Reviews LESSONS FROM THE PAST?

Reviewed by Ken Norling

made by these agitators, and the agitators and their families": organisations they helped build up, Burgmann has made every effort to IN OUR TIME: Socialism to the early growth of the labour bring out the role of women in these and the Rise of Labor 1885- movement and to the formation of the movements, and the attitudes of the 1905, by Verity Burgmann. Labor Party in each of the states of organisations to "The Woman Australia. Question", but politics of the day George Allen & Unwin, were very much a male domain, and 1985. Paperback, 236 It is an impressive record, one long these issues do not really make it to pages, $9.95. overdue for recognition, and one the centre of the stage. which must affect our understanding And just to remind us how little of the origins and nature of Australian some other things have changed, she labour. In particular, it is a record of provides an account of the likely past socialist strength that is largely career of a member of the Australian ■ m erity Burgmann's book In Our unknown. Burgmann shows clearly Socialist League: \ m Time: Socialism and the Rise that wherever radical or progressive W Labor 1885-1905 is deliber­ movements arose, socialist A typical pattern for a new recruit was to ately and consciously controversial. organisations or individual socialists manifest great earnestness at first, then It shows how historians of different played key roles. boredom, then disillusionment, then non- generations and different political attendance, then non-payment ol dues outlooks have sought to draw until being expelled lor being unfmancial. different lessons from the experience This process took, on average, about six months. of the 1890s to support their own n Our Time is not just an account conceptions of the nature of of the organisations and public The account is based on minute Australian politics, Australian society / figures of the day, however One books of theWaterloo branch which and the Australian working class. of its real achievements is its have survived from the late 1890s. (p. depiction of so many of the rank and 93) In Our Time sets out to rewrite from file activists, the agitators on the But, as members drifted away, below this history of the early days of streets, who did so much to make others replaced them, and a good labour politics and to use this socialist ideas a part of the everyday many battled on, year after year. They perspective to illuminate the life of working men and women. were sustained not just by a moral development of both socialism and commitment, but also by a deeply felt the labour movement. Burgmann provides numerous belief that they would see "Socialism sketches of the careers and in Our Time". Perhaps the most its central argument is that those characters of these people — often eloquent statement of that conviction early movements were created by the eccentric, sometimes pathetic, but came from the Queensland labour work of a generation of agitators, always dedicated. She describes journalist, H E. Boote: socialists or anarchists who people like Harry Holland and Tom "explained society from a working Batho and their families, producing Socialism will come. The very stars in the class viewpoint, who offered a the socialist paper, Northern People, heaven are on our side. The Future is ours. critique of that society and suggested on a tiny press in a galvanised iron (p. 175) that a society should instead be room in Newcastle, living as often as created where workers were not not on a diet of bananas, home­ This certainty about the exploited and oppressed", (p.1) grown grapes and water, while inevitability of the triumph of Those agitators were working men continually facing police harass­ socialism was a persistent theme in and women, largely self-educated, ment, for the authorities then were the propaganda of the period. and in a time of massive social just as hysterically hostile to socialist Burgmann provides a very good upheaval, they found a ready propagandists as at any time in our account of the different conceptions audience among their own class. history. current in the labour movement at this time of how socialism was to Burgmann describes, thoroughly it should be noted that In Our Time come about. They ranged from the and painstakingly, the contribution is very much an account of "socialist separatist utopianism of

42 Australian Left Review 93 Reviews

and his followers, which earned them They shared this uncertainty about to their sad fate in Paraguay (and how to achieve their goal with inspired various efforts to establish socialists throughout the world at rural socialist communities within that time. Burgmann devotes Australia), through the co-operative considerable attention to the impact movements to the various forms of of foreign socialists and socialist state socialism which, in one way or ideas on the Australian movement, another, foresaw the institution of the attributing the dominance of socialist millentum through reformism, at least in part, to an legislation passed by the colonial Australian cultural cringe in the face parliaments. of reformist trends overseas.

But what happened in Australia was merely the reflection in a very small mirror of dilemmas that will ut the real aim of In Our Time is persist as long as there is an to distinguish another current organised labour movement within a B in the social ferment of the capitalist society. Australian 1890 s, a current which was socialists found it no easier than any consciously committed to the others to reconcile the struggle for revolutionary transformation of revolutionary change with everyday society, and which had widespread activity which showed that the support among a working class working class could improve its lot which was ready for such a within existing society, and could transformation, only to have its improve it more easily the more energies diverted into reformist democratic reforms it won within that strategies, and especially into an society. over-reliance on parliamentary representation by the Labor Party. Almost a century later, socialist movements still tend to divide into A possibly revolutionary situation revolutionary purists and ineffectual had not produced revolutionary reformists, and what constitutes a change because It certainly makes clear that there real revolutionary strategy remains were organisations and movements an issue of contention. Perhaps it Labonsm won the day .... simply because in existence in the 1890s which would do more justice to activists ot the socialists who worked so hard to represented new forms of working earlier periods who struggled with produce these parties (the slate Labor class political and industrial activity. Parties) were fundamentally mistaken in the same problems, without the their belief that socialism could be (One particularly interesting one was benefit of the experience we have reached through the parliamentary the Active Service Brigade in , had, to not castigate them for failing process. Though socialism sowed Ihe whose tactics in many ways to achieve what we cannot. seed, Labonsm reaped the harvest, (p foreshadowed those of the 195) Unemployed Workers' Movements of Despite these disagreements, In the 1930s.) However, to assume from Our Time is a fine book. It is The concluding lines of In Our this that the mass of the working class important that we remain conscious Time sum up: was ready to commit itself to battle of how long and how hard the for the revolutionary transformation working class of this country has .... too many socialists were reformists, of society, if only it had been provided struggled for a better world, free of enamored in the main of parliamentary with the right leadership, requires a exploitation and oppression, and strategies, for a mass revolutionary leap of faith all too familiar in movement to develop. However, Verity Burgmann has added revolutionary strategies, unlike reformist contemporary politics, and just as considerably to that consciousness. strategies, cannoi be said to have failed in unverifiable in the context of the their application, (p. 198) 1890s.

It is a bold contention, but how far And before it is possible to speak of revolutionary strategies not having can it be justified by the experiences Ken Norling is a member ot the of the m ovements Burgm ann failed because they were not applied, Communist Party of Australia. He describes? There are two obvious it is necessary to show that there were works in the international Bookshop, difficulties — one is to demonstrate revolutionary strategies to be Melbourne. that the basis for a mass applied. In fact, what is striking about revolutionary movement actually Burgmann's description of the existed in the 1890s, the other is to socialist organisations of this period define just what is meant by a is that while they had revolutionary revolutionary strategy. For alt its dreams, virtually without exception achievements, In Our Time finally they lacked any ^conception of a does neither strategy to achieve'those dreams,

Spring 1985 43