Into the Mainstream: The Decline of Australian Communism

by Tom O'Lincoln

How are the mighty fallen. At the end of World War II, the Communist Party was a major force in Australian working class life. Yet by the 1980s it had diminished to a demoralised rump. And today it's only a memory. Did the party deserve this fate? Its courage and hard work brought together thousands of working class fighters. It led them in important struggles. But then it inflicted on them the bitterest of disappointments. Into the Mainstream traces the party's decline from an influential movement, plagued by its bureaucratic Stalinist politics, to a shrinking organisation trying desperately to re-invent itself as a radical force, but finally drifting into the political mainstream. The story is set against such historic events as the Cold War, the Sino-Soviet split, and the social radicalisation of the late sixties. It offers lessons for revolutionary activists today.

Genres: History, Australia

238 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2009

About the author

Tom O'Lincoln (August 27, 1947 − October 12, 2023) was an American Marxist historian, author and one of the founders of the International Socialist Tendency in Australia.

Reviews

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good polemic on the CPA from its founding to 1985. The key theme is the marginalisation of the party (which would’ve been true with or without its Stalinism in my opinion) and it’s relationship to mainstream Australian politics. The attempt to chart a path away from Stalinism from the 1960s onwards led to a theoretical justification for liquidationism from the leadership. Overall, very sharply argued but I was disappointed that it wasn’t updated with the rerelease - even a victory lap with regard to the predictions of the failures of the ‘New Left Party’ and SEARCH would’ve been better than nothing. Also interested in whether the scholarship has have been altered in light of Stuart Macintyre’s work, as it relies primarily on first hand accounts within the movement.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not the book I thought it would be. Which isn't the book's fault, but does affect how I think about it.

I thought I was getting a ... straightforward history of the Communist Party of Australia. And that's certainly a significant part of this book. But what the book is ultimately focussed on is the way Communism, and Marxist ideas, has often been done badly in Australia. O'Lincoln is very upfront about the fact that he is very unimpressed by most of the leadership of the CPA, especially from the 1970s onwards. Of note: the book was published in this format in 2009 but was actually written in 1985, which itself definitely and necessarily has an impact.

The other problem is that the book presupposes quite a lot of knowledge - both philosophical and historical - that I don't really have. Again, that's partly a factor of it having been written 30 years ago, so the intended audience would have had more immediate knowledge of things that I just don't. But there's also no interest in defining "left" and "right", assuming that the reader will have a shared understanding of what that means - and I have to tell you, reading about a Communist party veering to the right is always weird (yes, I do understand how that works). There's no attempt here at leading the reader into understanding the various issues (like the difference between socialism and communism, and why you would regard liberal reformism as bad) - because the reader is assumed to already be on O'Lincoln's wavelength. Again, not necessarily bad, but does suggest a very specific audience.

Worth reading? If you're interested in the development of the CPA over time, probably yes. But prepare yourself for some pretty heavy philosophical lifting.