Sunday, November 1, 2020

Australia's Communist Party celebrated its 100th anniversary

Source: Communist Party of Australia.
On October 30th, the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) marked its 100th anniversary. On this occasion a number of events have been organized in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth from 29th October to 1st November 2020. 

In a press release, the Communist Party points out: 

"Only one conclusion can be drawn on surveying 100 years of Communist; that the party has has a colourful and successful past. In the first decade the Party struggled with the boom of the early 20s but as the depression hit the Party gained much notice as the organisers of the unemployed, providing food and pressure on Government to provide resources for the unemployed. They ran eviction struggles and these made headlines in Sydney and in other parts of Australia. 

As the 30s progressed and fascism arose, the Campaign against War and Fascism was set with a strong contingent of Communist Party members in the leadership along with clergymen and others. This organisation invited Egon Kisch, a Czech-Austrian Jewish journalist to Australia who travelled the country warning of the dangers Nazism. The Government tried in vain to get rid of him but he eluded their attempts. 

Communists gained leadership roles in unions such as the Railways and later the Waterside Workers Federation WWF. It was the WWF who prevented Australian scrap iron going to Japan on the ship called Dalfram at Port Kembla just prior to the WWII. Menzies earned the nickname "pig iron bob" after that incident.

Communists work for workers and the people in general. They organise and lobby for a better deal for all and for a future of socialism in Australia."

For more check out the official website of the CPA and its Facebook Page

Greetings from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE)

 
In a letter addressed to the CPA for its 100th anniversary, the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE stresses out:

"Dear comrades,

The 100 years of the Communist Party of Australia mark the outstanding contribution of the Australian Communists to the organisation of the struggle of the Australian working class for its rights against big capital, in conflict with imperialist plans and competitions of the bourgeois classes.

The tens of thousands of immigrant workers of Greek descent who have been living and working for decades in your country, contributing to the workers'-people's movement, the class struggle, and the historical course of the communist movement in Australia, are an additional connecting link for the necessary exchange of experience and conclusions from the historical course of our Parties.

On the ground of dangerous developments for the peoples, this historical experience highlights that the communists have the obligation to strengthen discussion and substantive examination of serious and complex issues of class struggle, because their intervention in each country, and especially in a powerful capitalist country such as Australia, is a difficult and demanding case.

The 100th anniversary of the foundation of your Party coincides with serious developments at a global level that are connected with the new deep capitalist crisis and also the COVID-19 pandemic, which acter as a catalyst, accelerating the outbreak of the capitalist crisis, in the midst of the sharpening of the competitions between imperialist centres and bourgeois classes. [...]

With these thoughts, we would like to convey to you the wishes of the Greek communists for the 100 years of the CP of Australia." 

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM ©