Eureka Rebellion - an Historical Perspective

Vanguard December 2012 p. 3

The Eureka Stockade is remembered and celebrated in November – December of each year by many Australians.

It is timely to re-print the comments of Ted Hill, former leader of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) which can be found in the chapter “Origins of Communism in Australia” in the book Communism In Australia –Reflections and Reminiscences.

“With the discovery of gold in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley and in Victoria... new capital was accumulated. Already English loans were extended on a comparatively large scale. The surge of people from all over the world to the goldfields provided a labour force adequate for agricultural pursuits and also for what manufacture there was.

“Oppression within the colony engendered opposition. The enforcement of miners’ licence fees on gold prospectors caused bitter resentment. On December 3, 1854, the miners at Ballarat, who had shown a spirit of rebellion and set up their own defensive Eureka Stockade, were suddenly stormed by colonial troops on the orders of Governor Hotham.

“The miners resisted heroically but were ill-prepared to deal with the soldiers. The Eureka Stockade was the high point in rebellion against systematic oppression by the colonial authorities...

“Marx regarded the Eureka rebellion as part of the radical movement that was sweeping the capitalist world and which had reached a high point in the dramatic European revolutions of 1848. Eureka became one of the symbols of Australian radicalism.

“The Eureka miners were not workers in the sense of men working for an employer. Essentially they were petty producers. From them emerged some capitalists, but the great majority became workers.”

Hill points out that in terms of the development of the working class movement in Australia, the Eureka Stockade took place in an international environment which saw the publication of the Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848 by Marx and Engels, the winning of the 8 hour day by stonemasons in Australia in 1856, and an Australian presence in 1871 at a meeting of the International Workingmen’s Association. Many of the miners were influenced by British Chartist and Irish and Italian republican radical and socialist views.

Inspiration for struggles today

The Eureka Stockade, as well as a landmark struggle for an independent Australia, was also an inspiration for workers in future decades in their numerous struggles against capital and in the struggle of ideas for socialism in Australia.

As Hill says, “The growth of socialist ideas in Australia is tortuous indeed. Splits, confusion, acrimony and personal rivalry, all featured. Still the number of “socialist” adherents and interest in socialism grew”.

Fast forward to Eureka celebrations in 2012, and that interest in socialism among the people in Australia is still growing as the social system of capitalism fails to provide the basic needs of millions of people throughout the world.