"Understanding the history of the CPA [Communist Party of Australia], and labour history more generally, is vital for activists here and now who want to change the world,” Sarah Gregson, labour historian and unionist from the University of NSW, told a book launch at the Resistance Centre on May 6.
“We generally face similar issues now as then.”
Conflict in the Unions: The Communist Party of Australia, Politics and the Trade Union Movement, 1945-60 by Douglas Jordan, focuses on how the CPA organised in the unions. Gregson said this took place during "the toughest of times, during the rise of the Cold War, when attacks on the left came thick and fast, from without and from within.
"Fighting Abbott is not easy, but the CPA faced significant threats to its existence because of government claims it was a threat to national security and preached subversive ideas.
“Communist-led unions also had to battle conservative 'Groupers' operating within them to turn members away from militant and political unionism, from taking up social questions and not just economic ones.
“[This] book shows how much the Australian ruling class fears and resists internationalist solidarity. [It] also shows that racism is not indelible to the working class, but can be challenged with anti-racist arguments and solidarity action.”
The book's author, Jordan, is a long-time socialist activist and former tramways union militant. He told the forum: “This book looks at three areas of CPA activity in the trade unions: building support for the peace movement; attitudes to the post-war arrival of refugees and migrants, and convincing unionists to support the growing Aboriginal civil rights movement.
“They were important issues at the time and remain with us today. As a society, and for the broad trade union movement, there is much to be done in these areas. Unions need to visit the past and learn from the successes and failures of the CPA.”
A lively question and answer discussion raised various historical and current issues facing the union movement and the left.