Communist Party of Australia (1920–1944; 1951–1991) Australian Communist Party (1944–1951) | |
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Abbreviation |
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Founder | Jock Garden Tom Walsh William Earsman Adela Pankhurst Christian Jollie Smith Katharine Susannah Prichard |
Founded | 30 October 1920 |
Registered | 19 October 1984[1] |
Legalised | 18 December 1942[2][3] |
Dissolved | |
Succeeded by | Socialist Party of Australia (1971)[a] |
Headquarters | Marx House, Sydney[b] |
Newspaper | |
Youth wing | Eureka Youth League |
Paramilitary wing | Workers' Defence Corps (1929–1935) |
Membership(1945) | 22,052[6][3] |
Ideology |
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Political position | |
International affiliation | Comintern (1921–1943) |
Colours | Red |
Slogan | "All power to the workers" |
Anthem | The Internationale |
Party branches | Queensland |
Queensland Parliament | 1 / 62 (1944–1950) |
De facto flag used in the 1940s–50s | |
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TheCommunist Party of Australia (CPA), known as theAustralian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was anAustraliancommunist party founded in 1920. The party existed until roughly 1991, with its membership and influence having been in a steady decline since its peak in 1945. Like mostcommunist parties in the West, the party was heavily involved in thelabour movement and thetrade unions. Its membership, popularity and influence grew significantly during most of theinterwar period before reaching its climax in 1945, where the party achieved a membership of slightly above 22,000 members. At its peak it was the largest communist party in theAnglophone countries on a population basis, and heldindustrial strength greater than the parties of "India, Latin America, and most of Western Europe".[3][7]
Although the party did not achieve afederal MP,Fred Paterson was elected to theParliament of Queensland (forBowen) at the1944 state election. He won re-election in1947 before the seat was abolished. The party also held office in over a dozenlocal government areas acrossNew South Wales andQueensland.
After nineteen years of activity, the CPA was formally banned on 15 June 1940 under the relatively newMenzies government (1939–1941).[4][2] The party was banned under theNational Security (Subversive Associations) Regulations 1940. Two-and-a-half years later, the party was again a lawful organisation.[3] When the party contested thefederal election eight months later, it received its biggest vote total. Getting a total of 81,816 votes (1.93–2.00%), the party received over 20,000 inVictoria andQueensland, and over 19,000 inNew South Wales.[8] It was the party's biggest vote total since the1934 federal election. However, by the late 1960s the party fell into single digit numbers before a brief spike in the mid 1970s. In the mid-to-late 1980s, the party was effectively stagnant and was dissolved in 1989.[9] To the present, the party is the fourth-oldest political party in Australian political history sinceFederation, lasting for70 years, 122 days.
The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) was founded at the Australian Socialist Party Hall in Sydney on 30 October 1920[10][11][12][13]socialists inspired by reports of theRussian Revolution. The estimates for attendees at the founding ranges from below thirteen (Alistair Davidson)[11] to twenty-six (Stuart Macintyre).[14] Sixty invitations were issued.[14] Groups included theAustralian Socialist Party (ASP), some members from theVictorian Socialist Party (although the party itself did not join), as well as a variety of militant trade unionists.[15] Among the party's founders were prominent Sydney trade unionists,Jock Garden,Tom Walsh, andWilliam Paisley Earsman,[16] and suffragettes and anti-conscriptionists includingAdela Pankhurst (daughter of the British suffragistEmmeline Pankhurst),Christian Jollie Smith andKatharine Susannah Prichard.[17]
Most of the then illegal Australian section of theIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW) joined, but the IWW soon left the Communist Party, with its original members, over disagreements with the direction of theSoviet Union andBolshevism. In its early years, mainly through Garden's efforts, the party achieved some influence in the trade union movement inNew South Wales, but by the mid-1920s it had dwindled to an insignificant group.
A visits to the 1924 New Zealand conference by CPA executive members Hetty and Hector Ross got the (also small)Communist Party of New Zealand (CPNZ) agreeing to temporary affiliation with the CPA, and were followed by visits in 1925 by Harry Quaife, and by Norman Jeffery a bow-tie wearing former "Wobbly" (IWW member).[18]
Garden and other communists were expelled from theLabor Party (ALP) in 1924. The CPA ran candidates including Garden (forSydney)[19][20] at the1925 New South Wales state election in working-class seats against the ALP but was decisively defeated. This prompted Garden to leave the party in 1926 and return to the Labor Party. The leadership of the party went toJack Kavanagh, an experienced Canadian communist activist who had moved to Australia in 1925, andEsmonde Higgins, a talentedMelbourne journalist who was the nephew of then-High CourtJustice,H. B. Higgins.
In 1929 the party leadership fell into disfavour with theCommunist International (Comintern), which under orders fromJoseph Stalin had taken a turn to radical revolutionary rhetoric (the so-called "Third Period"). After allowing party member Bert Moxon in Queensland to organise Communist candidates for the1929 Queensland state election, the CPA leadership refused to do the same for the1929 Australian federal election and instead supported the ALP, leading the Comintern to denounce the party's relationship to the ALP as 'opportunist'. In December 1929, a new party leadership including Moxon,Jack Miles,Lance Sharkey andRichard Dixon was elected in response to these denunciations, and began a period of strict centralisation and obedience to Moscow. Kavanagh was expelled in 1930 and Higgins resigned, and an emissary of the Comintern, the American communistHarry M. Wicks, was sent to correct the party's perceived errors. Though Moxon was removed as national secretary by the end of 1930 and later expelled from the party's central committee entirely, Miles and then Sharkey would lead the party until 1965.[21]
In the 1930s, the CPA began a campaign to create mass organisations to organise militancy in the working-class, known as 'fraternal organisations' or 'fronts'. These organisations were nominally independent of the party and often included prominent non-communist office-holders, but were dominated by the CPA and its members who served as the organisers for them.[22] Among these was theUnemployed Workers Movement, founded in 1930, which at its height had 30,000 members and was infamous nationally for its anti-eviction campaign in Sydney.[23][24][25]
During this period the party experienced some growth, particularly after 1935 when the Comintern changed its policy in favour of a "united front againstfascism". TheMovement Against War and Fascism (MAWF) was founded to bring together all opponents of fascism under a communist controlled umbrella organisation. The movement instigated the events which led to theattempted exclusion of Egon Kisch from Australia in late 1934 and early 1935. Alongside this, the CPA formed theWorkers Defence Corps (WDC).[26]
The CPA was the first Australian political party to make a commitment toAboriginal rights, which were included in its manifesto from 1931 onwards. The CPA, discussing in great detail the abuses suffered by Aboriginals, published a lengthy list of demands, calling for "full economic, political and social rights" for Aboriginal people.[27]
The Communist Party began to win positions in trade unions during the 1930s, with party members taking the national leadership of theFederated Ironworkers's Association, theMiners' Federation and theWaterside Workers' Federation (WWF), as well as positions in other smaller unions or regional branches. At the same time, only a small minority of union members were themselves communists so these officials relied on the support of other militant unionists and the broader membership to maintain and exercise leadership, and the CPA's parliamentary candidates nearly always polled poorly at elections. The party also set up an organization of the unemployed to resist evictions. Activists from the party joined theInternational Brigades to defend theSecond Republic againstFrancisco Franco's troops, and instigated an industrial campaign by the WWF to ban shipments of scrap iron to Japan in 1938.[28] Throughout this time, members of the CPA were under constant surveillance by police and intelligence forces and harassed by the courts.[29]
In 1939, after Soviet efforts to contain Nazi aggression through co-operation and alliance with France and Britain were rejected by the French and British,Nazi Germany and theSoviet Union signed aNon-Aggression Treaty. Despite ideological opposition between the countries, the USSR agreed not to engage in hostilities against Germany at the outbreak ofWorld War II (Australia declared war on Nazi Germany for invading Poland). Consequently, the Communist Party of Australia opposed and sought to disrupt Australia's war effort against Germany in the early stages of the war under orders of the Comintern on the grounds that it was a war between imperialist nations, and not in the interests of the working class. Menzies banned the CPA after the fall of France in 1940, but by 1941 Stalin was forced to join the allied cause when Hitler reneged on the Pact and invaded the USSR. The USSR came to bear the brunt of the carnage of Hitler's war machine and the Communist Party in Australia lost its early war stigma as a result.[30]
Following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the CPA shifted towards a collaborativeUnited front approach to the Labor Party to fully support the Australian war effort against fascism. Party members held discussions with senior Labor ministers followingCurtin government entering office in 1941, pledging to provide full support to mobilise resources for the war effort.[3] The CPA supported calls forconscription, increasedworking hours, condemned strike action in war industries, and minimised criticism ofJohn Curtin and his government.[3] By 1942, the Curtin government legalised the CPA, exempted communist trade union and party officials from conscription, and provided the party's newspaper Tribune with a 'generous newsprint allocation' under wartime paper rationing.[3]
During the united front period, the CPA's membership rose to 20,000, it won control of a number of important trade unions, and a Communist candidate,Fred Paterson, was elected to theQueensland parliament. The Communist Party achieved a majority of seats in the New South Wales'Kearsley Shire from1944 to1947.[31] The Shire was committed tomunicipal socialism, advocating nationalisation of electricity and the expansion of thesocial wage, and was unique for its commitment to activism around federal and international affairs.[31] But the party remained marginal to the Australian political mainstream. TheAustralian Labor Party remained the dominant party of the Australian left.
After 1945 and the onset of theCold War, the party entered a steady decline. Following the new line from Moscow, and believing that a new "imperialist war" and a new depression were imminent, and that the CPA should immediately contest for leadership of the working class with the Australian Labor Party, the CPA launched an industrial offensive in 1947, culminating in aprolonged strike in the coal mines in 1949. TheChifley Labor government saw this as a communist challenge to its position in the labour movement, and used the army andstrikebreakers to break the strike. The Communist Party never again held such a strong position in the union movement.
In 1949, the USSR detonated its firstatomic bomb andMao Zedong gained control in China. A year later,North Korea invadedSouth Korea and in 1951, during theKorean War, theLiberal government ofRobert Menzies tried to ban the Communist Party of Australia, first by legislation[32] that wasdeclared invalid by the High Court, then by referendum to try to overcome theconstitutional obstacles to that legislation. The1951 referendum was opposed by the Communist Party as well as the Australian Labor Party, and was narrowly defeated. The issue of communist influence in the unions remained potent and led to theAustralian Labor Party split of 1955 and the formation of theDemocratic Labor Party comprising disaffected ALP members who were concerned over communist influence in Australian unions.
In 1956, three years after Stalin died, Soviet leaderNikita Khrushchev gave theSecret Speech, denouncing Stalin and Stalinism as fostering acult of personality, and revealing many abuses of power Stalin had committed while in power. The Australian party leadership—entirely committed to Stalinism—was confused about what to do. It tried to suppress discussions of the speech, which was widely reported in the press.[33] According toRalph Gibson, several high-ranking members includingTed Hill had received a copy ofKrushchev's secret speech directly from theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union[34] However, the party denied the criticisms of Stalin within the party newspaper, Tribune.[34]
Disillusioned members began to leave the party. More left after theSoviet invasion ofHungary in 1956. In 1961, the leader of the "pro-China" faction of the party during theSino-Soviet split, Ted Hill, was expelled from the party.[34] Hill proceeded to lead a split of pro-China members of the party, which culminated in the formation of the smallerCommunist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist).
By the 1960s, the party's membership had fallen to around 5,000 members,[35] but it continued to hold positions in a number of trade unions, and it was also influential in the various protest movements of the period, especially the movement against theVietnam War. This period also saw the establishment of theNational Training Centre inMinto, NSW, ostensibly for the purpose of educating in the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.[36] The party became more openly critical about the Soviet Union and theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union.[34] In 1966, the party started their own magazine calledAustralian Left Review. In 1967, the party ceased receiving payments from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union following a seminar byLaurie Aarons in the Soviet Union which argued that "ideas require free contest, not confined in a framework of established dogmas that can become a rigid or even ossified edifice".[34] But the Sovietinvasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 triggered another crisis. Sharkey's successor as party leader,Laurie Aarons, denounced the invasion, and a group of pro-Soviet hardliners left in 1971 to form a new party, theSocialist Party of Australia.
Through the 1970s and 1980s the party continued to decline, despite adoptingEurocommunism and democratising its internal structures so that it became a looser radical party rather than a classicMarxist-Leninist one. The CPA conducted campaigns againstnuclear weapons and the extraction ofuranium, and supported the demands of indigenous peoples in Australia and abroad, especially inPapua New Guinea. It thus militated for the abolition of legislation judged repressive regarding indigenous people, for equal pay and for land rights. Its members helped Aboriginal workers in Pilbara lead the longest industrial strike ever in Australia. Internationally, the Communist Party of Australia was close to theRevolutionary Front for the Independence of East Timor (Fretilin) who resisted theIndonesian occupation in the 1970s and 1980s.[29] By 1990, membership had declined to below the one thousand mark.
At the party's 31st Congress in Sydney (2–3 March 1991),[5][37] the Communist Party was dissolved and the New Left Party formed.[5][37] The New Left Party was intended to be a broader party which would attract a wider range of members, which did not happen, and the New Left Party disbanded in 1992. The assets of the Communist Party were thereafter directed into theSEARCH Foundation (acronym for "Social Education, Action and Research Concerning Humanity"),[38] a not-for-profit company set up in 1990 "to preserve and draw on the resources of the Communist Party of Australia and its archives."[39] The archives of the party are now held at the State Library of NSW[40] and can be accessed with the written permission of the SEARCH Foundation. TheState Library of New South Wales holds an extensive collection of material related to the Communist Party of Australia including oral history recordings, business papers, the personal papers of a range of men and women involved in the Party and a collection of images that were published inTribune, the Party's newspaper.[41] The Victoria University Library holds the Crow Collection,[42] donated by long-time Communist Party memberRuth Crow, which includes materials from her years campaigning for the Communist Party. The University of Melbourne collection is "one of the most significant from the CPA held in Australia", containing 20th-century materials from the Victorian branch.[43][44]
In 1996 at the 8th National Congress the Socialist Party of Australia was renamed to Communist Party of Australia, thereby becoming the successor of the original party.[45]
The SEARCH Foundation is a left-wing Australian not-for-profit company that was established in 1990 as a successor organisation of the Communist Party of Australia to preserve and draw on its resources and archives.[46][47] It inherited over 3 million dollars from the CPA.[48]
SEARCH is an active membership-based organisation that runs speaking tours, publications and training programs.[49][46] Members are welcome from across the Australian Left and include prominent political figures such asAustralian Council of Trade Unions SecretarySally McManus, and former NSWGreens SenatorLee Rhiannon.[50][51][52] SEARCH maintains an office atSydney Trades Hall and holds events across Australia.[53] Its archives are held by theState Library of NSW.[54]
SEARCH is an acronym for "Social Education, Action and Research Concerning Humanity".[55]
Eureka Youth League[c] | |
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Founded | 1923 |
Dissolved | 1984 |
Merged into | Left Alliance |
Ideology | |
Colours | Red |
Mother party | Communist |
International affiliation | World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) |
Newspaper | The Young Worker |
Its youth wing worked under several different names at different times, including theYoung Communist League (YCL); theYoung Comrades Club (YCC); theLeague of Young Democrats (LYD); theEureka Youth League (EYL); and lastly theYoung Socialist League, which in 1984 became part of theLeft Alliance.
The youth wing of CPA worked under several different names in different periods from the 1920s onwards, including the Young Communist League (YCL), which was created in 1923 and published its own newspaper,The Young Worker, and the Young Comrades Club (YCC), founded in 1927. At a meeting inMelbourne in 1937 attended by 1,500 people, the YCL changed its name to the League of Young Democrats (LYD). After the LYD was banned by theMenzies government in 1941, the Eureka Youth League (EYL) was established in December of that year, whose membership grew to 1,000 with a year. The EYL published a newspaper calledYouth Voice, and undertook activities relating toWorld War II and the working and living conditions of young people, as well as thepeace movement during this war and theKorean War later. In 1952 it held the "Youth Carnival for Peace and Friendship" inSydney, attracting 30,000 attendees. EYL opposed the introduction ofNational Service in Australia in the 1950s.[56]
The Eureka Youth League also had an important role in the early promotion of jazz music in Australia in the 1940s under the leadership ofHarry Stein.[57]
EYL collaborated with theAustralian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and helped to arrange its Youth Weeks, and also ran youth camps across Australia, attended by thousands of young people. It protested theVietnam War actively, but by 1968 membership had declined, and a change of name to the Young Socialist League did not last long.[56]
Camp Eureka, created in 1973, is still maintained as an historic and usable camp for up to 32 people.[58]
The Eureka Youth League was a founding member of theWorld Federation of Democratic Youth, a membership later taken over by the Young Communist Movement.[citation needed] In 1984 (or 1987?) the Young Socialist League became part ofLeft Alliance.[59]
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Election year | No. of overall votes | % of overall vote | seats won | +/– | Notes |
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1930 | 10,445 | 0.79 (5th) | 0 / 90 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1932 | 12,351 | 0.92 (5th) | 0 / 90 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1935 | 19,105 | 1.52 (5th) | 0 / 90 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1938 | 10,386 | 0.88 (5th) | 0 / 90 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1944 | 21,982 | 1.74 (9th) | 0 / 90 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1947 | 27,237 | 1.71 (6th) | 0 / 90 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1950 | 13,589 | 0.84 (7th) | 0 / 94 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1953 | 21,421 | 1.38 (5th) | 0 / 94 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1930 | 29,534 | 1.74 (5th) | 0 / 94 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1959 | 24,784 | 1.45 (5th) | 0 / 90 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1962 | 12,150 | 0.63 (7th) | 0 / 94 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1965 | 13,082 | 0.64 (7th) | 0 / 94 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1968 | 5,828 | 0.27 (7th) | 0 / 94 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1971 | 2,098 | 0.79 (7th) | 0 / 96 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1973 | 838 | 0.03 (6th) | 0 / 99 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1976 | 2,220 | 0.08 (7th) | 0 / 99 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1978 | 8,472 | 0.30 (5th) | 0 / 99 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1981 | 6,250 | 0.22 (5th) | 0 / 99 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
Election year | No. of overall votes | % of overall vote | seats won | +/– | Notes |
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1929 | 2,890 | 0.67 (3rd) | 0 / 72 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1932 | 1,057 | 0.23 (5th) | 0 / 62 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1935 | 6,101 | 1.32 (4th) | 0 / 62 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1938 | 8,510 | 1.60 (6th) | 0 / 62 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1941 | 5,383 | 1.00 (8th) | 0 / 62 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1944 | 12,467 | 2.43 (4th) | 1 / 62 | ![]() | Crossbench |
1947 | 7,870 | 1.24 (5th) | 1 / 62 | ![]() | Crossbench |
1950 | 2,351 | 0.37 (6th) | 0 / 75 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1953 | 3,948 | 0.65 (6th) | 0 / 75 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1956 | 1,332 | 0.20 (5th) | 0 / 75 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1969 | 476 | 0.06 (6th) | 0 / 78 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
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Election year | No. of overall votes | % of overall vote | seats won | +/– | Notes |
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1950 | 86 | 0.06 (4th) | 0 / 30 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1956 | 91 | 0.06 (5th) | 0 / 30 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1959 | 144 | 0.09 (5th) | 0 / 35 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1964 | 92 | 0.05 (5th) | 0 / 35 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
Election year | No. of overall votes | % of overall vote | seats won | +/– | Notes |
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1929 | 1,962 | 0.31 (5th) | 0 / 65 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1932 | 953 | 0.14 (5th) | 0 / 65 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1935 | 9,301 | 1.11 (4th) | 0 / 65 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1937 | 5,700 | 0.72 (4th) | 0 / 65 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1940 | 2,935 | 0.38 (5th) | 0 / 65 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1943 | 38,802 | 4.51 (5th) | 0 / 65 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1945 | 25,083 | 0.31 (7th) | 0 / 65 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1947 | 1,575 | 0.13 (4th) | 0 / 65 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1950 | 6,308 | 0.52 (4th) | 0 / 65 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1955 | 4,589 | 0.35 (7th) | 0 / 66 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1967 | 1,443 | 0.09 (5th) | 0 / 73 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1973 | 398 | 0.02 (8th) | 0 / 73 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1979 | 2,305 | 0.11 (8th) | 0 / 81 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
Election year | No. of overall votes | % of overall vote | seats won | +/– | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1933 | 442 | 0.25 (5th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1936 | 118 | 0.09 (6th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1939 | 308 | 0.15 (5th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1943 | 713 | 0.40 (6th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1947 | 1,641 | 1.00 (5th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1950 | 815 | 0.36 (5th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1953 | 1,350 | 0.72 (5th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1956 | 1,167 | 0.50 (5th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1959 | 2,216 | 0.84 (6th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1962 | 1,201 | 0.41 (6th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1965 | 284 | 0.09 (5th) | 0 / 50 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1968 | 1,694 | 0.53 (6th) | 0 / 51 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
1971 | 2,265 | 0.48 (6th) | 0 / 51 | ![]() | Extra-parliamentary |
Notes:
Footnotes:
The formation of the Communist Party (October 30, 1920) was one of decisive revolutionary acts of the Australian working class.
On 30 October 1920 twenty-six men and women gathered at the Australian Socialist Party Hall in Sydney and formed the Communist Party of Australia. Less than half those invited to the meeting had come.
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