We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
PEACE WARS: THE 1959 ANZ PEACE CONGRESS.
- Authors
McLaren, John
- Abstract
The 1959 Australian and New Zealand International Congress for Peace and Disarmament, held in Melbourne, was the first major public event for the Left in Australia after the splits in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) that had occurred between 1955 and 1958. It was notable not so much for its success in attracting large numbers of delegates and for the declarations that came from it as for the disputes that took place during it, particularly over the issues of freedom of speech and persecution of dissidents in the Soviet Union and Hungary. The Congress for Cultural Freedom and its allies had prior to the congress organized groups to support the dissidents, but the members of these groups were seen by the congress organizers as right-wing disrupters trying to destroy the unity of the congress and to divert it from its primary objective. Although the organizers controlled the floor of the congress and its constituent special interest meetings, the conflict revealed new divisions on the left between former Communists and younger members of a new Left, on the one hand, and the continuing leadership of the CPA and the Victorian ALP, on the other. This article challenges the view that the congress achieved unity on the Left in support of its aims. Instead, new alliances cut across old divisions between a Left aligned with the Communist Party and a Right aligned with Catholic Action. The new divisions helped to paralyze Labor as a political force for another decade.
- Publication
Labour History, 2002, Issue 82, p97
- ISSN
0023-6942
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/27516844