A life of struggle (6K)

The Communist Party in Western Australia played an important and often leading role in winning social gains from the 1930s to the 1960s. This was despite the difficulties of building a party from a very small membership, relative isolation from the stronger CP centres in the eastern states, and heavy police surveillance and legal repression. JOAN WILLIAMS joined the Communist Party of Australia in the late 1930s and remains politically active in the Socialist Party of Australia today. Her autobiography, Anger and Love (written under her pen name Justina Williams), details this period, about which she spoke to Green Left Weekly's JONATHAN STRAUSS. The Communist Party branch in WA was founded at the end of 1920 by a small group of radicals brought together by Katharine Susannah Prichard after she received a telegram advising her that the "CP [has] formed and you are a member". It began to grow in significance through its leadership of the struggles of the unemployed during the 1930s depression. In the latter half of the 1930s "there was a ferment, an upsurge of feeling about the dangers of fascism", Williams said. As a young reporter for the West Australian, Williams came into contact with the CPA when a number of her colleagues — CPA members, although not openly — "spotted tendencies towards socialism" in her and invited her to a "cottage meeting", which were usually organised as social gatherings but also had a speaker. Williams said that, although she already considered herself a Marxist, she "didn't know much about the CP as a party". Her communist convictions increased as she began to contribute to the CPA's WA weekly, Workers' Star, and became involved in support work for the Spanish Republic, and against Menzies' attempt to introduce a National Register, an identity scheme which was seen as threat to civil liberties. In provincial Perth the realism and political clout of the Workers Art Guild performances packed the theatres. The CPA opposed World War 11 at first and was declared illegal by the Menzies government. The military and the police cooperated in the surveillance of "subversive activity" by the CPA. Possession of a CPA newspaper, even one published prior to the banning, could result in three months' jail. In WA, Williams said "the jailing was quite horrific and much more severe than elsewhere in Australia". There were 21 sentences handed out, with a number of the party's leading members doing hard labor. However, the CPA had prepared for illegality. Its few hundred WA members were organised through cells and smaller meetings. A roneoed Workers' Star was produced from a secreted press. Other material was brought from the eastern states by CPA seamen, or posted to sympathetic non-members. A legal organisation, the Budget Protest Committee, was established involving some CP members and supporters. For some time people had flocked to the Anti-Fascist League about which W. Beeby, who worked vigorously for democratic rights, campaigned for over a local radio network. Towards the end of the illegal period, CPA policy was published in a supplement to the Fremantle District Sentinel. With the entry of the Soviet Union into the war, the CPA came out in full support of the war effort. CPA members subsequently played an important role in army education, explaining the character of fascism and providing information about the Soviet Union, Williams said. The CPA grew rapidly, with an influx of members from many quarters. At this time women took on an increasing number of leadership roles in the party, but stepped back after the war as men reassumed leadership positions. Williams said that although there were differences between the theory of women's equality and the CPA's actual practice, and a fear of a women's movement having a middle-class character, it "was far ahead" of all other parties in its attitude to women. "Equality for women was one of the reasons for joining the CP", she said. Williams explained that, with the proposed post-war industrialisation (to include new areas such as WA) and the Curtin and Chifley governments' promises on consumer goods and public welfare, CPA members believed Australia "would be well on the road to a socialist society". But they also knew there would need to be struggles in order to win advances. The major campaigns initiated by the CP in the post-war period included: the 40-hour working week and other improvements in workers' wages and conditions; public housing construction; community centres and child care; and support for the three-year long strike by the Aboriginal workers in the Pilbara. Soon, however, following the defeat of the 1949 coalminers' strike by the Chifley government and its troops, the CPA was also fighting more defensive campaigns for peace, against the Korean War and against the Menzies government's efforts to ban the CPA. This last struggle became a "very broad campaign" for civil liberties and generated increased interest in the CPA. Williams said that the attendance at CP stumps on the Perth Esplanade, which were subjected to harassment by the police and hired thugs, grew to more than 1000 as "people wanted to find out why" the banning had been proposed. In the 1960s the CP continued to play an important role in the progressive movement, such as opposing the Vietnam War and supporting the emerging women's liberation and environment movements. Williams believes, however, that in trying to win new members at this time, the CP turned away from working-class and Marxist perspectives. In the struggle over the "new ideas" Williams joined the new party that broke away, the SPA. Today she continues to argue for "all Marxist parties to cooperate in uniting the left, and with the environmental movement, help to build a mass movement for a political alternative to the main revisionist and capitalist parties which dominate government in Australia".