Реферат: Social democracy
Within
the labour movement, both the CPA and the ALP members shared a common culture.
They spoke the same language, worked alongside each other and both held socialism
to be the goal, albeit to be achieved by different roads. This had always been so
but with the more liberal policies of the Seventh Congress this shared culture meant
a steady stream of recruits as well as union election successes for the CPA. These
communist victories in trade unions had a direct impact on the power balance within
the Australian Labor Party because unions were affiliated to the party and directly
represented in Labor congresses.
The
CPA success in trade union elections and in recruitment of ALP members hooked something
of a prize catch in the shape of one talented union official, Jack Hughes. At the
time of his recruitment in 1935, Hughes, was an assistant secretary of the Federated
Clerks Union. In 1936 he won an official position on the Labor Council of New South
Wales, which was the umbrella group for all unions and which played a key role within
the Labor Party machine.
Yet
on the surface, 1936 was a year in which Labor splits healed. Since 1931 two Labor
Parties had existed in New South Wales. One supported the NSW-based Jack Lang and
the other allied to the federal Labor Party. Jack Lang was a former NSW state premier
who commanded a mass following in Sydney and other parts of New South Wales. A demogogue
and fiery speech-maker, Lang had clashed with the banks at the height of the Depression,
then been dismissed as state Premier by the Governor, a relic of Australia's colonial
past.
The
early 1930s saw Lang establish political supremacy within Labor, defeating the
weaker «Federal Labor Party». By 1936 a tenuous re-marriage was concluded between
the two parties. This prompted Lang to try to increase his dominance. His first
target was the radio station owned by the trade union council, the NSW Labor Council.
The
Sydney-based radio station 2KY had been set up in 1925 as «first labour radio
station in the western world». Lang urged the Council to integrate it with the Labor
Daily newspaper, which he controlled, a move designed to entrench his own political
power. The Sydney newspaper, Truth, summed up Lang's move:
Two
great assets of the NSW Labor Party – the 2KY wireless station and the Labor
Daily – are plums for which many people have hungrily licked their lips. Some
have been able to take a bite, but nobody – yet – has been able to snatch them for
their own, their very own. Mr Lang is now trying to pluck these golden plums.
Truth's description
of the «chilly, alert atmosphere» of the Labor Council when Lang addressed it on
2KY was an indication of the storm which would gather strength over the next three
years. The communists, both overt and covert, and the non-communist left wing opposed
Lang's move to integrate the radio station with the newspaper and, to widespread
surprise, his plan was defeated.
In
August 1936 the unions in the Labor Council called what would be the first of many
meetings to oppose Lang's control of the party machine. Lang immediately expelled
four members of parliament, 17 union officials and a number of others. «This lit
the fire,» recalled Hughes many years later.
In
December 1936 another major conference of anti-Lang unions and ALP branches was
held. By this time it was clear that Lang was also trying to entrench his total
control of the Labor Daily. In the preceding months the militant unions had
begun to organise the union shareholders to vote against Lang directors on the newspaper's
board. But after the ballot opened, it became clear that Lang's men had systematically
tried to rig the vote. Ballot papers disappeared, others never arrived at union
offices. On Christmas Eve 1936 the result of the ballot for directors was due to
be announced but before that could be done the Miners' Federation began a legal
challenge to the conduct of the ballot.
In
the following year, 1937, a pending federal election led to an uneasy peace in
the factional warfare. In June the four expelled MPs were readmitted to the NSW
branch after demands from the federal ALP executive. The anti-Lang dissidents continued
to mobilise although Lang remained firmly in control of the state party machine.
In October the factional warfare revived. Labor had lost the federal election and
in the Labor Daily case the Equity Court largely accepted the anti-Lang unions'
claim that their board candidates each gained an average of 19,000 votes to the
Lang unions' 14,000. On appeal the full court partially reversed this result but
it was clear, as anti-Lang unionists pointed out, that «future ballots will result
in Mr Lang's influence being completely destroyed».
In
1937 the anti-Lang forces had formalised their opposition to Lang by creating a
nameless seven person committee to direct their struggle. Later that year it appointed
a full time organiser, Walter Evans. Evans had been a member of the ALP state executive
in 1932 and also a member of the left wing of the Labor Party. By 1937 Evans had
become an undercover member of the CPA. As dual members of the CPA and ALP, Hughes
and Evans would lead the growing anti-Lang struggle within the NSW branch of the
Labor Party for the next two years.
Throughout
the period Hughes remained in contact with the CPA largely through Ernest Knight,
the CPA official who was responsible for party work among the trade unions in
Sydney. Knight had a nondescript office in near the dockside in Sydney unadorned
by any sign. Hughes, as a Clerks' Union official, excited no attention by visiting
Knight's office as he did hundreds of other city offices to collect membership dues.
As an increasingly significant Labor Council official, Hughes could also regularly
visit all leftwing unions and thereby keep in touch with leading CPA trade union
officials. On one level there was no secrecy at all about the growing alliance between
CPA members and the anti-Lang Labor forces. At the weekly meetings of the NSW Labor
Council this co-operation occurred in public. As well, there appears to have been
at least two types of dual membership of the ALP and CPA. While Hughes' membership
was «deep cover», other communists' allegiances were not so hidden. The editor of
the miners' union newspaper, Edgar Ross, who was a member of the Botany ALP branch,
recalled that his CPA membership was known to non-communist anti-Lang ALP members.
In
the following years the organisation of the communist underground in the ALP became
more systematic and was directed by the CPA Political Bureau which met every six
weeks. Both Hughes and Edgar Ross (the most senior surviving dual members) state
that they did not know the identity of all the dual members in the ALP but their
identities must have been known to the CPA Political Bureau. Both Hughes and Ross
later minimised the degree of organised CPA activity within the ALP and claim that
there was never a fraction meeting of this group or any other defined organisational
expression. Yet minutes of the Political Bureau clearly record such a meeting.
In
February 1938 the anti-Lang forces tasted victory, when they took possession of
the offices of the Labor Daily. Behind the scenes the Political Bureau of
the CPA discussed the situation and devised «a plan covering the taking over of
the Labor Daily and replacement of various members of the staff». The price
of victory was the repayment of a loan which Lang had earlier made to the newspaper.
The Labor Council decided to make a clean break and to change the format and name
of the newspaper. What emerged in late 1938 was the Daily News. To bankroll
this undertaking Hughes called on a rather unusual source. For some time Hughes
had been cultivated by the general manager of the Bank of New South Wales, Sir Alfred
Davidson, a forward-looking banker who made a habit of selecting and promoting talented
young people. Davidson had been appalled by Lang's hostility to the banks while
Premier and made overtures to Lang's enemies on both the right and left. For example,
Davidson paid for an organising tour by Hughes of interstate trade union centres
when the anti-Lang forces were trying to influence the ALP federal executive. Davidson
apparently looked on Hughes as a possible national Labor leader with whom he could
garner some influence. In establishing the Daily News Hughes used his influence
with Davidson to get a substantial bank loan. A version of the Hughes-Davidson relationship
appeared in Lang's autobiography in which Lang said that in 1938 Davidson invited
the visiting British Labour figure, Ernest Bevin, to a dinner with Hughes, Evans,
Lloyd Ross and F. O'Neill, all Labor dissidents. At the time, however, Hughes' contact
with Sir Alfred Davidson was by no means public. The unusual alliance between a
communist and a top banker was one of the odd consequences of the CPA's underground
work in the Labor Party.
The
growing CPA influence within the Labor Party was of great interest to the Communist
International largely because of its wider world campaign against isolationism and
in favour of collective security. From July to November 1937 the Anglo-American
secretariat of Comintern held a series of discussions on «the Australian Question»
and spent considerable time on the closely intertwined issues of foreign policy
and the position of the Labor Party. Among those present were the French Comintern
leader Andre Marty and the British representative, Robin Page Arnot, as well as
CPA Political Bureau members Richard Dixon and Jack Blake.
To
achieve a collective security pact linking the Soviet Union to Britain, the election
of Labor administrations in countries of the British Empire was crucial. To achieve
this the CPA worked to strengthen anti-fascist feeling in the society generally
but in particular to use its secret members in the Labor Party to change its isolationist
policy. In early July Dixon addressed the Anglo-American Secretariat arguing that
Australia's main responsibility was to work for a change in British policy, which
was then both warlike and opposed to collective security involving the Soviet Union.
Change was possible because «the British Government is sensitive to Dominion pressure».
To «bring about such a rupture with this Empire front on foreign policy, it is essential
to defeat the Lyons government and elect a Labor government». Dixon noted that Lang's
group was dominated «by the Catholic element» and that this was the reason that
the Labor Party had made no declaration on Spain, although the trade unions on the
NSW Labor Council had. Dixon summed up as follows:
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