What if the CPA ever did better than 10% in an ordinary election? OR Labourism's successes
(originally posted to soc.history.what-if a few moments ago, I affirm that I am Sam R. and the copyright holder, cross posted to contribute a "first post" here)
Wotcher Comrades,
A friend on another thread[3] questioned me on why I harp so on the Communist Party of Australia. Most readers[3] are aware that I share passingly little admiration for their politics; some may even be aware that I feel that on many occasions their tactics lay between wrongheaded and down right stupidity. And, of course, my distaste for their international positions is well known.[3]
The CPA has some fascinating features to it. Like many early Communist Parties, the early Communist Party of Australia was an amalgam of previous revolutionary leftist strands. In the Australian case the IWW, Trades Hall Reds, Socialist Fractions and a few intellectuals provided the workings. And they failed at it.
The Party was then taken up by Sharkey and, with some periods of exception, displayed a combination of friendly and unfriendly sectarianism towards their nearest greatest neighbour the Australian Labor Party. However, parliamentary success escaped the CPA for a variety of reasons. In contrast, the CPA found a greater success in trade unionism, where it cooperated at length with Labourites.[4] In fact, it has been remarked repeatedly, that those workers who would support a Communist union leader would never vote for them, instead voting for Labor. (Labor, meanwhile, had a similar problem with workers who would support active, militant Trade Union leaders of the left or right of Labor, but consistently vote for the variously renamed Tory parties).[1] In actual fact a few communists did achieve election in Australia, usually as independents, such as Nick "Red Hot" Origlass' success in leading the workers of Balmain to Trotskyism. I would suggest, however, that these instances were indicative of skilful politicians, generally acting as independent Laborites; much as the name of Nick's Balmain party suggests.
There are many reasons why workers would be more socialist or labourite in their unions than in their parliament. However, we can postulate three items which indicate this was not the decisive reason for the failure of the CPA in elections. Firstly, both the CPA and ALP were affected by this situation=97unless an additional cause is specified we ought to assume both were equally affected by the more right wing parliamentary vote of workers. Secondly, both the CPA and ALP hungered after the leather couches on which a workers movement lies in state awaiting a hearse=97unless Laborism has a specific hunger unshared by Australian Communists we may assume that the hunger propelled both parties towards parliamentary success equally. Thirdly, both the CPA and ALP were solidly organised parties with excellent rank and file members pushing for parliament=97again, unless there is some unique difference between the parties on the matter of their capacity to organise (and I would argue that there is not), then we must assume that this does not differentiate the parties.
What, then, does differentiate them?
The ALP had a great deal of ideological freedom, and pointed her head around the compass as its electorate, its popular base, and its activists blew with changing winds. The CPA too circumnavigated ideology, but in many cases ideological and platform measures were not dictated by the electorate, the base, or the activists. The CPA's sails were filled with winds from the 3rd International, from Moscow, from Beijing, from Moscow again, and then from Eurocommunism. The CPA's ideology at the ballot box was externally influenced. Moreover, the CPA had its greatest success in general ideological terms during the period (1941=961949) when its direction accidentally coincided with that of a large body of Australian workers (and also, arguably, the ALP and its base). Is this enough? I would argue no. The Australian tories, with the exception of the later day Country/National party, have been directed consistently by overseas interests, and have had to work to inspire Australian workers to agree with their ideology and platform; yet Australian tories have had great successes. Perhaps, rather than an absolute binary, it is more the matter that the CPA did not seek to persuade or be persuaded by Australian workers. Even the CPA's cultural nationalism has a sickly eucalyptus leaf harp nature to it, not genuinely reflecting the urbanity of Australian nationalism. Maybe it was that the CPA were just crap at this aspect of parliamentary politics. They were certainly crap at forming a mass party.
For a mass party is the nature of Australian Laborism. The Australian Labor Party is a catholic church, generally universal in its coverage. Labourism, as an ideology of self-preservation of the working class, has allowed labourite communists and labourite tories to share the same parliamentary party. This aspect of Labor is visible in Labor's own parliamentary splits. Of Lang and the DLP. While the Labor party has been broken by splits, it has also healed itself. (It is worth noting here: both Lang Labour and the Democratic Labor Party have both had parliamentary success vastly surpassing the pathetic votes received by the CPA=97they too are counter examples.) In contrast the CPA was a narrow church whose objects of faith and manners of practice were exclusive and demanded outward and avowed conformity. While many a CPA local branch had its loving shitfights, the CPA as a whole demanded that it appear as a seamless garment. This whole cloth of the CPA was repeatedly torn=97it shed members like crazy after 1946, with peaks of membership loss due to the Coal Strikes, Hungary 56, the Chinese disagreements, Czechoslovakia 68 and so on and so on. With the exception of the Coal Strikes, these membership losses resulted in new organisations being formed. With the exception of Helen Palmers /Outlook/ group, these new organisations kept to new narrow faiths. Quite simply: Labor embraced working class spontaneity in ideology where the CPA (excepting the pre- Sharkey days) spurned such spur of the moment advances in thought. The issue of the mass party may be sufficient to contrast Laborism's parliamentary success with the CPA's repeated parliamentary failures. But ought we not consider that the ALP split too, into Lang Labor and the DLP first, before consigning the issue to the fact that the CPA didn't want to dance unless it was leading?
Both Lang Labor and the DLP were parliamentary splits from mainline Laborism. Both Lang Labor and the DLP's ideology had previously (and during their life _still existed_) within mainline Laborism. However, the reasons for the ideologies leading to /Outlook/, the CPA(ML) and SPA had and during these organisations' lives still existed inside the CPA. No difference is to be found here, unlike with the issue of the mass party. Lang Labor and the DLP both achieved parliamentary success, in elected officials or by spoiling the ALP vote. In contrast, in parliament, the splinters of the CPA were even less relevant than the CPA, to such a degree that they are not worth mentioning in terms of parliamentary politics.[2] While Lang Labor and the DLP were narrower churches in many respects than mainline Laborism, neither was as narrow as the CPA, and it is arguable that their narrowness and in the case of Lang Labor, their failure to monopolise a preexisting ideological base within the working class, lead to their eventual irrelevancy. Perhaps this, then, merely amplifies the connection between mass party, ideological openness and electoral success.
Taking the previous material on board, then, we need to locate a CPA when it is ideologically open, is in direct correspondence with the general social ideology of the working class (as was Labor) or of a specific portion that could be monopolised temporarily or on a long term basis (as was Lang Labor or the DLP). Such a party needs to position itselfnot as a narrow church of strict beliefs and practices, but as an open church with a generalised interest of labour at heart (much as the ALP, Lang Labor, the DLP and Nick Origlass's local party did). In addition, such a party must be directed from a communist analysis of actually existing Australian politics; and not from either overseas creeds or eucalyptus nationalism.
Quite frankly, it is unlikely that a post-Sharkey CPA is capable of this. While the CPA had many inspiring trade union leaders, the analysis of specifically Australian communist successes never percolated upwards into the nature of the CPA itself. There is a good reason why workers would support the CPA on the job, and the ALP for parliament=97the CPA analysis of job politics was grounded, responsive, actual, open, broad and largely labourite in its focus on fighting for immediate welfare. I feel that the CPA's historical union success was the greatest possible=97and the CPA did not attend to the lessons it could have learnt as a general, mass or parliamentary party from this. In fact, the CPA's refusal of Australian learning in favour of foreign faiths, is exemplified by the decision to pick a fight with the then considerably left wing ALP over control of Australia's economy by control over coal.
What then of the pre-Sharkey CPA? I know far less of this era, particularly for the causes of the failure of the pre-Sharkey party, but I would postulate that this is the moment when the CPA could have established itself as the inheritor of both revolutionary unionism and left labourism in Australia. Admittedly, achieving this position would have required skill almost certainly beyond the competence of any then CPA leader. It, too, would have required the rejection of the Third International's necessary correctness, or the right of the Moscow party to dictate Australian circumstances. These are probably beyond the capacity of any potential Australian CPA leadership. In addition, the failures of both the revolutionary Social Democrats in Europe (the lefts, respectively, of the German, Austrian, Czechoslovak and Hungarian parties come immediately to mind), and the failure of socially significant independent communist parties (KAPD, POUM, etc) leads me to believe that even if an independent Australian communist party hegemonised Australian communism to the point at which no Moscow- aligned party of any note could be formed, that even such a party as that would be irrelevant.
At best, to my mind, prior to New Wave, no independent open Australian communist party would achieve no better than 15% primary preferences in their best parliamentary seat, with no more than a handful of independents elected much as historically. The potential for success of post New Wave progressive left of labor parties, in a climate of thoroughgoing white collar proletarianisation and the loss of the most urgent impulses for a labourite ideology, is an exercise left for those who would read the entrails of preference flows of elections I'll not speak about.
In contrast to the historical CPA, such a party may do some rather more interesting things in union and social movement politics vastly more influential than a 5% primary preference difference.
yours, Sam R.
[1] It is an irony that the CPA was strong in unions, and weak in the electorate. A situation reversed by a contemporary Australian progressive party formed and influential well after Morrissey became famous.
[2] The contemporary CPA, the former SPA, is barely worth noting unless like Antony Green the reader enjoys following every preference flow in the Senate, and even then, only for the amusement of votes flowing faster rightwards than would otherwise be expected.
[3] The thread, and the readers, of course, from soc.history.what-if; where my politics are known from long practice, except where they have been cause to accuse me of actually being Harold Holt in disguise
[4] For my American readers: The Australian Labor Party uses the US spelling. The Australian Labour Movement, ie, that movement of workers themselves, uses the Australian spelling. Thus "labor" may be taken to be the parliamentary and non-parliamentary branches of the Australian Labour Party; and "labour" taken to be the workers movement. "Laborism" the ideology of Labor, and "labourism" the ideology of labour, and broadly that workers require a form of defence to ensure they are kept from starvation and penury and with all the good things in life, made possible primarily through parliament and trade unions (with more emphasis on the former in labor, and more emphasis on the latter in labour). Labourism includes everything from revolutionary socialism of a labourite kind, through to Catholic Social Welfare in the context of socially restrictive policies of a labourite kind.
(originally posted to soc.history.what-if a few moments ago, I affirm that I am Sam R. and the copyright holder, cross posted to contribute a "first post" here)
Wotcher Comrades,
A friend on another thread[3] questioned me on why I harp so on the Communist Party of Australia. Most readers[3] are aware that I share passingly little admiration for their politics; some may even be aware that I feel that on many occasions their tactics lay between wrongheaded and down right stupidity. And, of course, my distaste for their international positions is well known.[3]
The CPA has some fascinating features to it. Like many early Communist Parties, the early Communist Party of Australia was an amalgam of previous revolutionary leftist strands. In the Australian case the IWW, Trades Hall Reds, Socialist Fractions and a few intellectuals provided the workings. And they failed at it.
The Party was then taken up by Sharkey and, with some periods of exception, displayed a combination of friendly and unfriendly sectarianism towards their nearest greatest neighbour the Australian Labor Party. However, parliamentary success escaped the CPA for a variety of reasons. In contrast, the CPA found a greater success in trade unionism, where it cooperated at length with Labourites.[4] In fact, it has been remarked repeatedly, that those workers who would support a Communist union leader would never vote for them, instead voting for Labor. (Labor, meanwhile, had a similar problem with workers who would support active, militant Trade Union leaders of the left or right of Labor, but consistently vote for the variously renamed Tory parties).[1] In actual fact a few communists did achieve election in Australia, usually as independents, such as Nick "Red Hot" Origlass' success in leading the workers of Balmain to Trotskyism. I would suggest, however, that these instances were indicative of skilful politicians, generally acting as independent Laborites; much as the name of Nick's Balmain party suggests.
There are many reasons why workers would be more socialist or labourite in their unions than in their parliament. However, we can postulate three items which indicate this was not the decisive reason for the failure of the CPA in elections. Firstly, both the CPA and ALP were affected by this situation=97unless an additional cause is specified we ought to assume both were equally affected by the more right wing parliamentary vote of workers. Secondly, both the CPA and ALP hungered after the leather couches on which a workers movement lies in state awaiting a hearse=97unless Laborism has a specific hunger unshared by Australian Communists we may assume that the hunger propelled both parties towards parliamentary success equally. Thirdly, both the CPA and ALP were solidly organised parties with excellent rank and file members pushing for parliament=97again, unless there is some unique difference between the parties on the matter of their capacity to organise (and I would argue that there is not), then we must assume that this does not differentiate the parties.
What, then, does differentiate them?
The ALP had a great deal of ideological freedom, and pointed her head around the compass as its electorate, its popular base, and its activists blew with changing winds. The CPA too circumnavigated ideology, but in many cases ideological and platform measures were not dictated by the electorate, the base, or the activists. The CPA's sails were filled with winds from the 3rd International, from Moscow, from Beijing, from Moscow again, and then from Eurocommunism. The CPA's ideology at the ballot box was externally influenced. Moreover, the CPA had its greatest success in general ideological terms during the period (1941=961949) when its direction accidentally coincided with that of a large body of Australian workers (and also, arguably, the ALP and its base). Is this enough? I would argue no. The Australian tories, with the exception of the later day Country/National party, have been directed consistently by overseas interests, and have had to work to inspire Australian workers to agree with their ideology and platform; yet Australian tories have had great successes. Perhaps, rather than an absolute binary, it is more the matter that the CPA did not seek to persuade or be persuaded by Australian workers. Even the CPA's cultural nationalism has a sickly eucalyptus leaf harp nature to it, not genuinely reflecting the urbanity of Australian nationalism. Maybe it was that the CPA were just crap at this aspect of parliamentary politics. They were certainly crap at forming a mass party.
For a mass party is the nature of Australian Laborism. The Australian Labor Party is a catholic church, generally universal in its coverage. Labourism, as an ideology of self-preservation of the working class, has allowed labourite communists and labourite tories to share the same parliamentary party. This aspect of Labor is visible in Labor's own parliamentary splits. Of Lang and the DLP. While the Labor party has been broken by splits, it has also healed itself. (It is worth noting here: both Lang Labour and the Democratic Labor Party have both had parliamentary success vastly surpassing the pathetic votes received by the CPA=97they too are counter examples.) In contrast the CPA was a narrow church whose objects of faith and manners of practice were exclusive and demanded outward and avowed conformity. While many a CPA local branch had its loving shitfights, the CPA as a whole demanded that it appear as a seamless garment. This whole cloth of the CPA was repeatedly torn=97it shed members like crazy after 1946, with peaks of membership loss due to the Coal Strikes, Hungary 56, the Chinese disagreements, Czechoslovakia 68 and so on and so on. With the exception of the Coal Strikes, these membership losses resulted in new organisations being formed. With the exception of Helen Palmers /Outlook/ group, these new organisations kept to new narrow faiths. Quite simply: Labor embraced working class spontaneity in ideology where the CPA (excepting the pre- Sharkey days) spurned such spur of the moment advances in thought. The issue of the mass party may be sufficient to contrast Laborism's parliamentary success with the CPA's repeated parliamentary failures. But ought we not consider that the ALP split too, into Lang Labor and the DLP first, before consigning the issue to the fact that the CPA didn't want to dance unless it was leading?
Both Lang Labor and the DLP were parliamentary splits from mainline Laborism. Both Lang Labor and the DLP's ideology had previously (and during their life _still existed_) within mainline Laborism. However, the reasons for the ideologies leading to /Outlook/, the CPA(ML) and SPA had and during these organisations' lives still existed inside the CPA. No difference is to be found here, unlike with the issue of the mass party. Lang Labor and the DLP both achieved parliamentary success, in elected officials or by spoiling the ALP vote. In contrast, in parliament, the splinters of the CPA were even less relevant than the CPA, to such a degree that they are not worth mentioning in terms of parliamentary politics.[2] While Lang Labor and the DLP were narrower churches in many respects than mainline Laborism, neither was as narrow as the CPA, and it is arguable that their narrowness and in the case of Lang Labor, their failure to monopolise a preexisting ideological base within the working class, lead to their eventual irrelevancy. Perhaps this, then, merely amplifies the connection between mass party, ideological openness and electoral success.
Taking the previous material on board, then, we need to locate a CPA when it is ideologically open, is in direct correspondence with the general social ideology of the working class (as was Labor) or of a specific portion that could be monopolised temporarily or on a long term basis (as was Lang Labor or the DLP). Such a party needs to position itselfnot as a narrow church of strict beliefs and practices, but as an open church with a generalised interest of labour at heart (much as the ALP, Lang Labor, the DLP and Nick Origlass's local party did). In addition, such a party must be directed from a communist analysis of actually existing Australian politics; and not from either overseas creeds or eucalyptus nationalism.
Quite frankly, it is unlikely that a post-Sharkey CPA is capable of this. While the CPA had many inspiring trade union leaders, the analysis of specifically Australian communist successes never percolated upwards into the nature of the CPA itself. There is a good reason why workers would support the CPA on the job, and the ALP for parliament=97the CPA analysis of job politics was grounded, responsive, actual, open, broad and largely labourite in its focus on fighting for immediate welfare. I feel that the CPA's historical union success was the greatest possible=97and the CPA did not attend to the lessons it could have learnt as a general, mass or parliamentary party from this. In fact, the CPA's refusal of Australian learning in favour of foreign faiths, is exemplified by the decision to pick a fight with the then considerably left wing ALP over control of Australia's economy by control over coal.
What then of the pre-Sharkey CPA? I know far less of this era, particularly for the causes of the failure of the pre-Sharkey party, but I would postulate that this is the moment when the CPA could have established itself as the inheritor of both revolutionary unionism and left labourism in Australia. Admittedly, achieving this position would have required skill almost certainly beyond the competence of any then CPA leader. It, too, would have required the rejection of the Third International's necessary correctness, or the right of the Moscow party to dictate Australian circumstances. These are probably beyond the capacity of any potential Australian CPA leadership. In addition, the failures of both the revolutionary Social Democrats in Europe (the lefts, respectively, of the German, Austrian, Czechoslovak and Hungarian parties come immediately to mind), and the failure of socially significant independent communist parties (KAPD, POUM, etc) leads me to believe that even if an independent Australian communist party hegemonised Australian communism to the point at which no Moscow- aligned party of any note could be formed, that even such a party as that would be irrelevant.
At best, to my mind, prior to New Wave, no independent open Australian communist party would achieve no better than 15% primary preferences in their best parliamentary seat, with no more than a handful of independents elected much as historically. The potential for success of post New Wave progressive left of labor parties, in a climate of thoroughgoing white collar proletarianisation and the loss of the most urgent impulses for a labourite ideology, is an exercise left for those who would read the entrails of preference flows of elections I'll not speak about.
In contrast to the historical CPA, such a party may do some rather more interesting things in union and social movement politics vastly more influential than a 5% primary preference difference.
yours, Sam R.
[1] It is an irony that the CPA was strong in unions, and weak in the electorate. A situation reversed by a contemporary Australian progressive party formed and influential well after Morrissey became famous.
[2] The contemporary CPA, the former SPA, is barely worth noting unless like Antony Green the reader enjoys following every preference flow in the Senate, and even then, only for the amusement of votes flowing faster rightwards than would otherwise be expected.
[3] The thread, and the readers, of course, from soc.history.what-if; where my politics are known from long practice, except where they have been cause to accuse me of actually being Harold Holt in disguise
[4] For my American readers: The Australian Labor Party uses the US spelling. The Australian Labour Movement, ie, that movement of workers themselves, uses the Australian spelling. Thus "labor" may be taken to be the parliamentary and non-parliamentary branches of the Australian Labour Party; and "labour" taken to be the workers movement. "Laborism" the ideology of Labor, and "labourism" the ideology of labour, and broadly that workers require a form of defence to ensure they are kept from starvation and penury and with all the good things in life, made possible primarily through parliament and trade unions (with more emphasis on the former in labor, and more emphasis on the latter in labour). Labourism includes everything from revolutionary socialism of a labourite kind, through to Catholic Social Welfare in the context of socially restrictive policies of a labourite kind.