COMMUNISTS AGAIN

Taranaki Daily News, 20 October 1930, Page 12

COMMUNISTS AGAIN

PORT ADELAIDE STRIKE. SENSATIONAL DOCUMENTS. “Every worker in Port Adelaide must down tools until after the scabs and the police are removed from the waterfront! Rank and file committees of action must be set up in all jobs—in the railways, on the wharves, among the drivers, among the storemen and packers, timberworkers, etc., to take the leadership' of the struggle out of the hands of the reactionary trade union officials.” Such was the exhortation of a pamphlet which was issued in Adelaide last week-, clearly showing that the strike at the port has been a strike against trade unionism. In fact, it is not difficult to trace the whole of the trouble to Communists, who have been particularly bold. Their activities have greatly embarrassed the Labour Government in South Australia, which lias just succeeded in passing special legislation for the safety of the public, so great had the menace become. There are now indications that the Adelaide strikers are becoming aware of the fact that they have been falsely led. If they had any doubts on the matter these should be. set at rest by the sensational disclosures that have followed the raid by the police on the premises occupied by Communists at Port Adelaide in connection with the waterfront strike. From these it is evident that a comprehensive scheme of organisation has been drawn up, with ramifications throughout the Commonwealth, and apparently with headquarters in Sydney. In ono of the papers taken it was stated that the Communist party in Australia was a section of the Communist International. The document shows how. Australia was divided into various’groups. For instance, Group No. 2 consists of Broken Hill and district. Broken Hill, owing to its production of silver, lead and zinc, is said to be exceptionally important, and every effort should be made to build up party influence and membership in that district. District committees, stated the document, did not formulate policy, but were responsible for carrying it out on the lines laid down by the central executive committee. They were directly responsible to the central committee, and they must insist on the various departments submitting regular reports to headquarters. /

A control commission, the document proceeded, would be appointed in each

district, consisting of three members who had long standing in the party, who were perfectly reliable, and would carry out the orders of the Comintern (Communist International) without hesitation. The commission would be responsible for the discipline of the party. Under itlie heading of departments, it was set out that the industrial department should carry out the line of the party in unions and revolutionary opposition among the unemployed, superintend rank and file committees of action, and organise the issuing of strike bulletins. Concentration groups that were to be set up in the larger industrial sections were to do everything possible to establish friendly relations with the workers, freely entering into discussions concerning their everyday struggles. "Revolutionary competition between concentration groups will be encouraged,” states the document, “and thus a great weapon in building initiative and enthusiasm among members will be forged. Alembers should observe personal cleanliness and decency in dress, and those selected to do the work of establishing contact with the workers must be able to inspire personal and political respect. New and inexperienced comrades should be attached to the concentration groups to gain experience and confidence.” The plans of the Communists to force an insurrection in Adelaide might have been duplicated in Sydney had not the scheme misfired for the hold-up of wool and wheat shipments. It is definitely revealed that the plans for the Tort

Adelaide and Alelbourne -waterfront troubles were laid in Sydney as part of an 7 arll-Australian counter offensive “against capitalist wage-cuts and longer hours.” .

Sydney has always been the headquarters of the Communist party in Aus-r tralia, and it is suspected that Aloscow provides the money and the propaganda. However, all efforts to extend the waterfront trouble to Sydney were unavailing, though the extremists did succeed lagt .Thursday in holding an unofficial or rank and file meeting of the Sydney waterside workers at which motions of sympathy with the. comrades in Alelinourne and Port Adelaide were carried. That meeting was- subsequently repudiated by the officials of the union. The secretary of the Communist party, Air. H. J. Aloxon, one time of New Zea* land, made a perfectly irank statement on the whole affair. He., said that the Adelaide strike was the beginning of the counter-offensive against capitalism that would spread to every city, to every section of the workers, and to the farmers.

Asked if the Communist party was behind the Port Adelaide strikers, Air. Aloxon said: “It is absolutely and unequivocably associated with the watersiders and* other strikers there, and the unemployed. They are adopting our tactics bv forming rank-and-file committees.”- He admitted that the Adelaide brunch of the Communist party had assisted in the formation of the strike committee tfiere.