Rethinking Cold War History Author(S): David Mcknight Source: Labour History, No

Rethinking Cold War History Author(s): David McKnight Source: Labour History, No. 95 (Nov., 2008), pp. 185-196 Published by: Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27516316 . Accessed: 01/10/2014 14:48

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This content downloaded from 210.212.93.44 on Wed, 1 Oct 2014 14:48:39 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RethinkingCold War History

DavidMcKnight*

Historians have rethought some of the prevailing assumptions employed in writing about the Cold War in Australia. Until recently, the history of the Cold War in Australia was often written with too little detachment and skepticism toward the Left, and with a failure of scholarly empathy toward the claims of the anti-Communist Right. The opening of new and sources as 'Venona' one reason in archival intelligence (such the papers) is for the shift thefield. Another is a reassessment of the link between theUSSR and theCommunist Party ofAustralia (CPA), that leads to questions about theCPA's dogmatic pro-Soviet stance, and towhat degree this was partly responsible for its defeats, rather than simply victimisation. sources some was New archival establish that clandestine political activity undertaken, including espionage and that Soviet funds were given to the CPA over a long period. Not new every historian, however, has embraced this evidence. The present article critiques recent contributions by Cain andHocking, suggesting that discussion of political fundamentalism on the Left and the security response to it is vital ifCold War history is to be understood and to made relevant discussions of contemporary terrorism.

The field of Cold War history in Australia has undergone a major shift in to interpretation. This has led less partisan accounts of several events which had previously been the site of significant differences between historians of the Left and Right. This shift confirms Deery's earlier view of the susceptibility of the field to shifting interpretations and his argument that 'the history of communism and anti-communism is [in Australia] being rewritten'.1 Deery also predicted that some controversies from continue this period would for many years. This article discusses one area link such whereby the between the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and the Soviet Union is subject to differing interpretation. These continuing now occur to differences mainly among historians sympathetic the Left and the more labour movement, rather than the older binary between this group and those to cause. sympathetic the anti-Communist In a new sources part, this shift is consequence of the opening of archival following the collapse of the Soviet Union and its East European satellites. This meant initially the opening of the Communist International records at the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) which in turn prompted the opening of the archives of the US National Security Agency including the results of the US-UK decoding operation of Soviet foreign activities (the 'Venona' files).2 Combined with the increasingly liberal release policy of security archives by the National Archives of Australia (NAA), these resources have created the basis for a War notable rethinking of the interpretative frameworks of Cold history. Among the are Ball works indicating this interpretative shift those by Lowe, and Horner, along and with other contributions from Deery McKnight.3 access to This shift began in the early 1980s when historians gained security new was archives under the Archives Act 1983. The first substantial study Marine's detailed 1987 account of the Petrov Royal Commission.4 Manne concluded that as as were Vladimir the Petrovs well intelligence officers truthful witnesses; that 185

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Petrov's defection had not been deliberately timed by the Menzies government for electoral benefit and that the Royal Commission was right in naming a leading as a CPA member, Walter Clayton, conduit for documents from the Department of to account was terms External Affairs Soviet intelligence. Manne's assessed in of the partisanship which saturated the writing of Cold War history in 1987. One of the reviews revisionist account it as 'a was of his described quality hatchet job' which flawed'.5 The reviewer that Manne had trusted sources 'seriously charged which he should not have, including the newly released archives of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO). There was 'abundant historical evidence that to In shows security services be great deceivers'. arguing this, the reviewer expressed a strong belief in an overarching interpretive truth which could not be contradicted mere by empirical evidence. Since then there has been something of a paradigm shift in the historiography of Cold War. Manne's are not most the Today, general findings seriously challenged by historians of the Cold War, indicating the distance of the shift. For example, Lowe situates the Venona decoding as one of the keys to the creation of ASIO and to fuelling Menzies' while that the Petrov Commission anti-communism, acknowledging Royal was politically useful forMenzies.6 In the second volume of his biography ofMenzies, Martin acknowledges the usefulness of the Petrov inquiry to Menzies' election while not it as prospects regarding decisive and acknowledging the substantial matters In or espionage before the inquiry.7 Crusade Conspiracy Duncan argues that communists were of 'the most demonic in most willing agents apparatus history' yet were a more driven by 'a desire for just social order'. Duncan adds that the 'threat from communism was real' 'at times but absurdly exaggerated' by Santamaria.8 recent The release of much of the private correspondence of B.A. Santamaria will resources provide for further less partisan accounts of the clash between the CPA and the anti-communist Catholic forces around Santamaria.9 In I areas all centre this article will examine three of continuing debate, of which on the CPA which formed the hub of the Australian Left during the Cold War in a to in one or to way that today is hard imagine. All relate way another the close relationship between the CPA and the Soviet Union. The first concerns the degree to which the CPA was the victim of anti-Communist political forces as opposed to its own The concerns debate over being the author of misfortunes. second the the whether CPA members spied for the Soviet Union and, if so, the historiographical concerns consequences of this. The third particular questions of financial subsidies during the Cold War and the implications of the use of secret members in politics.

The 1959 PeaceCongress: Victims or Agents?

area concerns to The first of debate the degree which government-inspired was to decline and isolation the CPA and the causes McCarthyism blame for the of account McLaren a event in the Cold War it supported. One important by of key in is a which is The Australia good example of the interpretive shift underway.10 it is a model for the new article discusses the 1959 Peace Congress and in many ways between communism and anti-communism. appreciation of the clash Peace and Disarmament held in Melbourne in 1959 was a The Congress for event of its time and aimed to unite the Left and broader forces significant political a In the of its and of around campaign against nuclear weapons. eyes participants

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the historians who follow them, the tough political attack launched on the Peace came Congress was the quintessence of the Right's Cold War. The attack from the denounced the as a communist Liberal-Country Party government, which Congress front and from the anti-Communist Australian Congress for Cultural Freedom to Soviet whose members attended the Congress criticize the actions of the Union. Unusually, ASIO Director General, Charles Spry, personally approached one of the more and Congress's respectable sponsors, Professor Alan Stout, convinced him to More ASIO launched a withdraw his sponsorship.11 covertly, major 'exposure overseas to operation' using its contacts in the press, in the RSL and expose the as a Congress 'communist front'.12 an Put this way, the events around the Congress fit interpretation which dominates historical writing on the Cold War. This interpretation is exemplified by an account of the Congress by Saunders and Summy which is subject to criticism by McLaren.13 The strength ofMcLaren's account of the Peace Congress is that it demonstrates that the Communist Party and the people and organisations which it strongly influenced, were own as as victims a both authors of their fate, well of campaign sponsored its was by the Government and security agency. The Congress held three years after the brutal repression of the 1956 revolt inHungary. This repression included the execution of seven writers and the jailing of 25 others. The Congress itself had a were session in which artists and writers expected to express their support for peace. At this session a broad group of critics, which included centre figures from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) such as Barry Jones and anti-Communists like Richard Krygier of the Congress of Cultural Freedom, proposed what amounted to a test of legitimacy of the Congress in the form of resolutions condemning the suppression of free it occurred clear reference to In speech anywhere (a Hungary). the event, the CPA stymied criticism of the Soviet Union at the Peace Congress. Though the it aimed to a consensus Congress argued that build broad around peace 'its refusal to accept any criticism of the Soviet Union led only to the emergence of new lines of division on the left', argued McLaren.14 The CPA was able to do this through its direct and indirect preponderance over the role played by the Left of the ALP and over a CPA's stance group of peace-oriented clergy. The unbending pro-Soviet thus helped establish the very point their opponents wished tomake. Was the CPA obliged to accept this test of legitimacy? Given its vaunted aim of building a broad movement for peace, Ibelieve itwas. But given its deeper ideological framework in which the USA was always the enemy of peace and the USSR was always the bulwark of peace, itwas a test the CPA could only fail. This was because the CPA placed its rosy estimation of the USSR above the needs of building the peace movement in partnership with those who did not share this estimation. The partial movement were and immediate political goals of broadening the peace subordinated to on a Marxism. its revolutionary strategy built world-vision of Soviet-oriented at on The CPA's intransigence the Peace Congress the question of the USSR was and self-defeating. As McLaren says: 'In their anxiety to preserve unity, their nature consequent refusal to face awkward truths about the of the Soviet bloc's to failed to purported commitment peace and freedom, the Congress majority build a new alliance on the left'.15 McLaren argues that the consequences of such to isolation left within the Victorian intransigence contributed both the of forces out and In terms Labor Party and to keeping Labor of office locally nationally. of

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the CPA it provided evidence to its critics that the peace movement was indeed a 'communist front'. Interpreting the CPA's actions at that Congress touches on one of the central problems which face historians of the Cold War inAustralia and elsewhere. While was to a overt covert the CPA subject gamut of and repression by the government, its decline and isolation was also due to its dogmatic allegiance to the Soviet Union and its refusal (until 1968) to act independently of Soviet interests.

Ignoringthe Evidence

account non McLaren's of the Peace Congress illustrates the kind of detached, sense partisan history which is needed to make better of the Cold War. McLaren's account however, did not involve access to any new evidence but rather involved a

re-interpretation of widely known facts about the peace movement and the CPA. A different kind of history of the Cold War is reflected inHocking's book Terror reflects area of is Laws, which the second continuing debate.16 Hocking concerned to counter state establish continuity between the subversion organisations of the established in the first half of the twentieth century with themodern ASIO. The latter is one of Hocking's main targets in this book, which attacks the current legal response to Islamic terrorism. What is remarkable account is it about this that entirely and systematically avoids the vast body of new evidence about ASIO and the Cold War which has emerged since the opening of Australian security archives in the 1980s, the Soviet archives in 1990s and the release of the 'Venona decrypts' in 1995-97. All sources a consistent of these provide evidence that part of the Soviet espionage effort against the US, UK and Australia was carried out through themedium of the local Communist parties. From the late 1940s, and to varying degrees, theUS, British were aware and Australian governments of, and alarmed about, Soviet espionage. one measures This formed of their key justifications for repressive and 'spy scares' in Western To not democracies. acknowledge this does settle all questions around the Cold War, nor does it justify anti-communism, but it provides vital information no account can now which of the period ignore. Rather than attempting to deal with thismaterial and the debate ithas engendered, Hocking simply does not discuss it. It is as if this information does not exist. Instead she uses accounts such asWhitlam and Stubbs' 1974 book Nest of Traitors, and the statements of Evatt's secretary of External Affairs, Dr John Burton, both of which reflect various conspiracy theories developed and published long before access overseas or accounts were to archives of any sort, local, became possible.17 These in in sources. understandable their time and the absence of such Hocking reproduces no was to Russians Whitlam and Stubbs' suggestion that information passed the and on were that documents presented to the Royal Commission Espionage probably in Australia is referred forged by ASIO and/or Petrov. Elsewhere, Soviet espionage as a inference were to 'persistent accusation' and 'allegations' with the that these were and fanciful.18 Yet it turns out that the allegations of forgery fanciful those were defection ... of espionage well founded. Hocking's conclusion that 'Petrov's was an case use domestic archetypal of the political of the security organisation' on to reduces the defection and the subsequent Royal Commission Espionage mere were to the Menzies but to politics. Both politically useful government say causes events is to reverse that these consequences somehow explain the of the

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cause and effect. It is hard to see how Hocking could have concluded this given the secondary literature available formany years before her book was published.19 The to be that sees ASIO as a counter-subversion explanation appears she predominantly in to organisation order make points about contemporary security and terrorism issues. But the of the evidence shows that its and one of weight original purpose was its main preoccupations for the first 20 years to counter espionage. Given that this was originally connected to some members of the CPA, it is hardly surprising CPA was that surveillance of members re-doubled, quite apart from the pre-existing tradition of surveillance before World War II.

TheCPA and Espionage - In order tomake sense of the key events of the Cold War the foundation of ASIO in 1949, the attempt to ban the CPA in 1950-51, the Petrov Royal Commission in - 1954-55, and the ill-fated leadership of the Labor Party by Dr Evatt it is necessary to was Venona out understand what revealed by the decoding operation carried by American and British intelligence from 1943 to 1980. The Venona material includes more 200 than Moscow-Canberra cables which demonstrate that Soviet intelligence had a sustained presence inAustralia from the opening of diplomatic relations in 1943; that it obtained British defence documents shared with the Australian government; and that it targeted left-wing Australians and members of the Communist Party of as a in Australia potential agents with particular interest scientists. The Moscow Canberra cables also go a long way to establishing the reliability of the testimony from two Soviet defectors, Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov, who were at the centre of on the Royal Commission Espionage.20 Briefly, the Venona cables revealed that in September 1945 the local Soviet intelligence chief, Makarov, found that a leading CPA member, Walter Clayton, was in contact with two officers of the Department of External Affairs, Dr IanMilner and James Hill.21 In a long cable of 29 September Makarov reported toMoscow that Clayton had visited Canberra and had discussions with Milner and Hill and that Hill gave him copies of cables from the British Foreign Office and an Australian report on Europe which contained further secret British material. most were The valuable material which Clayton later obtained for Makarov two documents prepared for the British War Cabinet by the Post-Hostilities Planning staff.22 The decoded cables describe how the Russians photographed these and Prior to contacts on secret returned them.23 this, Clayton's passed British cables and on on events in As information the Argentine government, Poland and Bulgaria.24 seem a well, the Russians to have been given number of Australian and British on course over communications the of diplomatic negotiations the Netherlands East a Indies (Indonesia).25 Given that the decoded Soviet cables represent only smattering it of the intelligence communications between the Canberra residency and Moscow, far more was to contacts. is likely that material given the Russians by Australian The decoded cables lend weight to the theory thatMilner and Hill knew that the was meant were material for the Russians and not just the CPA- and that what they was At one in events in Canada doing dangerous. point 1946 Clayton discussed the where a Royal Commission was being held into Soviet espionage following the to in defection of Igor Gouzenko. In relation this, Clayton reported 'that his friends of External are in and are the 'Nook' [Department Affairs] also good spirits behaving

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a with great caution. They have recently learnt that certain Captain Mitchell is in as a of counter working the Department representative intelligence'.26 This kind of activity is a far cry from most historical accounts of the Communist as Party and the Cold War in which the CPA appears only the victim of legal repression and political hysteria. It is no doubt embarrassing to those who have held a simple binary view inwhich the Left's actions are justified and the anti-Communist Right has no legitimate basis for their beliefs.

Absurdand Outlandish Claims

One attempt to integrate knowledge from the Venona decoding operation is contained in a 2000 article by Cain.27 Cain is associated with the interpretation of the Cold War which sees the Royal Commission on Espionage as an elaborate political stunt to and Dr Evatt. he in was destroy the Labor Party Petrov, suggested 1994, 'planted' by the KGB on ASIO. The documents which Petrov brought when he defected, Cain are was to take the contents says, 'absurd' and 'outlandish' and it 'quite impossible

and their instructions seriously'.28 Cain's suggestion of forgery on a grand scale allied with a KGB plot to destroy Dr Evatt was made before the release of the Venona material in the mid-1990s. Yet, in his 2000 article which sets out to discuss the ramifications of Venona, Cain's man interpretation has changed little. Cain appears to accept that the local link between Soviet intelligence and the External Affairs officers was Walter Clayton. reasons are for his Yet for that unexplained Cain accepts Clayton's explanations

activities, arguing that:

information into issues Clayton collected giving insights public policy on those in scientific that might be passed by engaged research, foreign or was of a nature and affairs, architecture journalism. Much general it to those it not Clayton passed the Soviets, although providing may have known that it would be put to this use.29

were described in' affairs were The people who innocuously 'engaged foreign IanMilner and Jim Hill. What they passed to Clayton were highly classified post war did so in conditions of strictest planning documents. Moreover, they secrecy, caution' when of arose in Canada and taking 'great allegations espionage being as None of this detail watchful of counter-espionage measures, Clayton reported. or he asserts one of the most contentious is mentioned discussed by Cain. Indeed claims of the Cold War: that Menzies planned the defection 'to coincide with the election to ensure his return to office' and that the defection and general Royal But no evidence Commission Ted to Menzies's [sic] government being re-elected'.30 is advanced to support this. War The curious aspect of the Cain assessment of these Cold espionage allegations evidence which does not suit this is that he simply avoids discussing any empirical At one Cain that 'a was detected interpretation. point accepts spying operation' and what the by the Venona operation yet this is precisely what Petrov said Royal Commission into his defection concluded. about the new material from the Venona One of the most striking things decoding is that it reinforced the testimony of the Petrovs and of the authenticity of their mentioned several individual Australians documents. For example, their documents

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name and in the decoded Soviet by code (for example 'Sestra', 'Ben', 'Podruga') an different names cables, released 40 years later from entirely source, these also appear.31 But rather than confirmation, this duplication is disregarded and Cain 'serious over of repeats, without any evidence, that questions hang the authenticity is to Hill these [Petrov's] documents'.32 Strangely, Cain prepared accept that passed documents to the Soviets but not Milner. Yet both are shown by the Venona material met to was to have Clayton clandestinely and given information him. Clayton then tasked by a Soviet intelligence officer to keep in touch with them. Like Hocking, Cain does not engage with the key literature on Venona and accounts Australia and simply ignores, rather than debates, that disagree with his reverses cause interpretation.33 Like Hocking, he and effect: the anti-communists benefited from Petrov its and was the Affair, therefore purpose meaning as, Hocking 'an case use says archetypal of the political of the domestic security organization'. Or, as asserts in a recent to Cain further contribution the debate: 'Although the Venona was as an it on operation designed anti-Soviet intelligence operation gradually took an the characteristics of anti-Australian and anti-Evatt operation'.34 This operation, was because Evatt's an he said, of preference for independent foreign policy. Spy scares and rise anti-communism a more the of certainly did damage the possibility of was not is to enter independent foreign policy, but this 'designed'. To claim this the own was realms of conspiracy. Evatt's response to the defection bizarre. As Maher one was points out it included his acceptance that of Petrov's documents authentic and a own were written by member of his staff, while claiming other documents forgeries.35 All of this was part of the self-inflicted disaster that engulfed Labor during and after the Royal Commission.

Was itReally Espionage?

An area of continuing debate within the broad acceptance that several CPA members provided highly classified documents to the Russians concerns whether such behaviour actually constituted espionage. For instance, in contrast to Cain's view of the Venona Louis Venona notion material, accepts that 'dispels any lingering that the spy hunt and the Petrov Royal Commission were baseless frame ups' but then adds rider 'but Venona no real a in sense the provides proof of spy ring any ordinary of the word'.36 A close of decoded in study the cables shows that what emerged Australia was indeed not a in the and nor even spy ring tradition of Philby, Burgess Maclean, an elaborate network like that established to convey information on the atomic bomb Los Alamos. we have a set for from Rather, network originally up domestic political purposes by the CPA. At the time he first made contact with a Soviet intelligence agent, Clayton had been the principal organiser of the illegal apparatus which the CPA operated during its banning from June 1940 to December 1942. His contacts among middle-class CPA members whose sensitive positions precluded open party contacts were membership occurred during this experience. The cables show these in an and over a of time. This discovered by Makarov almost haphazard way period network of contacts for the domestic purposes of the CPA was then turned to ends set by KGB headquarters in Moscow. as a In the decoded cables Clayton appears initially subject of interest because contact a he has mentioned the CPA's with sympathetic officer of the Security a or for At a Service to Tass correspondent Nosov, 'collaborator' agent Makarov.37

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to to regular meeting with Nosov, Clayton agreed introduce Nosov this 'worker of the The worker was Alfred a counter-intelligence'. counter-intelligence Hughes, police officer who had joined the wartime Security Service. Hughes specialised in a was surveillance of left-wing organisations, subject with which he quite familiar given that he himself was either a member or supporter of the CPA. In 1943, it emerged later, he had arranged for Clayton to see his own security file, which led to the unmasking of a security agent within the CPA.38 Prior to this arousal of name was in text in the cables and was interest, Clayton's given plain he evidently not as someone to it was a regarded whom worth allocating codename. Sometime between March and April 1945, Russian intelligence assigned him a codename, 'Klod' (Claude). InMay 1945, Makarov offered Clayton ?15

on the plausible pretext of compensating him for his personal efforts and the incurs meets on expenditure which he when he people assignment of ours. At first CLAUDE was somewhat taken aback and he declared that he didn't know how to in a proceed such situation, for he had always to our ... was over considered it his duty help country The money handed at the end of the conversation, C [Klod] was also told that the money was no one intended for him personally and [that] should know of it.39

At this point a loose set of contacts for obtaining political information for local to purposes started gather classified government documents to pass on to another country. Together with their reaction (mentioned above) to the Canadian Royal Commission into espionage, these events make it clear that the CPA's sources had an become espionage network.

'Moscow Gold'

area The third for continuing historiographical discussion on Cold War history concerns some elements which emerged from the Petrov Affair and associated matters. The first of these relates to the persistent claim during the Cold War that both anti-communists and communists overseas accepted money from their supporters and worked with intelligence agencies. One instance of this was revealed in 1967 when the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)was shown to have provided large sums for the Congress for Cultural Freedom.40 Other links between anti-communists in the Labor Party and ASIO have also been demonstrated.41 instance was was Another when Soviet financial support given to communist parties in various parts of the world up until the 1980s. In the Petrov Royal Commission, Petrov claimed that he handed over US$25,000 to the general secretary of the CPA, Lance Sharkey. But Petrov's evidence was discredited since he claimed that the money was in denominations of US$25 bills, when no such note had ever on a been printed. Moreover, he claimed the transaction had occurred date which was errors were on quite impossible. These seized to discredit not just his evidence of 'Moscow Gold' but all his other evidence. on Based Comintern archives and Australian security sources, Macintyre acknowledged that the CPA received Soviet funding before World War II.42Other Soviet archives show this funding continued after World War II. In 1998 the Courier Mail newspaper unearthed Soviet documents which suggest thatUS$25,000 was given to the CPA in 1953 and about US$168,000 in 1961. Later inquiries by the newspaper

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showed a receipt for $25,000 signed by Lance Sharkey for the 'purchase of wool' in 1953. This was probably the money about which Petrov gave his garbled account.43 Soviet subsidies to some communist parties continued into the 1980s. The Italian Communist Party, thought to be quite independent fromMoscow, received around five million dollars from the 'International Assistance Fund' of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1973 while the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) received $1.5 million that same year.44As late as 1988, $3 million was paid to the CPUSA. In 1991 the former treasurer of the British Communist Party said that after Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) membership collapsed in 1956, the one two over next A Russians provided between and million pounds the 20 years.45 recent scholarly history of the British Communist Party shows how early subsidies to the CPGB were destructive and makes the additional point that many unpaid Labour Members of Parliament were also on dependent wealthy British backers.46 In 1992 when I asked former CPA leader Laurie Aarons whether he thought that Petrov had actually given money to the CPA, he replied: 'It could have been possible. Itwouldn't upset me greatly'.47 He also told his brother and fellow CPA leader Eric Aarons, of an incident in 1970 when he (Laurie Aarons) was preparing a critical toward Union. At a in one speech the Soviet private meeting Rome, of the leaders of the Italian Communist Party, Giancarlo Pajetta, suggested he should tone down his speech. Laurie Aarons rejected this to which Pajetta responded by rubbing his thumb and forefingers together while asking 'But what about this?' In the critical was In a event, the speech delivered.48 response to the Courier Mail's revelations, Eric Aarons noted that the CPA had left the Soviet orbit in the late 1960s and argued that 'we believed our leaders' denials about Soviet financial aid at the time because we knew how hard we worked to raise He money from supporters'.49 added that the Soviets had 'done their dough' because their subsidy did not stop the CPA abandoning Soviet-style communism.

Secret Members

Another element which emerged from the Petrov Affair but has received little attention was the existence of CPA members who did not publicly disclose their attachment to the This was one of a of clandestine party. range techniques developed member of use by parties the Communist International.50 Along with the widespread use of pseudonyms by leading communists, the of false passports and the existence an sense as a of underground apparatus, this originally made defensive shield against repression. But this defensive shield developed an offensive aspect when the Soviet service recruited undercover members to intelligence gather diplomatic, military and technological knowledge ofWestern governments. After World War II was this practice, which had long been suspected by Western authorities, confirmed the Venona by decrypts.51 Leaving aside the exotic world of espionage, this clandestine element of CPA was in in more history also evidence the prosaic world of the Australian labour At one was movement. several points, of the main strategic goals of the CPA to influence the Australian Labor Party (ALP).While much of this was overt such as some was peace campaigns and co-operation within the trade unions, of it not. The New South Wales branch of theALP elected an executive and officers in 1939 inwhich were a number of undercover members of the CPA along with the indigenous Labor

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forces bitterly opposed to right wing leader Jack Lang.52 There are also suggestions in various memoirs that this practice continued in the 1950s and presumably into the 1960s.53Certainly ASIO closely watched a number of people whom they believed to have both CPA and ALP membership.54 are critical secret and Left histories highly of government security agencies and they often deploy the notion of hidden motives, but the clandestine element of left history is hardly acknowledged. We need to recognise what Phillip Deery has called failure of in the historians' 'anachronistic empathy' discussing apparently irrational fears of governments about the CPA.55 In the case which Deery examines (the Chifley Government and the 1949 coal strike) Chifley's views were based primarily on the actual and actions of CPA and not on a words the nebulous notion of McCarthyism. The communist to was not nor post-war threat Labor groundless, the product of It is paranoia. certainly arguable that the CPA's adventurism contributed to the election of the Menzies in government, another example of the CPA being, part, the of its own misfortunes and not a victim in author simply the Cold War.

Conclusion

to an Central historical interpretations of the Cold War in Australia is assessment of the CPA and the threat, real or alleged which it posed. Until the current interpretive shift in this to use a one debate, magnetic metaphor, interpretive pole of attraction saw the CPA acting with untrammeled altruism. The communists lead militant unions and helped win many tangible gains for ordinary people. They took up issues of and traditional liberal freedoms. justice The communists, along with Christians, were the few who Communist among championed indigenous rights. intellectuals and artists enriched Australia in many fields. The opposite interpretive pole of attraction argued that all of these political actions were subordinated to a to seize a larger plan power through revolution and impose Soviet style dictatorship inAustralia. Its adherents believed the communists' public defence of Stalin and their denial of the monstrous crimes of Stalinism warranted unreserved condemnation. On first is a the view, the CPA simply continuation of native Australian roots in in working-class radicalism, with convictism, the early unions and bodies like the Industrial Workers of theWorld. On the second view, the CPA is nothing but a domestic extension of Soviet foreign policy armed with an alien ideology within the body politic of Australia. The shift in the field is slowly weakening the polarity of these compass points are and less partisan histories of the Cold War emerging. Given the dominance of a a the 'heroic' interpretation of the Left during the Cold War, rebalancing involves more detached and critical attitude to the nature of the CPA while not dismissing its to its idealism and legitimate achievements. In the introduction his history of to allows the CPA, Stuart Macintyre points triumphal anti-communism, which no communism to have other meaning than tyranny:

no was a There is indication that communism also popular phenomenon as a that people in all countries grasped spar of hope against other forms to in a of oppression; that it gave meaning and purpose idealists wide was a range of circumstances; and that it not simple divination of evil but a over complex body of thought and action that altered its life course.56

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Macintyre is right, however, the prerequisite in dealing with triumphal anti-p Communism, in my view, is for left-leaning historians to offer more balanced (vj interpretations of the Cold War. These would recognise more fully that the D CPA's world view, especially at the leadership levels, was a form of political N saw as a O fundamentalism which, until the mid-1960s, itself part of worldwide Soviet- aligned revolutionary movement towhich it owed primary allegiance. Nor is it good * enough to keep alive heroic interpretations of the Australian Left particularly when drawing 'lessons' from this flawed Cold War history to shed light on contemporary questions of security and terrorism. Cold War history needs further rethinking and this must be done, as Oliver Cromwell allegedly instructed the painter of his portrait, 'warts and all'.

David McKnight isAssociate Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales. He is the author ofAustralia's Spies and their Secrets (1994) which won the non-fiction prize in theNSW Literary awards and of Espionage and the Roots of the Cold War (2002). He recently completed a three-year research project on the cold war was which supported by the Australian Research Council. His other research interests cover in contemporary politics and issues journalism.

Endnotes * This article is the result of an Australia Research Council Discovery Project on 'Subversion and National Security' inwhich the author was the Chief Investigator. It has been peer-reviewed for Labour History by two anonymous referees. 1. Phillip Deery, 'Decoding the Cold War: Venona, espionage and "the communist threat"' in Peter Love and Paul Strangio (eds), Arguing the Cold War, Red Rag Publications, Carlton North, 2001, p. 115. 2. John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage inAmerica, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1999. 3. David Lowe, Menzies and the 'greatworld struggle': Australia's Cold War, 1948-1954, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1999; Desmond Ball and David Horner, Breaking the Codes: Australia's KGB Network, 1944 1950, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1998; Phillip Deery, 'Decoding the Cold War'; David McKnight, 'TheMoscow-Canberra cables: how Soviet intelligence obtained British secrets through the back door,' Intelligence and National Security, vol. 13, no. 2,1998, pp. 159-170. 4. Robert Manne, The Petrov Affair: Politics and Espionage, Pergamon Press, Sydney, 1987. 5. Mark Jackson, 'Once More on Vladimir Petrov', Arena, no. 81,1987, pp. 177-184. 6. Lowe, Menzies, pp.120,124. 7. A.W. Martin, Robert Menzies: A Life, Vol 2.1944-1978, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 1999, pp. 273-285; pp. 576-77. 8. Bruce Duncan, Crusade or Conspiracy: Catholics and theAnti-Communist Struggle inAustralia, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2001, p. 397. 9. Patrick Morgan (ed.) YourMost Obedient Servant: B.A. Santamar?a Selected Letters, 1938-1996, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 2007. 10. John McLaren, 'Peace Wars: the 1959 ANZ Peace Congress', Labour History, no. 82, May 2002, pp. 97-108. 11. David McKnight, Australia's Spies and Their Secrets, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1994, p. 116. 12. Untitled memo, 18 Sept 1959, 'Spoiling Operations; Media P, Vol. 2' A6122, item 2013, pp. 25-26, National Archives of Australia (NAA). 13. Ralph Summy and Malcolm Saunders, 'The 1959 Melbourne Peace Congress: culmination of anti communism inAustralia in the 1950s' inAnn Curthoys and John Merritt (eds), Australia's First Cold War 1945-59: Better Red than Dead, Vol 2, Allen and Unwin, North Sydney, 1986. 14. McLaren, 'Peace Wars', p. 98. 15. Ibid., p. 106. 16. Jenny Hocking, Terror Laws: ASIO, Counter-Terrorism and the Threat toDemocracy, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2004. 17. For two detailed accounts which explain the mistaken impressions of Dr Burton and Evatt, see McKnight, Australia's Spies, ch. 2, 5 and Ball and Horner, Breaking the Codes, ch. 9,15. 18. Hocking, Terror Laws, p. 21, p. 24.

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19. Robert Manne, Petrov Affair, McKnight, Australia's Spies; Ball and Horner, Breaking the Codes. 20. McKnight, 'TheMoscow-Canberra cables'; the most detailed account is in Ball and Horner, Breaking the Codes. 21. The decoded cables can be found through the home page of the National Security Agency, http: / / www.nsa.gov/venona/ A date-based search engine for individual cables is found at http:/ /www. nsa.gov/venona/venon00017.cfm (accessed 17May 2008) hereafter designated as Venona. 22. Ibid., Canberra-Moscow, 19March 1946. 23. Ibid. 24. The material on Bulgaria covers reports from the 'British political representative' on dissension between the Communist and Agrarian Parties and other maneuvers, Canberra-Moscow, 11 October 1945. The material on Argentina seems largely innocuous, with the British cable stating at one point that 'the Argentine export of meat is a vital factor for Great Britain', Canberra-Moscow, 8 November 1945. 25. Venona, Canberra-Moscow, 16 November 1945; 8May 1946. 26. Venona, Canberra- Moscow, 8March 1946. The National Security Agency could not identify 'Captain Mitchell' although this comment from Milner and Hill suggests they were aware that their activity could be classed as espionage. 27. Frank Cain, 'Venona inAustralia and its long term ramifications', Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 35, no. 2, 2000, pp. 231-248. 28. Frank Cain, ASIO: An Unofficial History, Spectrum Publications, Richmond, 1994, pp. 180-181. 29. Cain, 'Venona inAustralia', p. 238. 30. Ibid., p.240. 31. See for example, Moscow to Canberra, 5 June 1948 compared with the Petrov's document titled 'Contacts K' detailed inMcKnight, Australia's Spies, p. 78. 32. Cain, 'Venona inAustralia', p. 240. 33. Manne noted this in 1994 in regard to Cain's response to his book The Petrov Affair: 'Cain does not challenge or refute the arguments and evidence I advanced. He simply ignores them. This is certainly a novel approach to scholarship', Age, 13 July 1994. 34. Frank Cain, 'Dr Evatt and the Petrov affair: a reassessment in the light of new evidence' in Julie Kimber, Peter Love, Phillip Deery (eds), Labour Traditions: Proceedings of the Tenth national Labour History Conference, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Melbourne, 2007, pp. 52-55. 35. A clear tracing of Evatt's erratic responses is in Laurence W. Maher, 'H.V. Evatt and the Petrov defection: a lawyer's interpretation' in Kimber, Love, Deery, Labour Traditions, pp. 138-144. 36. L.J. Louis, Menzies Cold War: A Reinterpretation, Red Rag Publications, Carlton North, 2001, p. 40. 37. Venona, Canberra-Moscow, 17March 1945. 38. McKnight, Australia's Spies, p. 50, p. 82. 39. Moscow-Canberra, 5 May 1945. Years later when speaking guardedly about his experiences Clayton said tome with some emotion that he 'never intended to hurt the party'. The strong implication being that he now recognised that his actions had indeed hurt the CPA. 40. Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, Granta Books, London, 1999. 41. McKnight, Australia's Spies, ch. 17. 42. Stuart Macintyre, The Reds: The Communist Party of Australia, From Origins to Illegality, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 1998, pp. 356-57. 43. Courier Mail, 10 January 1998; the 'purchase of wool' story was in the Weekend Australian, 3-4 April 2004. 44. John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage, Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2003, pp. 68-70. 45. Reuben Falber, the former assistant general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) explained these details in a CPGB journal just before the party dissolved. Martin Linton, 'Moscow gold bankrolled communists', The Guardian, 15 Nov 1991. 46. Kevin Morgan, Bolshevism and the British Left: Labour Legends and Russian Gold, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 2006. 47. Interview, Laurie Aarons, 10 June 1992. 48. Eric Aarons, undated letter and email dated 20 May 2005 in author's possession. 49. Eric Aarons, 'Soviets did their dough', Courier Mail, 24 January 1998. 50. The origin and practice of these techniques is outlined in David McKnight, Espionage and the Roots of the Cold War: the Conspiratorial Heritage, Frank Cass Publishers, London, 2002. 51. Haynes and Klehr, In Denial. 52. McKnight, Espionage and the Roots of the Cold War, ch. 6. 53. Denis Freney describes his continuing active membership of the Labor Party after he joined the CPA in 1954. Denis Freney, Map of Days: Life on the Left,William Heinemann, Melbourne, 1991, ch. 4. 54. See for instance, 'CPA Interest in Political Parties, Australian Labor Party', vols 1-14,, A6122 series, NAA. 55. Phillip Deery, 'Communism, security and the Cold War', Journal of Australian Studies, no. 54/55, 1997, pp. 162-175. 56. Macintyre, The Reds, pp. 2-3.

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