Even the resolutions passed after 'Hard-fought compromises' still reflected Bukharin's policies. p> Higgins gave a glowing report of the Comintern's Fourth Congress at the CPA's eighth annual conference in Sydney, December 1928 remarking that 'We glory in the fact that we are an International Party ... Decisions are arrived at the instance of representations of these parties and always with their advice. ' During the conference, Higgins was the main speaker for a resolution entitled, "The Struggle Against Labor Party Reformism "which said that the ALP was increasingly identifying itself with the openly reactionary aims of the employers and that as the CPA was the only party of Australia 'coming out as an independent revolutionary force we must energetically endeavour to capture the leadership of the Australian workers from the reformists. 'In elections the call was no longer' Vote Labor but Vote for the Revolutionary Workers 'candidates' (CPA or left-wing candidates). "
It is interesting to note that left-wing ALP candidates were still included. Supporting the resolution, Wright added "that if left-wing organisations do come into existence, that we ourselves shall be on good terms with them "and" we must be careful not to isolate ourselves from them by ill-considered attacks ". J.B. Miles, representing Queensland, agreed with this to some extent but he considered that 'lf it is going to be necessary to have left-wing electoral committees let us have them, but we must realise that after the elections these committees must go out of existence, or otherwise we are going to build up a second reformist party. ' Lance Sharkey, who had been voted out as a rightist 'at the 1927 annual conference, in supporting the resolution emphasised that it was a new policy and further that "Although a lot of people are in the habit of declaiming that Australia is a different country from others ... the development of the ALP here is similar to development of Social Democratic Parties in other countries. "
This resolution was much more general in its criticism of the ALP than had been the Queensland resolution and aroused Jeffery's suspicions. Having attended the Comintern discussions he stated, "lt is apparent to me that the Committee [Which drew up the resolution] intends the Queensland tactic to be applied to the whole of Australia "and that he did not think this was correct. Higgins replied that there was no reason to make an absolute distinction between Queensland and the rest of Australia and said it was "time we adopted a new line".
Jack Kavanagh, leader of the CPA since his arrival from Canada in 1925, and the centre of the coming storm, was now a candidate member of the ECCI as a result of Higgins recommendations on his behalf while at the Cl Congress. In addition the CEC had been asked to send a formal request to the ECCI that Kavanagh be invited to Moscow for a period as an official representative on the Comintern Executive. It has been suggested by several writers that Kavanagh was either reluctant to go to Moscow or that he tended to disregard Comintern policies. On the contrary, David Akers records that in 1921, while a member of the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC), Kavanagh had argued the case for affiliation to the Comintern, and had led a left-wing faction out of the SPC into the Workers ' Party of Canada, (WPC) which was the legal face of the underground Communist Party of Canada (CPC), already affiliated with the Communist International. He supported the Comintern but it was his interpretation of the united front which caused difficulties for him with both the ECCI and the CPC on several occasions. Kavanagh accused the Canadian party of interpreting the united front as working with the trade-union bureaucracy in 1922 and questioned the affiliation of the CPC with the Canadian Labor Party in 1924 for fear it meant submerging the communist party. Kavanagh considered CPC independence was essential and that the united front meant working with the rank and file of the Labor Party to strengthen its policies the united front from below a view similar to that taken by Bukharin in the "third period" debate. At this time, and on this issue, he stood to the left of Canadian party policy.
Therefore it appears that Kavanagh was not opposed to the Comintern as has been suggested but did not consider that ECCI directives were to be accepted without question. In addition, he had always insisted, as explained by Sampson, that the differences between Australia and the rest of the world were as important as their similarities in determining strategy, which inevitably led him into disagreement with the Comintern's Third Period policy. A close friend of the Kavanaghs, Edna Ryan, insists that he wanted to go to Moscow for discussion with the ECCI but was never issued an invitation, the reason for which was never ...
