Thå Communist Party of Australia
Thå Communist Party of Australia
Essay
from theme:
The
Communist Party of Australia
It
has been generally accepted that the events at the ninth annual conference of
the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1929, resulting in a change of leadership
and the ousting of the “right-wing deviationists”, were a turning point in its
history. The incidents which surrounded the 1929 conference, the characterisation
of the leading players, the role of the Communist International (Comintern),
and the estimation of its outcome have been variously interpreted but none
doubt its significance. The period has been covered by a number of writers but
the material recently made available by the Comintern Archives in Moscow may serve
to illuminate the story further.
One
of the main issues discussed by those who have dealt with this period has been
the significance of the intervention by the Executive Committee of the
Communist International (hereafter known as the ECCI) prior to and on the eve
of the ninth conference. Opinions on this matter may be coloured by hindsight
and one's own leanings. J.D. Blake has made the point that it is easy to use
documented evidence to prove a certain case and filter out (albeit
unconsciously) evidence which does not fit the pattern. In making judgments on
the role of the Comintern and on its effect on the policies of the CPA this is
particularly evident. The Comintern has been perceived as an alien organisation
subversively interfering with Australian politics by some, and as an embodiment
of working class international solidarity transcending national barriers by others.
Present day knowledge of Stalin's domination of the Comintern from 1929 can
also distort our perceptions of the way it was seen then. In writing a history
of the Communist Party, the position taken by Lance Sharkey, one of the central
figures in opposition to the Kavanagh leadership, is that the ECCI intervention
was vitally necessary in order to overcome what he considered to be the
right-wing opportunism of the Central Committee Executive (CEC) if the CPA was
to develop as an independent force. In this he is supported by Ernie Campbell
in his analysis of the period. Jack Blake judges the differences between the
antagonists as "not so fundamental as they were later made to appear"
but sees the intervention by the ECCI as the factor which turned the scale in
favour of the opposition “at least at the top”. Alastair Davidson's view is
that the opposition gained the ascendancy over the leadership as a result of
support gained by appeals to both the ECCI and the rank and file resulting in
the defeat of the leadership at the ninth conference. Tom O'Lincoln asserts
that with Soviet backing the opposition's victory was assured, while Peter
Morrison rejects the view that the CPA was a tool of the Comintern. He states
that the defeat of the Kavanagh leadership at the conference was a direct result
of the experience of the CPA in Australia with the Sydney-based national leadership
finding itself out of step with its state constituents. The ECCI was merely “a
pawn” in the game.
In
reviewing the role played by the ECCI in the 1929 events it is also important
to note that the nature of the relationship between the Comintern and the CPA
changed over time. Following the recognition of the CPA in August 1922 as the
affiliate of the Communist International (Cl), contact was for several years
via the colonial department of the British section, and by 1928 through the secretariat
of the CI's Anglo-American Section. These early years were difficult ones for
the new party. After the poor showing in the 1925 NSW state elections Guido
Baracchi, editor of The Communist, had (unsuccessfully) proposed the
liquidation of the CPA. In 1926 Jock Garden, secretary of the NSW Labor
Council, left the party also believing the CPA had no future. Both Barrachi and
Garden were formally expelled by the CPA at its sixth annual conference in December
1926. Garden and his supporters in the trade unions moved away from the CPA and
began to work with the Lang-led Labor Party in New South Wales. With the Party
membership depleted, Tom Wright, general secretary of the CPA since 1924, made
several pleas in the mid-1920s to the ECCI for assistance.
One
consequence was that in 1926 Hector Ross, CPA executive member, went to the
USSR for discussion with the Comintern, and in the following year Wright himself
was able to spend the months from August to October in Moscow, where, through
the agency of the British section, he had extended meetings with other members
of the ECCI, including Bukharin (general-secretary of the Communist International).
Among the main issues discussed were Australia's development towards an independent
capitalist country, mass immigration; the “White Australia Policy”; and also the
relationship between the CPA and the ALP, a subject which was to present
difficulties for the CPA during its entire existence.
These
meetings resulted in what became known as the October resolution which clearly
stated that, “If time is not yet ripe for revolutionary mass actions ... [then]
... revolutionary propaganda and agitation must be made the centre of gravity
for the Communist Party.” The aim of the propaganda was to popularise “this
platform among as many left labor organisations as possible”. It concluded that
“the coming years will show whether it's possible to create such a real Labor
Party through coming years with the struggle and victory of a Left opposition
into the ranks of the present Labor Party, or whether it will be necessary for
the Left unions to found a new Party for this purpose. Obviously the Communist
Party at that time, with the ECCI's agreement, still hoped to transform the
Labor Party by working with its left-wing and the resolution, while stressing
its independent role, represented the CPA as an outside pressure group rather
than as a mass revolutionary party.
As
a result of Wright's visit in 1927, an Englishman stationed in Moscow as part
of the British section, H.W.R. Robson, visited Australia under the pseudonym
Murray, and attended one of the sessions of the seventh annual conference in December
1927, a conference which was divided on its attitude to the Labor Party. As a result
of the divisions, four members of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) Jack
Ryan, Norman Jeffery, Esmonde Higgins, (Editor of Tbe Workers' Weekly)
and Lance Sharkey had been removed as “rightists” by those who supported Jack
Kavanagh, chairman of the CPA since 1925. Robson, concerned about the issue, returned
to Moscow several months later accompanied by Herbert Moxon, Queensland organiser,
member of the executive of the CPA's Central Committee, and at this time, a
strong supporter of Jack Kavanagh. Moxon's Queensland base is important; the relations
between the CPA and the ALP in Queensland were to be central to the issues to be
discussed at the ECCI meetings in 1928.
In
Queensland there was increasing dissatisfaction amongst workers with William
McCormack, the Labor Premier. In 1927 he had supported the use of “scab” labour
during the South Johnstone Mill and Cane sugar-cane industry strike, which lasted
from May to September, and during the ensuing lock-out of the railway workers
who refused to handle “black” sugar. With the Labor Party in Queensland so
right-wing, there was a strong likelihood of a left-wing ALP breakaway, a
proposal already made by the Australian Railways Union. The CPA had won a great
deal of approval for its militant stand in both the sugar and railway disputes,
and saw that this was the time to oppose the right-wing Labor candidates in the
coming state elections. By standing candidates the CPA hoped to be seen as a real
alternative, not merely a pressure group. As this was a sharp shift away from
previous approaches to the ALP, and as divisions already existed about how to
approach the ALP in general, the CPA welcomed the opportunity to discuss the question
with the ECCI.
It
is necessary to study the international background against which Wright's efforts
to achieve closer contact with the ECCI were showing results. The improved
communication took place in the period when Stalin, general-secretary of the
CPSU, had turned his attention to wresting the leadership of the Communist International
from Bukharin, who was now his main threat within the CPSU leadership. There
was a fierce struggle for theoretical ascendancy being waged between the two.
The
battle centred around the nature of the “third period” as classified by the
Comintern. The first had been the period of the revolutionary crisis of
capitalism between 1917 and 1923, followed by the second, “the period of temporary
stabilisation of capitalism” and the development of united front policies with
social-democrats. The “third period”, proclaimed by the ECCI in February 1928 dealt
with the issue of the stability or instability of capitalism. Bukharin considered
that western capitalism would stabilise itself on a higher technological and
organisational level and that revolutionary upheavals would come in the west
from “external contradictions” such as imperialist war rather than from internal
crises. Stalin's supporters, on the other hand, proclaimed that, as S.F. Cohen
puts it “advanced capitalist societies, from Germany to the United States were
on the eve of profound internal crises and revolutionary upheavals”.
These
two different analyses led to two different approaches to social democracy.
Bukharin advocated a united front between social-democracy and the revolutionary
movement; he urged a united front from below, less unity at top levels, and the
strengthening of the independent Communist Parties. Stalin, on the other hand,
saw social-democrats as “social fascists” a term first espoused and then dropped
by Zinoviev in 1924. Fascism, a fairly new phenomenon, was the name given to the
organisation and principles of Mussolini's anti-semitic and anti-communist
nationalist party, founded in 1919 in Italy. Later, Nazism, under Hitler was to
adopt the same principles. Under the term “social fascist” social democracy and
fascism were described as “twins”. Bourgeois democracy, according to Stalin,
maintained its power only with the support of the social-democrats, who aided
the capitalist offensive against the workers in periods of decline. According
to Richard Dixon, a long-time president of the CPA, Stalin virtually identified
the bourgeois form of capitalist class rule with fascism. Since social democracy
was dependent on the system of bourgeois democracy it had no role to play in the
struggle against fascism. Stalin's policy meant that Communist Parties everywhere
were expected to refuse to work with social democrats, destroy reformist influence,
and thereby win the leadership of the working-class in the struggle for revolution,
seen as being on the immediate agenda. In addition, and more ominously,
Communist Parties should purge from their ranks those “rightwing deviationists”
who advocated working with social democracy. In the new circumstances they were
now the main danger within.
The Queensland Resolution
Prior
to the ECCI discussions with the Australians in April 1928, preliminary
skirmishes between Stalin's and Bukharin's supporters had already taken place
at an ECCI meeting in February and at the Fourth Congress of the Red International
Labor Unions (RILU). On 20th April when the ECCI met to discuss the Australian
question, divisions as to the general line would have existed (at least covertly).
Bukharin was present at the discussion. Likewise, both sides of the argument in
the CPA over its policy in relation to the ALP were represented. In addition to
H.W.R. Robson and Herbert Moxon, there were two of the four CPA members who had
been removed from the CEC as “rightists” at the 1927 annual conference. These were,
jack Ryan, research officer of the Sydney Labor Council, and Norman Jeffery
former CPA organiser in Queensland. Both Ryan and Jeffery were returning from
the 4th Congress of RILU, which they had attended as delegates of the NSW Labor
Council.”
Prior
to this meeting the protagonists had been given the opportunity to present their
views about the ALP in written form to the Anglo-American Secretariat. Moxon,
as representative of the CEC, detailed the differences and attacked both Ryan
and Jeffery on a number of issues but chiefly with submerging the Party in their
mass activity and as being more concerned with working with the leadership of
the ALP than with the rank and file. He concluded, “The majority of the
Australian Party is looking to the ECCI to give a decisive ruling in connection
with the faction fight.”
Both
Ryan and Jeffery had produced a comprehensive report explaining their viewpoint
in which they gave the history of the CPA's attitude to the united front since
1921 when “The CP under instructions from the CI adopted the policy of
"working from within' [the ALP] with the object of ousting the reformist leaders'.
They dealt with 1924 when members of the Communist Party were banned from membership
in the ALP at Lang's instigation and the consequent campaign in 1925 to demand
the right of unions to delegate Communist Party members to ALP conferences if
they so chose. According to Ryan and Jeffery the fight in the ALP had now
(1927-28) changed its form. Instead of it being a clear cut issue between the reactionary
rightwing and the militant left wing, led by the Communist Party and putting
forward CP demands, it had developed into a struggle for control between the reactionary
right-wing politicians and the trade-unions allied with some politicians. The second
were as nearly reactionary as the first'. They stated that this was where they
quarrelled with the majority of the executive of the Party. The CE C decided
not to support either side and they (Ryan and Jeffery) opposed this stand,
arguing that, 'whether the trade-unions were to control the ALP or not was a
matter of concern to the working class, therefore we, [the CPA] could not
isolate ourselves from such a struggle.' They reminded the ECCI that the policy
put forward by the minority at the 1927 CPA conference was strictly in
conformity with the thesis from the CI of organising the left wing in the Labor
Party to challenge its leadership on the basis of “a programme of immediate economic
demands” and was drawn up with Robson's help.
Robson,
in presenting the report at the meeting on April 20th, was critical of the poor
organisation of the CPA. He did point out, though, that the membership, only
250 when Tom Wright was in Moscow in 1927, had doubled in less than six months
due to the role played by CPA members in the sugar strike in South Johnstone.
His view was that the Party's weakness stemmed from divisions in the Central Executive
of the CPA on how to deal with the anti-communist attitude of the ALP leaders,
and argued that the ALP move to the right called for sharper criticism from the
CPA. This applied particularly to Queensland (where an election was due) with
the open desertion of the workers by the Labor Government.
After
the presentation of Robson's report, the ECCI placed Willie Gallagher
(Communist Party of Great Britain representative) in charge of a committee,
which included members of the Political Secretariat of the ECCI, together with
Robson, Moxon, Jeffery and Ryan, to recommend a policy for the CPA. At the
insistence of Petrovsky (CPSU representative on the ECCI) the resolution took
up the question of the Labor Party. Within days, the committee put its resolution
to the Comintern's Political Secretariat and it was endorsed by the ECCI on
27th April, 1928. While referring to the earlier October 1927 resolution which
had envisaged the possibility of having to support a left opposition within the
Labor Party the new resolution dealt particularly with the McCormack Labor Government.
The Communist Party was to take the lead in the forthcoming Queensland state elections
drawing in the masses by adopting the following procedure:
1.
In some constituencies left-wing ALP candidates were to stand and would have specially
created workers' electoral committees to support them.
2.
In all other constituencies a clear campaign against the McCormack Labor Party
was to be conducted. Labor Party candidates were to be pressed to repudiate their
past policy and to support working class demands. If they refused, workers were
to be asked not to vote for them but to make their reason for withdrawing
support quite clear. Opposition was to be against persons not the Labor Party
itself.
3.
Three or four Communist candidates were to stand in carefully selected constituencies.
This
document, to be known as the Queensland resolution, did not yet embody Stalin's
'social fascist' line. It was a composite of the 1927 October resolution, the
CPA's militant approach to the ALP Queensland Government in Queensland and the
new line which was emerging internationally. The resolution was brought back to
Australia by Jeffery, was endorsed unanimously by the CEC on 12 July 192 8, except
for section 25 which stated that the creation of the left-wing inside the Labor
Party should be carried out organisationally along the same lines as used in the
formation of the left-wing inside the trade-unions, a proposal already contained
in the l927 October resolution. The reason given, and accepted by the Anglo-American
Secretariat, was that the Party was 'too weak to make this work'. The campaign
for the coming state election in Queensland was then initiated accordingly. The
discussions with the ECCI in 192 8 were not seen in Australia as 'interference',
but were welcomed by most as an indication that the CPA was indeed an integral
part of the Communist International. Wright, as general-secretary, regarded the
discussions around the Queensland resolution as the ECCI's first serious consideration
of the Australian situation.
The
great distance between the Moscow headquarters of the ECCI and Sydney, the home
of the CPA's Central Committee, exacerbated by the “artificially imposed
tyranny of distance” caused by the political censorship of the Bruce/Page Government
which banned material arriving from the USSR meant that, as Margaret Sampson
puts it, “the Party was largely ignorant of the battles being fought within the
Comintern and the CPSU over Stalinisation”. Those who were in Moscow at the time
of the April discussion may have had some knowledge of the divisions. Jack Ryan
was not impressed with some of the Comintern personnel he worked with while in
Moscow and according to Edna Ryan was beginning to have some doubts about the
way it functioned. Esmonde Higgins, editor of The Workers' Weekly and CPA delegate
to the VIth Comintern Congress in August 1928, had some idea of the CI
conflicts. Though he arrived in Moscow too late to participate in decision
making at the Congress, he must have been aware of the situation between Stalin
and Bukharin as it had been widely discussed among delegates. Compromises had been
exacted from Bukharin at the Congress. He had conceded that social democracy
had 'social fascist tendencies' but added 'it would be foolish to lump social democracy
together with fascism.' He had also conceded that 'the right deviation now represents
the central danger.' Stalin had won the debate over the 'third period' though
it was to be another year before the significance of this victory was to penetrate
through to the sections of the Comintern. Even the resolutions passed after
'hard-fought compromises' still reflected Bukharin's policies.
Higgins
gave a glowing report of the Comintern's Fourth Congress at the CPA's eighth
annual conference in Sydney, December 1928 remarking that 'We glory in the fact
that we are an International Party ... Decisions are arrived at the instance of
representations of these parties and always with their advice.' During the conference,
Higgins was the main speaker for a resolution entitled, “The Struggle Against
Labor Party Reformism” which said that the ALP was increasingly identifying itself
with the openly reactionary aims of the employers and that as the CPA was the
only party of Australia 'coming out as an independent revolutionary force we
must energetically endeavour to capture the leadership of the Australian workers
from the reformists. 'In elections the call was no longer ‘Vote Labor but Vote
for the Revolutionary Workers' candidates’ (CPA or left-wing candidates).”
It
is interesting to note that left-wing ALP candidates were still included.
Supporting the resolution, Wright added “that if left-wing organisations do come
into existence, that we ourselves shall be on good terms with them” and “we
must be careful not to isolate ourselves from them by ill-considered attacks”.
J.B. Miles, representing Queensland, agreed with this to some extent but he
considered that 'lf it is going to be necessary to have left-wing electoral
committees let us have them, but we must realise that after the elections these
committees must go out of existence, or otherwise we are going to build up a second
reformist party.' Lance Sharkey, who had been voted out as a rightist' at the
1927 annual conference, in supporting the resolution emphasised that it was a new
policy and further that “Although a lot of people are in the habit of declaiming
that Australia is a different country from others ... the development of the
ALP here is similar to development of Social Democratic Parties in other
countries.”
This
resolution was much more general in its criticism of the ALP than had been the
Queensland resolution and aroused Jeffery's suspicions. Having attended the
Comintern discussions he stated, “lt is apparent to me that the Committee
[which drew up the resolution] intends the Queensland tactic to be applied to
the whole of Australia” and that he did not think this was correct. Higgins replied
that there was no reason to make an absolute distinction between Queensland and
the rest of Australia and said it was “time we adopted a new line”.
Jack
Kavanagh, leader of the CPA since his arrival from Canada in 1925, and the centre
of the coming storm, was now a candidate member of the ECCI as a result of
Higgins recommendations on his behalf while at the Cl Congress. In addition the
CEC had been asked to send a formal request to the ECCI that Kavanagh be invited
to Moscow for a period as an official representative on the Comintern Executive.
It has been suggested by several writers that Kavanagh was either reluctant to
go to Moscow or that he tended to disregard Comintern policies. On the
contrary, David Akers records that in 1921, while a member of the Socialist
Party of Canada (SPC), Kavanagh had argued the case for affiliation to the
Comintern, and had led a left-wing faction out of the SPC into the Workers'
Party of Canada, (WPC) which was the legal face of the underground Communist
Party of Canada (CPC), already affiliated with the Communist International. He
supported the Comintern but it was his interpretation of the united front which
caused difficulties for him with both the ECCI and the CPC on several occasions.
Kavanagh accused the Canadian party of interpreting the united front as working
with the trade-union bureaucracy in 1922 and questioned the affiliation of the
CPC with the Canadian Labor Party in 1924 for fear it meant submerging the
communist party. Kavanagh considered CPC independence was essential and that the
united front meant working with the rank and file of the Labor Party to strengthen
its policies the united front from below a view similar to that taken by
Bukharin in the “third period” debate. At this time, and on this issue, he
stood to the left of Canadian party policy.
Therefore
it appears that Kavanagh was not opposed to the Comintern as has been suggested
but did not consider that ECCI directives were to be accepted without question.
In addition, he had always insisted, as explained by Sampson, that the differences
between Australia and the rest of the world were as important as their
similarities in determining strategy, which inevitably led him into disagreement
with the Comintern's Third Period policy. A close friend of the Kavanaghs, Edna
Ryan, insists that he wanted to go to Moscow for discussion with the ECCI but
was never issued an invitation, the reason for which was never explained. Clearly,
lack of personal contact with the ECCI would have contributed to his failure to
understand that the Comintern was becoming more authoritative in its relationships
with affiliated parties and that its policies had taken a sharp turn to the left.
Just
as he had done earlier in the Canadian situation, Kavanagh had taken a strong
stand against the submergence of CPA members within the Labor Party in 1926 and
1927 and had insisted that all communists in the ALP and in trade-unions declare
their communist membership, even though there was the possibility of
victimisation in some cases. He was an organiser for the NSW Labour Council and
widely recognised as communist. In the present situation he considered that each
situation should be examined separately and that the Queensland resolution did
not necessarily apply to the whole of Australia. He regarded himself as a “Leninist”
and would have scorned the term “rightist” as applying in his case.
The
resolution on the ALP at the 1928 eighth annual conference of the CPA was passed
with few delegates understanding its wider significance as part of a common trend
within the communist parties affiliated to the Comintern, to strengthen their
organisations in preparation for coming revolutions and to regard reformist
parties as enemies. In fact the general political resolution, passed at the eighth
conference, specifically stated that, “But while in principle there cannot be,
and the CP does not allow, any two interpretations of the nature and role of the
ALP... it would indeed be a mistake, and unforgivable, for the CP to apply mechanically
and blindly the same tactics in the various states”. The differences of opinion
on whether or not the Queensland resolution should apply generally was not resolved.
A degree of unity was achieved at the 1928 conference in that Sharkey, Ryan,
Higgins and Jeffery were elected once more to a 10 member CEC.
After
the conference, the campaign around the Queensland elections, supported by all
CEC, members, was renewed with vigour with J.B. Miles and E.C. Tripp standing
as communist candidates in the electorates of Brisbane and Mundingburra, respectively.
Left-wing candidates stood in Townsville, Fortitude Valley and in Paddington.
The elections were held on 11 May 1929 and with only 40 per cent of the vote,
Labor lost office after 14 years. The communist and left-wing team polled 3194
votes with E.C. Tripp, who was well-known as a militant in the Australian
Railways Union in northern Queensland, polling 1137 votes against the Labor
Party candidate's 4995 in Mundingburra. Fred Paterson, a left-wing candidate,
who had organised actively for the locked-out railways workers, polled 1418 and
the Labor candidate, 3518. In both these electorates only two candidates stood
and the informal vote was high, 492 (Mundingburra) and 539 (Paddington),
indicating a disinclination for either candidate. Even so, the result was seen
as a great improvement on the 1925 NSW state elections where all six Communist
candidates lost their deposits, the highest result being for Jock Garden with
317 votes. It was concluded that where communists and left-wingers were in the
forefront of actions taken to defend the situation for the working class their
votes would increase.
The
situation had worsened for Australian workers. The economy had entered a deep depression
and unemployment was increasing. The defeat of the waterside workers in 1929
was followed by the timber workers strike against judge Lukin's award in the
Commonwealth Arbitration Court, which abolished the 44 hour week for that
industry. The strike widened, with members of the Militant Minority Movement (a
communist initiative) taking an active part. The strike was finally defeated in
October. By then the furore over the owners' lock-out of miners in the northern
coalfields was at its height. When the prosecution of mine-owner John Brown was
withdrawn (because of his refusal to negotiate if it wasn't), the resultant
outcry ended with the Commonwealth Arbitration Court being discredited. The
Maritime Industries Bill, introduced by Prime Minister Bruce, in order to hand
back the responsibility for arbitration to the States, was defeated and a new federal
election was called. The date set for the election was October 12th.
During
1929 debate continued on the question of relations with the ALP. As the argument
proceeded and increased in intensity, lines hardened and the debate polarised.
Allegiances had changed since 1927. Supporting the application of the line
adopted in Queensland to the ALP as a whole were Sharkey, Moxon and Miles (who
was not at that time on the CEC). Opposing it were Kavanagh (CPA chairman),
Wright (CPA secretary), Ross, Ryan and Jeffery. Esmonde Higgins wavered, not
sure of his position.
The
CEC decision on the federal elections brought matters to a head. Despite the
strong conviction by many that the policy which had been so successful in Queensland
should also apply federally, the CEC on 15th September 1929 decided to support
the Labor Party to oust Bruce, while promoting an independent Party policy. The
CEC policy was at first agreed to by Sharkey, an executive member, who had
disagreed with Moxon's view that if there were no Communist candidates the electors
should be asked to vote informal but almost immediately Sharkey withdrew his
support for the resolution. With Moxon he sent a cable to the Anglo-American
Bureau, ECCI, on 18 September, criticising the CEC decision.26
On receipt of the
cable, a Comintern Commission was established in Moscow on 20 September to examine
the Australian question. Its first task was to cable the CEC, insisting they
stand candidates in line with Comintern policy.
Clayton
(almost certainly a pseudonym for E.C. Tripp), was in Moscow to attend a Lenin
school and was invited to participate in several of the meetings. He argued for
the Moxon/Sharkey position, explaining to the Commission that because Australia
was divided into five States with a Federal body a tendency existed to see the
Labor Party as six different parties. The Queensland resolution drawn up when
the Australian representative was in Moscow last time was intended for the CPA
in Queensland. Now conditions had changed, with the Labor Party joining with the
capitalist class in attacking waterside workers around Australia to lower their
conditions. He explained further, that the CEC's case was based on the argument
that the CPA would appear as splitting the working class vote, and secondly,
that the party was too weak to stand candidates.
The
ECCI cable was received on 26 September and a CEC meeting was held the same evening
which reaffirmed its original decision defeating a Moxon/Sharkey resolution to
stand candidates in selected electorates. Wright cabled the ECCI, “Rush elections
October l2 - organisational difficulties prevent Party candidates - consider
informal vote inapplicable - advancing same policy Federal elections November
last with independent platform”. The ECCI sent a reply on September 29
insisting on policy contained in its previous cable.
On
receiving this, Wright sent a written report on October 2 in which he complained
bitterly about the factionalism of Moxon and Sharkey. This letter explained
that the CPA's policy was to run an independent campaign disassociating the CPA
from Labor Party policies, but also to support the Labor Party in the elections
in order to defeat the Nationals. He cited the fact that the Nationalist Government
now in power in Queensland had cancelled all awards for rural workers, with the
implication that conditions, while bad when McCormack was Premier, were worse
under the new government and further, he said, “the Nationalist government is
preparing to follow the same example”. Wright explained that, “Because of the
great variation in the character and organisation of the various state branches
of the Labor Party and the varying extent of the disillusionment with Labor governments
experienced by the masses, it is obvious that the Communist Party cannot have
one uniform tactic to be applied in elections throughout Australia.” Enclosed
with the report were the two letters addressed to the CEC and the ECCI written
by Moxon and Sharkey on 22nd September, criticising the executive policy at length.
While
this correspondence was still on its way, Moxon and Sharkey sent yet another telegram
on 8 October: “Our motion that Comintern instructions be operated on received
no support Central Committee”, which prompted the ECCI to cable Wright “Awaiting
confirmation our telegram.” The general-secretary replied “Acknowledge cablegrams,
report dispatched.” On October 21, the CEC was to censure Moxon and Sharkey for
their factionalism, which involved circulating Cl documents and cables before
CC members had seen them. The ECCI had followed their brief cable with another
worded on October 18 at a meeting when Clayton (Tripp) was again present,
stating, “that a victory for the Labor Party would strengthen illusions among
the masses of workers and encourage liquidationist tendencies among Party members”
and affirming once again that it was the duty of the Party to stand independent
candidates. The same cable reported that an Open Letter from the Cl to the CPA
was being sent, and it should be distributed for discussion before the ninth
annual conference to be held in December. After delay, the cable was shown to
the Central Committee and circularised among the Party groups.
The Open Letter
The
Open Letter, written 13 October 1929, began “This is not the first time that the
Communist International occupies itself with the Australian Question” and mentioned
the 1927 visit of Robson and the 1928 “so-called Queensland Resolution”. It
continued, “This time the immediate cause for consideration ... was the decision
to support the Labor Party in the Federal elections.” The Letter proceeded to deal
with the “third period”, the radicalisation of the working class and the “Right
Deviation”, stating: “The question as to whether Australian capitalism will
succeed in its plans to subjugate the working class or whether the working
class will assume the counter-offensive and develop its revolutionary struggle
against capitalism will depend on the ability and determination of the CP to
organise and lead the counter-offensive ... This has not been the case until
now. The Party has been slow in learning from the experience of the British, German,
and French working class and from events in Australia proper. The important decisions
of the Sixth World Congress and the Tenth Plenum of the Cl as well as the decisions
of the Fourth RILU Congress seem to have been neglected by the CPA.”
It
went on. “Even at its conference of December 1928, the Party could not give a
proper political estimate of the Labor Party or define its fundamentally
social-fascist character, its aggressively counter-revolutionary role in the present
situation” and further, “apparently the Party regards itself as being merely a
propagandist body and as a sort of adjunct to the Labor Party”. The Open Letter
then emphasised the need for a Communist Party to “assert itself as the only
true working class Party” and “to conduct open warfare against the Party of
class collaboration”.
There
was much agitation to have the Letter published in the CPA's newspaper, The
Workers' Weekly, where it finally appeared on 6 December. The CEC took the
opportunity to write again to the Comintern Executive on 16 December, replying
in detail to the Open Letter, maintaining that the leadership “accepts without
reservation the need to intensify and clarify the struggle against reformism”
and this issue will be “the concern of our ninth conference”. In making
criticisms of the Open Letter, the CEC, via Tom Wright, made the point that the
present situation was seen as much sharper but not ripe for revolution. Wright
pointed out that notes had been left with the Comintern by Higgins in September
1928 to the effect that the “time had come to emerge from the propaganda stage”
as suggested in discussions with the ECCI in April but that no reply had been received.
Further, he referred back to the resolution on the Labor Party adopted at the December
1928 conference, “no word of criticism came from you, and, even in the Open Letter,
apart from reference to one passage in the conference resolution you express no
opinion on the decisions of a year ago”. He concluded that if the CPA leadership
had made mistakes, so had the ECCI because it had not raised any criticism at
the time.
Very
few in the CPA realised how fundamental were the changes in the policies emanating
from the Comintern. With the defeat of Bukharin, Stalin had succeeded in redefining
Third Period policies to mean that capitalist stabilisation was at an end and
that revolutionary situations were now certain in Western capitalist countries.
Social fascists were now the main enemy. Not understanding what had happened,
most of the CPA leadership were bewildered at the advice they were now being
given. They were also angry, and simply disagreed. They saw it as important to
have the ALP, not the Nationalist Party in power. Indeed, the Labor Party under
James Scullin, had succeeded in the October 1929 federal elections in defeating
the Nationalist Country Party Coalition. Those, on the other hand, who were
impatient with what they perceived as the CEC's slowness in developing an independent
CPA campaign, were reinforced by the new Comintern line. The relative inexperience
of the Australian communists, the inherent leftism of many of its members, and
the feeling that they had been betrayed by the Labor Party, made the Comintern's
new appraisal of social democrats as “social fascists” an attractive alternative
to the old united front policies. The belief that revolution was already on the
agenda was a huge incentive to those who believed in the socialist goal.
The
new Comintern line appeared to be correct not only within the Australian context
but world-wide. The Wall Street crash in October 1929 did indeed seem to herald
the complete collapse of capitalism. As Friedrich I. Firsov, Doctor of Science
of History, put it to me in Moscow in November, 1990: “It appeared as if Stalin
was right and that capitalism wouldn't develop any further, but events took a
different direction. It was a deep crisis but not one that would bring about the
end of capitalism. It was one of many crises - but still just one. The crisis
was solved in other ways than by proletarian revolution. In Germany it was solved
by the totalitarian regime of Hitler. Other capitalist countries took different
paths, for example, the welfare state and in the USA by Roosevelt's New Deal.”
Peter
Morrison gives as one of the reasons for the differences which developed so
strongly in 1929, the different experiences of the Labor Party in different
states. The Commonwealth at this time was only 28 years old, and a great deal
of power lay with the states. There was a continuing possibility of state breakaways
within the Labor Party, and state ALP branches were not always obedient to the
national body when developing policy. Federally, the Labor Party had not been
in power since 1916, and so had no record on national issues by which it could
be judged by the working class, a point made by Tom Wright in his defence of CEC
policies in The Workers' Weekly on 1 November 1929. Now that Scullin was Prime
Minister there would be opportunity to do so.
Within
the CPA too there was state rivalry. This was mainly between Queensland and
NSW, Victoria and the other states being less important at that time. These two
States had quite different experiences with the Labor Party. The improved vote
for the CPA in Queensland, which had a right-wing Labor Government for 14 years,
no doubt convinced the party members of that state that the new policy was correct.
The lack of similar experience in NSW, which had had a Nationalist Party government
since the defeat of Lang in 1927 probably affected the opinion of NSW Party members.
These different perceptions of the ALP produced Kavanagh's more cautious view,
now branded as “exceptionalism”, that each state should be considered separately.
By
December, discontent with CEC policies had reached a peak. After the Open Letter
was finally published inThe Workers' Weekly on 6 December, open debate
on the contentious issues was encouraged in its columns. As this debate continued,
the lock-out in the Northern coalfields was reaching a dangerous climax. The
NSW state government had sent in non-union labour, and a confrontation between
the police and the locked-out miners led to the death of a miner on 16 December.
The combined effect of this event, The Workers' Weekly debate, and the
CI's Open Letter was a situation where rank and file support was swinging in
favour of the minority on the CEC. To add to all this, another telegram had
arrived on 16 December from the ECCI to be read at the ninth conference denouncing
the “opportunist attitude” of the present policy and supporting the
opposition's attitude as “perfectly sound and necessary”. Clayton (Tripp) and
Walters (who had recently arrived to attend the Lenin school) were both at the
meeting in Moscow where the contents of the telegram were decided. It was signed
by Colon, Thaelman, Semard, Kuusinen and Pollitt.
The
cable added fuel to the fire and it was in a mood for confrontation that the delegates
began the ninth annual conference on 26 December. The struggle within the CPA
until this point had been sharp, but it is very doubtful whether without the requested
Comintern intervention, and the importance placed on the Comintern judgment by
the Australian communists, it would have been conducted with so much intolerance
and bitterness. Allegiance to the Comintern meant that those who disagreed with
the “new line” were stigmatised as traitors to the working class. This process
of stigmatisation in itself was not foreign to socialist politics. What was new
was the belief that there was one path and one path only, and the situation where
open disagreement could result in permanent ostracism. Thus it was the
opposition's own attitude to the Comintern that created what Higgins described
as “the poisonous atmosphere” within which the ninth annual conference took
place.
The Ninth Annual Conference of the CPA
The
discussion at the ninth conference (26-31 December 1929), the decisions it made,
and the change in leadership were a turning point in CPA history. Both sides presented
their case. Kavanagh, in the chair, referred to the sharp differences of
opinion in his opening address, declaring these needed to be “thrashed out at
this conference”. The decisions would be binding. He also reiterated that his
own position was that “the central task of the Party is to assert its claim to
independent leadership of the working class against capitalism and its reformist
allies”. Tom Wright followed, giving the Central Committee report, outlining
its policy on the Federal elections; he included acceptance of the fact that the
majority opposed the CEC's policy on the Federal elections, and that this view
was confirmed by the CI.
Herbert
Moxon led the attack with a minority report on the second day of the Conference,
dealing with the timber strike and the failure to get party groups into
activity, the tardiness about the coal lockout, and the policy for the federal elections,
charging the CC leadership with “right deviation” and “new guardism”. He gave details
of the exchanges between the ECCI and the CPA and called for the conference to
lift the censure on Moxon and Sharkey, which had been imposed in October, endorse
the Open Letter of the CI, and realise it in practice. Kavanagh objected to
this report indicating it was full of inaccuracies and should be placed before
the delegates for discussion, but apparently this was not agreed to.
In
the third session of the conference on Friday 28 December, immediately after the
cable from the ECCI was read, Hector Ross weighed into the debate. He claimed
that there had been “a whole mass of misrepresentations and exaggerations” and
the debate on both sides had been waged “on a very low level indeed” but he
supported the CEC position on the elections. In his analysis of the ninth conference,
Morrison found that only the Sydney delegates, excluding Hetty Weitzel (representing
the Women's Section) and Anne Isaacs, (YCL representative), supported Kavanagh,
while all the states and both northern and southern districts of NSW were opposed
to him. In a relatively small conference, Moxon, with nine representatives from
Queensland, was able to control the final result.
Following
Ross, speaker after speaker supported the minority position. These included
Lance Sharkey, Jack Miles, Ted Docker, Bill Orr, Andy Barras, Len Varty and
Jack Simpson, Mick Loughran and Richard Walker. Those under attack responded, several
making the point that the differences of opinion were merely a pretext f or other
motives. Kavanagh stated that the mainspring of the opposition was based on “an
opportunist desire for control of the Communist Party”. Jack Ryan replied to the
accusation of “right deviation”. Over the year, he said, many had been seen as
suffering from it; Sharkey himself “was bumped off the CEC in 1927” as a right
winger. The opposition was “utilising a certain situation on the CEC to
capitalise in order to get control of the organisation”. Mocking their extremism
he said, “I am a treacherous betrayer of the working class because I supported
the policy of the CEC in the federal elections.”
Higgins
and Jeffery had both changed their minds. Higgins recognised that the line
adopted had been a mistake while Jeffery accepted the criticism that the CEC
suffered from a right deviation and that “not one member of the whole CC should
stand for the CE ... I stand behind CI discipline”. Joe Shelley was in a
“quandary”; he argued that had it not been for the definite instructions of the
CI the logical target of criticism would have been the decision made by the eighth
conference in 1928 where the majority of delegates had made it clear that the
Queensland resolution was not to apply generally. However, he said, “there was
no excuse for the CC to adopt the attitude it did”. After the debate on the second
day of the conference the result was a foregone conclusion. All those on the
old CEC who had supported Kavanagh, except Esmonde Higgins whose stand had been
equivocal, were voted out of office. The Moxon/Sharkey faction had won.
State
and personal rivalries no doubt fuelled the fire, but in examining the material
from the Comintern Archives together with evidence from Australian sources it
is apparent that, rather than being a mere “pawn” in the game, the Comintern
had been the deciding factor in defeating the former leadership. The ECCI had
not issued directives from afar of its own volition, but had been very willing
to intervene when it was requested to do so. Notwithstanding the bitter
antagonism of Moxon towards the majority of the old CEC, it was not chiefly for
narrow political gain that he and Sharkey had taken this action. The overriding
concern was commitment to ideological unanimity with the Comintern. One of the
first acts of the new leadership was to cable the ECCI on 30 December 1929,
“offering unswerving loyalty to the new line”.
When
all the tumult and the shouting had died away the CPA was profoundly changed.
Some consider that the changes were necessary and beneficial, opening the way
for the changes in policy and methods of work which led to an impressive growth
for the CPA in the period of the great mass movements of the thirties. These
gains were made, according to those who hold this view, in spite of the negative
effect of the “social fascist” line in the years immediately following the conference.
It is doubtful that the gains outweighed the losses. It is possible, as suggested
by Blake, that without the sharp polarisation of viewpoint, aggravated by the ECCI
intervention, a different and more representative CEC may have been elected.
That is conjecture only, but what stands out clearly is that after the 1929
ninth annual conference something precious had disappeared. This was the
atmosphere described by Edna Ryan when she referred to the CPA premises of the
1920s as “an open academy” – “it didn't occur to us at the time that we were enjoying
liberty of thought and expression, but there was no hushing and stifling, no fear
of being accused if one proposed a tactic or an idea”. Though the new leadership
set out with courage and vigour to win support for the new line the free-ranging
debate and discussion of the twenties under Kavanagh's leadership was gone. Now
there was one correct line and to depart from it unless one indulged in self-criticism
meant ostracism and possible expulsion.
Notes
I
would like to thank the staffs of the Comintern Archives of the Institute of
Marxism-Leninism attached to the CC CPSU; the ANU Archives of Business and
Labour, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, Sydney, for their assistance to me
in my research. I am particularly grateful to Edna Ryan, Mary Wright, Hector
Kavanagh, Steve Cooper and Ross Edmunds for their freely given comments about
the events and personalities involved in these events. Finally I would like to
thank Ann, Jean and Geoff Curthoys for encouraging me to accept the invitation
to visit the Archives in Moscow and special thanks to Ann for her assistance
with the first draft.
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