The discussion at the ninth conference (26-31 December 1929), the decisions it made, and the change in leadership were a turning point in CPA history. Both sides presented their case. Kavanagh, in the chair, referred to the sharp differences of opinion in his opening address, declaring these needed to be “thrashed out at this conference”. The decisions would be binding. He also reiterated that his own position was that “the central task of the Party is to assert its claim to independent leadership of the working class against capitalism and its reformist allies”. Tom Wright followed, giving the Central Committee report, outlining its policy on the Federal elections; he included acceptance of the fact that the majority opposed the CEC's policy on the Federal elections, and that this view was confirmed by the CI.
Herbert Moxon led the attack with a minority report on the second day of the Conference, dealing with the timber strike and the failure to get party groups into activity, the tardiness about the coal lockout, and the policy for the federal elections, charging the CC leadership with “right deviation” and “new guardism”. He gave details of the exchanges between the ECCI and the CPA and called for the conference to lift the censure on Moxon and Sharkey, which had been imposed in October, endorse the Open Letter of the CI, and realise it in practice. Kavanagh objected to this report indicating it was full of inaccuracies and should be placed before the delegates for discussion, but apparently this was not agreed to.
In the third session of the conference on Friday 28 December, immediately after the cable from the ECCI was read, Hector Ross weighed into the debate. He claimed that there had been “a whole mass of misrepresentations and exaggerations” and the debate on both sides had been waged “on a very low level indeed” but he supported the CEC position on the elections. In his analysis of the ninth conference, Morrison found that only the Sydney delegates, excluding Hetty Weitzel (representing the Women's Section) and Anne Isaacs, (YCL representative), supported Kavanagh, while all the states and both northern and southern districts of NSW were opposed to him. In a relatively small conference, Moxon, with nine representatives from Queensland, was able to control the final result.
Following Ross, speaker after speaker supported the minority position. These included Lance Sharkey, Jack Miles, Ted Docker, Bill Orr, Andy Barras, Len Varty and Jack Simpson, Mick Loughran and Richard Walker. Those under attack responded, several making the point that the differences of opinion were merely a pretext f or other motives. Kavanagh stated that the mainspring of the opposition was based on “an opportunist desire for control of the Communist Party”. Jack Ryan replied to the accusation of “right deviation”. Over the year, he said, many had been seen as suffering from it; Sharkey himself “was bumped off the CEC in 1927” as a right winger. The opposition was “utilising a certain situation on the CEC to capitalise in order to get control of the organisation”. Mocking their extremism he said, “I am a treacherous betrayer of the working class because I supported the policy of the CEC in the federal elections.”
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Higgins and Jeffery had both changed their minds. Higgins recognised that the line adopted had been a mistake while Jeffery accepted the criticism that the CEC suffered from a right deviation and that “not one member of the whole CC should stand for the CE... I stand behind CI discipline”. Joe Shelley was in a “quandary”; he argued that had it not been for the definite instructions of the CI the logical target of criticism would have been the decision made by the eighth conference in 1928 where the majority of delegates had made it clear that the Queensland resolution was not to apply generally. However, he said, “there was no excuse for the CC to adopt the attitude it did”. After the debate on the second day of the conference the result was a foregone conclusion. All those on the old CEC who had supported Kavanagh, except Esmonde Higgins whose stand had been equivocal, were voted out of office. The Moxon/Sharkey faction had won.
State and personal rivalries no doubt fuelled the fire, but in examining the material from the Comintern Archives together with evidence from Australian sources it is apparent that, rather than being a mere “pawn” in the game, the Comintern had been the deciding factor in defeating the former leadership. The ECCI had not issued directives from afar of its own volition, but had been very willing to intervene when it was requested to do so. Notwithstanding the bitter antagonism of Moxon towards the majority of the old CEC, it was not chiefly for narrow political gain that he and Sharkey had taken this action. The overriding concern was commitment to ideological unanimity with the Comintern. One of the first acts of the new leadership was to cable the ECCI on 30 December 1929, “offering unswerving loyalty to the new line”.
When all the tumult and the shouting had died away the CPA was profoundly changed. Some consider that the changes were necessary and beneficial, opening the way for the changes in policy and methods of work which led to an impressive growth for the CPA in the period of the great mass movements of the thirties. These gains were made, according to those who hold this view, in spite of the negative effect of the “social fascist” line in the years immediately following the conference. It is doubtful that the gains outweighed the losses. It is possible, as suggested by Blake, that without the sharp polarisation of viewpoint, aggravated by the ECCI intervention, a different and more representative CEC may have been elected. That is conjecture only, but what stands out clearly is that after the 1929 ninth annual conference something precious had disappeared. This was the atmosphere described by Edna Ryan when she referred to the CPA premises of the 1920s as “an open academy” – “it didn't occur to us at the time that we were enjoying liberty of thought and expression, but there was no hushing and stifling, no fear of being accused if one proposed a tactic or an idea”. Though the new leadership set out with courage and vigour to win support for the new line the free-ranging debate and discussion of the twenties under Kavanagh's leadership was gone. Now there was one correct line and to depart from it unless one indulged in self-criticism meant ostracism and possible expulsion.
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Notes
I would like to thank the staffs of the Comintern Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism attached to the CC CPSU; the ANU Archives of Business and Labour, Canberra; and the Mitchell Library, Sydney, for their assistance to me in my research. I am particularly grateful to Edna Ryan, Mary Wright, Hector Kavanagh, Steve Cooper and Ross Edmunds for their freely given comments about the events and personalities involved in these events. Finally I would like to thank Ann, Jean and Geoff Curthoys for encouraging me to accept the invitation to visit the Archives in Moscow and special thanks to Ann for her assistance with the first draft.