Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Communism in Australia, as elsewhere, is a story that is both global and local; and as elsewhere, it combines exemplary behavior and work in the public sphere with tribalism and the dullness of left orthodoxy. The history of socialism and radicalism in Australia before communism is rich and diverse, and equally influenced by British and American radical theory and practice and the local inflections of labor radicalism, enthusiastic but often racist. Socialism before communism in Australia is part of a broader new world network and culture. The year 1917 changed all that, though unevenly and slowly. The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) was established in 1920, which meant that it was promptly Bolshevized under the 21 Conditions of the Comintern. At the same time, Australian communists had to guess and make up their own culture, which remained in many ways continuous with the local past, which into the twentieth century was tough, economistic, masculinist, and racially exclusive. The global experiences of the first half of the twentieth century were powerfully influential in Australia. The first coherent generation could be described as the Depression generation; the next, quickly following, as the generation of the war against fascism. The CPA prospered after the Soviet Union entered World War II. Its membership peaked at 23,000; it had branches in suburbs as well as in the larger ... log in or subscribe to read full text