difficulties for the CPA during its entire existence.
These meetings resulted in what became known as the October resolution which clearly stated that, "If time is not yet ripe for revolutionary mass actions ... [Then] ... revolutionary propaganda and agitation must be made the centre of gravity for the Communist Party. "The aim of the propaganda was to popularise" this platform among as many left labor organisations as possible ". It concluded that "The coming years will show whether it's possible to create such a real Labor Party through coming years with the struggle and victory of a Left opposition into the ranks of the present Labor Party, or whether it will be necessary for the Left unions to found a new Party for this purpose. Obviously the Communist Party at that time, with the ECCI's agreement, still hoped to transform the Labor Party by working with its left-wing and the resolution, while stressing its independent role, represented the CPA as an outside pressure group rather than as a mass revolutionary party.
As a result of Wright's visit in 1927, an Englishman stationed in Moscow as part of the British section, H.W.R. Robson, visited Australia under the pseudonym Murray, and attended one of the sessions of the seventh annual conference in December 1927, a conference which was divided on its attitude to the Labor Party. As a result of the divisions, four members of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) Jack Ryan, Norman Jeffery, Esmonde Higgins, (Editor of Tbe Workers 'Weekly ) and Lance Sharkey had been removed as "rightists" by those who supported Jack Kavanagh, chairman of the CPA since 1925. Robson, concerned about the issue, returned to Moscow several months later accompanied by Herbert Moxon, Queensland organiser, member of the executive of the CPA's Central Committee, and at this time, a strong supporter of Jack Kavanagh. Moxon's Queensland base is important; the relations between the CPA and the ALP in Queensland were to be central to the issues to be discussed at the ECCI meetings in 1928.
In Queensland there was increasing dissatisfaction amongst workers with William McCormack, the Labor Premier. In 1927 he had supported the use of "scab" labour during the South Johnstone Mill and Cane sugar-cane industry strike, which lasted from May to September, and during the ensuing lock-out of the railway workers who refused to handle "black" sugar. With the Labor Party in Queensland so right-wing, there was a strong likelihood of a left-wing ALP breakaway, a proposal already made by the Australian Railways Union. The CPA had won a great deal of approval for its militant stand in both the sugar and railway disputes, and saw that this was the time to oppose the right-wing Labor candidates in the coming state elections. By standing candidates the CPA hoped to be seen as a real alternative, not merely a pressure group. As this was a sharp shift away from previous approaches to the ALP, and as divisions already existed about how to approach the ALP in general, the CPA welcomed the opportunity to discuss the question with the ECCI.
It is necessary to study the international background against which Wright's efforts to achieve closer contact with the ECCI were showing results. The improved communication took place in the period when Stalin, general-secretary of the CPSU, had turned his attention to wresting the leadership of the Communist International from Bukharin, who was now his main threat within the CPSU leadership. There was a fierce struggle for theoretical ascendancy being waged between the two.
The battle centred around the nature of the "third period" as classified by the Comintern. The first had been the period of the revolutionary crisis of capitalism between 1917 and 1923, followed by the second, "the period of temporary stabilisation of capitalism "and the development of united front policies with social-democrats. The "third period", proclaimed by the ECCI in February 1928 dealt with the issue of the stability or instability of capitalism. Bukharin considered that western capitalism would stabilise itself on a higher technological and organisational level and that revolutionary upheavals would come in the west from "external contradictions" such as imperialist war rather than from internal crises. Stalin's supporters, on the other hand, proclaimed that, as SF Cohen puts it "advanced capitalist societies, from Germany to the United States were on the eve of profound internal crises and revolutionary upheavals ".
These two different analyses led to two different approaches to social democracy. Bukharin advocated a united front between social-democracy and the revolutionary movement; he urged a united front from below, less unity at top levels, and the strengthening of the independent Communist Parties. Stalin, on the other hand, saw social-democrats as "social fascists" a term...
