Social democracy
After 1952, as the Cold War split developed in the Labor Party, and
Communist Party leader Lance Sharkey published a pamphlet about that
conflict, the CPA also paid great attention to developments in the ALP.
It encouraged the development of a Labor left, which was frequently
under its influence, although this influence was sometimes challenged by
smaller groups of Trotskyists.
For most of its history, the CPA did not afford itself the luxury
practised by most current Marxist sects of treating the Labor Party, its
leadership and ranks as an undifferentiated reactionary whole. Neither
did the pioneer Trotskyists in Australia, for most of their period of
activity, adopt such an unscientific attitude towards the Labor Party.
A recently published book, Local Labor, by Michael Hogan, about the ALP
in the inner-Sydney suburb of Glebe, notes that one group of
Trotskyists, led by Joe Boxall, entered the Labor Party as early as
1937. Most socialists of the Marxist sort have taken developments in the
Labor Party very seriously, and the current sectarianism of the Marxist
sects towards Laborism is an aberration. It is a serious error given the
still massive grip of the ALP and the unions on the working class and
the left half of Australian society.
One weakness of David McKnight’s chapter is that he doesn’t discuss the
Australian Labor League of Youth, of which the CPA won the leadership
during its entry work in the Labor Party.
The ALLY, a large organisation, was the vehicle for the recruitment of
hundreds, and possibly thousands, of activists to the CPA’s version of
the socialist movement. Many of the activists who sustained the CPA for
the next 20 or 30 years were recruited from the ALLY. There is some
description of this activity in Audrey Blake’s autobiography, A
Proletarian Life.
«It cannot be expected that those Social-Democratic workers who are
under the influence of the ideology of class collaboration with the
bourgeoisie… will break with this ideology of their own accord, by the
actions of objective causes alone. No. It is our business, the business
of Communists, to help them free themselves from reformist ideology….
there is no more effective way for overcoming the doubts and hesitations
of Social Democratic workers than by their participation in the
proletarian united front.»
In 1935, the Communist International made a sharp turn in its political
outlook opening a period designated as the «popular front against
fascism». Previously it had described even social-democratic and labor
parties as «social fascist», arguing that they were little different
from fascist parties because they supported capitalism. This line proved
disastrous especially for the German Communist Party (KPD) but also for
Europe as a whole. As the strength of Hitler’s National Socialists grew,
the communists and Social Democrats fought each other, rather than
uniting. The shock of Hitler’s appointment in January 1933 as Chancellor
of Germany and the defeat of the German communists led to the calling of
the Seventh World Congress of Comintern.
At the congress, the new Secretary of the Communist International,
Georgii Dimitrov, outlined the dramatic shift. The choice of Dimitrov as
Secretary was significant. Dimitrov had recently been accused by
Hitler’s government of trying to burn the Reichstag. «During the trial,
in several exchanges between Dimitrov and Herman Goering the Nazi leader
lost his temper and shouted threats of what his men would do to Dimitrov
once they had him outside the court. Dimitrov’s replies were quiet,
reasonable and courageous. He presented the Communist movement as the
defender of the values of Western civilisation – especially of
rationality and the rule of law.» At the Congress, Dimitrov acknowledged
certain mistakes by communists including an «impermissable
underestimation of the fascist danger» and a «narrow sectarian
attitude». To defeat fascism it was necessary to form a united front of
all workers, regardless of their political party stance.
«The Communist International puts no conditions for unity of action
except one, and that an elementary condition acceptable to all workers,
viz., that the unity of action be directed against fascism, against the
offensive of capital, against the threat of war, against the class
enemy. That is our condition.»
There was also a new liberality in the application of the line which
would take «various forms in various countries, depending upon the
condition and character of the workers’ organisations and their
political level, upon the situation in the particular country». Even
within fascist Germany it was necessary to organise, said Dimitrov,
invoking the capture of Troy: «the attacking army… was unable to achieve
victory until, with the aid of the famous Trojan Horse it managed to
penetrate to the very heart of the enemy’s camp». Instead of
denunciations of «social fascists» Dimitrov referred to «the… camp of
Left Social Democrats (without quotation marks)».
The strategy of the popular front has been widely examined by historians
of the communist movement and it is now being re-discussed in the light
of new archival sources. In France and Spain where a communist party was
relatively strong it sought a formal alliance with the social democratic
and anti-fascist parties, usually in the form of a Peoples’ Front. In
the English-speaking world where it was usually smaller, as in Australia
or the United States, it appears to have used a different strategy. This
involved the creation of an underground group within the main Labor or
Social Democratic party. In the US, the CPUSA inititally tried to create
a left-wing, third party as an alternative to the Democratic and
Republican parties. To this end they were active in Minnesota’s
Farmer-Labor Party, Wisconsin’s Progressive Party, the campaign to End
Poverty in California (EPIC), the American Labor Party in New York and
radical groups in Washington and Oregon. In the context of the
Depression a number of these groups garnered significant voter support,
particularly the Farmer-Labor Party. Whether these groups would have
united and run candidates against Democrats, especially Roosevelt, is
doubtful. But the CPUSA’s putative strategy was abandoned after the
Comintern advised that support for Roosevelt was more important, largely
because of the needs of Soviet foreign policy. These hitherto unknown
strategies of covert penetration were closely watched by the
Anglo-American Secretariat of the Comintern, which hoped to influence
national governments formed by social democratic parties in the
direction of collective security with the USSR.
The newly released archives of the Communist International and the
records of the now-disbanded Communist Party of Australia provide
evidence for such a political strategy in Australia. After the change in
political direction represented by the Seventh Congress in 1935 the
Communist Party of Australia (CPA) began to recruit members of the
Australian Labor Party (ALP). Rather than urging them to leave the ALP,
these new communists were asked to remain inside the Labor Party and
became undercover members. By 1939, these dual members, allied with the
indigenous, non-communist left wing had ousted the leadership and took
control of the largest and most politically powerful of the six state
branches of the ALP, that of New South Wales (NSW). Two covert CPA
members became senior officers of Labor in NSW, one of them the General
Secretary. In the state of Western Australia, where a similar strategy
was followed, a secret member of the Communist Party became a member of
federal parliament. The growing success of this strategy in Australia
was halted after the Soviet-German NonAggression Pact. The pact provoked
a series of events in which the undercover communist wing split the NSW
branch of the ALP and formed the «State Labor Party». While this split
helped deny Labor office in the national elections of September 1940,
the communist presence also deflected plans for a wartime government of
national unity of Labor and conservatives.
Historians’ knowledge of this significant aspect of the Seventh Congress
policies is scanty. When a communist presence in the Labor Party is
acknowledged it is invariably minimised. No historian of Australian
Labor has understood either the depth of CPA penetration nor its
origins. Most assume that some kind of communist presence must have
existed because the communist-led State Labor Party ultimately
amalgamated with the Communist Party of Australia in January 1944.
The evolution of the CPA’s strategy toward the Labor Party began with a
1935 proposal discussed by the Political Bureau of the CPA, which stated
that it was advisable «to organise Left-wing movements in the Labor
Party in order to fight for the united front proposals» and to urge
«members of the Labor Party who join the Communist Party [to] retain
their membership in the Labor Party and carefully work for united front
proposals». In a report to the CPA congress in 1935, CPA leader Lance
Sharkey argued that in addition to joint trade union activity «[i] t is
also possible that certain of the Party members go into the Labor Party
to work in such a way that all leftward elements in the Labor Party are
brought to the leadership in order to ensure the acceptance of the
proposals of the united front».
The change towards Popular Front policies coincided with, and perhaps
contributed to, a series of union successes for the CPA, which were
reported in detail to the Comintern. In 1935–36, communists won the
leadership of unions in the railways, mining, maritime and metal
industries. More than this, the CPA itself was growing. A report to
Comintern noted: «The outstanding feature of our latest recruits is the
number who have previously been leading activists of the ALP and are at
present leading trade union activists.» Further, «our successes in the
trade unions, to a large degree are due to these comrades who have great
authority and were already minor trade union officials prior to joining
our party».
Within the labour movement, both the CPA and the ALP members shared a
common culture. They spoke the same language, worked alongside each
other and both held socialism to be the goal, albeit to be achieved by
different roads. This had always been so but with the more liberal
policies of the Seventh Congress this shared culture meant a steady
stream of recruits as well as union election successes for the CPA.
These communist victories in trade unions had a direct impact on the
power balance within the Australian Labor Party because unions were
affiliated to the party and directly represented in Labor congresses.
The CPA success in trade union elections and in recruitment of ALP
members hooked something of a prize catch in the shape of one talented
union official, Jack Hughes. At the time of his recruitment in 1935,
Hughes, was an assistant secretary of the Federated Clerks Union. In
1936 he won an official position on the Labor Council of New South
Wales, which was the umbrella group for all unions and which played a
key role within the Labor Party machine.
Yet on the surface, 1936 was a year in which Labor splits healed. Since
1931 two Labor Parties had existed in New South Wales. One supported the
NSW-based Jack Lang and the other allied to the federal Labor Party.
Jack Lang was a former NSW state premier who commanded a mass following
in Sydney and other parts of New South Wales. A demogogue and fiery
speech-maker, Lang had clashed with the banks at the height of the
Depression, then been dismissed as state Premier by the Governor, a
relic of Australia’s colonial past.
The early 1930s saw Lang establish political supremacy within Labor,
defeating the weaker «Federal Labor Party». By 1936 a tenuous
re-marriage was concluded between the two parties. This prompted Lang to
try to increase his dominance. His first target was the radio station
owned by the trade union council, the NSW Labor Council.
The Sydney-based radio station 2KY had been set up in 1925 as «first
labour radio station in the western world». Lang urged the Council to
integrate it with the Labor Daily newspaper, which he controlled, a move
designed to entrench his own political power. The Sydney newspaper,
Truth, summed up Lang’s move:
Two great assets of the NSW Labor Party – the 2KY wireless station and
the Labor Daily – are plums for which many people have hungrily licked
their lips. Some have been able to take a bite, but nobody – yet – has
been able to snatch them for their own, their very own. Mr Lang is now
trying to pluck these golden plums.
Truth’s description of the «chilly, alert atmosphere» of the Labor
Council when Lang addressed it on 2KY was an indication of the storm
which would gather strength over the next three years. The communists,
both overt and covert, and the non-communist left wing opposed Lang’s
move to integrate the radio station with the newspaper and, to
widespread surprise, his plan was defeated.
In August 1936 the unions in the Labor Council called what would be the
first of many meetings to oppose Lang’s control of the party machine.
Lang immediately expelled four members of parliament, 17 union officials
and a number of others. «This lit the fire,» recalled Hughes many years
later.
In December 1936 another major conference of anti-Lang unions and ALP
branches was held. By this time it was clear that Lang was also trying
to entrench his total control of the Labor Daily. In the preceding
months the militant unions had begun to organise the union shareholders
to vote against Lang directors on the newspaper’s board. But after the
ballot opened, it became clear that Lang’s men had systematically tried
to rig the vote. Ballot papers disappeared, others never arrived at
union offices. On Christmas Eve 1936 the result of the ballot for
directors was due to be announced but before that could be done the
Miners’ Federation began a legal challenge to the conduct of the ballot.
In the following year, 1937, a pending federal election led to an uneasy
peace in the factional warfare. In June the four expelled MPs were
readmitted to the NSW branch after demands from the federal ALP
executive. The anti-Lang dissidents continued to mobilise although Lang
remained firmly in control of the state party machine. In October the
factional warfare revived. Labor had lost the federal election and in
the Labor Daily case the Equity Court largely accepted the anti-Lang
unions’ claim that their board candidates each gained an average of
19,000 votes to the Lang unions’ 14,000. On appeal the full court
partially reversed this result but it was clear, as anti-Lang unionists
pointed out, that «future ballots will result in Mr Lang’s influence
being completely destroyed».
In 1937 the anti-Lang forces had formalised their opposition to Lang by
creating a nameless seven person committee to direct their struggle.
Later that year it appointed a full time organiser, Walter Evans. Evans
had been a member of the ALP state executive in 1932 and also a member
of the left wing of the Labor Party. By 1937 Evans had become an
undercover member of the CPA. As dual members of the CPA and ALP, Hughes
and Evans would lead the growing anti-Lang struggle within the NSW
branch of the Labor Party for the next two years.
Throughout the period Hughes remained in contact with the CPA largely
through Ernest Knight, the CPA official who was responsible for party
work among the trade unions in Sydney. Knight had a nondescript office
in near the dockside in Sydney unadorned by any sign. Hughes, as a
Clerks’ Union official, excited no attention by visiting Knight’s office
as he did hundreds of other city offices to collect membership dues. As
an increasingly significant Labor Council official, Hughes could also
regularly visit all leftwing unions and thereby keep in touch with
leading CPA trade union officials. On one level there was no secrecy at
all about the growing alliance between CPA members and the anti-Lang
Labor forces. At the weekly meetings of the NSW Labor Council this
co-operation occurred in public. As well, there appears to have been at
least two types of dual membership of the ALP and CPA. While Hughes’
membership was «deep cover», other communists’ allegiances were not so
hidden. The editor of the miners’ union newspaper, Edgar Ross, who was a
member of the Botany ALP branch, recalled that his CPA membership was
known to non-communist anti-Lang ALP members.
In the following years the organisation of the communist underground in
the ALP became more systematic and was directed by the CPA Political
Bureau which met every six weeks. Both Hughes and Edgar Ross (the most
senior surviving dual members) state that they did not know the identity
of all the dual members in the ALP but their identities must have been
known to the CPA Political Bureau. Both Hughes and Ross later minimised
the degree of organised CPA activity within the ALP and claim that there
was never a fraction meeting of this group or any other defined
organisational expression. Yet minutes of the Political Bureau clearly
record such a meeting.
In February 1938 the anti-Lang forces tasted victory, when they took
possession of the offices of the Labor Daily. Behind the scenes the
Political Bureau of the CPA discussed the situation and devised «a plan
covering the taking over of the Labor Daily and replacement of various
members of the staff». The price of victory was the repayment of a loan
which Lang had earlier made to the newspaper. The Labor Council decided
to make a clean break and to change the format and name of the
newspaper. What emerged in late 1938 was the Daily News. To bankroll
this undertaking Hughes called on a rather unusual source. For some time
Hughes had been cultivated by the general manager of the Bank of New
South Wales, Sir Alfred Davidson, a forward-looking banker who made a
habit of selecting and promoting talented young people. Davidson had
been appalled by Lang’s hostility to the banks while Premier and made
overtures to Lang’s enemies on both the right and left. For example,
Davidson paid for an organising tour by Hughes of interstate trade union
centres when the anti-Lang forces were trying to influence the ALP
federal executive. Davidson apparently looked on Hughes as a possible
national Labor leader with whom he could garner some influence. In
establishing the Daily News Hughes used his influence with Davidson to
get a substantial bank loan. A version of the Hughes-Davidson
relationship appeared in Lang’s autobiography in which Lang said that in
1938 Davidson invited the visiting British Labour figure, Ernest Bevin,
to a dinner with Hughes, Evans, Lloyd Ross and F. O’Neill, all Labor
dissidents. At the time, however, Hughes’ contact with Sir Alfred
Davidson was by no means public. The unusual alliance between a
communist and a top banker was one of the odd consequences of the CPA’s
underground work in the Labor Party.
The growing CPA influence within the Labor Party was of great interest
to the Communist International largely because of its wider world
campaign against isolationism and in favour of collective security. From
July to November 1937 the Anglo-American secretariat of Comintern held a
series of discussions on «the Australian Question» and spent
considerable time on the closely intertwined issues of foreign policy
and the position of the Labor Party. Among those present were the French
Comintern leader Andre Marty and the British representative, Robin Page
Arnot, as well as CPA Political Bureau members Richard Dixon and Jack
Blake.
To achieve a collective security pact linking the Soviet Union to
Britain, the election of Labor administrations in countries of the
British Empire was crucial. To achieve this the CPA worked to strengthen
anti-fascist feeling in the society generally but in particular to use
its secret members in the Labor Party to change its isolationist policy.
In early July Dixon addressed the Anglo-American Secretariat arguing
that Australia’s main responsibility was to work for a change in British
policy, which was then both warlike and opposed to collective security
involving the Soviet Union. Change was possible because «the British
Government is sensitive to Dominion pressure». To «bring about such a
rupture with this Empire front on foreign policy, it is essential to
defeat the Lyons government and elect a Labor government». Dixon noted
that Lang’s group was dominated «by the Catholic element» and that this
was the reason that the Labor Party had made no declaration on Spain,
although the trade unions on the NSW Labor Council had. Dixon summed up
as follows:
Just a few words about our views on the question of influencing the
Labor Government should it be elected. Our first line is that we expect
to bring pressure to bear on the Labor Government through the trade
union movement. Secondly, our line is to bring about a plan of getting
as many Communists as possible within the LP. The Party in New South
Wales has one or two Communists in the LP Executive. In Victoria out of
46 organisations, we have about 34 in which we have Communist
organisation. At the same time we are trying to get direct union
representation at the LP conference. This would mean we would probably
control in the future the LP conference.
In spite of the CPA’s growing successes with this tactic, Andre Marty
made a number of wrong-headed criticisms. He began by criticising the
strong trade union roots of the CPA though this was the very thing which
had given it such strength in the Labor Party. Marty argued that this
meant the CPA was tainted with anarcho-syndicalism. «[T] he whole
leadership is composed of trade union functionaries,» he complained.
Anarcho-syndicalism led to a neglect of political work, as opposed to
union work, and was one explanation for the lack of growth of the CPA,
he said. Marty reiterated Dixon’s point on peace and collective
security. Australia had the potential to affect global politics through
the election of a Labor government which would in turn affect British
foreign policy. «The power of the Dominions – Canada, Australia, New
Zealand – is very high. They must speak and [then?] they can change the
policy of the British Government with the help of the British working
class.» In the Pacific, peace through collective security was necessary
as a defence against Japanese aggression.
A similar point was argued by another member of the Anglo-American
Secretariat, Mehring, who argued that in order to defeat Labor
neutralism, the CPA should «show that Australia is being threatened by
the aggression of Japan». The CPA’s later targetting of the export of
Australian scrap iron to Japan was to crystalise much of the debate over
foreign policy both within Labor and Australia more generally. Bans on
Japanese ships culminated in a major confrontation in December 1938 when
the CPA influenced waterside workers refused to load iron bound for
Japan. Though the iron was eventually loaded, the bitter dispute threw
into sharp relief the communists’ policy of sanctions versus the
neutralism of federal Labor.
In 1938 the CPA’s dual-track strategy of working within and outside the
Labor Party began to pay dividends. In spite of the loss of the Labor
Daily Lang remained in control of the NSW Labor Party but had led the
ALP to another defeat in the March 1938 elections. The Federal Executive
of the ALP began to sniff the wind as the power base of the mighty Lang
slowly ebbed away. In early 1939 the Federal Executive finally acted
decisively. It decided on a «Unity Conference» of the Lang and anti-Lang
groups to resolve the split. The February meeting of the Central
Committee of the CPA was addressed by Hughes and Evans, at that stage
nominally prominent Labor figures. In May the CPA executive held a
meeting with its Labor Party fraction, which discussed the coming Unity
Conference at length. The meeting concluded that the emergence of a
parliamentary-based «centre party» was crucial to the outcome of the
conference and resolved to «strive to the utmost» to work with them. It
also decided to fight to alter the basis of representation of unions and
branches. Both aims would be achieved and both proved crucial to the
outcome of the conference.
The Unity Conference inspired by the Federal Executive finally took
place on August 26–27, 1939. While Lang glowered from the public gallery
the result on the conference floor soon showed the anti-Lang forces were
in control. Hughes moved the key resolution structuring the future
organisation of the party, which won 221 to 153. Shortly afterwards fist
fights broke out in the gallery and order had to be restored. The
conference put undercover CPA members in key roles on the executive.
Jack Hughes became Vice-President (an office he held simultaneously with
the powerful Presidency of the New South Wales Labor Council) and Walter
Evans became General Secretary of the NSW branch of the ALP. A week
later Hughes conducted a ballot for parliamentary leader and a rebel
from the Lang camp, William McKell, finally toppled Lang.
It is one of the ironies of politics and history, that a moment of
triumph is often followed by an inexorable plunge into disaster. During
the Unity Conference there had occurred what seemed at the time merely a
minor disruption. A delegate unsuccessfully proposed the suspension of
standing orders to discuss the international position. But the chance
for a debate was brutally cut short by uproar when he explained his
motive. He wished to move a resolution «expressing abhorrence with the
onward march of fascism» and viewing with disgust the signing of the
German-Russian NonAggression Pact. Criticism of Russia was guaranteed to
provoke loud opposition from the anti-Lang Left. However, defence of
this pact became the seed of destruction, which would destroy both the
CPA’s influence and the strength of the broader Left within the NSW
branch of the Labor Party for decades to come.
The NonAggression Pact was quickly followed by a German invasion of
Poland, which was then divided between the USSR and Germany. On
September 3, Britain, which had undertaken to assist Poland, declared
war on Germany. Initially, however, due to poor communication with the
USSR and following the logic of the united front the CPA and its
undercover Labor fraction boldly declared their support for Britain’s
war against fascism. In a radio broadcast for a federal byelection in
the seat of Hunter, Jack Hughes echoed these sentiments. But as the line
of the Communist International became clearer the CPA’s attitude to the
war soon began to change toward one of opposition to Britain’s war on
Germany. This had two consequences for the CPA dual members who had
fought for three years to unseat Lang and had won at the Unity
conference just a month earlier. First, instead of remaining in the
broad stream of the militant unionism, they now had to swim against the
tide of incomprehension of their own sympathisers whom they had won by
their opposition to fascism and isolationism over the previous three
years. The second consequence flowed from this very public shift in the
line: the communist dual members in the Labor Party rapidly became
identifiable as dogmatic adherents of the CPA.
The resulting situation was the undoing of the CPA’s new found influence
in the Labor Party but this was of no consequence to the Anglo-American
Secretariat of the Comintern. A Comintern report noted that the
Australian government of R.G. Menzies as «the weakest government in the
British Empire». It anticipated that the Menzies government’s would be
replaced by a Labor Party whose leadership «is being increasingly put
under pressure by the growing anti-war movement». It noted with
satisfaction that the CPA had rectified its line on the war with a
statement on December 8, 1939, admitting that the party had
«misunderstood the importance of the Soviet-German NonAggression Pact».
After the CPA’s political somersault on the war, the issue of communism
in the Labor Party sharpened. With the Easter 1940 annual conference
approaching, John Hughes received a call from the state Labor leader,
William McKell, whom he had helped install. McKell wanted to meet him.
Hughes later recalled:
When I got to his office, he not only closed door but he locked it. He
said: «I’m glad you could come. I’ve got the security records of all the
communists in the Labor Party. I think we ought to go over it together.
With the conference coming up, we want to make sure we don’t have any of
these birds on [the next executive]»
I said: «That’s a very good idea, Bill» And I’m thinking, «I guess my
name will feature prominently here». Then I thought, «well if that’s so,
that’s so, I’ll handle it.» Anyhow, it wasn’t. That was surprise number
one. And I wasn’t sure of that until we had really finished.
The result of the meeting was that while at least one undercover member
(Herbert Chandler) lost his place on the proposed ticket for the 1940
executive, he was replaced by others: Ted Walsham, a railway shop
steward and James Starling, a teacher. Over 50 years later it is
difficult to identify with certainty all the dual members who reached
the executive level of the ALP in this period. On one level it was of
secondary importance to the fact that the political line of the CPA was
clearly accepted by a broad group of non-communist anti-Lang forces on
the executive. However, it is essential to understand the strength and
strategy of the CPA to identify as accurately as possible its actual
members in the leadership of the ALP.
The 1939 Unity Conference elected a 32member executive which contained
at least five. They included Hughes, Evans, the union officials Barker
and Glasson, and the mayor of a mining town, H.B. Chandler. At the 1940
conference the 32person executive included Hughes, Evans, Barker and
Glasson, plus Walsham, Starling and Sloss who became a city councillor
with left-wing support and later a member of parliament. A group of five
or seven communists from an executive of 32 could exercise considerable
weight given that they were held in high regard, acted en bloc and held
the vital full time position of General Secretary.
As the annual Easter 1940 conference drew closer, the CPA forces, in
line with Comintern, became alarmed about the possibility that Britain
and France would conclude an agreement with Hitler who would then turn
the war to the East. This issue came to a head on the second day of the
conference on Saturday, March 23. A sub-committee of three: Jack Hughes,
Bill Gollan and Lloyd Ross, all undercover CPA members, drafted a tough
resolution. It read, in part:
The Labor Party has always been opposed to imperialist wars and today in
the present war situation we demand that every energy be utilised to
bring about a cessation of hostilities and the establishment of peace at
the earliest opportunity on a just and equitable basis in order to avoid
the slaughter of millions. We declare that the Australian people have
nothing to gain from the continuance of the war.
The resolution effectively declared that Australia should refuse to
assist Britain, which had declared war on fascist Germany. In place of
loyalty to Empire it substituted loyalty to the anti-war traditions of
the labour movement. The parliamentary Labor leader, William McKell, who
was a co-opted member of the committee took no issue with its general
tenor but insisted that one sentence be deleted. This was agreed but it
was then restored on the conference floor. That sentence read:
The conference makes it clear that, while being opposed to Australian
participation in overseas conflicts, it is also opposed to any effort of
the anti-Labor government to change the direction of the present war by
an aggressive act against any other country with which we are not at
war, including the Soviet Union.
The resolution and its rider created uproar from the Langite minority.
Hughes told the conference that the war «is just a war of adventure and
plunder in which we should have no concern». In a phrase that would come
to symbolise the stance of the new leadership of the ALP he said: «Hands
off Russia is the policy of the labour movement today as it has been in
the past.» Amid interjections suggesting he was a not a Labor man, but a
communist, Lloyd Ross predicted «within a few months we will be asked to
stand side by side with Imperialist Britain in a war against the only
real Social[ist] State in the world. We won’t be there.» Ross was
cheered for this comment and the «Hands Off Russia» resolution passed by
195 to 88.
For conservative Prime Minister Menzies, the Easter conference opened a
vital chink in Labor’s armour in the coming federal election in that it
allowed the conservatives to link federal Labor with the taint of
unpatriotic and anti-British feeling. Menzies argued that the resolution
was treason and marked a stage in the disintegration of federal Labor’s
war policy and challenged its leaders to rebut it. Yet the Hands Off
Russia resolution – or the assumptions on which it drew its support –
was not so extreme or absurd as it might appear today. The labour
movement and ALP had not forgotten the bloody cost of the «war to end
wars» in 1914–18 and prior to September 1939, a significant strand of
Labor opinion, including the parliamentary leader at the federal level,
John Curtin, was passionately isolationist.
In Moscow the spirit of the resolution was in tune with the Comintern.
In March 1940, Andre Marty dictated directives for Australia and New
Zealand. In discussing work in the unions and the Labor Parties, Marty
urged:
We must not forget for one moment, that the British Empire must
disappear and that in this fight the social democratic parties also
shall disappear. The question is how can we convince the honest members
of the Labor Party and the trade unions to unify with the Communist
Party, the revolutionary party and create in this manner the
organisational foundation of the working class. Here is the way to
destroy the rule of the reformists in the workers’ movement.
But it was the communists not the reformists whose influence was to be
destroyed. In 1994 Hughes concluded: «We followed the party’s line with
the war when it was so off beam and a denial of everything we had been
fighting and struggling for, the defeat of fascism and all the rest of
it. [Because of this] in one minute, virtually…. it went down the
drain.»
As the war in Europe intensified the HughesEvans position became
increasingly untenable. In April Germany invaded Norway and Denmark. In
May the phoney war ended with the German blitzkreig invasion of the
Netherlands and Belgium followed by the attack on France. The public
desire to assist Britain with Australian troops overwhelmed the earlier
reservations and hopes for peace on which the Hands Off Russia
resolution was built. Within Australia forces grew calling for a
government of national unity with the conservative United Australia
Party. But the NSW executive of the Labor Party strongly opposed this
and attacked other Labor forces who supported it.
A Special Federal ALP Conference in June 1940 opted for a more pro-war
stance, agreeing to conditional participation in the European war.
Shortly after this, another split developed between the left-controlled
NSW branch and the federal leadership. The conservative federal
government, with support from the Labor Opposition, had proposed to
amend the National Security Act to give extra powers to require
individuals to place «themselves, their services and their property at
the disposal of the Commonwealth». This was bitterly opposed by the
HughesEvans forces who publicly supported five Labor federal MPs who
opposed the amendments.
On August 2 the federal executive of the ALP moved decisively and
suspended the left-dominated NSW executive. It denounced the «inspired
and unwarranted propaganda circulated in NSW about a proposed National
Government» and reaffirmed its own rejection of a national government.
Trying to avert a split, the executive offered a secret deal to Hughes.
In exchange for his support to drop Evans, Hughes would become a junior
minister in the next national Labor government. After consulting with
the CPA leadership, the offer was rejected and with it died the
intriguing possibility of a communist minister of the crown.
On August 17, the suspended HughesEvans leadership reconvened their
forces with 18 members of the old executive. They decided to create a
new party – the Australian Labor Party, State of NSW. This body became
the vehicle of what remained of the alliance between the undercover CPA
members and the non-CPA Left. It failed to win significant electoral
support and in January 1944 it amalgamated with the Communist Party,
with five of its leaders becoming members of the Central Committee of
the CPA: J. Hughes, W. Gollan, H. Chandler, E. Ross and A. Wilson. At
least four and possibly all five were already secret members of the CPA.
So ended one of the most intriguing but little-known episodes in
underground communist political work in an advanced democratic country.
What were the long term results of the CPA’s penetration of the
Australian Labor Party? The most significant result was their opposition
to the creation of a National Government, that is, a non-party
government of national unity. From the outbreak of war until August 1940
pressure grew to form a National Government which, for the communists,
was absolute anathema because it meant class collaboration. In April the
former leader of the rural-based Country Party, Sir Earle Page, publicly
called for a national government, but was rebuffed by federal Labor
Opposition leader, John Curtin. A government armed with sweeping defence
powers and lacking an Opposition would be too powerful, Curtin argued.
Powerful forces within Labor urged a national government. In early June
Curtin called a federal conference to discuss Labor’s war policy and the
Sydney Morning Herald noted: «It is believed that an influential section
of the conference will advocate the formation of a National Government
on the lines approved by the British Labour Party.» A Special Federal
Conference in June 1940 revealed the key supporter of national
government – Queensland Premier Forgan Smith, whose proposal for a
national government the conference rejected. The conference opted for a
more supportive, war-fighting role than previously, agreeing to
reinforcement for the AIF and conditional participation in the European
war. But the strength of the Left and of Labor tradition was also shown
in declarations of an «excess war profits tax of 100 per cent». Instead
of national government it plumped for the establishment of a cross-party
Advisory War Council. Almost immediately Forgan Smith recommenced
agitation for a National Government, calling for a «a new pack, a new
shuffle, a new deal». A month later Menzies offered just such a «new
deal», promising Labor five or six cabinet posts and finally even
offering to stand down as Prime Minister, if necessary.
In the federal election campaign of September 21, 1940, Menzies
campaigned on the policy of a National Government among other things.
The election saw an equally divided federal House of Representatives
with the fate of Menzies’ government depending on two Independent MPs.
Labor continued to resist any move toward a National Government and
Menzies finally agreed to form an Advisory War Council (which included
Labor appointees) a position he had previously rejected. In August 1941
he again appealed to Labor to form a National Government, was rejected
and resigned as Prime Minister. His party held office until the two
Independents finally withdrew their support on October 3, 1941. A period
of eight years of Labor government then commenced. It was the first
significant period of Labor control of federal government and saw many
social reforms.
The significance of Labor’s rejection of a National Government can be
seen in comparison with the British Labour Party. Labor in Australia
governed a country at war in its own right from October 1941 until
August 1945. This period saw state regulation of manpower, commodities
and industrial development. Unions were consulted widely, federal powers
were permanently centralised and post-war planning began in 1943 with
Labor ideals firmly in mind. By comparison, British Labour was the
junior partner in Churchill’s war cabinet and only began its reforming
drive after it began to govern in its own right after the 1945
elections.
The influence of the CPA-ALP dual members played a significant although
not decisive role in avoiding the conservative path of a National
Government. Throughout the period in which Menzies enticed Labor to join
him, Labor’s leader John Curtin never wavered in his opposition to
National Government. While in modern times such a stance by a leader
would carry enormous weight, in this period this was less so. Curtin’s
opposition to National Government may have also been a response to the
opposition to it within the party, a tone set by the NSW branch, which
warned early and often about such a proposal.
Another influence on Labor’s policy and hence government policy from
1941 to 1949 was the CPA’s unwavering socialist commitment. This was
translated to the ALP through the NSW branch and later by its influence
in the trade union movement. Combined with the indigenous (but weaker)
socialist tradition this led to a commitment in post-war reconstruction
to a strong public sector, a welfare program and an unparalleled degree
of regulation of private enterprise which lasted long after the post-war
reconstruction period and after Labor’s loss of federal government in
1949.
Against these factors consideration must be given to the
counter-productive actions of the CPA dual members for most of the
period of the Hitler-Stalin pact from October 1939 to June 1941. Most
significantly, the CPA’s strategy led to a period of electorally
damaging public conflict. It began with the Hands Off Russia resolution,
which led to a renewed split by Lang, then to defiance of the federal
party on the National Security Bill, then to expulsion of the CPA-led
Labor faction. Labor went to the September 1940 poll split into three
groups. Predictably, Labor lost.
Historians have previously found it difficult to describe what actually
occurred within Labor between 1936 (the beginning of the revolt which
unseated Lang) and 1940 (the split) because of the secrecy of the CPA’s
undertaking. This has led to a lack of understanding of the internal
dynamics of the NSW ALP’s confrontation with the rest of the ALP, which
began with the Easter conference in March 1940. Superficially, the 1940
split resembled previous Labor splits, but the crucial element was in
fact a highly ideological grouping of undercover members of the
Communist Party, who came to lead a mass reformist party following the
strategy of the Communist International.
Нашли опечатку? Выделите и нажмите CTRL+Enter
