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Working class son: My fight against capitalism and war : memoirs of Ron Smith, a New Zealand Communist
This book is the first full biography of a New Zealand communist.
The Communist Party has played a significant role in our history, especially in the turbulent years of the Depression and the rise of Fascism. Until now, however, there has been no full biography of any of it members ... What motivates people to join the Party? what activities do they carry out as Party members? How do they conduct struggles on policy issues? This book not only throws light on these questions. It is a detailed account of an extraordinary life. The author's father was a "Red Fed" tunneller on the Otira tunnel and the family endured 6 years of unemployment in the Great Depression. He was a boy scout leader and a mountaineer, a navigator of a Mosquito night fighter, a leader in the Students' Association and the Socialist Club at Victoria University, a senior public servant and an activist in the Public Service Association, a leader in the anti-nuclear struggle -- and from 1942 onwards a prominent communist, standing five times for Parliament for the Island Bay seat, red-baited by "Truth" and by Rob Muldoon."
The Communist Party has played a significant role in our history, especially in the turbulent years of the Depression and the rise of Fascism. Until now, however, there has been no full biography of any of it members ... What motivates people to join the Party? what activities do they carry out as Party members? How do they conduct struggles on policy issues? This book not only throws light on these questions. It is a detailed account of an extraordinary life. The author's father was a "Red Fed" tunneller on the Otira tunnel and the family endured 6 years of unemployment in the Great Depression. He was a boy scout leader and a mountaineer, a navigator of a Mosquito night fighter, a leader in the Students' Association and the Socialist Club at Victoria University, a senior public servant and an activist in the Public Service Association, a leader in the anti-nuclear struggle -- and from 1942 onwards a prominent communist, standing five times for Parliament for the Island Bay seat, red-baited by "Truth" and by Rob Muldoon."
256 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1994
2 people want to read
About the author
Ron Smith
185 books19 followers
Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Ron Smith is the author of Running Again in Hollywood Cemetery, runner-up for the National Poetry Series Open Competition and the Samuel French Morse Prize (Margaret Atwood and Donald Hall, judges) and published by University Presses of Florida. His Moon Road: Poems 1986-2005 has just been issued by Louisiana State University Press, and has been praised by Pulitzer-winner Claudia Emerson and Pulitzer-finalist David Wojahn, as well as the Italian scholar and translator Massimo Bacigalupo and the world-famous journalist and novelist Tom Wolfe.
Ron Smith's poems have appeared in many periodicals, including The Nation, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and in a number of anthologies. His essays and reviews can be found in The Georgia Review, San Francisco Review of Books, Kenyon Review, and his poetry column Red Guitar at www.blackbird.vcu.edu.
Smith, a native of Savannah, Georgia, moved to Richmond, Virginia, to play college football. A number of his poems deal with the benefits, costs, values, and spectacle of sports.
Smith holds degrees in English, philosophy, general humanities, and creative writing from University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University. He's also studied writing at Bennington College in Vermont; British drama at Worcester College, Oxford University; and Renaissance and modern culture and literature at the Ezra Pound Center for Literature in Merano, Italy. His awards and honors include the Theodore Roethke Poetry Prize, the Guy Owen Poetry Prize, a Bread Loaf Scholarship in Poetry, and a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship.
At St. Christopher's School, established in 1911, Ron Smith has held the George O. Squires Chair of Distinguished Teaching and is currently Writer-in-Residence, the first person ever to hold that title. In public and private schools, he conducts workshops in poetry for teachers and for students of all ages. At Mary Washington College, Virginia Commonwealth University, and University of Richmond, he has taught courses in creative writing, 20th century American poetry, and the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe.
In 2005, Ron was an inaugural winner of the $10,000 Carole Weinstein Prize in Poetry. In 2006 he became a Curator for that prize.
Ron Smith is the author of Running Again in Hollywood Cemetery, runner-up for the National Poetry Series Open Competition and the Samuel French Morse Prize (Margaret Atwood and Donald Hall, judges) and published by University Presses of Florida. His Moon Road: Poems 1986-2005 has just been issued by Louisiana State University Press, and has been praised by Pulitzer-winner Claudia Emerson and Pulitzer-finalist David Wojahn, as well as the Italian scholar and translator Massimo Bacigalupo and the world-famous journalist and novelist Tom Wolfe.
Ron Smith's poems have appeared in many periodicals, including The Nation, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and in a number of anthologies. His essays and reviews can be found in The Georgia Review, San Francisco Review of Books, Kenyon Review, and his poetry column Red Guitar at www.blackbird.vcu.edu.
Smith, a native of Savannah, Georgia, moved to Richmond, Virginia, to play college football. A number of his poems deal with the benefits, costs, values, and spectacle of sports.
Smith holds degrees in English, philosophy, general humanities, and creative writing from University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University. He's also studied writing at Bennington College in Vermont; British drama at Worcester College, Oxford University; and Renaissance and modern culture and literature at the Ezra Pound Center for Literature in Merano, Italy. His awards and honors include the Theodore Roethke Poetry Prize, the Guy Owen Poetry Prize, a Bread Loaf Scholarship in Poetry, and a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellowship.
At St. Christopher's School, established in 1911, Ron Smith has held the George O. Squires Chair of Distinguished Teaching and is currently Writer-in-Residence, the first person ever to hold that title. In public and private schools, he conducts workshops in poetry for teachers and for students of all ages. At Mary Washington College, Virginia Commonwealth University, and University of Richmond, he has taught courses in creative writing, 20th century American poetry, and the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe.
In 2005, Ron was an inaugural winner of the $10,000 Carole Weinstein Prize in Poetry. In 2006 he became a Curator for that prize.
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