Jock Garden unionist, Katherine Susannah Prichard author, Christian Jollie Smith socialist lawyer,
Tom Walsh trade unionist and journalist, Adela Pankhurst suffragette and political organiser.

Free Speech Campaign

Against Wars - Abyssinia - Spanish Civil War - Japan’s Aggression

Spanish Civil War and the CPA

On April 4, 1931, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Spain was proclaimed to wildly enthusiastic crowds. When the new Republican Government set about the task of modernising Spain, class conflict erupted. Conservative social forces launched a military coup led by General Franco and his Nationalist movement. The rebellion was met with popular armed resistance. The civil war began in earnest.

Of 52 Australian volunteers whose occupations we know, 36 were attached to fighting groups and 16 nursed, organised, investigated or propagandised. Before they left, 27 of the 36 fighters were manual workers - seamen, shearers, a shearer's cook, a boiler maker, sugar workers and general labourers; three were Communist Party functionaries; two were unemployed; one was a writer; four were farmers; one a school teacher; and one was a poster artist. The 16 non-fighters (including 10 women) had been nurses and white collar workers: six nurses, one advertising copywriter, two students, one office worker; two had been pedlars...Of the 27 whose politics are known, 22 were communists; two described themselves as anarchists, several were liberal democrats and three were Labor supporters. (“Australians in the Spanish Civil War” by Amirah Inglis)

CPA and Unions and the Dalfram dispute

Another key feature of the 1930s was the promotion of Communists into the leadership of many unions. It started with the Australian Railways Union but it was the leadership of Communists in the Waterside Workers Federation which brought the next upheaval and a major advance of the Communists in the eyes of the working class.  The WWF refused to load the Dalfram at Port Kembla with scrap iron.  Menzies at this time was the Federal Attorney General and he came to Wollongong to the scene of the stand–off where one Communist orator Stan Moran called Bob Menzies ‘Pig Iron Bob’ this name was invented according Ted Roach by Mrs G Croft a member of the local women’s relief committee. This nickname followed Menzies for the rest of his public life.  Ted Roach was the Waterside Workers’ Federation leader in Wollongong. The wharfies said the iron would come back as bullets as well as giving succour to Japan which was waging a war against China.  Many Australian Chinese as well as Chinese off other ships came to support the actions of the wharfies and their Communist leadership.  The wharfies and Communists were proved correct as on December 9, 1941 Australia declared war on Japan.  Australian POWs in Nagasaki were shovelling iron labelled NSW GR (New South Wales Government Railways) as the US dropped a nuclear bomb on the city.

The Fight against Fascism and War

The work of Communists for peace and against the growing trend towards fascism led to the establishment of the National League against Imperialism and Fascism. This organisation grew remarkably throughout the country.  The League invited Egon Erwin Kisch, a Czech-Austrian Communist activist and journalist to Australia. He arrived by ship buy the Australian Government banned him from landing in Australia.  He jumped over the side of the ship and sustained a broken leg.  Kisch had to be treated in a hospital and when he recovered, he was subjected to a dictation test in Scottish Gaelic (he knew 8 European languages). He failed. The test was challenged in the courts and he won. He then toured Australia warning about the dangers of Nazism and the coming war. Menzies was a dedicated appeaser who said Hitler was admirable because he had resurrected Germany after the Depression. 

The Beginning of World War 2

In 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non aggression pact with Nazi Germany. This defensive move was portrayed by the opponents of the Soviet Union as a betrayal of the empire and Australia.

Many Communist events were attacked and Communist Party members injured.  There was an infamous event in Mudgee where police helped soldiers on leave to attack a street meeting of Communists, injuring the speakers and destroying a car belonging to a CPA member.

The first two decades of the CPA set the pattern for the party’s work — strong presence in the union movement, work for the victims of capitalism such as those who were being evicted in the Depression era, a deep understanding of and commitment to equality for migrants and for indigenous people.

One of the first campaigns undertaken by the CPA was the Sheepskins for Russia campaign during the 1920s at the time of the famines and hardships brought about by Western boycotts of the Soviet Union. This set the stage for the CPA’s outstanding contribution to solidarity campaigns that continues to this day.