Lenin on the ALP: The Career of 600 Words

Abstract

Lenin’s 600 word article of 1913, ‘In Australia’, included a very brief outline of the nature of Australian capitalism and the Australian Labor Party (ALP)2. It came to be a touchstone for the Communist Party of Australia’s (CPA’s) analyses of these questions. For a period, during the 1940s and early 1950s, the article was reinterpreted, sometimes to reach a diametrically opposed conclusion, each time the Party’s line changed. ‘In Australia’ became a talismen. The Australian career of Lenin’s little article illustrates the importance of real social forces, here the forces which shaped the Party line, in defining the content of political ‘ideas’. Show more