The 1969 Left Action was organised by the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), as they sought to regain ground, in a period when the anti-Vietnam War movement was moving further to the Left. It had been first discussed at the Party's National
Committee meeting held in November 1968, where the party looked at how it could make up lost ground and it was felt a conference, inviting members of the newer
groups would be the most appropriate forum.22 Though the CPA appears the major
driving force behind the conference there were also a number of non aligned activists sponsoring the conference. It was held in Sydney between April 4th and 7th 1969 and
sought to bring together different Left groups.23 In all 791 people were in attendance,
including 187 from Victoria.24 It was meant to help build the coalition of the Left that had been sought by the CPA, yet when invitations were sent out, a number of groups were excluded, amongst them the Monash Labor Club. Undaunted, members of the club attended, with the intention of engaging in ideological debate with political opponents. The end result was further distancing and differences within the Left, with some newer groups, predominantly Sydney and Brisbane based, finding themselves aligned with the CPA. Though CPA officials and members and other unaligned socialists sought to build links with those in attendance the position of Monash Labor
Club and its supporters allowed no such alliances. 25 They had no desire to come
21 Echoes of this issue appear to have resurfaced in 2001 with demonstrators being threatened with
breaching council by-laws, by council employees and police, whilst leafleting outside the Nike Store in Swanston St Melbourne. Refer the Age, May, and June 2001.
22
Robertson M., 'Conference for Left Action-Report to National Committee', Discussion, No2 July 1969, p39, quoted in O'Lincoln T., Into The Mainstream: the Decline of Australian Communism, Stained Wattle Press, Sydney, 1985, p 143.;
23 For example refer to Kirsner D. & Playford J.,' in 'Left Action Defended' in Arena No 19 1969.
24 Mansell K., The Yeast Is Red, MA, melbourne University, Parkville, 1994 , p 82, in Freney D., A Map of days, William Henneman, Port Melbourne, 1991 he claims an attendance of 850, p 238.
25 Tribune, 9/4/69.
under the influence of the CPA or build links with them. For them the conference was
perceived as being part of a CPA strategy to gain broader control and influence26•
As well as the radicals from Monash other more established groups were concerned that the conference was predominantly designed to promote the CPA's agenda and assist it in establishing a degree of control as well as recruiting new members. Marxist
academics associated with the journal Arena expressed similar views and a series of
sharp exchanges featured in Arena after the conference.27
Ken Mansell suggests that, as splits occurred and organisations began to search for new allies, Monash Labour Club found itself splitting from other radical student groupings and drifting more and more towards the Communist Party of Australia
Marxist-Leninist (CPAML).28 The Monash radicals were being drawn into the orbit of
this most radical and dogmatic of the existing parties.
In an article in Lot's Wife, after the conference, Albert Langer responded to criticisms
that they had been too negative and ·wished to boycott the conference. 29 Langer denied
that Monash had gone en bloc to stifle the conference and claimed. "I don't go along with the sophisticated analysis and humanitarian concern of New Leftists like Dan O' Neill, because I still believe in the necessity for a violent revolution to overthrow
26
'Left Action Conference, Monash Labour Club at the Conference', Lots Wife, 24/4/69. Though the CPA had not invited Monash Club to the conference and the fact that Monash Labor Club had departed the conference, even further divorced from the CPA and those that were supportive of the CPA it is interesting to note that at the conference·the CPA first took a public stance in support of the NLF, a position taken by Monash and not publicly supported by the CPA almost two years previously. O' Lincoln, op cit, p 143.
27 Some of the articles dedicated to this debate within Arena include: 'Shadows in the Long Reaches of
the Bureaucracy', White D., Arena, No 18 1969; 'Left Action Defended', Kirsner D. & Playford J.,
Arena No 19 1969; and 'Reply', White D., Arena No 19 1969.
28 Mansell K., 1994, op cit, p 82; Vanguard, 10/4/69.
29 Lots Wife, op cit.
imperialism and establish socialism through class struggle".30 The same edition of the student paper saw other Labor Club members, Jill Jollife and Keith Jepson, take a similar stance. They argued against the lack of Marxism displayed by some of those in attendance and the fact that no resolutions or motions could be spoken for or against or moved until the final day of the conference. Jollife and Jepson also attacked the CPA, accusing them of organising and manipulating the conference to its own ends, as shown by their initial desire to bypass the Maoist influenced groupings and focus on inviting individuals and groups they could 'work with', and possibly recruit into their ranks. 31
The conference marked another watershed within the developing Left forces as the hard-line stance of the Monash radicals further distanced themselves, ideologically from their left colleagues. Though the conference attracted large attendance, and some New Leftists were recruited to the CPA, it showed that the CPA, even though it was selective in who it wished to build a coalition with, was required to engage in
ideological debate; and did not always prove successful in convincing their opponents of the merits of the CP A's politics