Meeting held to commemorate the defeat of the 1951 referendum to ban the Communist Party

Vanguard November 2011 p.4
Alice M.

Welcome to this celebration and commemoration of one of the most significant working class struggles in Australia. The success of the campaign that defeated the 1951 referendum to ban the Communist Party is a tribute to the tireless and dedicated work of the Communist Party of Australia at that time, countless trade unionists, democratic rights activists, Doc Evatt, the ALP Leader of the Opposition at that time, and Ted Hill, the founding Chairman of the CPA (M-L) and many others.

A common history of struggle

Both the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Australia have a common history in the great struggles of 1951 that defeated the moves by the reactionary Menzies government, on behalf of the US and British imperialist ruling class, to ban the Communist Party. The main target of the attack on the Communist Party was the strong working class leadership, the militant fighting capacity of unions and the democratic and progressive movements in Australia.

Veterans of struggle

We want to take this opportunity to pay homage to the tens of thousands of Communist Party members, unionists, the Labor Party members and all democratically minded people who worked tirelessly among all sectors of the people to defeat this march to fascism in Australia and lay another foundation stone of democratic rights. Some of them are amongst us here today.

Anti-communist campaign

This was a period of intense and ruthless anti-communist campaigns and propaganda waged by the ruling class of US and British imperialism. Communists, trade unionists, progressive and democratic minded people were demonised, vilified and terrorised by Australia’s puppets of imperialism – the reactionary politicians, media and hierarchies of the church. Some lost jobs and were evicted from their homes. Children of known communists, trade unionists, peace activists were ostracised, bullied and physically set upon at school.

Against the odds

Twelve months before the referendum it seemed the overwhelming majority of the population would support the ban. And yet, against all these odds, 12 months later the majority of Australian people voted against banning the Communist Party and pushed back attacks on the democratic rights.

Build on the lessons

The best way we can pay tribute to this proud heritage is by learning lessons from that successful mass campaign for the struggles today. Lessons of the 1951 referendum campaign should be used to assist the working class and the people in building a powerful and clear sighted democratic mass movement that advances the interests of the people. This is an urgent task in a world entering the most severe and deepest capitalist economic crisis since the 1930s.

Capitalist crisis of overproduction

The world today is in enormous upheaval and turmoil. US and European monopoly capitalism and imperialism are in a major crisis of capitalist overproduction and the falling rate of profit. It is in economic, political and social decay. Crisis in the capitalist relations of production is at breaking point and is the root of the present decay. The immense wealth swishing around the world and created by the labour of workers – the 99% - is taken away from the makers of this wealth. This wealth is stolen and kept by the parasitic class of 1% who produce nothing of value, but cause all the economic and social suffering and hardship for the majority.

Hardship for the masses of people

Billions of people are suffering deprivation, falling wages and conditions, unemployment and insecure employment, economic hardships and insecurity, homelessness, poverty, and loss of democratic rights. And as the people’s buying power is reduced, many more are thrown into poverty and economic hardship and there is even less spending capacity in the system. The capitalist crisis of overproduction deepens and spreads.

The inevitable bust and the crisis of overproduction is concealed and delayed by the creation of unproductive fictitious and speculative capital. The delay has only worsened and deepened the crisis and escalated the falling rate of profit.

Attacks on the people

In these conditions of major economic crisis, social democracy (the “softer” face of capitalism) has less room to manoeuvre to make a few small reforms that help ensure the capitalist system of class exploitation and oppression is kept intact. It attacks the working class and the people to protect and squeeze more profits. When the people rebel and resist, there is more open use of force by the state against workers and the people, politically, legally, and through the armed forces of police and army – a good example of this is Greece, with vicious attacks against workers on strike, etc.

Class struggle intensifying

Police activities at the Occupy Melbourne event on Friday are only a dress rehearsal and a sign of things still to come in Australia yet. It is largely directed at the working class and militant unions.

We want to make use of the lessons of 1951 to assist the Australian working class and people in the urgent task of building and expanding the peoples’ movement in the struggles against the escalating attacks by imperialism and monopoly capitalism.

Australia is not immune

The economic crisis of capitalism is not as intense in Australia yet as in the rest of the world, particularly the US and Europe, the core of international finance capital, monopoly capitalism and imperialism. However, Australia is not immune and cannot escape the crisis engulfing the capitalist world.

Our economy, the financial sector, is heavily dependent on, and enmeshed in the web of US and European imperialism. Particularly finance capital. Our disappearing manufacturing industrial base and a heavy dependence on minerals makes us more vulnerable.

The Australian people are facing the same problems of international capital shifting its crisis of overproduction onto the people. As yet it is not as fast and intense as in the bellies of the two main beasts, US and Europe, but the same austerity measures have swept across the country for some time.

Continuing cuts to spending on public health, education, public and community services, cuts to public sector jobs and destruction of the manufacturing industry, attacks on workers’ wages and conditions, workers’ and union rights and democratic rights, have been sped up. The legal system and political arms of the state are ramped up to more openly attack workers and suppress resistance. (Fair Work Australia).

The ruling class in Australia

The deepening crisis will inevitably escalate as the crisis intensifies and deepens around the world. The ruling class in Australia comprises some of the world’s biggest foreign corporations in the mining industry and international finance capital. They are the most reactionary section of the ruling class spearheading attacks on unions and the working class. They are the loudest section of the ruling class calling for the return of Australian Workplace Agreements (individual contracts), slashing workers’ wages and conditions, casualisation, and more attacks on rights of workers and unions. The mouthpiece is the Business Council of Australia.

The draconian ABCC is extended in Victoria and attacks on unions in NSW and Victoria intensify. The monopoly ruling class is pushing for cuts to company taxes and increasing the GST and other taxes on the people. Erosion of democratic rights continues. And, of course, resistance to a bigger mining tax and any measures that impose tax on carbon emissions to protect the environment.

People’s movement for change

In the face of assault by monopoly capitalism, a spontaneous people’s movement is emerging, putting forward its own immediate demands of struggle for economic justice, real democracy, and workers’ rights, and to make the rich pay for the crisis.

There is anger at the profiteering banks, demands that the wealth created from Australian natural resources should be used to benefit the people not the profiteering multinationals, for an end to privatisation, protection of Australian manufacturing and agricultural industries, opposition to selling off the farm to foreign corporations, and protection of the environment.

Big corporations and multinationals are targeted. Workers and unions organise to resist attacks by capital and push forward the interests of the people. A genuine people’s movement will grow and strengthen through these day to day battles.

Dominated by imperialism

It is the view of the CPA (M-L) that Australia is dominated by imperialism, mainly US imperialism, economically, militarily and politically. It is our view that the demands and struggle for an anti-imperialist independent and democratic Australia is an integral part in the struggle for socialism in Australia. It is based on Australia’s concrete conditions. It unites the great majority of the people in struggle.

Background to 1951 referendum

So, what are the main lessons we can take from the colossal struggle of 1951 to defeat the anti-communist referendum. Conditions in today’s Australia and the world are different from 1951. This was a period of more than 30 years of intense struggles by the working class in which Communists and the Communist Party played a major role in uniting, educating and mobilising the working class in struggle.

From the struggles of the First World War through the depression in the 30s, the fight against fascism and World War 2 through to the immense working class struggles throughout the late 1940s, Communists were deeply active in the day to day battles of working people and amongst all sectors of the people.

Working class Communists and the Communist Party organisation were steeled in the many years of long and difficult battles. Internationally, it was a period of national liberation struggles and uprisings breaking out in many colonial countries of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The socialist Soviet Union was a beacon for all the oppressed, progressive and peace loving people. The millions of oppressed people of China, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and Mao Zedong, rose up and overthrew the imperialist occupiers, and opened the way to building socialist China. Working class socialist consciousness around the world was strong, deep and spreading.

The Communist Party in Australia embodied the most advanced working class consciousness in the working class movement. More than 50% of workers were organised in unions, many led by Communists. Destroying the Communist Party was central to the imperialist ruling class agenda to crush the working class and reverse the world wide movement towards socialism.

Two important lessons from the struggle to defeat the referendum are:
the Communist Party’s political work – called the mass line and mass work;
and the class nature of the bourgeois state

The Communist Party explained to the people that the ban on the Communist Party was an attack on the democratic rights of the people, and worked to bring together many sections of the people around this central demand. The Communist Party did not make socialism or support for the Communist Party a condition of unity in the united front struggles. It did not impose acceptance of socialism and communism on the mass movement. It pointed out the truth that the attack on the Communist Party was really directed at militant working class struggle and the democratic rights of the people. In this way it was able to unite and bring into the campaign many people from different walks of life; sections of the Labor Party, churches, civil libertarians, etc.

Mass connections, mass work

The Communist Party had deep and wide connections in people’s mass organisations and unions. Communists understood and respected different levels of consciousness of the majority. They worked side by side with the people in the day to day organisation of struggles in workplaces and communities, learning with the people the lessons of struggle and pointing out that the root cause of the problems lies in the class relations of the capitalist system.

From their mass work in class struggle, listening and learning from the people, the Communists were able to develop a clear programme of struggle that connected the immediate needs and spontaneous demands of the people to the longer vision and path to socialism.

Secondly, the Communist Party explained the class nature of the capitalist state, and the bourgeois legal and parliamentary system was exposed as part of the oppressive capitalist state machine.

Struggle for theory and practice

Marxism shows the dialectical relationship between the objective and subjective world. The two act on each other and affect change on each other.

Communist parties don’t just pop up from wishful thinking. They are the product of both the objective and subjective; struggle, study, social investigation, working class consciousness, and most importantly, deep involvement in the day to day lives and battles of the people, especially the working class.

There is constant struggle and striving by the working class to build its own political party that exclusively serves the interests of the oppressed and exploited – a party that charts the path to socialism.

Revolutionary theory can only become a material force when it moves out of the realm of ideas and becomes a real force in class struggle that takes the working class to Socialism, and ultimately to the classless society of Communism.

We hope that this event, jointly organised by the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Australia, is a step that assists in building and strengthening a genuine united front mass movement of the people for truly fundamental change, led by the working class.