cause for consideration ... was the decision to support the Labor Party in the Federal elections. "The Letter proceeded to deal with the "third period", the radicalisation of the working class and the "Right Deviation ", stating:" The question as to whether Australian capitalism will succeed in its plans to subjugate the working class or whether the working class will assume the counter-offensive and develop its revolutionary struggle against capitalism will depend on the ability and determination of the CP to organise and lead the counter-offensive ... This has not been the case until now. The Party has been slow in learning from the experience of the British, German, and French working class and from events in Australia proper. The important decisions of the Sixth World Congress and the Tenth Plenum of the Cl as well as the decisions of the Fourth RILU Congress seem to have been neglected by the CPA. "
It went on. "Even at its conference of December 1928, the Party could not give a proper political estimate of the Labor Party or define its fundamentally social-fascist character, its aggressively counter-revolutionary role in the present situation "and further," apparently the Party regards itself as being merely a propagandist body and as a sort of adjunct to the Labor Party ". The Open Letter then emphasised the need for a Communist Party to "assert itself as the only true working class Party "and" to conduct open warfare against the Party of class collaboration ".
There was much agitation to have the Letter published in the CPA's newspaper, The Workers 'Weekly, where it finally appeared on 6 December. The CEC took the opportunity to write again to the Comintern Executive on 16 December, replying in detail to the Open Letter, maintaining that the leadership "accepts without reservation the need to intensify and clarify the struggle against reformism " and this issue will be В»the concern of our ninth conference". In making criticisms of the Open Letter, the CEC, via Tom Wright, made the point that the present situation was seen as much sharper but not ripe for revolution. Wright pointed out that notes had been left with the Comintern by Higgins in September 1928 to the effect that the "time had come to emerge from the propaganda stage" as suggested in discussions with the ECCI in April but that no reply had been received. Further, he referred back to the resolution on the Labor Party adopted at the December 1928 conference, "no word of criticism came from you, and, even in the Open Letter, apart from reference to one passage in the conference resolution you express no opinion on the decisions of a year ago ". He concluded that if the CPA leadership had made mistakes, so had the ECCI because it had not raised any criticism at the time.
Very few in the CPA realised how fundamental were the changes in the policies emanating from the Comintern. With the defeat of Bukharin, Stalin had succeeded in redefining Third Period policies to mean that capitalist stabilisation was at an end and that revolutionary situations were now certain in Western capitalist countries. Social fascists were now the main enemy. Not understanding what had happened, most of the CPA leadership were bewildered at the advice they were now being given. They were also angry, and simply disagreed. They saw it as important to have the ALP, not the Nationalist Party in power. Indeed, the Labor Party under James Scullin, had succeeded in the October 1929 federal elections in defeating the Nationalist Country Party Coalition. Those, on the other hand, who were impatient with what they perceived as the CEC's slowness in developing an independent CPA campaign, were reinforced by the new Comintern line. The relative inexperience of the Australian communists, the inherent leftism of many of its members, and the feeling that they had been betrayed by the Labor Party, made the Comintern's new appraisal of social democrats as "social fascists" an attractive alternative to the old united front policies. The belief that revolution was already on the agenda was a huge incentive to those who believed in the socialist goal.
The new Comintern line appeared to be correct not only within the Australian context but world-wide. The Wall Street crash in October 1929 did indeed seem to herald the complete collapse of capitalism. As Friedrich I. Firsov, Doctor of Science of History, put it to me in Moscow in November, 1990: "It appeared as if Stalin was right and that capitalism wouldn't develop any further, but events took a different direction. It was a deep crisis but not one that would bring about the end of capitalism. It was one of many crises - but still just one. The crisis was solved in other ways than by proletarian revolution. In Germany it was solved by the totalitarian regime of Hitler. Other capitalist countries took different paths, for example, the welfare state and in...
