SPA and the Australian Seaman’s Union

[moderator1]

twc wrote:

The original Socialist Party of Australia was founded in 1924 by a mix of [mainly ex-British] seamen, who had been influenced indirectly by the SPGB, and of course local workers.

These founders were committed world socialists. They were fearless world socialists.
(The) seamen members rose to dominate the Australian Seamen's Union after they exposed the fraudulent activities of its former Communist Party officials, whom they caught red-handed syphoning union money off to mother Russia. The resulting scandal catapulted the Australian Party to a national prominence out of all proportion to its actual size of membership

You have misrepresented the nature and significance of the SPA and its relationship to the Seamen's Union of Australia (SUA). Its significance was entirely due to the fact that the General Secretary of the Union in 1926-1935 was a member of the SPA, Jacob Johnson. Two other members of the SPA were also important in this period: W.J.Clarke, who was secretary of the Victorian Branch of the Union, and Bill Casey, secretary of Queensland branch. These three constituted what Australian labour historians have called the "Johnson faction" or (rarely) the "Johnson-Clarke-Casey" faction in the Union. No one has ever referred to these three as constituting "the SPA faction". No one has ever referred to the Union as "Socialist dominated" in the period 1926-1935 in the same sense in which the Union after 1938 has been described as "Communist dominated". The fact is that the SPA had a tiny membership in only two places: Sydney and Melbourne. Most of the membership were members of the SPA because they were firstly members of the Union.

If "seamen members (of the SPA) rose to dominate the Union", it wasn't because they "exposed the fraudulent activities of Communist Party officials". No Union money was ever "syphoned off to Mother Russia" as you claim. The only charges of fraudulent activities were made in 1928 against Walsh (ex-Communist) who was deprived of office by rank-and-file members after Johnson exposed him as a "crook" for faking the Union's HO ledger, misappropriation of funds, and attempting to form a bogus union. Thereafter, it might be said that the "Johnson faction" came to dominate the Union. This lasted, off and on, until 1936 when Johnson, in the aftermath of the 1935 strike (see below), was in turn deprived of office, and then eventually expelled from the Union on a mass rank and file vote. In 1937 Clarke resigned his Melbourne position while Casey dropped out of Union politics in Brisbane, to return as Queensland secretary in 1942-49. When the "Johnson faction" lost power in the Seamen's Union in 1936 it had no further role in the Australian labour movement and therefore neither did the SPA.

(T)he Australian Socialists rose to such prominence, that one of them was nationally vilified day-in day-out in the press, and jailed for deportation by the Federal Government, over industrial Seamen's disputation

This is at best a half truth. The deportation case arose during the seamen's strike of 1925. The one who was vilified in the press was Johnson, general secretary of the Union, along with general president Walsh, then an ex-member of the Communist Party. Johnson and Walsh were vilified as "wreckers" by the mainstream Press because they called out Union members in support of a strike by British seamen who walked out when their ships docked in Australian ports. It was one of the very few genuinely international strikes in industrial history. Their deportation was only stopped because of the efforts of the prominent Australian Labor Party figure H.V.Evatt who defended Walsh and Johnson, and won, in the High Court. The strike ultimately failed in Australia as it did in Britain where some saw it as a run-up to the General Strike of 1926. Relationships between Walsh and Johnson deteriorated rapidly after this.

An ill-conceived 1935 Seamen's strike…..was fomented by the Communists…..(and) finished up smashing the union when those same Communists, in true Leninist treachery, deserted the membership and set up a rival scab union, with themselves as national officials, in league with the ship owners, on secret cosy anti-worker terms, and went back to work, leaving their followers who had heeded their idiotic call to down tools standing high and dry on land, jobless and betrayed. Many of our seamen members found they no longer got work at sea under the Communist dominated scab union.

With the support of members at workplace meetings, Communist members of the militant Minority Movement led the 1935 strike. The Union officials led by Johnson opposed it. At a large stop-work meeting in late 1935, the seamen replaced Johnson as general secretary with Keenan, a Communist. Within two months the strike was broken and Keenan discredited. Johnson was never again to lead the Union despite his two attempts to be reinstated by the Arbitration Court. Communists didn’t “smash” the Union, though it was in very bad shape, nor did they “desert the membership”. Indeed, there was widespread feeling amongst the defeated strikers that the "Johnson faction" had done nothing to help Keenan during the strike and that by their inertia they had contributed to its defeat.

No "Communist dominated scab union" was formed after the strike. There were scabs (non-unionists) who obtained work on ships because they were strike-breakers and therefore trustworthy in the eyes of the shipowners. Even though an estimated 800 Union members crossed the picket lines and volunteered to board ships, the shipowners still preferred volunteers with no union background. If the few members (seamen) of the SPA could no longer get work, it wasn't because of their membership of the SPA; it was because they were unionists. Membership of the Communist Party or the Socialist Party or The Labor Party was not the relevant issue. The only "scab union" was the Australian Seaman's Federation formed in 1938 from volunteers which lasted until 1942 when it was eventually deregistered on an application by the SUA. Thereafter, the SUA was the only union representing Australian seamen. It's President (from 1941 to 1971) was a member of the Communist Party as were many of the Union's other officials.

The Australian world socialist party finally disintegrated after WWII when a younger generation of members, mainly English immigrants, recruited into the SPGB during the Depression years, arrived here full of brash enthusiasm and slowly fell hook, line and sinker for sophisticated Labourism and the brave new world of post-War Australia, and the adulation they received as intellectual poseurs.
Socialism was no longer a spur for them, and the lure of local intellectual superiority took hold of them, to the detriment of a working class party. In short, it was the gung-ho brand of egotistical bravado proselitysing, of the very determined kind being advocated above, as amply demonstrated in practice by those particular ex-SPGBers, that brought the Australian world socialist party to its knees

Throughout the 1940s and early 1950s the SPA existed in name only and in Post Box numbers in Sydney and Melbourne. Its only significant activity was the publication of a 4-page paper Socialist Comment between 1943 and 1948 largely through the dedicated efforts of Clarke (editor of the Union journal in 1935). Johnson had no part in this. It wasn't until 1956 that the SPA was resurrected as a functioning Party (but only in Sydney) with the arrival from New Zealand of two ex-members of the SPGB. They joined the SPGB in 1943 and 1946, not in the Depression years as you claim. As set out in a letter printed in the Socialist Standard in October 2004 written by me and co-signed by J Thorburn (ex Glasgow Branch), the revived Sydney Branch of the SPA was a very active Branch, holding indoor and outdoor meetings, debating with other, mainly left-wing groups (this was the year of the CPSU 20th Congress and the Soviet invasion of Hungary, so many ex-CPAers were looking for new directions), and selling the Standard and many SPGB pamphlets. Your description of these ex-SPGBers as "intellectual poseurs" with their "gung-ho brand of egotistical bravado proselytising" that eventually "brought the Australian world socialist party to its knees" is absurd, and a calumny against very able and dedicated socialists. The SPA was never brought to its knees by these comrades; it died from want of interest on the part of the Australian working class who had absolutely zero interest in the SPGB brand of revolutionary politics and doctrinaire Marxism. It is a bitter irony that you of all people, who presents himself as a materialist, should blame the decline of the SPA not on the material conditions of life in capitalist Australia, but on the imagined personal flaws and failings of the members who did most to rebuild it. Shame.

[moderator1]

ajjohnstone wrote: Your additional material is appreciated, pgb. We should always try to be objective and honest about our failings and failuresI have pointed out on a discussion list, the SPA wrote its own obituary in 1948.‘Can we comfort ourselves with the knowledge that we have always pointed out that ‘Nationalisation’ merely means a change of masters? Can we pride ourselves on the fact that we have always insisted that a movement for Socialism must be built up on knowledge and self reliance, not on reformist activities and blind leadership? Can we take pride in the fact that we analysed  the Russian Revolution from its very beginning as a bourgeois revolution, and pointed out that it must lead to state capitalism? Can we beat our chests and remind you that from the beginning seen that the Bolshevists (‘professional revolutionaries’ – control by an elite – no free discussion) coupled with the backwardness of Russia must lead to ruthless dictatorship? We cannot do any of these things, for just as consistently as we have been right, we have to the same degree unsuccessful. [their emphasis]We are in a position today where a hundred years after the ‘Manifesto’ there is not yet even the beginning of a real mass movement for Socialism as we conceive it. We continue to speak, and write.  But the response as compared with the mass parties, is nil. We are beating our heads against a brickwall of illusions, myths and apathy in the hope that the wall will fall someday. Today, we can do nothing at all but continue with the same arguments which have proved singularly unsuccessful. Everything else – the idea of barricades, or infiltration, or lovely sounding manifestoes – is madness and self deception. If socialist propaganda during the last 50 years has had no success the first thing to do would be to find out why." the article goes on to list 6 possible reasons for their ineffectiveness. It ends pessimistically by stating if the SPA may be wrong , the mass parties and the labour movement in general have been on the wrong track too and  so the consequence is more serious – " instead of breaking their chains, the workers will have rivetted them every firmer – by their own actions"http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/objects/pdf/d0483.pdf"I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World." – Eugene V. Debs

[moderator1]

pgb wrote:

Throughout the 1940s and early 1950s the SPA existed in name only and in Post Box numbers in Sydney and Melbourne. Its only significant activity was the publication of a 4-page paper Socialist Comment between 1943 and 1948 largely through the dedicated efforts of Clarke (editor of the Union journal in 1935). Johnson had no part in this.

Yes.  The war disrupted Party activity, and scattered members.  On return, many drifted away, even if keeping in personal contact.

Quote:

It wasn't until 1956 that the SPA was resurrected as a functioning Party (but only in Sydney) with the arrival from New Zealand of two ex-members of the SPGB. They joined the SPGB in 1943 and 1946, not in the Depression years as you claim.

Yes.  I accept your correction unreservedly.

Quote:

As set out in a letter printed in the Socialist Standard in October 2004 written by me and co-signed by J Thorburn (ex Glasgow Branch), the revived Sydney Branch of the SPA was a very active Branch, holding indoor and outdoor meetings, debating with other, mainly left-wing groups (this was the year of the CPSU 20th Congress and the Soviet invasion of Hungary, so many ex-CPAers were looking for new directions), and selling the Standard and many SPGB pamphlets.

Yes.  I accept your account unreservedly.

Quote:

Your description of these ex-SPGBers as "intellectual poseurs" with their "gung-ho brand of egotistical bravado proselytising" that eventually "brought the Australian world socialist party to its knees" is absurd, and a calumny against very able and dedicated socialists.

I hereby retract my exaggerated claim.I cannot bring myself to retract it unreservedly, but neither can I offer evidence to substantiate it.By way of explanation, my claim stems from the relayed exasperation, and perhaps my childish distorted misinterpretation of it, of a long-term member, from a different generation.  That, as I recall, was his eventual opinion of these two, but by then there was no blood lost between them either.  [Of you, his relayed opinion was high.]

Quote:

The SPA was never brought to its knees by these comrades; it died from want of interest on the part of the Australian working class who had absolutely zero interest in the SPGB brand of revolutionary politics and doctrinaire Marxism.

Sadly, true.

Quote:

It is a bitter irony that you of all people, who presents himself as a materialist, should blame the decline of the SPA not on the material conditions of life in capitalist Australia, but on the imagined personal flaws and failings of the members who did most to rebuild it.

I do confess, when confronted by your account, my personal shame in having hung pent-up dirty linen on the line.Yes, it is ironic that I brought it up in response to attacks against materialism and determinism, when these are the only substantial foundations we have, and proselytizing without them for Socialism is meaningless, just wishful thinking.

Quote:

Shame.

I accept most of your criticism.  I hereby apologize to past warriors under almost insuperable odds. I agree that it was shameful for me to have brought up, for long-held personal reasons, something harmful to the reputation of others, and for which I cannot offer substantial evidence.

[moderator1]

twc wrote:I truly appreciate your detailed history of the relationship between the SPA and the Australian Seamen's Union, aspects of which I was unaware of.  For a child, these were ancient history.I was going on the sketchy details I gleaned from the Casey obituary, and found in Clarke's rebuttal of the Thesis 11 attack on the SPA in relation to ex-member Dawson printing Pannekoek's post-War book on "Council Communism", page proofs of which were still piled high in Charlie Sundberg's backyard garden shed into the 80s.I have no reason whatsoever to dispute your far more knowledgable account of the SPA and the Australian Seamen's Union.Having witnessed Clarke's dismissal of radical historian Rowan Cahill's centenary history of the Union, "dictated to him by the great Elliot", I believe that the fine historian's big book is not always trustworthy nor objective in interpretation of periods in its history, especially those of SPA influence, if not "dominance" in your sense.Clarke let me know that he personally could no longer have got a job on the ships under the Communist "dominated" Union. I am fascinated by the fact that other labour historians have now discussed this turbulent era.  I must look them up.

[moderator1]

pgb wrote: twc: Thank you for your interesting and heartfelt response. A major problem in understanding the "turbulent era" as you call it is that federal records of the Seamen's Union are practically devoid of material covering the years 1920-1935. Unfortunately Jacob Johnson kept no records relating to his own activities for fear Walsh would use them against him (and vice-versa). There is a story that large cases of Union records disappeared into Sydney Harbour. Your reference to Rowan Cahill is interesting. He is one of two historians who wrote the history of the Seamen's Union. The other was Brian Fitzpatrick, one of the first reputable Australian historians to write history in a Marxist framework. His contribution to the Union history covers the period 1872 to the eve of WW2. Rowan Cahill covers the period 1939-1972. There's no comparison IMO between the two. Fitzpatrick's work is first class. Cahill's is hagiographic – glorifying Elliot. So I can fully understand Clarke's dismissal of him. Fitzpatrick makes no mention of the SPA. Cahill does: "Casey, along with Johnson and Clarke, had been a member of the Australian Branch of the rigidly Marxist British Socialist Party. Author of the immortal IWW ballad 'Bump me into Parliament', he had been known as the 'philosopher of the proletariat' ". Cahill also refers to Casey as "the mainstay and guiding intelligence" of the Johnson faction. I recall (c. 1958) Clarke talking about Casey in almost reverential tones. In Strike across the Empire, a history of the 1925 seamen's strike, the authors Hirson and Vivian (UK historians) describe Johnson as "a member of the Australian Socialist Party: a small group that proclaimed that revolutionaries could only take power when they had the whole-hearted support of the masses". Finally, the Australian historian Stuart McIntyre in The Reds says: "Johnson and the branch secretaries in Melbourne and Brisbane were adherents of the rigidly doctrinaire Socialist Party of Great Britain, which allowed no compromise in the class war, and enforced the Union rules as strictly as they upheld the letter of impossibilist Marxism". Well, at least he got the name right.ajj: Yes, I read your previous post which carried the piece from Socialist Comment by one Frank Royden (unknown to me). I was surprised when I read it because it was unlike anything I had seen before in SC. Only after that did I look it up in my own collection of SPA material. It is an unusual piece because of a very forthright, honest and up-front tone, which I haven't found in other issues of Socialist Comment. Its analysis of parties on the Left is quite good even after almost 70 years. Thanks for pointing it out.

[alanjjohnstone]

Obituary should have, of course, read "obituary" as it was an observation not actual fact. My comment (first placed on SPOPEN previously) was originally in response to the March EC minutes where an Australian comrade acknowledged the SPA was no longer a functioning party,  a rather belated recognition of its moribund state for some years now, imho. The source is the online website already cited, Reason in  Revolt Debating why we have not been successful in our efforts to acquire more adherents may indeed require some ugly home truths (this also applies to the present condition of the WSM, too). You are it appears more privy to the going ons of the SPA when it was more alive. Perhaps you can say what sort of outlet there was for internal debate since i do not know if there was regular discussions and conferences being held because of as you say the membership was scattered. Perhaps the article is a contribution for what was intended as an internal debate and hence its publication. "Socialism is deterministic". Not sure if i agree with that statement. I always believed to change the capitalist system requires human agency, the material requirement already being in existence right now, its only consciousness lacking and that sadly has some subjective factors to overcome, such as nationalism, religion and other such stuff.There is a well-justified question to ask why capitalism's demise is taking so long to come about. I don't subscribe to the theory that it is the fault of our organisations failings. Larger powers and influences are at play in history.But i do accept that our membership could be greater, our presence more obvious, and we bear some responsibility for that condition.  Early members were indeed optimistic in their views on the proximity of achieving socialism and the size of the WSM role within the process. Time however has changed the prominence of both these for many members.    

[twc]

Royden ArticleReference: http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/objects/pdf/d0483.pdf

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I have pointed out on a discussion list, the SPA wrote its own obituary in 1948.

Please cite a reference to your post.

pgb wrote:

It is an unusual piece because of a very forthright, honest and up-front tone, which I haven't found in other issues of Socialist Comment.

The only thing forthright, honest and up-front in tone about the article is its statement that the socialist case of the SPA, of the SPGB and of Marx has been put for a century, and the world has rejected it, and that we now should reconsider the socialist case of the SPA, of the SPGB, and of Marx because it’s just our bias, opinion, ideology — and is probably wrong.The only explanation I can imagine for the EC letting it through was difficulty of communication between scattered EC members, some of whose advice to reject was overridden or possibly not sought, and the desire for the Party to publish post haste a historical appraisal of world socialism for the centenary celebration of the “The Communist Manifesto”.Why thoroughly likable Jack Topp agreed to publish the article is beyond me.  Perhaps it was his general magnanimity.  [Jack was a perpetual, and so familiar, sight at Melbourne Trades Hall.  He was the only layman that future prime minister Hawke, when long-term industrial advocate and head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), relied on for industrial and legal opinion, and he nurtured future ACTU advocate and Federal treasurer Ralph Willis.]For or AgainstIt certainly is a demoralizing article for the world socialist case;  and the author, by disavowing its Object and Declaration of Principles, the sole conditions of Party membership, is thereby placing himself outside and against the Party he’s ostensibly writing inside and for.Your finding merit in the Royden article plays into my hand, and provides the missing substantiation that the ex-SPGB pair moved from inside to outside, and from for to against, the SPA, Marx and the SPGB.ObituaryIf Royden was being forthright, honest and up-front in tone in writing an obituary on the SPA, then he was also being forthright, honest and up-front in tone in writing an obituary for Marx, and for the SPGB.  If one is dead, so are they all, and that includes the SPGB.This makes my central, but contrary, point in the Materialism thread.  If everything is opinion, or bias, or ideology, then we are all as much opinionated, biased and ideological as the next.If so, we have an insubstantial basis for dumping an existing world social system [presumably merely the result of someone-else’s former bias, opinion, ideology] for a non-existing world social system [presumably merely the fantasy of our own bias, opinion, ideology].That, of course, is nonsense.Socialism is materialist and deterministic, or not at all.  The only obituary we strive for is capitalism’s.

[twc]

Ugly "Truths"Well then, it was also an "obituary" for Marx and the SPGB.  It certainly harmed the SPA.There could be no uglier truth than that we are biased, and our bias is wrong — whatever a "wrong" bias can ever be in the context that all is bias.But as far as ugly truths go — and they go awfully far —  there is no uglier truth than that we are wrong.Not deterministic?  Look at our Object and Declaration of Principles.  Please don't tell me our Object isn't deterministic.  If our Object isn't deterministic, socialism has no hope whatsoever on the foundation of our Object. In which case, socialism has no hope.Blow me down.  Human agency.  Do you think the determinism of human society doesn't involve human agency.  Human agency is the substance of social determinism.Instead of determinism, it's consciousness that's lacking.  Only consciousness.  Some of us hold with Marx that social being determines consciousness.That's Marx's mighty determined determinism, if you ask me.  Only consciousness!  Only determinism!Otherwise, we might as well subscribe to Royden's ugly "truth" that this insubstantial pageant is all mere ugly bias.Oh mankind, what have we come to!

[alanjjohnstone]

 Really i think we are talking at cross purposes…i accept Dietzgen that ideas do become actual material factors and ideas produce action (or in some cases inaction)And as i said , i can sympathise with Roydens view. The SPGB, SPC, the WSPUS, the WSPIreland, the WSPIndia, our hopes for Africa and the Ukraine. Hmmm…??Where is the evidence we are a reflection of a growing socialist consciousness in the world as capitalism itself widens its tentacles. Occasionally we see a similarity in views with others and seize hold of it as a drowning man clutches at another for rescue. I believe John Crump, in his studies of Japan, sought to research the rise of capitalism in Japan and the corresponding rise of socialist thought that should occur. I stand to be corrected, but he found none, instead the socialist ideas were an import from outside, not a development of capitalism.But i am optimistic since i claim no powers of prophesy. I only respond and react to how i perceive the world and that was brought to me through the human agency of fellow comrades of the SPGB, something unique in my life-experience and daresay just as specific to the personal histories of many others, chance encounters, family connections etc etcPerhaps i am, and the SPGB are, mere accidents of history, incidental to the flow of social evolution. I claim no great insight or knowledge. I leave the philosophying to others and seek practical activity in the  world, in the circumstances i am in now, and concentrate my mind upon what we can do with our limited and decreasing membership. But i do understand and acknowledge reality and it gives no cause for undue confidence.DOOM…DOOM…AND THRICE DOOM !!If it's "Socialism or Barbarism?" , what odds are the bookies giving? 

[twc]

Nothing to do with ideas becoming a material force.Everything to do with material conditions, in the form of our necessary social existence, determining our social superstructure — (under capitalism, our socially necessary laws; our functional conception of the very process of our existence depending on private ownership and control of the means of social reproduction [something, by the way, that I see the remarkable political economist Andrew Kliman, to whom we are all in debt for his reclamation of Marx from the Sraffians, seems to discount] and the conceptions of money, capital, property and right that necessarily result from this, and hold mental sway over us so long as we consider them as necessarily so).So, do you think that our Objective has no deterministic force? Do you repudiate it?  Just what are you really implying?  This is the nub of the issue.I haven't Marx's intro to Capital Vol 1, where I am writing on an iPhone, but I recall the bit about no social system ever being replaced until it has exhausted its potential.  Capitalism hasn't yet — China, India, the Arab world, Africa, South America have yet to come on board before we all collectively sink the ship.Courage man, and patience!Social determinism holds us back for the time being.  We may not see social determinism turn in our favour in our brief lifetime.  But then again it may.  When it does turn, the old social system will have exhausted its possibilities, and will be powerless to withstand it.For the moment capitalism has plenty of room to move, and people recognize this, and so, on their own rational terms, find little reason to heed our message.That's why it's essential for socialists to stick to our Principles and Object.

[pgb]

twc:Aren't you making a lot of fuss over Frank Roydon's 1948 article in Socialist Comment and particularly his use of the word "bias"? Surely all he is doing is emphasising the importance of "standing outside the Socialist movement " (his words) to better take up the role of a "detached observer". He specifically associates "bias" with having "hopes and aspirations", ie. with values. So I read this to mean that he is not (and cannot be) "value free", so a truly value free person would be a dead person. Quite. Roydon certainly has "biases": he is biased against capitalism and biased in favour of socialism and the working class. Most socialists are. But that shouldn't mean that we can't be objective. You don't have to be neutral or value free or "unbiased" in order to be objective. Marx was not neutral towards capitalism but I believe he was objective in his analysis of it (even though he might have agreed with Max Weber that there can be no such thing as a value-free social science). I have just finished reading Roydon's article more thoroughly a second time. I can find nothing in it to justify your claim that he "disavowed the Object and Declaration of Principles" of the Party. And nowhere does he suggest that the socialist case of the SPA, the SPGB and Marx is just "bias, opinion, ideology – and is probably wrong". I think the quote on Marxism he took from Lucien Laurat's 1940 book is spot on for his purposes, and quite properly he uses it to argue a case to "re-examine all our assumptions and see if they are still sound." Who was it who once called for "the critical examination of all that exists, without fear of the results of that criticism nor of the powers that be"?Thank you for the comprehensive material on the founding of the SPA in 1924 and activities thereafter. Very interesting. You refer to "a very long document" written by W J Clarke. It would be of great value to turn those pages into a history of the Socialist Party in Australia, and I hope that by lodging the document with the SPGB it will eventually appear in that form. I am not surprised that Jacob Johnson's papers were not made available, since we (esp. J Thorburn ) had the same knockback years ago. A great pity really. I recently read the one document which Johnson wrote and published (I hold a copy). It's an expose of Walsh's corrupt activities as president of the Union in 1928, appropriately titled: "The Crooks Exposed". It has great literary merit not seen today in anything coming out of TUs in my part of the world. Unlike Clarke and Casey, both of whom I believe had contact with the SPGB before arriving in Australia, Jacob Johnson came out here as as young child from Sweden so unlikely he knew of the SPGB beforehand. He would have made a great subject for a labour movement biography.

[twc]

Crooks ExposedYes, The Crooks Exposed is a truly remarkable document, and should be transcribed with spelling and grammatical correction.  Otherwise left untouched.If you are prepared to transcribe it, with minimal spelling and grammatical fixes, and "publish" it here, you would be doing a service to those giants of the early SPA, Johnson, Casey and Clarke, but also to all supporters of socialism and integrity everywhere.Clarke's three remaining personal copies of Crooks Exposed  were lent for study purposes to post-graduate students in social history. They were never returned, as promised.One recipient was a married ex-Protestant minister, admitted to the Catholic priesthood, and the first married priest in Australia.  Clarke sent him a copy by mail.  When the parcel failed to arrive on time for this dithering fellow, he hastily demanded another be sent.  This also was duly sent by mail.  Neither was returned.Clarke lent another copy to a Master's student, recommended to him by Jim Thorburn, who had neither interest in nor competence to carry out her work, but spent her valuable time with Clarke conducting an idiotic interview on, of all people, Marx's son-in-law, LaFargue.I believe there is no longer a copy of the document among Clarke's papers. Clarke told me it was written under tight time constraints, and apologized for its lack of literary refinement.  But this valuable document was never intended as an exercise in belle lettres.As in such joint productions, one person took control and that, I believe, was Clarke. The main content was due to the incredible Casey. Remember, Clarke chose to run away to sea as a 13-year old boy to support his widowed mother and her family, after his father drowned in the Koombana shipwreck off the West Australian coast, in the eye of a tropical cyclone.  He taught himself to read and write, shipboard, studying Darwin's Origin of Species, out of which developed his subsequent writing and editing skills, e.g. for the Australasian Seamen's Journal, some of which I'll later transcribe and "publish" here. This is by way of explaining Clarke's later embarrassment over the literary style of Crooks Exposed.I've only ever glanced at a copy of Crooks Exposed, but have never read it.Given its tortuous history, you may imagine my elation in discovering that you have a precious copy. This should  ultimately reside in the SPGB archives.

[twc]

pgb wrote:

I think the quote on Marxism he took from Lucien Laurat's 1940 book is spot on for his purposes, and quite properly he uses it to argue a case to "re-examine all our assumptions and see if they are still sound." Who was it who once called for "the critical examination of all that exists, without fear of the results of that criticism nor of the powers that be"?

That is sheer nonsense when one is dealing with a political party whose condition of membership is acceptance of its Object and Declaration of Principles.It is disingenuous to believe that a world socialist party's “assumptions”* are anything other than its Object and Declaration of Principles.  If they aren’t, please explain what they could ever be.A world socialist party’s abstract Object and Declaration of Principles are non-negotiable conditions of party membership.  You join because you agree with them.  You leave when you disagree with them.By disagreeing with them from inside, you place yourself outside the conditions of membership.  To attack the very conditions of the party's existence is then to sabotage it from within.You may attack as much as you like from outside, and that’s totally fine.  It happens all the time.In other words, everything to do with a world socialist party is consequential upon its Object and Principles.  Otherwise they become meaningless, which they decidedly are not.  They are our means to socialism.To put it in scientific form, our Object and Principles are the abstract form of our party's existence, of which its concrete activity [mental as well as practical] is the implementation.Party activity can of course be criticized as being inconsistent with its Object and Principles. But that wasn't the article's point. As alanjjohnstone correctly observes, the article from within was writing an “obituary”. The party was officially writing its own “obituary”. Committing “suicide”.That's how crucial the Object and Principles are to its existence, just as they must be and ever have been.What was done in Australia in 1948, was done.  But the consequences were devastating.All other political parties are different from the parties of world socialism.  Most have no clear Object at all, and none have Principles worthy of human support. To the man-in-the-street it seems highly reasonable for them to go through continual soul searching, all other parties do it all of the time, except that none of them has a soul like our Object and Principles to find.But the socialist parties, thanks to the clarity and science handed down to them from Marx, have decided up front precisely what they want [our Object] and how we get there [our Principles].Notes* Our Object and Declaration of Principles are not mere “assumptions”.  They are scientific abstractions from the concrete phenomena of society, and so vulnerable to rejection if their deterministic consequences fail to describe concrete society.  That “proof of the pudding” criterion is the only scientific way anyone can annihilate them.Doubters are at liberty to make their own scientific abstractions from our shared social condition, develop their  own deterministic science, and check out its implications by the only practical means mankind knows of — “proof of the pudding ”.

[twc]

Refused WorkHere follows an excerpt from Clarke’s autobiographical manuscript describing connivance between the shipowners and the Communist union officials to ban his employment.  It substantiates the case that the Communist officials prevented jobs being given to anti-Communist members.This is a verbatim transcription, side comments and all, with minimal editing.

W. J. Clarke wrote:

After the 1935 strike (see History)After I refused to recognize the Communist officials, particularly when they tried to force me to collect money [subscription dues] from the scabs they had taken into the Union, at the expense of hundreds of our best men being left without jobs, I decided I could no longer carry on [as Secretary].I called a meeting, explained the position to the members, and told them that I would resign my position rather than accept such a treacherous proposition.The members pleaded with me to stay on but, by this time, the so-called Communist officials had put round the rumour that, as long as Clarke remained in office, the owners would not give our loyal members a job.I stood fast [to my resolve], and although I resigned, the owners were still refusing to accept anybody who had a spark of militance in him.(The full story is set out in the "History")Furthermore, I refused to take out the Dog Collar, which was a license to go to sea, introduced under the Transport Regulations that had been enforced on Waterside Workers and Seamen, alike.I did not go back to sea until World World 2.  I had kept up my [membership] contributions to the Union, but Elliot* tried to prevent me and told the owners that if they gave me a job I would only cause trouble.

Notes* Elliot, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_V._Elliott.

[twc]

First Contact with the SPGB

pgb wrote:

Unlike Clarke and Casey, both of whom I believe had contact with the SPGB before arriving in Australia, Jacob Johnson came out here as as young child from Sweden so unlikely he knew of the SPGB beforehand.

Actually, from going through Clarke’s autobiographical document, he first “came into contact” with the SPGB in Melbourne.  Here follows an extract I’ve just transcribed from the document, which I’ve only started to read in conjunction with his industrial and party history.  The date is probably 1919 or 1920.

W. J. Clarke wrote:

Back in Melbourne, I made for the shipping office, but there was little [work at sea] doing.  So I booked a room in the Yarra Family Hotel to bide my time.  There were a few seamen staying there …One of the chaps I met in the Hotel was Barney Kelly*, a little dapper Liverpudlian Irishman, and we remained mates right up to the day he died.Barney showed me the ropes around Melbourne.  The first place he took me to was the Yarra Bank where, at that time, the old IWW members used to gather and hold their meetings.  There were also radical speakers from The Victorian Socialist Party²; the Socialist Labour Party, the Victorian Labour Party, the Anarchist Chummy Fleming³, …There were quite a few independents and non-attached spruikers⁴.Among them were Jack Temple, a supporter of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and Bill Casey, a strong supporter of Temple.

Notes* Kelly caused a minor upset at the first Red Trade Union International.  See Materialism post #241, http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/long-awaited-materialism-thread?page=23#comment-12417.² The Victorian Socialist Party included among its ranks future wartime prime minister Curtin, as well as Anstey, Blackburn and Cameron, mentioned in Clarke’s history, post #6, above.³ For Chummy Fleming, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chummy_Fleming.%5D⁴ Spruiker, Australian slang for “outdoor speaker”.

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