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Author: Simone Battiston Title: Migrants, Identity and Radical Politics: Meaning and Ramifications of the Visits of Italian Communist Party Officials to Australia Year: 2017 Journal: Australian Journal of Politics and History Volume: 63 Issue: 2 Pages: 187-205 URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/437645
Copyright: Article copyright © 2017 The Author. Journal © 2017 The University of Queensland and John Wiley and Sons Australia, Ltd. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Battiston, S. (2017), Migrants, Identity and Radical Politics: Meaning and Ramifications of the Visits of Italian Communist Party Officials to Australia. Australian Journal of Politics & History, 63: 187-205, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.12347. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.
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Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) Migrants, identity and radical politics: Meaning and ramifications of the visits of Italian communist party officials to Australia
Simone Battiston
Abstract This paper examines ten years (1963–1973) of visits to Australia of Italian Communist Party (PCI) officials. In particular, the visits’ origins, meaning and ramifications are analysed and framed against the background of post‐war migrant worker identity discourses and radical politics. They appear to have shaped markedly the direction of the experience of Italian communists in Australia, especially in Sydney, and their interaction with both the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and the PCI. Ultimately, they helped spread the message of Italian communism among migrants and encourage the replication on Australian soil of the successful experience of the Europe‐based PCI federations with thousands of worker members. For the CPA, which had been looking for new ways to break through to the hearts and minds of the migrant proletariat, the visits heralded a stronger partnership with its Italian members, a closer link with Eurocommunism, and a potential new stream of recruits that would have reversed the hemorrhaging of membership. The visits were instrumental, as argued in this paper, for the establishment and promotion of an Italian cultural and language space for which far‐left Italian migrants in Australia had long yearned.
Keywords: Italian Communist Party, Communist Party of Australia, Italian migrants. Introduction
On 28 April 1973, Antonio Bolzano, a steward on an Italian passenger liner, gave a short address to some 140 people at the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) headquarters in Sydney. According to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIO), Bolzano was “a worker for socialism at sea” transmitting at Sydney. 1 He was also a fervent member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The focus of Bolzano’s address that evening was the acknowledgment among attendees of former PCI senator and recently appointed head of the PCI Emigration Office, Giuliano Pajetta, as well as the growing manifestation of Italian-style communism in Australia. Proudly, Bolzano stated that the PCI had now a full presence in Australia and that Pajetta was spreading the message of the PCI. Bolzano’s comments epitomised the sentiments of accomplishment and the feelings of hope of many other Italian communists in Australia. Such comments came as no surprise. The hierarchy of the CPA eagerly echoed them. In his welcoming speech the National Secretary of the CPA Laurence ‘Laurie’ Aarons went as far as stating that “[…] it was the proudest day of his life to again meet Pajetta personally”. Aarons was exceptionally pleased that “the [CPA] and the PCI were now in an harmonious group together” working shoulder to shoulder for a “socialist Australia”.2 Political rhetoric and flattering comments aside, the warm reception by the CPA for Pajetta vouched for the political stature of the guest and for the central role he fulfilled as a go-between for Australian and Italian communists. The two communist parties regarded Pajetta, who was by then on his third trip to Australia, as the linchpin of PCI-sponsored activity among Italian migrants overseas, and the preferred point of contact of communist Australia with communist Italy. But exactly what message had Pajetta been spreading in Australia? What harmony between the two communist parties did Laurie Aarons refer to? What part, if any, did Italian communists in Australia like Bolzano play in the relationship between the CPA and the PCI? And more broadly, what do the visits of overseas communist party officials to Australia tell us about Southern European migrants and their involvement with radical Australia during the Cold War period?
Please note that this accepted manuscript version has rectified some post-publication typos, which remain the sole responsibility of the author. The changes have not altered the meaning of the text.
1 National Archives of Australia (NAA): A6119, 3820. 2 NAA: A6119, 3820. Studies examining visits by foreign-born radical entities to Australia,3 or the political and life trajectory of migrant members of the CPA4, or the recontruction of the presence of the PCI and its members in Australia,5 have so far shed an important light on the influence of touring overseas officials and activists and on the activity of militant migrants in the Australian communist movement during the Cold War period. These studies represent a solid anchor point for further research into the interaction of foreign and/or ethnic elements with communist Australia and the wider community. The visits of PCI officials, Giuliano Pajetta (1963, 1966, and 1973) and Diego Novelli (1971), took place during a period pregnant with significant social and political changes in Australia. Some visits occurred during the so-called “time of hope”, as Australian journalist and social writer Donald Horne once put it, of 1966- 1972—a period that also witnessed the emergence of the ethnic rights movement and proto-multiculturalism. 6 One of Pajetta’s visits, in 1973, took place during an even more significant period of change for Australia, when the watershed election of the Whitlam Labor government (1972) paved the way for the country’s official endorsement of, and widespread support for, multiculturalism. But why are the visits of officials of particular research interest? And why focus on the 1963-1973 period? Far-left politics provides a unique window for scholars wishing to explore traces of political identities among migrants, divided or overlapping political loyalties, or features of politically-minded migrant organisations before and after the advent of cultural and linguistic diversity in both fringe and mainstream Australian politics. The focus of the paper here is on the far- left, rather than the left (primarily represented by the Australian Labor Party). This has been dictated by two reasons. First, in the studied period radical Italians in Australia gravitated around, and were often members of, the CPA, or one of its splinter groups, namely the Maoist Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) (CPA [M-L]) (from 1964), or the pro-Soviet Socialist Party of Australia (SPA) (from 1971)—not the left wing of the ALP. Secondly, the PCI identified the CPA as its
3 Phillip Deery’s article ‘Dark Red Subject Has Arrived: A British Communist Visits Australia’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 86, 1 (June 2000), pp.39-50, for instance explores the complex history of British-Australian communist connections through the visit to Australia of the chairman of the British Communist Party Harry Pollitt. 4 See for example Patricia Grimshaw’s article, ‘Zelda D’Aprano, Leadership and the Politics of Gender in the Australian Labour Movement, 1945-75’, Labour History, Vol. 102 (May 2013), pp.101-118. 5 Simone Battiston, ‘“La federazione si sviluppa e si consolida”: il partito comunista italiano tra gli emigrati italiani in Australia (1966-1973)’, Studi Storici, Vol. 50, 2 (April-June 2009), pp.555-571. This paper has recontructed the presence of the PCI and its members in Australia drawing chiefly from archival material held at the Antonio Gramsci Institute Foundation, Rome; in particular its PCI collection. 6 Mark Lopez, The Origins of Multiculturalism in Australian Politics 1945-1975 (Carlton South, Vic. 2000). natural counterpart in Australia, rather than the ALP, at least until the Whitlam era. Lastly, political activities by Italian communists in Australia were closely monitored by ASIO and other government agencies,7 which over time have generated a substantial body of files that unintentionally represents a primary source for those wishing to reconstruct the historical presence of Italian communism (local and imported) in Australia. The visits of Pajetta and Novelli were no exception. Their visits were diligently followed by field officers and informants: their every move was under surveillance and recorded (see also Photos 1, 2, and 3). The ten year period 1963-1973 is of particular interest because it overlaps not only with the seminal phase of the presence of Italian communism in Australia8 but also with the gradual amendment of the government policy regarding immigration and settlement of migrant communities (from assimilation to integration to multiculturalism) and the overall change of attitude towards migrant cultures (from dismissal to inclusion to celebration). Furthermore, it is a period marked by significant international communism events (and their consequent aftermaths in Australia), namely the Sino-Soviet split, the rise of Eurocommunism and the national roads to communism, and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Ultimately, the wealth of Australian archival sources covering this period, if compared with the post-1973 period, enables us to provide an in-depth examination of events and to postulate on the meaning of the visits by PCI officials to Australia. The aim of this paper is thus to assess the role these visits played in the process of politicisation of migrants in Australian radical politics during the Cold War period and within the rich and complex relationship between the PCI and the CPA. By engaging with the literature and primary sources, the paper will bring to the fore a distinctly Australian perspective, which has so far been largely overlooked.
Migrant identities and radical politics
The visits of Pajetta and Novelli constitute one element of the multifaceted interaction of émigré communities with political entities and politically-affiliated organisations of the country of origin as well as the country of adoption. In researching the evolution of politically-minded Italian workers, some studies of Italy’s emigrants have zeroed in on the complexity of migrant identities, international class formations and nation building.9 Some studies have focused instead on the
7 John Blaxland, The Protest Years: The Official History of ASIO, 1963-1975 – Volume II (Crows Nest, NSW 2015), p.113. 8 Simone Battiston, ‘“La federazione si sviluppa e si consolida”, pp.561-562. 9 See for instance, Donna R. Gabaccia and Fraser M. Ottanelli (eds), Italian Workers of the World: Labor Migration and the Formation of Multiethnic States (Urbana and Chicago 2001). constitution of identity through both movement and attachment.10 Other studies have broadened the research scope and offered insights into the concepts of home, transnationalism and increased mobility. In her study on visits home anthropologist and sociologist Loretta Baldassar, for example, explored the sense of homelessness felt by many Italian migrants and their families. Within this context ‘home’ became an elusive concept and return visits provided a temporary sense of home experience and of identity making and re-making.11 Within an Australian context, some studies have observed the formation (or subjugation) of diasporic identities against the background of the White Australia assimilation policy, which may partly help explain the subdued nature and fringe position of Italian radicals in Australia.12 Other scholars have focused on migrant identity in terms of emerging voting patterns and ethnic politicians since the Whitlam government period. In his analysis of the ethnic situation in Australia in 1972, political scientist and migration historian, James Jupp, observed that ethnic minorities had not only retained their language and cultural manifestations, but they also began to develop their own community support structures and institutions; and this occurred before the policy of multiculturalism was officially launched. The Southern European migrants in particular, who lived in predominantly working-class suburbs and were employed in blue-collar jobs, became over time an important political asset for the Australian Labor movement, which then largely benefited from the phenomenon of the ethnic voting blocks.13 Ian McAllister and Jonathan Kelley pointed out that the ethnic vote phenomenon was already apparent in the 1960s and that Southern European migrants shifted their voting pattern from anti-Labor to pro- Labor by the early 1970s.14 Unable to propose their own ethnic politicians,15 and with their peripheral position in the ethnic voting blocks (a CPA or communist Italian voting block never represented a serious threat to the fortunes of the ALP), far-left Italian migrants remained an unexpressed political potential and a latent electoral threat to traditional and mainstream politics. However, the class structure and the social condition of the majority of Italians in Australia, with the working class and peasant background elements over-represented, meant that they were perceived as an ideal target for
10 This is the case of Anne-Marie Fortier’s book, Migrant Belongings: Memory, Space, Identity (Oxford 2000). 11 Loretta Baldassar, Visits Home: Migration Experiences between Italy and Australia (Carlton South, Vic. 2001). 12 Anna Haebich, Spinning the Dream: Assimilation in Australia 1950-1970 (Fremantle 2008); Gwenda Tavan, The Long, Slow Death of White Australia (Carlton North, Vic. 2005). 13 James Jupp, From White Australia to Woomera (Cambridge 2007, 2nd ed.), chp 2. 14 Ian McAllister and Jonathan Kelley, ‘Immigrants’ status, earning and politics’, in James Jupp, ed., Ethnic Politics in Australia (North Sydney, NSW 1984), p.66. 15 Yet, backing left wing ALP candidates, such as in the Victorian State elections of 1979 with the Italian-born Giovanni Sgrò. recruitment by communists. The size of the Italian community mattered too. By the early 1970s, Italian-born migrants formed the largest non-English speaking background community in Australia, whilst Italian was the most spoken language after English—a position held until the 2006 Census.16 In his landmark study Arrivals and Departures, Jupp underscored the existence of links between the CPA and Southern European migrants. He pointed out that “the possibility of some migrants becoming communists has been overlooked. Italians and Greeks, both with strong communist influences in their home countries, may, in fact give some temporary boost to militancy in unions which local communists control”.17 Furthermore Jupp added:
So far […] the reservoir of previous communist voters among Southern Europeans has remained untapped. The stringent political screening of applicants for naturalisation may have something to do with this. A further factor is clearly that Italians vote communist because the Communist Party of Italy is so large and strong. They are not likely to get the same impression of the Communist Party of Australia.18
The size and influence of the CPA in Australian politics was indeed marginal when compared to the PCI in Italy, which had reached mass party level membership and structures by the late 1940s.19 Notwithstanding that, the CPA had a strong presence in some unions and in some industries. Furthermore, the CPA had accepted ethnic or ethnic-background members within its ranks from as early as its establishment.20 Notable examples include Guido Baracchi, Charles D’Aprano and Giovanni Sgrò. Australian-born of Italian ancestry, Guido Baracchi was a foundation member of CPA in 1920.21 Charles D’Aprano, who emigrated with his family in 1937, joined
16 Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001, ‘Australia (C) (QuickStats), People – Demographics’, viewed 10 December 2015,
22 Carolyn Moore, ‘Charles D’Aprano: Italo-Australian Left Activist’, The Hummer, Vol. 2, 6 (Winter 1996), http://asslh.org.au/hummer/vol-3-no-3/charles-daprano/, accessed online 10 November 2015. In 1971, Charles D’Aprano was the first native speaker of Italian to be appointed lecturer at Swinburne Technical College (now Swinburne University of Technology). Then, D’Aprano joined the recently formed Italian language program, headed by Swinburne lecturer Brian Warren. 23 One example can be found in the 1952 demonstration of the CPA-affiliated trade unions and Italia Libera in support of jobless Italians. See, ‘Reds organized Italian meeting—and it flopped’, News Weekly, 27 August 1952; ‘Jobless Italians cheer union leader’s solidarity call’, The Guardian, 28 August 1952. For the involvement of the CPA in the 1952 Bonegilla riot and the support given to the Italian Bonegilla migrants, see Douglas Jordan, Conflict with the Unions: The Communist Party of Australia, Politics and the Trade Union Movement, 1965-60, (Sydney, 2013), pp.171-175. 24 Jordan, Conflict with the Unions, pp.163-181. It is on these activities and interest of the CPA among Italian migrants that the figures of Giuliano Pajetta and Diego Novelli come into the scene in the mid 1960s and early 1970s respectively. Pajetta and Novelli were well respected figures in the PCI hierachy. Pajetta belonged to a well-known anti-fascist family who experienced first-hand the brutality of fascist persecution. Pajetta combined a solid communist background with international experience. His pre- and war-time experiences profoundly shaped his political career and internationalist outlook.25 In 1946, he was elected to the Italian Constituent Assembly and two years later to the Italian Parliament in which he served first as MP (until 1963) and later as Senator (1963- 1972). From 1956 to 1966 he was responsible for the PCI Foreign Affairs Office, and from 1972 to 1982 of the PCI Emigration Office. Novelli was editor-in-chief of L’Unità and PCI official (member of the Central Committee and of the National Secretariat) who also served as Councillor in the Turin City Council. He was mayor of Turin (1975-1985), member of the European Parliament (1984-1987) and the Italian Parliament (1987-2001).26
The 1960s visits
Giuliano Pajetta made at least two visits to Australia in the 1960s. The first visit took place in 1963 when Pajetta, on his way to and return from Auckland, where he attended the Congress of the Communist Party of New Zealand (CPNZ), stopped over in Australia and Indonesia. 27 Puzzled by the presence of a top PCI official in the area, ASIO concluded that Pajetta’s main objective for his trip was to understand the orientation of communist parties in New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia on the subject of the Sino-Soviet dissension.28 Yet, Pajetta seemed to have been concerned about migrant issues too. In Sydney, he met some CPA officials, including the General Secretary Lawrence ‘Lance’ Sharkey, but also Harry Stein, who was a party functionary responsible for migrant affairs.29 Although no meetings were organised with members of the Italian community, L’Unità reported that Pajetta discussed with his Australian counterpart a range of issues, including “social and political issues
25 Due to Fascist repression in 1930, at the age of fifteen, Pajetta fled to France and later to the USSR. He joined the partisan forces first in Spain (during the Spanish Civil War) and in France (during the Second World War). He was arrested and sent to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Nazi Germany, after which he secretly returned to Italy in 1944. 26 Simone Battiston and Sabina Sestigiani, ‘“A lucky country?” Il viaggio inchiesta di Diego Novelli de L’Unità nell’Australia del 1971’, Altreitalie, Vol. 48, 1 (January-June 2014), p.54. 27 ‘Incontri di G. Pajetta con dirigenti communisti in Australia e Indonesia’, L’Unità, 21 April 1963, p.12. 28 NAA: A6119, 3820. 29 Simone Battiston, ‘“La federazione si sviluppa e si consolida”, p.562. regarding the Italians in Australia”.30 This first visit of Pajetta to Australia resulted in no more than two transit stops at Sydney airport. Contacts between the PCI and CPA continued throughout the 1960s.31 The CPA, which split from its pro-Chinese faction in 1963, resulting in the emergence of the CPA (M-L) in 1964, looked favourably at a national road to socialism policy, and “Italian ideas such as a plurality of political ideas and forces under a socialist state and democratisation of party processes”.32 The PCI experience, at both political and organisational levels, provided an inspiration for the CPA.33 It may be for this latter reason that the Vice-President of the CPA, Laurie Aarons, and Jim Moss, a member of the CPA Central Committee, visited Italy twice between November and December 1964. In Italy, Aarons and Moss were invited to take part in several party activities that included participation in local council electoral campaigns, attendance at branch meetings and factory council meetings in the industrial cities of Turin and Milan, and interaction with party cadres and officials. In particular the Australians showed great interest in “the action and the mass character of our Party, the relations between the party and the unions, the ongoing activity that our Party carries out for the unity of the workers, and they have followed with great interest the discussions and the direction of the relationship with Catholic forces and the dialogue between Catholics and communists”.34 Upon his return to Australia, Aarons shared with the Central Committee his positive impressions of the PCI and defended the Victorian branch for promoting a PCI-inspired national road to Socialism.35 The Italian migrant question, which featured in almost every interaction between the two parties, was also a matter of discussion between the Australian delegation and the PCI representatives. The tone of the discussion, as recalled by L’Unità, was fraternal and positive.36 Aarons and Moss’s visit to Italy was followed by a second Pajetta visit to Australia two years later. The opportunity came when Pajetta (now Senator) attended the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference in Canberra (11-16 April 1966), as part of the Italian delegation. This visit gave Pajetta the opportunity to meet up with Italian-background members and sympathisers of the CPA, besides party officials. ASIO sources
30 See, ‘Incontri di G. Pajetta con dirigenti communisti in Australia e Indonesia’, p.12. Author’s translation from the original Italian; all translations henceforth are by the author unless otherwise noted. 31 Bernie Taft (Victorian secretary of the CPA and member of the National Executive Committee) regularly visited the PCI headquarters in Rome when in Europe. See Bernie Taft, Crossing the Party Line: Memoirs of Bernie Taft, (Newman, Vic. 1994), passim. 32Jon Piccini, “More than an Abstract Principle’: Reimagining Rights in the Community Party of Australia, 1956-1971’, Journal of Australian Studies, Vol. 39, 2 (2015), p.205. 33 Taft, Crossing the Party Line, p.146. 34 ‘Delegazione del PC d’Australia a colloquio col PCI’, L’Unità, 8 December 1964, p.11, trans. 35 Taft, Crossing the Party Line, p.150. 36 ‘Delegazione del PC d’Australia a colloquio col PCI’, p.11. indicate that Pajetta was perhaps more worried by such matters as the negligible presence of Italian members in the CPA, than international communist politics. Asked, for example, by CPA official Joe Palmada for his views on what line PCI members should follow in Australia, Pajetta had little to say.37 Much to his disappoinment, Pajetta came to learn that not only had the CPA-sponsored Italian language newspaper Il Nuovo Paese just folded 38 (whereas other ethnic newspapers fared well) but also that very few Italians in Australia had so far joined the CPA. Among those who did not become members of the CPA were some allegedly former members and even officials of the PCI in Italy. Dimitri Oliva, an Italian CPA member who attended one of the meetings organised for Pajetta by the CPA in Sydney, stated that only twenty Italians were known to each other in the party. This was a very disappointing figure when compared with the size and class status of the Italian community in Sydney and New South Wales. At the same meeting, CPA member Francesco De Bella provided a rather convincing explanation for the lack of enthusiasm in the Italian community to join, or continue to support, the communist movement: “many Italians were probably frightenened of being deported if they associated with the CPA”.39 In the wake of Pajetta’s visit, the CPA constituted an Italian branch. One of the first activities of the branch, in June 1966, was to call for a special evening to which Italians who had previously attended one of Pajetta’s meetings were to be invited. Mindful of the difficulty of recruiting members in the Italian community, Palmada suggested “that these people were not to be pressed to join the [CPA] and extreme Left Views were not to be expressed; instead a soft approach was to be made through discussing Trade Unions, etc. in order to interest them in membership of the Party”.40
Photo 1. Giuliano Pajetta departing for Canberra from Mascot [Sydney], ASIO Surveillance Photo, [11] April 1966 Source: NAA: A9636, 169
Months after Pajetta’s departure, the newly established Italian branch of the CPA struggled to get activities off the ground and to recruit a sizable number of new
37 NAA: A6119, 3820. 38 On the history of the newspaper Il Nuovo Paese (1963-1966), see Bruno Mascitelli and Simone Battiston (eds), Il Globo: Fifty Years of an Australian Newspaper in Australia (Ballan, Vic. 2009), chp 4. 39 NAA: A6119, 3820. Prospective migrants who were found to be members of the PCI could have had their application for permanent migration refused on security grounds. This is, for instance, the case of Donato Ricigliano, a temporary resident and once active member of the PCI in Italy who applied for permanent residency and was interviewed and queried by immigration officials about his past political affiliations. Ricigliano was unaware that ASIO profiled him during one of Pajetta’s meetings in 1973. On the implications for those who fell foul of the security establisment see, Phillip Deery, “Dear Mr. Brown’: Migrants, Security and the Cold War’, History Australia, Vol. 2, 2 (2005), pp.40-1-40-12. 40 NAA: A6119, 3820. members. By July 1967 “the CPA was very worried about the lack of Party activity in the Italian community”. The request of some CPA Italian members who had been advocating for a separate Italian club “to cater for and encourage left-wing political opinion” fell on deaf ears.41
The 1970s visits
During the turbulent decade of the 1970s the PCI promoted its officials to make periodic visits to Australia. Whilst ASIO files reveal that Diego Novelli and Giuliano Pajetta visited Australia at least once at the beginning of the decade, respectively in 1971 and in 1973, other sources indicate that Pajetta came to Australia at least four more times between 1976 and 1981.42 It must be noted that his frequent post-1973 visits to Australia occurred during and after the so-called Salemi affair, which attracted more media attention and prominence in Australia than any other PCI-linked activity or visit. The Italian-born journalist, migrant rights campaigner and PCI official Ignazio Salemi was at the centre of a contentious dispute over his amnesty application in 1976 that resulted in his forced departure in 1977.43 Awareness of, and rabid reaction of some conservative quarters to, PCI-led activities in Australia reached new heights with the Salemi affair, which may have eclipsed the interest of the Australian authorites on the presence of PCI cadres in the country at the time. In August 1971, security agencies recorded the arrival and short stay of Diego Novelli. 44 His trip was the result of an invitation made to the PCI in Rome by the CPA the year before.45 The aim of Novelli’s visit was twofold. Officially, it was to report (and publish in L’Unità) on the unsatisfactory living and working conditions of working-class Italian migrants in Australia. Privately, it was to find
41 NAA: A6119, 3820. 42 The Italian communist daily L’Unità reported the further four visits of Pajetta to Australia, which do not seem to have generated further ASIO files on Pajetta, in ‘Incontro di Giuliano Pajetta in Australia con leaders laburisti’, L’Unità, 19 March 1976, p. 14; ‘Incontri di Giuliano Pajetta in Australia’, L’Unità, 29 June 1978, p.13; ‘Giuliano Pajetta in Australia’, L’Unità, 17 August 1979, p.12; Bruno Di Biase, ‘Positivo bilancio del lavoro dei comunisti italiani in Australia’, L’Unità, 12 June 1981, p.7. As per Diego Novelli, no further visits appear to have been recorded by ASIO. However, he returned to Australia at least once more in 1993 as Italian delegate of the Inter- Parliamentary Union Conference in Canberra. See, ‘A colloquio con Diego Novelli: ‘Vedovo: del Pci”, Nuovo Paese, October 1993, p.4. 43 Simone Battiston, ‘Salemi v. MacKellar Revisited: Drawing Together the Threads of a Controversial Deportation Case’, Journal of Australian Studies, Vol. 28, 84 (2005), pp.1-10. 44 NAA: A6119, 3752; NAA: A6119, 3754. At the time Novelli was PCI councillor of the Turin City Council and a member of the PCI Central Committee. 45 According to the Tribune, Novelli toured Australia on the invitation of the newspaper, but made no mention of it in his visa application. See, for instance, ‘Novelli heads home’, Tribune, 1 September 1971; NAA: A6119, 3752. ways to ease the problematic relationship between the CPA and its Italian members and sympathisers, which envisaged, among others, the possibilty of setting up a local and independent PCI federation. 46 In the event, Novelli later recalled that he was handed over some hundred blank PCI membership cards and a few contacts by Ugo Pecchioli of the PCI National Committee before his departure for Australia. 47 The arrangements made by the CPA for Novelli’s visit aimed for a greater exposure of the foreign guest to the wider community, perhaps partly due to the journalistic purpose of the trip. They included a busy schedule packed with meetings, including factory meetings, to be held in various locations in NSW (Newcastle, Wollongong and Sydney) and in Melbourne, where Novelli had the opportunity to meet local migrant workers (primarily of Italian background), but also politicians and trade unionists since he was an expert on industrial matters. Novelli learned about the often poor socio-economic conditions in Australia of the more recent arrivals from Italy, and of the false portrayal, by Australian and Italian governments, of Australia “as the land of milk and honey”. He intended to publicise the complaits in L’Unità and advise prospective migrants not to leave Italy for Australia.48 He was also given the opportunity to address the opening session of the CPA national committee meeting where he expressed his opinion on the subject of the divisions within the International Communist Movement. He backed the national road to socialism framework that was dear to the PCI by saying that “[…] it is not possible for one party to have a line which is the guide-line [sic.] for all. Nor is it possible for any party to possess the right to excommunicate any other party. What is possible is that parties may have autonomous and independent positions, and still be supporters of proletariat internationalism”.49 This was somewhat at odds with the increasingly “rigid, authoritarian approach of the [Sydney-based] national party leadership”, as later recalled by Taft, which began since the early 1970s to treat reformist communist parties, in primis the PCI, with contempt, accusing them of not being “revolutionary enough”.50
46 On the Novelli visit, see in particular: Simone Battiston, ‘“La federazione si sviluppa e si consolida”, pp.564-567; Simone Battiston, Immigrants Turned Activists: Italians in 1970s Melbourne, (Kibsworth Beauchamp, Leics., 2012) pp.43-47; Simone Battiston and Sabina Sestigiani, ‘“A lucky country?”, pp.40-57. 47 Diego Novelli, Com’era bello il mio Pci (Milan, 2006), p.63. 48 ‘“Italy gets false picture of Australia” – Novelli’, Tribune, 25 August 1971; ‘Don’t go to Australia, he will tell Italians’, National Times, 30 August-4 September 1971, p.37. 49 NAA: A6119, 3752. Emphasis in the original. Reprinted in, ‘“Italy gets false picture of Australia” – Novelli’, Tribune, 25 August 1971. 50 Taft, Crossing the Party Line, p.243. During the trip, Novelli was interviewed by local media outlets, his visits publicised and his views on politics and migration outlined.51 In addition, he conducted several interviews for L’Unità, including one with the president of the peak union body of the ACTU, Bob Hawke. Novelli impressed ASIO “as a most intelligent and well educated man with a very pleasing personality”, but an intelligence brief, dated September 1971, penned soon after his departure, concluded that the visit of the Italian communist was unsuccessful. The brief stated: “It is thought that one of the main purposes of Novelli’s visit was to help the CPA to make some inroads among the various Italian communities. Judging by the preliminary reports, it is difficult to see how he could possibly have been successful here, as according to some reports, he spent such a short time among such a small number of people”.52 What the ASIO report failed to note was that the visit had galvanised communist Italians into action, which culminated in autonomous political identity. Instead of mending the difficult relationship between the CPA and at least some of its Italian members, the visit exacerbated it and let the transnational dimension (PCI headquarters in Italy and PCI organisations in Australia) blossom. Novelli’s visit was brief but its ramifications long-lasting. Directly or otherwise, it set in motion a number of initiatives which gave both structure and impetus to the local Italian radical and progressive politics scenes. This entailed the launch of an independent PCI Federation (1971), the formation of chapters of the PCI-sponsored welfare agency FILEF (Italian Federation of Migrant Workers and their Families) (1972), the transfer to Australia of PCI cadre, journalist and migrant activist Ignazio Salemi (1974), and the launch of the progressive Italian newspaper Nuovo Paese (in circulation since 1974). All these activities eventually brought structure, visibility, members and activists to the Italian communist and left-leaning networks in Australia. PCI membership in Australia increased sharply from less than one hundred in 1971 to just over 250 in 1974 to arguably a thousand by the end of the decade. The launch of an independent PCI Federation that followed the arrival of Novelli in Australia, was a major turning point for the future relationship between the CPA and the Italian communists. Aarons admitted that Novelli had created many openings for the CPA into the Italian community and that the federation responded to the need of the Italian members to create their own space. Novelli did not advocate a break from the CPA; indeed, quite the contrary. The PCI in Rome encouraged ongoing interaction between the independent PCI federation and the CPA and, at least initially, dual membership. It pledged assistance with documents, literature and finance in order to foster a greater exchange of communists between Australia and Italy.
51 ‘Italian CP editor speaks’, Tribune, 18 August 1971; ‘“Italy gets false picture of Australia” – Novelli’, Tribune, 25 August 1971; ‘Don’t go to Australia, he will tell Italians’, p.37; ‘Novelli heads home’, Tribune, 1 September 1971. 52 NAA: A6119, 3752. But the CPA was of the understanding that the federation was transitional. It knew of the many difficulties potentially arising in allowing the establishment of branches of foreign communist parties on Australian soil. Spanish and Greek communists, for example, with their own branches of foreign communist parties in Australia, were constantly devoted, the CPA complained, to the struggle against the dictatorial regimes of their home countries. So, it was not long before difficulties between the CPA and the leadership of the federation materialised. After his visit in Italy in 1972 and talks with the head of the PCI Emigration Office, Nicola Gallo (replaced later in the year by Giuliano Pajetta), Aarons stated that the CPA was prepared to help the PCI in Australia both financially and morally. However, he could not understand why the leadership of the federation had failed to fully co-operate with the CPA, especially on the launch of the joint venture of producing and distributing a new Italian left-wing newspaper to be called Nuova Era / New Era. The PCI and the CPA agreed Italians should be encouraged to join the CPA, and for the federation “to frequently seek the advice and guidance of the CPA”. But the leadership of the federation, headed by Salvatore Palazzolo (a supporter of the recently formed SPA), sought to break away from the CPA dominance and to have the SPA recognised by the PCI in Italy instead. Conversely, both the CPA and the PCI in Rome ordered the federation to cease all relationships with the SPA. Ultimately, it was up to the newly appointed head of the PCI Emigration Office, Giuliano Pajetta, to rein in the federation and its leadership.53
Photo 2. Diego Novelli at the CPA Headquarters, Sydney, ASIO Surveillance Photo, 12 August 1971 Source: NAA: A9626, 168
Photo 3. Diego Novelli (L) and Joe Palmada (R) at the CPA Headquarters, Sydney, ASIO Surveillance Photo, 18 August 1971 Source: NAA: A9626, 168
The PCI Emigration Office, whose primary role was to enrol as many migrants as possible in the PCI and to mobilise the emigrant vote during election times, at least in Europe, grew in importance over the course of the 1970s.54 A key indicator was the sharp increase of PCI membership for those living abroad; it more than doubled from 1968 to 1978.55 His position as head of the PCI Emigration Office gave Pajetta greater leverage in his discussions on migrant-related matters with foreign parties and organisations. It also increased the level of contact and frequency of interaction
53 Pajetta held this position until 1982, when replaced by Gianni Giadresco due to health reasons. He died in Livorno in 1988. 54 Battiston, Immigrants Turned Activists, p.24. 55 PCI membership abroad increased by 117% in the ten year period of 1968-1978, that is from 8,300 members in 1968 to 19,025 members in 1978. See, Battiston, “La federazione si sviluppa e si consolida”, p.560. he had been having with the network of Italian communists living abroad, as well as his overall engagement with the Italian expatriate communities. Pajetta arrived in Australia on 15 April 1973 and his visit lasted two weeks. During his stay, he met hundreds of Italian migrants in his public meetings at Leichhardt and Brookvale (Sydney), Port Kembla (Wollongong), Newcastle and Melbourne, and learned first hand of their views and concerns on work and living conditions.56 In Sydney, Pajetta was invited to address a meeting of the Leichhardt Council and a public meeting for Italians in the Leichhardt Town Hall, which focused primarily on migrant-related matters. Pajetta also met personalities prominent in the Australian Labor movement, in the political and industrial fields and some members of the federal government. He spoke with federal ministers, including the Minister for Immigration, Al Grassby, the Minister for Urban and Regional Development, Tom Uren, trade union leaders, including Bob Hawke, and many other officals. He had a “long and friendly discussion” with Evasio Costanzo, the owner and editor of the Leichhardt-based Italian newspaper La Fiamma which gave Pajetta’s meetings pre-publicity.57 Naturally, Pajetta’s meetings with representatives of the CPA national executive held a particular significance. Tribune reported that “Special attention was given in the talks to strengthening the already firm co-operation between the CPA and the PCI and its Australian organisations in order to assist the struggles of Italian immigrant workers for their political, social and cultural needs and against all forms of discrimination”.58 However, what perhaps most concerned Pajetta was the lack of activity of the PCI organisation in Australia. Pajetta’s presence was badly needed. Since its constitution in 1971 the independent PCI federation had indeed achieved very little, and by April of 1973 was (especially in Sydney) stuck. A more direct and decisive intervention from Rome was necessary. In 1973, ASIO reported nine PCI cells in the Sydney area, “however, it would appear that most of these cells are established on a book membership only”.59 The undeveloped federation required ongoing direction, monitoring of activities, support and funding by both Rome (PCI headquarters) and Sydney (CPA headquarters), if it was going to become an attractive organisation for new members in the migrant radical politics landscape. The novel political environment in Australia since December 1972 created new opportunities but also great expectations, which demanded an even closer collaboration between communist organisations.60 Essentially, the independent PCI federation needed to be re-launched and its activity to adhere to party directives. It is
56 ‘Discussi i problemi dei 600 mila italiani emigrati in Australia’, L’Unità, 4 May 1973, p.17. 57 ‘Giuliano Pajetta in Australia’, La Fiamma, 12 April 1973; ‘Italian CP man’s visit’, Tribune, 7 May 1973; ‘Italian ex-Senator in Leichhardt’, Tiger, 8 May 1973. 58 ‘Italian CP man’s visit’, Tribune, 7 May 1973. 59 NAA: A6119, 3820. 60 Giuliano Pajetta, ‘Come cambia l’Australia’, L’Unità, 12 June 1973, p.3; Giuliano Pajetta, ‘I “nuovi” australiani’, L’Unità, 15 June 1973, p.3. for these reasons that ahead of his April 1973 trip, Pajetta felt obliged to address both Italian and Australian communists on the key issue of achieving a “common orientation” so that “ample political and mass work” could be carried out among the numerous working-class Italians living in Australia. Work here was intended to be bidimensional. The ‘Italian’ dimension was to pursue specific claims by emigrants according to the national and international line of the PCI. The ‘Australian’ dimension demanded emigrants become “an active and conscious part of the [Australian] democratic workers’ […] movement” in close collaboration with the CPA, and with other forces of the Australian Left. However, these two dimensions (Italian and Australian), struggled to work in unison. Pajetta lamented his disappointment in a letter that anticipated his line at the forthcoming first PCI National Conference (Sydney, 20-21 April 1973), which represented one of the focal points of his visit.61 Pajetta’s presence at the conference served different purposes. It offered the opportunity to take stock of the situation but also to reset the whole PCI project in Australia. Pajetta’s presence strenghtened the position of those who accused the NSW PCI leadership of sectarianism and incompetence, and the position of those who were keen to follow the line and directives from Rome and Sydney, or just from Rome. But it also revealed the limitations and contradictions of imported politics. Approximately 40 people attended the two-day conference, including delegates from inter-state and top CPA officials. Voce Libera, an information bulletin produced by the local PCI after the conference, later stressed that lively discussions took place at the conference at which two dozen comrades spoke. The discussion was particularly lively around the issue of leadership, and on who should be elected to the new committee, which was expected to re-launch the PCI in Australia. A rift between two main groups quickly emerged during the conference proceedings, namely the CPA group (backed by the majority of attendees) and the SPA group (clustered around a minority of members). The CPA group was in complete command in respect to voting numbers for the election of the new PCI State Committee. During the congress proceedings, representatives of both groups delivered passionate speeches, which revealed more about migrant identity than political allegiances. The speeches, delivered by Dimitri Oliva (SPA group) and Joe Italiano (CPA group), were perhaps best summarised by the report of the ASIO agent which emphasised anti-immigrant and pro-immigrant attitudes in Australia respectively. 62 Pajetta realised that the PCI had difficulties in Australia where both the CPA and the SPA claimed to be the rightful communist party. Divisions in the NSW leadership of the PCI were largely influenced by the recent CPA / SPA split. On the matter of Eurocommunist, the CPA and the SPA had polarised views. Whilst the SPA was against, elements within the CPA were in favour; that is, its Victorian
61 ‘Conferenza a Sidney [sic.] dei comunisti italiani in Australia’, L’Unità, 25 April 1973, p.16; NAA: A6119, 3820 62 NAA: A6119, 3820. branch, whereas in Sydney the CPA national leadership grew more and more an increasingly rigid Marxist orthodoxy which led in 1974 to the denouciation of Eurocommunism and the curtailing of the Victorian branch’s aspirations for a reformist agenda.63 But Rome, Pajetta stressed, would never co-operate with the SPA against the CPA. 64 The PCI and the CPA were “fraternal parties”. Pajetta remarked that “mass work was needed” and that “facts speak louder than propaganda and with struggles and success new members would be recruited”. The Federation had to be reorganised and learn from its past experience. It should be doing “simple things”, Pajetta added. Dissenters Dimitri Oliva, Salvatore Palazzolo and Mario Abbiezzi lamented that the CPA had too much control and influence in the affairs of the PCI and called for a new leadership committee to be elected.65 Meanwhile, a new constitution of the PCI in Australia titled Programma Politico della Federazione del PCI in Australia (Political Program of the PCI Federation in Australia) had been prepared and approved by Pajetta. Pajetta envisaged a greater role for the PCI in Australia. He gave the new committee $600 (over $5,000 in today’s value) for activities and heralded that “there would in future be greater help coming from Italy”, including the possibility of starting a Party school for the study of Marxism and the development of Party doctrine, with Rome sending a tutor. The training of local cadres was a crucial issue. Indeed, three Italian communists, including Emidio Ciabattoni and Francesco De Bella from the newly constituted committee, were already studying in Rome under the guidance of Pajetta by July 1973. Pajetta’s presence in Australia no doubt galvanised local Italian communists and reinforced the official PCI line. But it de facto strengthened the Italian component. This was evidenced by Pajetta’s stance on the issue of cross-membership. Before the conference he stressed that cross-membership between the CPA and the PCI was permitted but not between the PCI and the splinter party of the SPA. But when asked about which direction the renewed PCI organisation would need to take after the relaunch of the federation, Pajetta gave clear instructions: the PCI membership was expected to increase by a large number, given the potential of thousands of Italian migrant workers, but PCI membership was intended to be exclusive. In other words, members were to remain members of the PCI only and not of the CPA, or of any other party for that matter. Members and militants were encouraged to use the facilities and support of the CPA and other socialist organisations but dual membership was not condoned by Rome.
63 Bernie Taft, Crossing the Party Line: Memoirs of Bernie Taft, (Newman, Vic. 1994) pp.266-271. 64 ASIO sources reveal however that towards the end of his visit Pajetta spoke to representatives of the SPA such as Bill Brown. 65 The members elected were Emidio Ciabattoni, Giuseppe Cortellessa, Francesco De Bella, Nicola Vescio, Pierina Pirisi, Angelo Presti and Enrico Sansone. Conclusion
The 1960s and 1970s visits of Pajetta and Novelli to Australia were brief but instrumental in setting up and maintaining a culturally and linguistically familiar political space for Italian communists in Australia that reinforced the tradition of the immigrant worker clubs.66 Initially, the visits sought to encourage a greater and more active presence of Italians in the local communist scene. The 1960s visits in particular sought to augment the Italian element within the CPA and facilitate the process of Australianisation of Italian communists. This translated into such actions as the creation of Italian branches of the CPA (similar to other ethnic branches of the CPA), a pro-active recruitment agenda in the Italian community through contacts provided by the PCI, and the pledge for a closer collaboration between Australian and Italian communists in a range of new initiatives. The 1970s visits, on the other hand, not only allowed the formation of an independent PCI federation, but also inaugurated the process of Italianisation of radical Italians in the Australian context, which eventually led to political engagement and participation outside of the CPA, whose Sydney-based national leadership had been moving towards leftist, vanguard positions in the course of the 1970s, thus alienating even further those who identified themselves as communist yet part of the broad left alliance nationally and internationally. The presence of the PCI in Australia, from short visits by Italian officials to the creation of a structure at grass-roots level, added a transnational dimension to the political experience of Italian migrants and a much craved sense of empowerment and a migrant identity for the community of Italian radicals, similar to other experiences.67 Eventually, it created multiple political identities and cross- fertilisation within the local communist scene, where members (whether Italian or non-Italian) held multiple memberships and overlapping loyalties, not necessarily in contradiction with each other. The visits of Pajetta and Novelli, and the creation of an independent Italian communist federation in 1971, addressed the need for regrouping communists under a familiar banner and political tradition, but also served the purpose of claiming and owning a political and cultural space within the Australian radical movement and within the Italian emigration experience. The influence of the PCI experience and Eurocommunism on the CPA, reinforced by the PCI presence in Australia and before that by Italian anti-Fascist émigrés, helped the (re)discovery of the works of leading Italian Marxist theorist and communist political leader, Antonio Gramsci.68 The impact and influence of
66 Constance Lever-Tracy and Michael Quinlan, A Divided Working Class (London; New York 1988), pp.151-157. 67 See for instance Robert Mason, “No Arms Other than Paper’: Salvador Torrents and the Formation of Hispanic Migrant Identity in Northern Australia, 1916-50’, Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 41, 2 (2010), pp.166-180. 68 Alastair Davidson’s influential study Antonio Gramsci: The Man, His ideas (Sydney 1968) was a turning point for Gramsci studies in Australia and beyond. The book was sponsored by the CPA. Gramsci’s ideas in Australia, among others of the organic intellectual, the role of the factory councils and of hegemony have been far and wide.69 Furthermore, the Gramscian notion of culture (from below) helped to confute the assumption that uneducated first generation migrants, for instance those who established in Australia the PCI-sponsored welfare agency FILEF, were also uncultured and uncapable of converting social and class awareness into organised intellectual and political activism. 70 The presence of the PCI in Australia created a new space and dimension where local Italian communists could express in Italian their (hitherto marginalised) political traditions, including the celebration of international, national, anti-fascist and party-specific anniversaries, such as International Workers’ Day (1 May), Liberation Day (25 April), the foundation of the PCI (21 January), as well as the annual PCI festival (Festa de l’Unità) and countless fund-raising events. Over the years, however, this process of Italianisation pushed radical Italians in Australia into a political and identity cul-de-sac, amplified by the rapid decline and disintegration of the Australian communist movement. Expulsions and hemorrhaging of membership further impoverished the Italian radical space within the communist movement, in favour of the Labor left. On the other hand, former CPA members often maintained (now from a mainstream politics standpoint) a dialectic relationship with communist unions and indeed with the CPA and the PCI.71 Eventually, this resolved into the creation of different political identity directions. At least two that can be identified, one Italian and the other Australian. The former eagerly participated in Italian national politics and elections, firstly from abroad and ultimately by returning back, or migrating, to Italy in the course of the 1980s. It also invested little when seeking entry into local political structures. This is similar to what Fortier observed when examing Italian leaders’ political life in the UK during the intense debates over the proposed new voting rights for Italian emigrants in the 1990s.72 The latter grew out of the Italian radical dimension and moved into the mainstream arena of Australian politics and/or trade unionism, or moved out of politics and political militancy altogether. The sense of political homelessness felt by many Italian radical migrants was certainly lessened by the visits of Pajetta and Novelli. Likewise, the stable presence in Australia from the early 1970s onwards of a PCI home acted as a catalyst for both individual and collective processes of political and cultural identity making and re- making. Unlike the migrant subjects reseached by Baldassar, within this political and
69 Alastair Davidson, ‘Antonio Gramsci and Australia’, Rethinking Marxism, Vol. 19, 2 (2007), pp.159-168. 70 Joseph Halevi, ‘FILEF’, in Camilla Bettoni and Joseph Lo Bianco, eds., Understanding Italy: Language, Culture, Commerce. An Australian Perspective (Sydney 1989), pp.223-225. 71 Some former communist Italian activist figures that later joined the Labor left can be found in George Zangalis, Migrant Workers and Ethnic Communities (Altona, Vic. 2009). 72 Fortier, Migrant Belongings. cultural context home became a recast concept that took the shape of Italian communism on Australian soil, and visits by overseas communist officials provided a temporary sense of home experience. Pajetta, Novelli and any other Italian communist official who visited Australia before the dissolution of the PCI in 1991 were devoted to advancing the communist cause among the Italian workers and the Italian migrant community. ASIO reports reveal that they were not much interested in intervening directly into ideological debates but to disseminate the Italian version of communism. Italian-style communism meant many things: a long-standing and widely respected history, anti-Fascist traditions, leading theoricians, politicians, schools of thoughts and party schools, a complex party structure, federations in Italy and abroad, innumerable affiliated institutions, trade unions, migrant organisations and welfare agencies, some of which set up offices in Australia. The PCI offered Italian radicals in Australia idelogical comfort and logistical support. It also offered a much needed antechamber which functioned as an intermediate body where radical migrants searching for answers to their identity quest could find a new space for discussion and expression in their own language and cultural framework. References
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