Towards a Reassessment of Dr. Evatt's Role in the 1954-5 A.L.P. Split

Abstract

The economic depression in the early 1930s ushered in a period of general unrest, not only in Australia but throughout the world. In Australia, the grinding misery of the depression seemed to many people to afford positive proof of the failure of economic capitalism and democracy via political parties. Such a view caused some Australians to begin a search for a substitute form of government, which activity was part of a world-wide intellectual and political ferment. Communists in Australia were active in advancing a Marxist alternative to capitalism and party democracy. This caused a reaction by some Roman Catholics, who suggested that the best theoretical scheme for the replacement of capitalism and political party democracy was to be found in the various social encyclicals of the Popes, rather than in Marxism. Throughout the 1930s Communists experienced a fair degree of success in trade union elections, and by the eve of war in 1939 held the most important administrative positions in the strategic industries of steel production, transport and power.1 The rapid industrialisation caused by the war considerably improved this powerful position. By the war's end, Communists had so increased their strength that, in co operation with other radical forces, they exerted a substantial influence over the 1945 conference of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.2