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The red North: The popular front in North Queensland
227 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 19, 2022
Fascinating story of a little known part of communist history in Queensland.
December 6, 2022
The edition I'm reviewing contains an unfortunate preface from a leading figure within the Socialist Alliance, a Trotskyite political group active in Australia. As such, the largely stellar historical work of Menghetti (more historian, less Trotskyist) is framed, within these opening pages, by the Trotskyite impulse to blame the failings of the 20th Century communist movement squarely on some amorphous "Stalinism".
The peak of the CPA's membership occurred just after (or at the very latter end of) the period covered by this book - during Stalin's lifetime - and came off the back of militant and tactical organising by the only Party in Australia that took the fight against fascism (the ALP openly advocated against supporting the republicans and communists in Spain in the 1930s, cowing to the fascist Catholic line) and the needs of the poor (particularly unemployed workers) seriously in the 1930s and 1940s. Menghetti certainly makes no attempt to explain the broader machinations of the Party during the period covered (particularly the expulsions of key Party members as the Comintern, and Party, line shifted over the course of the War) - though not because she is adhering to the Trotskyist line, but because it is beyond the purview of the scope of the text - however she does provide a great historical account of the successes of the Party in Northern Queensland, particularly in its militant union activities (see the cane cutters strike of 1935 and the long fight against Weil’s disease), its promotion of a political role for women, in supporting the republican effort in the Spanish Civil War (alongside an unknowable number of volunteers, 20% of the Australian financial contributions to war effort in 1936 came from Northern Queensland - a staggering figure given the relative poverty of workers there) and, most notably, in attempting to defy the reactionary and conservative Labor Party and its affiliated unions (particularly the AWU - the backbone of the Labor Right to this day). Defying the White Australia ALP and AWU - and in representing the will of the workers on the ground - the CPA encouraged socialisation and politics across racial lines (it was through CPA-sponsored dances that Australian girls danced with Italian immigrant workers for the first time, for example), an important step in the history of Australian labour.
As Humphrey McQueen would no doubt highlight (as he did in "A New Britannia", noting the ongoing legacy of the Eureka Rebellion), a defeated strike such as this (and a defeated movement in Northern Queensland beyond the 1950s) would not be a cause for celebration in a nation with a strong and successful labour history. And yet, it is this - and other strikes led by the CPA, SPA and its affiliates throughout the 20th Century - that stand out as small positive outbursts of proletarian power in the face of a state apparatus, an ALP and right-wing unions that have, since the late 19th Century, advocated not for a socialist future, but mediation between labour and capital in the interests of capital always.
As conditions continue to deteriorate for the working class in Australia as a result of the long-term impacts of this inbuilt process of conciliation (culminating in the Accords), there is a window opening for the rebuilding of a militant union movement that learns from the experiences and mistakes of the past; a past dominated, in the labour sense, by an anti-communist state, the reactionary ALP and its racist and pro-imperial union affiliates (see Tom Dougherty, National Secretary of the AWU from 1944-1972, for a significant example; a friend of White Australia, of Nixon and of Whitlam). This new union movement should, and must, include Northern Queensland.
All-in-all, a must-read text for the Australian left - 4 stars for Menghetti's research, just take the preface out.
The peak of the CPA's membership occurred just after (or at the very latter end of) the period covered by this book - during Stalin's lifetime - and came off the back of militant and tactical organising by the only Party in Australia that took the fight against fascism (the ALP openly advocated against supporting the republicans and communists in Spain in the 1930s, cowing to the fascist Catholic line) and the needs of the poor (particularly unemployed workers) seriously in the 1930s and 1940s. Menghetti certainly makes no attempt to explain the broader machinations of the Party during the period covered (particularly the expulsions of key Party members as the Comintern, and Party, line shifted over the course of the War) - though not because she is adhering to the Trotskyist line, but because it is beyond the purview of the scope of the text - however she does provide a great historical account of the successes of the Party in Northern Queensland, particularly in its militant union activities (see the cane cutters strike of 1935 and the long fight against Weil’s disease), its promotion of a political role for women, in supporting the republican effort in the Spanish Civil War (alongside an unknowable number of volunteers, 20% of the Australian financial contributions to war effort in 1936 came from Northern Queensland - a staggering figure given the relative poverty of workers there) and, most notably, in attempting to defy the reactionary and conservative Labor Party and its affiliated unions (particularly the AWU - the backbone of the Labor Right to this day). Defying the White Australia ALP and AWU - and in representing the will of the workers on the ground - the CPA encouraged socialisation and politics across racial lines (it was through CPA-sponsored dances that Australian girls danced with Italian immigrant workers for the first time, for example), an important step in the history of Australian labour.
As Humphrey McQueen would no doubt highlight (as he did in "A New Britannia", noting the ongoing legacy of the Eureka Rebellion), a defeated strike such as this (and a defeated movement in Northern Queensland beyond the 1950s) would not be a cause for celebration in a nation with a strong and successful labour history. And yet, it is this - and other strikes led by the CPA, SPA and its affiliates throughout the 20th Century - that stand out as small positive outbursts of proletarian power in the face of a state apparatus, an ALP and right-wing unions that have, since the late 19th Century, advocated not for a socialist future, but mediation between labour and capital in the interests of capital always.
As conditions continue to deteriorate for the working class in Australia as a result of the long-term impacts of this inbuilt process of conciliation (culminating in the Accords), there is a window opening for the rebuilding of a militant union movement that learns from the experiences and mistakes of the past; a past dominated, in the labour sense, by an anti-communist state, the reactionary ALP and its racist and pro-imperial union affiliates (see Tom Dougherty, National Secretary of the AWU from 1944-1972, for a significant example; a friend of White Australia, of Nixon and of Whitlam). This new union movement should, and must, include Northern Queensland.
All-in-all, a must-read text for the Australian left - 4 stars for Menghetti's research, just take the preface out.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews