Socialism, Internationalism, and the Australian Labour Movement

Abstract

IN COMMON WITH OTHER labour parties of the western world the Australian Labor Party (ALP) is a reformist, pragmatic, and populist party dedicated to extremely general social democratic principles such as equality of opportunity and a belief in social progress. It has, however, at various times, experienced conflict over ideological issues of a more specific kind, notably the extent of the party's commitment to socialism and as this has related to questions of race, working-class solidarity, and pacifism. Historically the debate over socialism has been of considerable importance in the affairs of the labour movement, while the partly related issue of internationalism is a subject of contemporary relevance in today's increasingly difficult regional and world environment. Before World War I, organized labour in Australia had achieved outstanding success by combining the principles of trade unionism with populistprogressive politics. Male and female suffrage, widely achieved by the early twentieth century, allowed workers to exert an influence not available in Europe until many years later. A chronic scarcity of labour throughout most of the nineteenth century had produced powerful trade unions across a range of industries. Primary industry, which serviced generally buoyant export markets for wool and minerals, had been conducted along large-scale capitalist lines and as a result had produced mass unskilled, industry-based unions in country regions. The export trade flowed — mainly to Britain — through the half-dozen capital cities of Australia, which had developed as administrative, entrepot, and manufacturing centres, where craft-based building and light-engineering unions, as well as industry-based transport and maritime unions, provided the backbone of the labour movement. A widespread consciousness of the community of workingclass interests, which had been steadily evolving, became a consideration following the great Maritime Strike, which signalled the dismal depression decade at the end of the nineteenth century. Partly as a result of the Maritime Strike the trade unions established the Labor Party as a political arm of the industrial movement. At first the party