (1951) and Women in our new world
(1947) The Gibson pamphlet had first appeared in 1939 but was now re-written
to fit the new era.
The Party in Australia was aware of the need to broaden
its outlook to include ideas on reform that would apply to farmers and to
minority groups such as the Aborigines. Some of their practical proposals
appeared in pamphlets on such issues as housing and slum clearance.
In Europe the occupation of Eastern Europe by the Russian
forces, the imposition of socialism onto the people of those countries, and
the closing of the borders resulted in a renewed fear of Communism in the
West. Churchill gave his famous "iron curtain" speech in 1946, and World War
III appeared to be a real threat, especially after Russia obtained the ability
to make the atom bomb.
82. Communist Party of Australia.
Houses, slums, private enterprise and the future. (Sydney : Australian Communist Party, [1944]
83. Communist Party of Australia.
Every farmer well-to-do : based on evidence submitted to the Rural Reconstruction Commission / by the Australian Communist Party.(Sydney : Australian Communist Party, 1944)
84. Plan for the fighting man. (Sydney : Australian Communist Party, 1944)
85. A New deal for women / illustrated by E. Fairway. (Sydney : Australian Communist Party, [1944])
These pamphlets were published as the "Communist
Programme Series", authorised by the Central Committee of the Australian
Communist Party. They aimed to convey to a cross-section of Australians the
Communist vision for the post-war world.
The New Deal for Women refers to the situation of
women doing men's jobs,
Women's achievements in
the war years have proved beyond all doubt their right to equality.
After the war has been
won, Australia will face the task of re-organising the country for peace-time
production. The skill and experience gained during the war period by the women
will be needed in the execution of post-war plans.
The tremendous scope of
industry in the post-war period should ensure the right of women to remain in
the new spheres of activity where they have proved their ability.
Equality gives womanhood
the opportunity for the highest development; it frees a great force to work in
the interests of the nation.
Let us all work towards
the achievement of it. (p. 30-31)
View virtual exhibition
86. Women in our new world. (Sydney : Current Book Distributors, 1947)
The author begins by showing us a scene in an Australian
city, with the children playing cricket on the street, using garbage cans as
wickets and sitting on the gutters. We are then asked to imagine "that we have
a Socialist Australia, and see what has happened to one family, the
Morris family - and how they live under socialism. (p. 6)
The family had lived in "a two-roomed condemned cottage"
but, after "Socialism began to get under way" they had been "moved into a
self-contained flat in a converted mansion" (p. 7)
Margaret Morris works in the Eureka machine-building
plant and finds she is pregnant, "She was put onto lighter work, and six weeks
before the baby was due she went on leave on full pay." (p. 8) Her doctor
reassures her,
"Don't worry about the
birth, Mrs. Morris," she encouraged. "You'll have no hospital expenses, of
course, and there's the new painless birth treatment for everyone now. I felt
nothing at all when I had my last baby, and he was born in two hours! (p. 9)
After giving the reader a glimpse of the ideal life in
the socialist future the writer exhorts women to "stand side by side with
their men today - whether they are housewives or workers in industry". (p. 20)
View virtual exhibition
87. Gibson, Ralph, 1906 -
Socialist Melbourne / by Ralph Gibson. (Melbourne : International Bookshop, 1951)
Ralph Gibson was educated at Melbourne Grammar and Melbourne University. He lectured for the Workers' Educational Association and joined the Communist Party in 1932. He became the Victorian State Secretary and served on the National Committee. He helped Frank Hardy with research for Power without Glory.
Socialist Melbourne begins by forecasting the end of Capitalism, "having produced the two greatest wars and the greatest depression in all history. It shows every sign that it has outlived its day and will soon cease to be." (p. 3)
After setting the scene, he takes us on a guided tour of the new Melbourne.
It is five years since a Socialist Government was elected to power in Australia. ...
When the majority of Australians declared for Socialism the rich rebelled. It was called the Bankers' Revolt. There was a short, violent struggle, but the people won
- and here we are. (p. 3)
Gibson takes us on a tour of a factory run by the workers, and shows us the new Spencer Street Station,
"We enquire how it came to be built. We are told that when the new system began, the debts of the railways were wiped out, with compensation in case of hardship only." (p. 11) There is also an underground railway system and a people's bank. Worship at Churches is allowed but
"They have no longer their Church schools, which helped to divide Australia youth on lines of class and creed." (p. 13)
The State Theatre has a fixed price for seats of 6d.
Inside we see films of many kinds - comics, romances and other films, some of which appear very much like the pictures of old days, but we soon notice a big difference. We miss the millionaire heroes, their exclusive hotels, their fashionably dressed wives and mistresses. We miss films of sex, gangsterism and violence. The scenes are from the lives of ordinary men and women …
We leave the theatre anxious to see more of the cultural life of the new society. (p. 13-14)
On visiting Parliament House our guide tells us there are still different parties,
We learn that the largest party, with the majority of cabinet seats, is a united workers' party formed of the Communist Party of the old days and those of the Labour Party who finally supported the change to Socialism
...
Soon the building of socialism will be complete and we shall have a classless society. We shall then have only one party, and finally no party. (p. 16)
View virtual exhibition
88. Outline for work in municipal councils. (Melbourne : International Book Shop, [1945])
Although they are best-known for infiltrating trade unions, the Communist Party encouraged its members to become involved in other fields. This pamphlet briefs them for work in local councils.
The Councils are a fertile ground for mass political development. The role of the Councils will grow, their place in government will expand, their importance to the people as a whole will develop immeasurably. Further, the Councils, which lie at the base of government, are the most stable stepping stones to parliamentary leadership. They can be made the mass rallying ground for great national movements towards the achievement of Victory, peace, Security and the objectives of the programme of the Australian Communist Party. (p. 3)
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89. Civvy street : a booklet of information for members of the services returning to civilian life / issued by the Communist Party.(Sydney : Australian Communist Party, [1945])
The Communists had been successful in recruiting within
the armed services during the war. The official Army magazine Salt was
run partly by Party members. This pamphlet lists all of the rights and
entitlements due to ex-servicemen after demobilization, as well as giving
information regarding Communist Party policies relevant to employment,
pensions and home loans.
View virtual exhibition
90. Communists tell how to build houses fast :
A.C.P. program. (Melbourne : International Book Shop, [1946])
91. Barnett, F. Oswald (Frederick Oswald), 1883-1972.
We must go on : a study in planned reconstruction and housing / by F. Oswald Barnett, W.O. Burt, F. Heath. (Melbourne : Book Depot, 1944)
Barnett had done ground-breaking work with his publication in 1933 of Unsuspected slums a study, which had grown from his Melbourne University thesis. He had published other works on poverty and juvenile delinquency and was to publish, in 1945, an inspirational exhortation to the working class, his poem, I hear the tramp of millions. Barnett was a Christian socialist and one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the Housing Commission of Victoria, and helped the Chifley government develop its housing and urban plans as part of the work of the Post-War Reconstruction Department. We must go on was one of the most influential publications of the era in that field. However in 1948 he resigned from the Housing Commission because the Victorian government had become concerned at his Communist sympathies, and in 1949 he was forced to resign from the Victorian Board of City Mutual Life Assurance because he was the auditor of Australia-Soviet House. Barnett was one of the early casualties of the Cold War in Australia.
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Flat Case 6
1950s
The 1950s was dominated by the "Cold War", with the
stand-off between the Western and Eastern blocs, much sabre-rattling,
brinkmanship and spy scandals.
In 1949 Cecil Sharpley defected from the Communist Party
of Australia and published his story in the Melbourne Herald. Among the
allegations he made were some concerning the Communist Party's infiltration of
the trade unions through ballot-rigging and even that they arranged industrial
sabotage. The Victorian Hollway-McDonald Liberal-Country Party government
called a Royal Commission to inquire into the activities of the Communist
Party. Brian Fitzpatrick and the Council for Civil Liberties railed against
it, and the Communist Party took out a writ for libel against Sharpley.
However, the Royal Commissioner, Charles Lowe, found only one instance of
ballot-rigging was proved, and that, although the Party controlled the front
organizations listed, they did not provide a threat to national security, nor
did they constitute a "fifth column", working on behalf of a foreign power.
The report is valuable for researchers partly for the lists of organizations
investigated and the communist publications tendered.
The Federal Liberal-Country Party coalition was in
opposition but they called for the ALP to legislate against Communist
involvement in the trades unions. Chifley, the Labor Prime Minister refused
but his party agreed to pass some legislation against ballot-rigging. In the
lead-up to the Federal election of 10 December 1949 Menzies promised that if
the coalition was elected it would institute measures to ban the Communist
Party in Australia. The ALP was defeated and the coalition believing it had a
mandate to act on the matter introduced the Communist Party Dissolution Bill
on 27 April 1950. The Bill was passed but the Party and some of the
Communist-controlled unions took out writs claiming it to be unconstitutional.
The High Court found in their favour.
Menzies fought the election of April 1951 partly on a
promise that he would pursue the dissolution of the Party. They won the
election, and then sought wider powers on the matter with a referendum. The
Democratic Rights Committee, another front organization, formed in Melbourne
in 1949 led the opposition, calling for a "No" vote. The ALP also opposed the
referendum seeing it as an attempt by the Liberals to assume greater powers at
the cost of civil rights. The referendum lost by a small margin. This was an
instance of the Communists and the ALP fighting a successful "united front"
campaign.
After the defection of the Petrovs in 1954, there was a
Royal Commission into Espionage (1954-55). This had as its brief to examine
the possible links between local communists and the espionage activities
carried on by Soviet spies operating from the Russian Embassy. Among the
allegations were that the President of the Communist Party of Australia, Lance
Sharkey, had been receiving "Moscow gold" on behalf of the Party, in
particular a payment of US$25,000, and that Rex Chiplin, a CPA member, was an
active spy. The Commissioners were finally unable to state that such
allegations were true, but they found that even if the CPA was not actively
engaged in espionage itself, some individual Communists were.
There were allegations made by the Left that the Royal
Commission into Espionage, with its parade of witnesses, CPA members,
fellow-travellers, and assorted radicals was the Australian equivalent of the
US Enquiry into Un-American Activities under Senator Joe McCarthy.
The world view of Communism changed after the death of
Stalin in 1953 and the stated intention by Khrushchev that he believed in
"peaceful coexistence" added to his willingness to attend a Summit
Conference," seemed to augur well. He also revealed details of the Russian
show trials instituted by Stalin in the 1930s. The invasion of Hungary by
Russian forces in 1956 to suppress a nationalist, anti-Soviet revolution once
again cast the Communists as repressive villains. Many intellectuals in the
West left the party.
In Australia the battle for control of the trade unions
saw the Communists to the left and the Industrial Groupers, or members of the
Catholic Action "Movement", to the right. This was the background to the "Split" in the Australian Labor Party, which took place over a period from
1956 to 1958 and led to the formation of the Democratic Labor Party. DLP
preferences helped keep the ALP out of office until 1972. They were loudly
anti-Communist and helped the Liberal-Country party coalition keep the "red
scare" alive as a force in Australian politics.
92. Sharpley, Cecil H. (Cecil Herbert)
I was a Communist leader
/ by Cecil Sharpley. (Toorak [Vic.] : Joseph Swanson Wilkinson for
Colorgravure Publications, [1949])
The headline on the front cover reads, "Revealing
confession of an Australian red leader". After having appeared as a series of
articles in the Melbourne Herald, the Adelaide Advertiser, and
the Brisbane Courier-Mail, Sharpley's confessions were printed as a
pamphlet in editions for the Herald, the Courier-Mail and the
Sydney Morning Herald.
Before his defection in 1949, Sharpley was a member of
the Victorian State Executive of the Communist Party. His revelations,
particularly as they dealt with the Communist tactics of ballot-rigging in
trade unions, led to the Victorian government setting up a Royal Commission.
View virtual exhibition
93. Victoria. Royal Commission Inquiring into the
Origins, Aims, Objects and Funds of the Communist Party in Victoria and Other
Related Matters.
Report of Royal
Commission Inquiring into the Origins, Aims, Objects and Funds of the
Communist Party in Victoria and Other Related Matters. (Melbourne, Vic. :
J.J. Gourley, Govt. Printer, 1950)
We also hold a copy of this report from the Herald
Library, bound at the end of thirty-one volumes of transcripts, giving
details of the 154 days of hearings beginning 6th June 1949 and
ending 6th March 1950.
94. Australia.
Communist Party Dissolution : no. 16 of 1950 : an act to provide for the dissolution of the Australian Communist Party and of other Communist organizations, to disqualify Communists from holding certain offices, and for purposes connected therewith. Communist Party Dissolution Act 1950 (Canberra : Commonwealth Government Printer, [1950]) [from the collection of W. H. Tregear]
The preamble to the Act sets outs the government's
perceptions of, and objections to the Australian Communist Party,
Whereas the Australian
Communist Party, in accordance with the basic theory of communism, as
expounded by Marx and Lenin, engages in activities or operations designed to
assist or accelerate the coming of a revolutionary situation, in which the
Australian Communist Party, acting as a revolutionary minority, would be able
to seize power and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat:
And Whereas the Australian
Communist Party also engages in activities or operations designed to bring
about the overthrow or dislocation of the established system of government of
Australia and the attainment of economic, industrial or political ends by
force, violence, intimidation or fraudulent practices:
And Whereas the Australian
Communist Party is an integral part of the world communist revolutionary
movement, which, in the King's dominions and elsewhere, engages in espionage
and sabotage and in activities or operations of a treasonable or subversive
nature … (p. 2)
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95. Hill, E. F. (Edward Fowler)
Defeat Menzies' fascist bill / by E.F. Hill. (Melbourne : [Communist Party of Australia, 1950])
Ted Hill was a Communist barrister. He had joined the
Party in 1936 and was the Victorian Secretary from 1948 to 1962. He was
expelled in 1963 and formed the Communist Party of Australia
(Marxist-Leninist), a Maoist group.
His pamphlet is an attack on Menzies, comparing him to
Hitler. He calls upon the Australian people to rise up against their
government.
A united people can
rapidly destroy the Menzies and the Faddens and their American masters - a
united people can defend the peace - can defend democracy - living standards.
...
No people's movement has
ever been successfully suppressed; the Communist Party can never be
suppressed. This very Bill, sponsored by Mr. Menzies, the greatest enemy
Australia ever had, has aroused greater and greater interest in Communism -
more and more people are thinking about it. (p. 8)
View virtual exhibition
96. Defend peace-defeat Menzies. 3 p. foolscap
manuscript. [1957?] [from the collection of W. H. Tregear]
This appears to be the manuscript of a speech, written in
point form, with the recurrent theme, "Defeat Menzies". On the back of it is a
list, possibly the agenda for a meeting. Item 1 is "Defeat Menzies".
It begins, "Report by EFH [i.e. E. F. Hill] to CC [i.e.
the Central Committee] 13/14/15 Dec. 1957", and ends with an assessment of the
ALP and the "spreading of pessimism"; and the danger of "revisionism" within
the Communist party. This includes the following underlined sections,
No-one will pretend the
masses in Australia are in a great ferment, but there is an awakening, events
do not pass Australia by. Our job is to influence the situation.
Danger of revisionism!
Still remnants of revisionist elements. Those people with anti-Soviet
anti-party views - these in the logic of history, get more anti-Party, more
anti-Soviet.
Bill Tregear was Hill's Secretary.
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97. Murray-Smith, Stephen, 1922-1988.
There's no iron curtain : an Australian journalist in Eastern Europe / by Stephen Murray-Smith. (Melbourne : International Bookshop, 1952)
Stephen Murray-Smith served as a commando in New Guinea
during the war. He joined the Communist Party and worked in Prague with a
Communist news agency from 1948 to 1951. It was from his time in
Czechoslovakia that he gathered material for this account of life in Eastern
Europe under Communist control.
The first section is headed "This Iron Curtain business".
He concludes,
That the Iron Curtain then IS a reality, but it is an
Iron Curtain shutting us off from people like the Czechs, not them from us.
One of my last jobs in Czechoslovakia was to prepare for publication by the
Czechoslovak youth organisation a volume of Henry Lawson's short stories, and
for the Czechoslovak Trade Union movement a History of Australian Trade
Unionism. The Czechoslovak workers and young people demanded these books. Who
dare say that the Iron Curtain is imposed from that side of the fence in view
of facts like that? (p. 9)
Stephen Murray-Smith later became the editor of the
Australian left-wing literary magazine, Overland.
View virtual exhibition
98. Your future is involved : read this! (Melbourne : Victorian A.L.P. Groups, [1954]) [from the collection of Dinny Cotter]
The Industrial Groups were organised by elements within
the Catholic Church. They grew from Catholic Action, which had begun during
the Spanish Civil War as an anti-Communist organisation. B. A. Santamaria was
involved, but Archbishop Mannix is thought to have been the driving force. In
1939 Mannix began "The Movement" or "Industrial Groups" specifically to
infiltrate the trade unions to counter-act the growing Communist influences.
Once again Santamaria was the major lay figure involved. In the early 1950s
the "Groupers" became powerful enough to control the Victorian Executive of
the ALP. When they exerted pressure on the Labor Party to move further to the
right, Evatt opposed them and caused a Split.
This pamphlet immediately pre-dates the split and
presents the Industrial Group's defence of their influence within the ALP. The
pamphlet has a section, "Do the Communists fear the Groups?" This includes a
series of quotes from the Communist Review showing the tactics the
Communist party recommends to its members to counter-act the Groups in the
battle for control of the trade unions. One of the tactics described involved
the Communists working on a united front with the ALP members in order to
isolate the Groupers. "Thus while pretending to be friendly, the Communists
worked to establish contact with A.L.P. members to separate them from, and
undermine the A.L.P. Groups." (p. 9-10)
99. Murray, Nora, 1919 -
I spied for Stalin: Russian war-bride's dramatic life story / Nora Murray. (London : Pan Books, 1956)
This account of the experiences of Nora Korzhenko first
appeared in 1950. It is included here as an example of the interest generated
during the 1950s by stories of spying. Nora worked for the Russian secret
police during the war. She fell in love with a British diplomat, one of her
targets, and fled with him when he left to return to England.
View virtual exhibition
Flat Case 7
Anti-Communist Propaganda
The anti-Communist genre is best-known from the 1950s
when there was a constant barrage of such material from the mass-media as part
of the Cold War effort. Examples included Life
magazine's "The Reds Have a Standard Plan for Taking over a New Country"
(1948), the M-G-M cartoon "Make Mine Freedom" (1948), Columbia Pictures' 1952
film Invasion USA, the 1962 TV special Red Nightmare ("presented
by the Department of Defense"). There were of course earlier examples, often
published by the Churches who were critical of the lack of religious tolerance
shown in the Soviet Union under the sway of "Godless Communism."
100. Dilling, Elizabeth Kirkpatrick, 1894-1966.
The red network : a
"who's who" and handbook of radicalism for patriots / by Elizabeth Dilling (Mrs. Albert W. Dilling) (Kenilworth, Ill., ; Chicago : The author, 1935)
In the biographical details supplied on the dust-wrapper,
Elizabeth Dilling describes herself as 'Author, lecturer, world traveller, "bourgeois housewife"' She visited the Soviet Union in 1931 and
"being told
boastfully that the Communist world revolution would start with China and end
with the United States she returned home stirred to study the subject." As a
result she began to write books and articles and toured the US to warn people
of the threat the Communists posed. Her biographical details end with, "Communicant of Protestant Episcopalian Church", in bold type.
The Red Network begins with a description of how
the Communists have infiltrated American life, and have been particularly
successful in influencing Roosevelt's government towards the socialist
policies of the "New Deal". Mrs. Dilling then provides a detailed directory of
front organisations.
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101. Kaub, Verne Paul.
Communist-socialist
propaganda in American schools : a documented study of the role National
Education Association is taking in the indoctrination of the youth of our
country with the ideology of communism-socialism / by Verne P(aul) Kaub.
(Boston, Mass. : Meador Pub. Co., 1953)
Verne P. Kaub was a retired journalist and PR man who was
also President of the American Council of Christian Laymen. He criticised the
trends in education as he saw them in the early 1950s and lays the blame on
"so-called and self-styled progressive educators occupying policy-forming
positions within National Education Association." (p. 17) The chapter on "Using Communist-Socialist techniques" begins with a critique of the way in
which American history is being taught,
No technique of the
propagandists for Communism-Socialism is more satisfying to its users, or more
effective in preparing the minds of both adults and young people for
acceptance of the Marxian ideology, than the "debunking" of American history,
which includes gross misrepresentation of the character and aims of the
Founders and of the historical documents which they wrote. (p. 29)
View virtual exhibition
102. Is this tomorrow : Australia under Communism
(Melbourne, Australian Constitutional League [1949?])
This comic is based on one published in America in full
colour in 1947 by the Catechetical Guild
Educational Society of St. Paul, Minnesota; the Australian version is
black and white, with a colour cover. There was even a French-Canadian
version, A quand notre tour? The Australian version is adapted to local
conditions, e.g. references to "Congress" are replaced by "Parliament." The
opening scene even shows Parliament House in Canberra with hammer and sickle
flags.
It is a truly chilling scenario beginning with strikes on
the coal-fields, a feature of the Australian mining industry in the post-war
period. The Communist Party plans to "engineer a total crisis". The Minister
for Home Affairs backs a proposal made by the Communists through a front
organisation against "intolerance", and the Prime Minister and his deputy are
assassinated. The puppet minister is placed in charge, with the head of the
Communist Party as his adviser. Elections are then changed to the "European
model" with the Communist Party as the only party on the ballot paper. All
dissent is brutally quashed and the Church, universities and schools are
undermined. Children begin to inform on their parents and the comic ends with
the CPA leader dying but the system continuing. His successor tells the press
that "Communism does not depend on any one man. It is a form of government
which will rule the world."
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103. Sellers, Connie.
Red rape / by Connie Sellers. (Los Angeles : World News, 1960)
This example of anti-Communist pulp-fiction is a novel
set in the United States after an invasion by the Russians, "the Ivans" as the
American guerrilla forces call them. The sub-title on the cover reads, "It can
happen here!"
View virtual exhibition
104. "How prepared are we if Russia should attack?" by
George Fielding Eliot, in Look, vol. 14, no. 13 20 June 1950, p. 31-35.
The sub-heading to the article reads, "A leading military
expert analyses our defenses and finds America vulnerable at almost every
point." Among the possible methods of attack which Eliot takes into account
are "Sporadic one-way bombing attacks from bases on Soviet territory - a few
possibly with atomic bombs"; "Seizure of Alaskan airfields by air-borne troops
and subsequent development of bombing attacks against north-west US"; "Seizure
of Iceland by amphibious operation and subsequent development of medium-scale
bombing attacks against north-east US."
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Flat Case 8
Visitors to
Russia
Many left-wing writers, public figures, party
functionaries and trade union delegates were invited to visit Russia.
Typically they would be shown carefully chosen aspects of Soviet life and
encouraged to return home to spread the news of life under a Communist regime.
"I have seen the future and it works" is perhaps the most famous quote from
one such visitor. It was said by the American radical journalist, Lincoln Steffens on returning from a visit to Petrograd in 1919.
105. Wright, T. (Thomas), 1902 -
Russia
to-day : an Australian trade union delegate's report / by T. Wright. (Sydney : Sheet Metal Worker's Union, 1928)
Tom Wright was a trade union delegate to the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Conference held in Canton on 1st May 1927. From there he went to Russia. His report was one of the first comprehensive accounts brought back to Australia of conditions for the workers in Russia.
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106. Smith, W. A.
A tramwayman talks on Russia : a series of broadcast lectures on the U.S.S.R. delivered from Station 3 KZ during March and April, 1935 / by W.A. Smith. [Melbourne] : Victorian Branch of the Tramways Union, 1935
Smith's account was hailed as a "wonderful revelation of
the Great Plan now taking place in Russia." (p. 5)
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107. Stalin-Wells talk / the verbatim record and a discussion by G.B.Shaw, H.G.Wells, J.M.Keynes, E.Toller and others. With three caricatures and cover design by Low, December 1934. (London : New Statesman and Nation, 1934)
H. G. Wells was one of a number of left-wing writers who visited Russia in the period between the wars. He travelled there in September 1920 and interviewed Lenin. An account is given in his book, Russia in the Shadows (1920). He criticised Lenin for his despotic rule, and pointed out to him that the party leaders were already enjoying privileges denied to the workers, but hoped that this would change as the revolution stabilised.
In July 1934 he again visited Russia. This time he met Stalin. His report of the talk was published in the New Statesman 27 October 1934. In subsequent issues of the paper other writers debated the issues raised in the
"Stalin-Wells talk". They included George Bernard Shaw and John Maynard Keynes.
Shaw had met Stalin in the Kremlin on 29 July 1931, and the Soviet leader had facilitated his tour of Russia in which he was able to observe, at least to his own satisfaction, that the statements being circulated about the famine in the Ukraine were merely rumours. He had seen that the peasants had plenty of food. In fact the famine had notoriously been caused by Stalin in his desperation to achieve the goals of his five-year plan. An estimated ten million people, mostly Ukrainians, died of starvation.
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108. Prichard, Katharine Susannah, 1883-1969.
The real Russia / by Katherine Suzanne Prichard. (Sydney : Modern Publishers, 1934)
One of the most prominent Communist writers in Australia
was Katherine Susannah Prichard (she even features in the movie, "Shine"). She
had been a founder member, in 1920, of the CPA, and served on its Central
Committee. This book is an account of her journey to Russia in 1933. She
visited a Commune in the Ukraine where she was assured the harvest had been
good and the peasants all lived well.
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109. Hardy, Frank, 1917 -
Journey into the future / by Frank J. Hardy. (Melbourne : Australasian Book Society, 1952)
Hardy used Lincoln Steffens quote, from which his title
is derived, as the epigraph for his book. It is an account of a trip he made
to Russia with his wife, Rosslyn in 1951. Frank Hardy had become a Communist
during the war and had worked for the Army Education Service magazine Salt,
which had many Communists on the staff.
After the success de scandale of Power without
Glory and the subsequent court case, Frank Hardy and his wife were sent to
attend the World Youth Festival in Berlin. From East Germany they proceeded to
Russia where they were treated well and shown the usual sights.
Journey into the Future was written from a sense
of idealism as were most accounts by sympathetic Westerners who visited the
Soviet Union. Hardy particularly noted the speed of post-war reconstruction
work, which was being achieved.
In late 1968 he returned to the USSR, in the aftermath of
the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. This time he wrote a series of
articles, "Stalin's heirs", which appeared in the Sunday Times in
Britain and were reprinted in the Bulletin in Australia (from 11
January 1969) These were critical of the Communist regime and he was told he
would not be allowed to return.
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Flat Case 9
China
The Communist Party of China had its origins in groups of
radicals, which began in the early 1920s. Mao-Tse-tung was the leader of a
small Communist group in 1920, which received aid from the Comintern. The
first conference of the Chinese Communist party was held in Shanghai in 1921.
However Russia began to support the Kuomintang under Sun Yat-sen. One of his
young officers was Chiang Kai-shek who was sent to Moscow for training. In
November 1931 Mao proclaimed the Chinese Soviet Republic
in the south-eastern province of Jiangxi, with himself as Chairman. His
long-range intention was to isolate the cities by taking control of the
countryside. Chiang began his anti-Communist drive. It was as a result of the
KMT siege of Jiangxi that Mao and his followers set out on the "Long March" of
6000 miles to the north-west. However, the Japanese invasion was under way and
eventually the KMT and CPC had to join forces to fight the invaders. When the
Japanese were defeated in the Pacific and had to fall back from China the
Communists maintained control of the country. After a civil war, and despite
the United States giving aid to the KMT, the Communist were victorious and
Chiang and his army had to retreat to Taiwan. On 1st October 1949 MaoTse-tung
proclaimed the People's Republic of China.
Although supported from the start
by the USSR, a Sino-Soviet split occurred in 1960, apparently over matters of
doctrine, in particular whether or not it was possible for Communism to
triumph without a war against Capitalism. The Chinese claimed to be more pure
in their adherence to Leninism and denounced the Russians as "revisionists",
while the Russians denounced the Chinese as "dogmatists." The Russians
withdrew their technicians and much of their financial support.
The Cultural Revolution took place
from 1966 to 1977. It was an attempt by Mao and the more radical of his
followers to invoke the support of the youth and the workers to oust the
conservative elements on the Party bureaucracy. While it succeeded in these
short-term goals, it had a bad effect on China as a whole, putting it even
further behind the world as an economic power.
110. Mao, Tse-tung, 1893-1976.
Quotations from chairman Mao Tse-tung. (Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1966)
This is one of the key Communist icons, Mao's "Little red
book".
The Foreword by Lin Piao begins,
Comrade Mao Tse-tung is
the greatest Marxist-Leninist of our era. He has inherited, defended and
developed Marxism-Leninism with genius, creatively and comprehensively, and
has brought it to a higher and completely new stage.
Mao Tse-tung's thought is
Marxism-Leninism of the era in which imperialism is heading for total collapse
and socialism is advancing to world-wide victory.
Mao was a practical revolutionary leader who placed
action above theoretical debate.
A revolution is not a
dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery;
it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind,
courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act
of violence by which one class overthrows another. (p. 11-12)
View virtual exhibition
111. China reconstructs. (Peking : China Welfare Institute, 1952-1989)
This international propaganda magazine was a means of
publicising the "Cultural Revolution" to the world. It has a quote from
Chairman Mao inside the front cover,
Our country has 700
million people, and the working class is the leading class. It is essential to
bring into full play the leading role of the working class in the great
cultural revolution and in all fields of work.
The issue on display is from January 1969, and the cover
photograph shows Mao surrounded by a cheering crowd of people, all waving
their copies of "the little red book."
View virtual exhibition
112. Falconer, Alun.
New China, friend or foe? Foreword by Joseph Needham. (London, Naldrett Press [1950])
Alun Falconer was a New Zealand journalist living in
Shanghai where he was working as assistant editor of the China Weekly
Review when the Communists took over in 1949. He watched the take-over of
the city and was able to observe the behaviour of the Communists, who seemed
very reasonable after the rule of the Kuomintang. Falconer also observed their
tendency to self-criticism,
There is a great deal of inner party discussion,
criticism and self-criticism. This goes on continually and covers everything
from the smallest details of personal behaviour to the largest question of
national policy, which the rank and file may have little say in formulating
but which are invariably discussed at length until they are unanimously
accepted. (p. 51)
They are intent on re-conquering all of the traditional
Chinese empire for the new order. He quotes Madame Sun Yat-sen, "honoured
Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Central People's Government" on the future of the
new China,
Every shot fired to bring Taiwan back to its rightful
owner, every step taken to liberate Tibet means that much more security for
the world. (p. 128)
113. Alley, Rewi, 1897-1987
Yo banfa! (We have a way!) Edited by Shirley Barton. Foreword by Joseph Needham. (Shanghai, China Monthly Review, 1952)
Rewi Alley was a New Zealand journalist who arrived in Shanghai in 1927 when the Communist forces and the Kuomintang were fighting. He became a Communist after seeing the conditions under which the Chinese were living and witnessing some of the atrocities inflicted by the KMT. Later, during the Japanese invasion he helped set up a series of Chinese Industrial Co-operatives with the slogan
"Gung Ho", a revolutionary slogan meaning "work together". This is thought to be the way in which the phrase entered English.
The present work has a similar title. Alley explains its significance,
In the old China, in the exploited, ruined villages and cities, subject to perpetual wars, to floods, famine, pestilence, there was a cry, accompanied by baffled and angry eyes, the cry of a people who could see no way out.
It haunted, it spread like an infection. A truck would limp to a stop and the driver get out, look at the decrepit engine, hurl his wrench at it and mutter savagely,
"Mei-yo banfa!" - No way! Refugees with hungry children, soldiers dying of their festering wounds, would murmur desperately,
"Mei-yo banfa …" It was the cry of the defeated, the hopeless.
Then there began to appear men who changed the tune. As the Japanese imperialists penetrated, these men fought back.
"Mei-yo banfa" changed to "Yo Banfa!" - We have a way! It can be done!
He continued to write in support of the Chinese Communist ideal and was venerated by the People, and the Government, who had made him an honorary citizen in 1982. He died on 27th December 1987 in Beijing. After his death the New Zealand government gave a grant to build a Rewi Alley agricultural extension unit at Gansu University.
View virtual exhibition
114. Palmer, Helen G.
Australian teacher in China / by Helen G. Palmer. [Sydney : Teachers' Sponsoring Committee, 1953?]
Helen Palmer, was the sister of Aileen Palmer who had gone to Spain during the Civil War. Their parents were Vance and Nettie Palmer Victorian writers and left-wing activists. Helen Palmer visited China as a delegate to a Peace Conference in 1952. She wrote of the schools she saw and the teachers she spoke to, and commented on the fundamental change the new regime required of Chinese intellectuals,
One can sympathise with the scholar, torn by conflict, whose contact with "the people" might even be little closer than that of the foreigner, when forced to find justification for certain values deeply-entrenched in his mental and emotional nature. In future he would be judged, experience showed, not by abstract scholarship, nor position, nor success, but by how he
"served the people." If the purpose of education or art or science was not to serve the people and increase their ability to create a better world, then, he was asked, what was it? (p. 47)
The final section in the book describes a meeting with Rewi Alley, "His new book, Yo Banfa! (There is a way!) had just arrived hot from the press while we were in Peking, and we read it eagerly into the night." (p. 48) There is a photograph of Alley dressed in Maoist fatigues,
"in the courtyard of the Palace Hotel, Peking."
115. Burchett, Wilfred G., 1911 -
China's feet unbound
/ Wilfred G. Burchett. (Melbourne, Vic. : World Unity, 1952)
After having covered the war in the
east for the Daily Express, Burchett was sent to cover the situation in
Berlin, but returned to China in 1950. This book is an account of the
successful Chinese revolution from the Communist point of view. Much detail is
given of the massive rebuilding of infrastructure, which was going in under
the new regime.
The biographical details on the
flap tell us that,
Wilfred Burchett is at present in Korea ... and readers of China's Feet
Unbound will look forward eagerly to the book he is now writing about the
heroic struggle of the Korean people against the U.S.A.–led imperialist war
with all the horror and brutality of frenzied capitalism already employing
bacteriological weapons and threatening the use of the atom bomb.
Flat Case 10
Korea
Russia declared war on Japan seven
days before the end of World War II. This enabled them to enter North Korea to
clear out the remaining Japanese forces. When the Japanese surrendered, the
Russians sealed off North Korea above the 38th parallel, and
appointed a Communist government. They left in 1948 after declaring a
Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
On 25th June 1950 the
Communist forces of North Korea pushed over the border and invaded South
Korea. The United Nations called upon the North Koreans to withdraw. When this
was ignored they asked member nations to send troops to assist the South. Most
of the troops were sent by the United States. The Communists captured Seoul
and pushed the allied troops south, but General Macarthur was able to
out-flank the North Koreans, re-capture Seoul, and cut-off the Communist
supply lines. The invading army collapsed and the southern forces pressed
north in the hope of re-uniting the country. However the Chinese Communist
forces intervened and pushed the allied forces back. Truce negotiations began
in July 1951, but fighting continued and it was not until 27 July 1953 that a cease-fire was agreed to. A demilitarized zone (DMZ) was
set up along the 38th parallel.
The northern
leader Kim il-Sung continued to engage in belligerent propaganda warfare while
armed forces faced each other across the DMZ. From time to time tunnels have
been found under the cease-fire line indicating the intention of the north to
infiltrate South Korea. In January 1968 North Korean commandos were captured
on a mission to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung Hee. They were
within a mile of the Presidential Palace.
The government
of the North has neglected the economic welfare of their people in favour of
military spending and under Kim Jong-il, Kim il-Sung's son, the siege
mentality continues to predominate. Formerly they could rely on support from
the USSR and China, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union and China's
changed economic priorities, for example, the Chinese established full
diplomatic ties with South Korea in August 1992, North Korea has become one of
the most isolated countries in the world.
116. Burchett, Wilfred G., 1911 -
This monstrous war /
Wilfred G. Burchett. (Melbourne : Joseph Waters, 1953) [cover art by Noel
Counihan]
Burchett gives the background to
Syngman Rhee's rise to power as the leader of South Korea, and his
relationship with the United States. He also justifies China's involvement. He
also devotes a chapter to the stories of germ warfare. In February 1952 the
North Korean Foreign Minister alleged that the Americans were dropping plague
and cholera infected insects in the North.
View virtual exhibition
117. Burchett, G. H. (George Harold)
That rascal Rhee! /
by G.H. Burchett. Also, Western wreckers of peace / by Victor James.
(Melbourne : The Unitarian Church Office, [1960?])
George Burchett was Wilfred's father. He was a Communist
like his son, and travelled to Russia, China and Korea.
Rhee had been a campaigner for Korean independence from
Japan in the period between the wars. He had been appointed President of the
Korean Provisional government in exile in 1919, a post he held until 1939. He
spent World War II in Washington, lobbying for his country's independence,
and, after the fall of Japan the United States returned him to Korea. He was
elected President in 1948.
He proved to be extremely dictatorial, silencing all
dissent, and was re-elected in 1952, 1956 and 1960. However, after the 1960
elections there were student demonstrations which spread to the general
community, and, when the national Assembly voted unanimously for his
dismissal, he resigned and went into exile in Hawaii.
118. Germ war in Korea?
([Melbourne] : Victorian Peace Council, [1952 or 1953])
The Victorian Peace Council was another Communist front
organisation. They set out here the evidence supporting the allegations
against the US forces. These seem to be entirely from Communist Chinese
experts, and there has long been a controversy on whether or not such attacks
took place or were simply another point in the propaganda war. However a
recent book, The United States and Biological
Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea
by Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman (Indiana University Press, 1998),
written after research into the US, Chinese and North Korean archives, makes a
case for the germ warfare attacks by America as having taken place as "black
ops", i.e. covert operations undertaken without the official knowledge of the
US government.
119. Secret tunnel under
Panmunjom : North Korea's third invasion passage discovered. (Seoul, Korea
: published by Korean Overseas Information Service, 1978)
During the 1970s three North Korean tunnels were discovered beneath the
Demilitarised Zone. These had apparently been dug to enable invasion forces to
surface behind the lines of the UN troops guarding the DMZ. This booklet gives
details of all three tunnels and of an attack by North Korean soldiers, armed
with axes against UN troops near Panmunjom.
View virtual exhibition
120. Axe-murders at Panmunjom, seen from abroad. (Seoul :
Korea Herald, 1976)
On 18th August 1976 a work party, escorted by
UN guards in the Joint Security Area of the DMZ, was attacked by North Korean
soldiers armed with axes. Two American officers were killed.
View virtual exhibition
121. Bestial atrocities of military fascist clique in South
Korea. (Pyongyang : Foreign Language, 1980)
This Communist propaganda pamphlet was published by the
North Koreans to capitalise on the brutal suppression of a student uprising at
Kwangju in South Korea in May 1980.
On 26th October 1979 General Park Chung Hee,
the ruler of South Korea had been assassinated by the Director of his secret
service. Choi Kyu Hah became Prime Minister but the country
was run by General Chun Doo Hwan. The students and dissidents were
demonstrating for full restoration of democracy; an end to what was
essentially a military dictatorship. The Junta however put down the dissent,
killing hundreds of students. They extended martial law, banned all political
activity and closed universities.
View virtual exhibition
Flat Case 11
Indonesia
All the materials in this case come from the Southeast
Asia Pamphlet collection within the Asian Studies Research Collection.
The Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist
Party), known as PKI, was formed in 1920, making it one of the oldest
communist parties in the world. It grew out of the Indische
Sociaal-Democratische Vereniging (Indies Social Democratic Union), founded in
1914 by Dutch socialists residing in the Dutch East Indies. In its early
years, many of its members also belonged to and sought influence through the
Islamist nationalist organisation, Sarekat Islam.
In 1926, the PKI attempted a revolt against Dutch rule in
West Java and West Sumatra but it was strongly suppressed by the Dutch
colonial army. Many thousands were killed and 13,000 were arrested and
interned, some of them in the notorious Dutch-built prison camp in Boven Digul
in West Irian. A further communist uprising took place 20 years later in
Madiun, East Java, this time against pro-Republican forces during the struggle
for independence against the Dutch. Again, it was strongly put down and many
were killed or arrested.
Notwithstanding these setbacks, the PKI was able to build
into a huge and influential mass movement during the 1950s and early 1960s
under its new, youthful leadership and the chairmanship of D.N. Aidit. In the
1955 election, the PKI won 16.4% of the national vote and became one of the
four big parties. Most its followers were in Java, where population density
and pressure on land were greatest. In 1960 the PKI had 2 million members and
five years later it had over 3 million members, making it the largest
communist party outside the communist countries. It had a further 15-20
million supporters through the membership of mass organisations affiliated
with it, such as trade unions, peasant leagues, teacher associations and
women's and youth bodies. It was a major legitimate force in Indonesian
politics, highly regarded by President Sukarno, and it supported the
government in power.
On 30 September 1965, an attempted coup involving members
of the Presidential guard resulted in the murder and mutilation of six top
army generals. The precise details of this event, which is commonly referred
to as G30S (short for Gerakan [Movement of] 30 September), are still unclear
but the coup was blamed on the communists and subsequently led to the
massacre, by the army, local militias and vigilantes, of well over ½ million
PKI members and supporters, and the imprisonment or exile to Buru Island, in
Maluku, of tens of 1000s of others. The coup enabled General Suharto to take
control of the government and subsequently become president. The PKI was
banned and communism was outlawed both as a movement and a doctrine. It is
only since the end of the Suharto regime in 1998 that the taboo over this
period in Indonesia's history and the stigma attached to former political
prisoners have begun to be lifted.
122. Aidit, D. N., d 1923-1965
Sendjata ditangan rakjat : Harian
Rakjat [Weapons in the hands of the people: the People's Daily] (Djakarta
: Harian Rakjat?, 1958?)
This pamphlet contains three speeches made by Indonesian
Communist Party chairman, D.N.Aidit, for the 5th, 6th
and 7th anniversaries respectively (in 1956, 1957 & 1958) of the
Party's newspaper, Harian Rakyat (People's Daily).
123. Aidit, D. N., d 1923-1965
PKI dan AURI [PKI and the Airforce
of the Republic of Indonesia] (Djakarta : Pembaruan, 1963)
By 1963 Aidit was a minister in the Indonesian government
and vice-chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly. This speech, on the
theme of 'Manipol-Usdek from the perspective of Marxism', was given to members
of the Indonesian Airforce. Manipol was the political manifesto of guided
democracy, the new form of government introduced by President Sukarno in 1957.
The initials USDEK stood for the 1945 constitution, Indonesian socialism,
guided democracy, guided economy and Indonesian identity (Undang-undang dasar
1945, Sosialisme ala Indonesia, Demokrasi terpimipin, Ekonomi terpimipin,
Kepribadian Indonesia).
124. Aidit, D. N., d 1923-1965.
Hajo, ringkus dan ganjang
kontra-revolusi! : pidato ulangtahun ke-43 PKI diutjapkan…pada tanggal 26 Mei
1963 [Come, let us catch and crush the counter-revolution: a speech on the
43rd anniversary of the PKI] (Djakarta : Pembaruan, 1963)
This pamphlet and some others in the display bear the
stamp of Garuda Book Services in Glebe, Sydney, which imported and sold
Indonesian language books in Australia in the 1960s.
View virtual exhibition
125. Aidit, D. N., 1923-1965.
Kaum tani mengganjang setan-setan desa
: laporan singkat tentang hasil riset mengenai keadaan kaum tani dan gerakan
tani Djawa Barat [Farmers crush the devils of the village: a short report
on results of research into the situation of farmers and the farmers' movement
in West Java.] (Djakarta : Pembaruan, 1964)
The research for this report was carried out over a
7-week period by Aidit and a team of 40 researchers, each of whom was assisted
by a team of local farmers.
View virtual exhibition
126. Aidit, D. N., d 1923-1965
Aidit menggugat peristiwa Madiun :
pembelaan D.N. Aidit dimuka Pengadilan Negeri Djakarta, tgl. 24 Februari 1955
[Aidit confronts the Madiun Affair: D.N. Aidit's defence before the Jakarta
court, 24 February 1955] (Djakarta : Pembaruan, 1964)
This pamphlet, which contains Aidit's defence of the 1948
Madiun uprising (commonly known as the Madiun Affair), went into four
printings. The first came out in March 1955 and the fourth - displayed here
- in October 1964.
127. Peraturan dasar "GERWANI" [Regulations of
the Indonesian Women's Movement] (Djakarta : Dewan Pimpinan Pusat GERWANI,
1954)
Gerwani, which stands for Gerakan Wanita Indonesia
(Indonesian Women's Movement), was affiliated with the PKI and. by 1963
claimed 1.5 million members. The opening sentence of this booklet reads:
"Up until now, Indonesian women continue to be victims of exploitation and
discrimination that exceed all limits."
128. Pemilihan umum untuk pemerintah koalisi
national : resolusi Politbiro CCPKI [General election for a national
coalition government: resolutions of the Politbureau of the Central Committee
of the PKI] (Djakarta : Depagitprop CC PKI, 1955)
The cover of this booklet is inscribed with the name of
its donor, the late Professor Herb Feith. Feith was one of the founders of the
Centre of Southeast Asian Studies at Monash University in 1964 and was
instrumental in developing Monash University's international reputation as a
centre for the study of Indonesia. This booklet, which is marked up by Feith,
would have been used in researching one of his seminal works, The decline
of constitutional democracy in Indonesia (1962).
129. 40 Tahun P.K.I. 1920 - 1960 [40 years of
the PKI, 1920-1960] / lukisan-lukisan oleh Kuntjijono, Martian Segara, Djoni
Trisno, Tarmizi, dll. (Djakarata : Lembaga Sedjarah PKI dari Departenem
Agitasi dan Propaganda CC PKI, 1960)
This album of photographs, drawings and writings
documents the first 40 years of the PKI because "the masses of the people…need
inspiration from history" and "falsification, distortion, filth, slander, and
treachery have long obscured the history of the Communist Party of Indonesia
as dust clouds a mirror."
View virtual exhibition
130. Harian "API" mengganjang Nekolim - PKI - Gestapu / disusun oleh Dewan Redakasi
API. ["Api" crushes Nekolim, the PKI
and Gestapu] (Djakarta : Merdeka Press, 1965)
The anti-PKI magazine, Api (Fire), first appeared in the aftermath of and
as a response to the G30s coup. This collection of unsigned articles and
cartoons, compiled by the editorial team of 'Api', is dedicated
to the memory of the murdered generals. The first article in the book was
written on 1 October 1965. "Nekolim" stands for Neo-colonialism, Colonialism
and Imperialism, and was a slogan of the guided democracy era. "Gestapu" was
an alternative name for G30S (GErakan September TigAPUluh) and deliberately
alluded to the Gestapo of Nazi Germany.
View virtual exhibition
131. Sutjipto, 1926-
Gerakan 30 September :
perebutan kekuasaan, bahan studi untuk pengamanan dan pengamalan revolusi 17
Agustus 1945 [Movement of 30 September: the struggle for power, study
material for securing and implementing the revolution of 17 August 1945] /
karya Brig. Djen. Sutjipto SH. (Djakarta : Matoa, 1966)
Written by an army general, this book presents the army's
perspective on the coup and the PKI.
View virtual exhibition
132. Masalah pembubaran PKI [The issue of the
dissolution of the PKI]/ disusun oleh Dewan Redaksi Merdeka (Djakarta :
Merdeka Press, 1966)
Small
upright case
Literature
133. Lane, William, 1861-1917.
The workingman's paradise : an Australian labour
novel / by John Miller. (Sydney : Edwards, Dunlop & Co. ; Brisbane :
Worker Board of Trustees, 1892)
Lane wrote this novel in the aftermath of the Queensland
shearers' strike of 1891. He intended any profits to be used to help the
shearers who were still in jail,
If this book assists the
Union Prisoners Assistance Fund in any way or if it brings to a single man or
woman a clearer conception of the religion of Socialism it will have done its
work (p. iv)
The action takes place in Sydney where Ned, a Queensland
bushman meets Nell, a Sydney dressmaker, based on Mary Gilmore. Nell shows Ned
the poor areas of Sydney and introduces him to radical intellectuals who
introduce him to Marxism and socialism. At the end he leaves to return to
Queensland to confront Capitalism and organise the Shearers' Strike.
There is an advertisement in the back of the book for a
forthcoming sequel which was never published, In New Australia : Nellie
Lawton's diary of a happier life. It was to have described life in Cosme,
the settlement in Paraguay, which Lane and Mary Gilmore both helped to
establish.
In New Australia will not detail a mere dream. In a popular way, continuing the story of
Ned Hawkins and Nellie Lawton, it will deal with the scheme for complete
co-operation on which the New Australia Co-operative Settlement Association is
based. This scheme has been discussed for years among well-known unionists and
experienced labour organisers and subjected to the severest criticism by the
very men who are now prepared to devote their lives to it in the interest of
the Labour movement. … Nearly 500,000 acres are under offer to the Association
in one of the most fertile and suitable parts of the world, which immense
tract is being prospected by its own agents; sufficient to carry 50,000 people
happily under intelligent management.
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134. Bellamy, Edward, 1850-1898.
Looking backward 2000-1887 / by Edward
Bellamy. New ed. (London : Ward, Lock and Co. [1890?])
This was first published in Boston in 1888, the first
English edition being 1889. It was very popular and at least four English
editions had appeared by 1890.
Bellamy was a radical journalist. His novel is set in the
future. The hero, Julian West goes to sleep in 1887 and awakes in 2000, with
the world a socialist paradise, where "no man any more has any care for the
morrow, either for himself or his children, for the nation guarantees the
nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the
cradle to the grave." The transition had occurred without revolution. It was "a triumph of common sense", with people gradually realising that the way to
cure the ills of the world was for everyone to have equality, with the
nation's wealth under the control of a "national syndicate".
The novel was widely-read in radical circles around the
world. The Socialist Labor Party of Australia published an edition in January
1942.
View virtual exhibition
135. Orwell, George, 1903-1950.
Animal farm / [by] George Orwell. (New York :
Harcourt, Brace and company, 1946)
Animal Farm was first published in England in
1945. It is probably the most famous novel written to criticise the Communist
regime in Russia. The novel is an allegory in which the animals rise up
against the farmer and take over the farm, setting up their own society where
all are equal. However, things develop in such a way that the pigs become the
leaders and one pig, Napoleon, the Stalin figure, soon becomes dictator.
View virtual exhibition
136. Hardy, Frank, 1917 -
Power without glory : a novel in three parts / by Frank J. Hardy,
"Ross Franklyn." 1st ed. (Melbourne : Realist Printing and Publishing, 1950)
Frank Hardy joined the Communist Party in 1940, after it
had been declared illegal by the Menzies-led United Australia Party
government. Power without glory was Hardy's first novel. It was printed
clandestinely, partly because it dealt critically with the life of John Wren,
a powerful figure in Melbourne. When it appeared it was sold at factories and
building sites and copies were passed from hand to hand. It became enormously
popular, but Wren took Hardy to court on a charge of criminal libel; the case
being based on the portrayal of his wife Ellen, who is described having an
affair in the novel. The Communist Party organised the Frank Hardy Defence
Committee and Hardy was found not guilty.
On display is a copy of the book with its dust-wrapper by
Ambrose Dyson, and another copy showing the typed key to the real characters
behind the thinly-veiled names used by Hardy in his book. These "Keys" appear
in varying forms tipped-in to many of the early editions of the book. Dave Nadel later published a complete list, with photographs, as a supplement to
The Battler 4 August 1976, to coincide with the ABC TV series.
View virtual exhibition
137. Hardy, Frank.
But the dead are many : a novel in fugue form / Frank Hardy. (London : Bodley Head, 1975)
If Power without glory was Hardy's most successful novel, But the Dead are Many was his most ambitious. It deals with a member of the Australian Communist Party, John Morel, who becomes disillusioned with life after he realises the repression and hypocrisy of the Russian Communist model. He ends by committing suicide.
Although the character is based on Paul Mortier, Hardy has created a figure who carries many of the concerns of CPA members in the 1950s and 1960s; particularly how a committed, idealistic Communist should respond to the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and the details of the show trials of the 1930s, which were made public under Khrushchev.
The cover is by Charles Blackman.
View virtual exhibition
138. Mortier, Paul.
Art : its origins and social functions / by Paul Mortier. (Sydney : Current Book Distributors, 1955)
Paul Mortier was an ex-seminarian who had joined the Communist Party in 1939, just prior to the war. He met Hardy when they were both in the Army, stationed in the Northern Territory. They remained friends, but neither Hardy nor any of the other CPA members who knew of Paul's depression were able to prevent him committing suicide in September 1965. Pauline Armstrong gives more detail on this period and the relationship between the two men in her book, Frank Hardy and the making of Power without glory (Carlton South, Vic. : Melbourne University Press, 2000) p. 174-182.
The pamphlet on display deals with the relationship of art to politics. In the
"Introduction" Paul Mortier states his intention. He dismisses the artists who espouse the belief,
"No politics in art", and gives what is essentially the party line.
These theories are a reflection of the general crisis gripping monopoly capitalism. They have a two way harmful effect: They degrade art, by squeezing out of it its historic function of helping man in his struggle for emancipation; and they aim to isolate the working people from art, and this deprive them of a very valuable weapon in their social struggles.
It is the aim of this pamphlet to help defeat these rotten ideas, and to help find the correct way to use art in the struggle against imperialism and for the building of socialism. (p. 5)
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139. Dark, Eleanor, 1901-1985.
The little company / by Eleanor Dark. (New York : Macmillan, 1945)
Set in Sydney during World War II, this novel deals with a group of intellectuals centring on Gilbert Massey a left-wing bookseller. Marxism, socialism and communism are the predominant ideologies in the air, set against the threat of invasion.
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140. Cusack, Dymphna, 1902-1981.
Southern steel / Dymphna Cusack. (London : Constable, 1953)
Like Eleanor Dark, Dymphna Cusack was a committed
socialist. Though not a member of the Communist Party, her books were
translated into various European languages and sold well in the Eastern bloc.
Southern steel is set in Newcastle and deals with
labour conflicts and class antagonism. The illustration on the dust-wrapper is
a masterpiece of socialist-realist art, showing the young couple embracing
against a background of smoke stacks and a steel mill.
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141. Strife. (Melbourne : A.E. Pearl, 1930) Vol. 1, no. 1 (13 Oct., 1930) only issue published.
This journal was edited by the 19-year-old Judah Waten, who was later to become one of the foremost Communist novelists in Australia. It includes poetry, reviews and articles. Among the poems are
"The song of the hammer and sickle" by Seamus O'Rourke, and "Jesus Christ in an ash tray" by Impius IX. This poem was in fact by Brian Fitzpatrick, and caused the magazine to be confiscated. No further issues appeared.
The manifesto under which the magazine appeared has the strident tone of the radical adolescent,
"STRIFE," is another force added to the world-wide movement to uproot the existing social and economic order of chaotic and tragic individualism!
INSTITUTIONS that represent this must be destroyed, and, on the newly-turned soil of free human aspiration, a nobler edifice erected.
ALL WHO DENY THIS MECHANISM of progress are our enemies; all who await impatiently the new dawn our comrades! All who accept the permanence of the present regime, whether as protagonists or complacent nay-sayers and futilists, are our foes. All who believe in the permanence and validity of conscious and creative liberating energy, our blood brothers and friends!
"STRIFE" affirms the validity of materialism in its widest sense. It affirms that, as the future belongs to the people, the new form and content must be a proletarian form and content!
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APPEAL
On this broad basis we
appeal to the people of Australia, both industrial and intellectual workers,
whose revolt we embody, to further our aims. The columns of "STRIFE" are wide
open to all who feel and can express forcefully and really this SPIRIT OF
REVOLT.
The sinews of war, in the
form of cash contributions, small or great, are urgently needed. We are
confident that the advance guard of the NEW AUSTRALIA will not be niggardly in
providing this publication, its first and most vital medium of expression,
with the means of carrying its CAUSE a step further on its march through the
long and stressful hours that herald the COMING DAWN. The attack has already
sounded! Forward.
THE BOARD OF EDITORS.
The cover design of a man inside an industrial pipe is a
lino-cut by H. McClintock.
142. Australian new writing : short stories, poetry, criticism. (Sydney : Current Book Distributors, 1943-1946)
This journal of short stories, poetry and criticism was
published in a format based on the English series, Penguin New Writing.
Although the English publication was more or less left-wing, its Australian
equivalent was published by the Communist Party; Current Book Distributors was
their publishing imprint; and the editorial board, Katherine Susannah
Prichard, George Farwell and Bernard Smith were all party members. The content
is unrelenting in its socialist realism and the publication ceased after four
issues.
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Screens
Three posters of Chairman Mao in the "Accordion to Mao"
series by Melbourne artists, Ian Robertson.
Copies of Chinese Communist posters from the period of
the Cultural Revolution. We have an extensive collection of originals of the
posters from this period.
Copies of Soviet propaganda posters, and posters from May
1968 in France.
Corridor
Cases
Left Book
Club
The familiar books bound in red paper-covered boards, and
yellow dust-wrappers, or in the orange limp cloth of Gollancz Left Book Club
have been staples on the shelves of radical households for over half a
century. They were published from May 1936 to October 1948. There was no
formal link to the Communist Party of Great Britain although many of their
books were on Communist themes or were written in support of Soviet policy.
Communists such as Harry Pollitt, also spoke on the Club platforms.
Among the most noteworthy Left Book Club publications
were George Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier, which appeared as the Left
Book Club choice for March 1937; and The socialist sixth of the world,
by Hewlett Johnson, the choice for December 1939. Hewlett Johnson, the "Red
Dean" of Canterbury was a notorious figure in his day. He wrote widely on
social issues such as unemployment but always held up the Soviet model of
Communism as the solution. Beatrice and Sidney Webb's Soviet Communism: a
new civilisation appeared in October 1937, in the same month as Edgar
Snow's Red star over China.
The Communist Party of Australia helped promote the
series and was involved in the discussion groups organised to encourage
readers.
We have large holdings of them, and a selection is on
display. This includes some of the promotional fliers.
Also on display are titles from the Right Book Club.
Their titles appeared in a blue binding; the series was never a popular
success. There was an Australian Left Book Club, which ran from 1939 to 1947
and published books and pamphlets on issues such as slum housing and
monopolies. Some of their publications are also on display.
References
Davidson, Alastair.
The Communist Party of
Australia : a short history. (Stanford, Calif. : Hoover Institution Press,
[1969])
Macintyre, Stuart, 1947 -
The reds : the Communist
Party of Australia from origins to illegality / Stuart Macintyre. (Sydney
: Allen & Unwin, 1998)
Symons, Beverley.
Communism in Australia : a resource bibliography / compiled by Beverley Symons with Andrew Wells and Stuart Macintyre. ([Canberra] : National Library of Australia, 1994)
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