The Communist Party of Australia (CPA), known as the Australian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was an Australian political party founded in 1920. The party existed until roughly 1991, with its membership and influence having been in a steady decline since its peak in 1945. Like most communist parties in the west, the party was heavily involved in the labour movement and the trade unions. Its membership, popularity and influence grew significantly during most of the Interwar period before reaching its climax in 1945, where the party achieved a membership of slightly above 22,000 members. Although the party did not have achieve a federal MP, Fred Paterson was elected to the Parliament of Queensland at the 1944 state election. He won re-election in 1947 before the seat was abolished. The party also held office in over a dozen local government areas (LGA) across New South Wales and Queensland.
The Australian Labor Party (Non-Communist), which operated from 1940 to 1941, was a breakaway from the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and was associated with the Lang Labor faction and former New South Wales premier Jack Lang.
Samuel Robert Nicholls was an Australian politician. He was an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1917 to 1922, representing the electorate of Macquarie.
George Bertrand Edwards was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the Division of South Sydney for the Free Trade Party from 1901 to 1906 and the Division of North Sydney for the Liberal Party from 1910 until his death in 1911.
John Henry Lister was an Australian politician. He was a Nationalist Party member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1917 to 1929.
Arthur Lewis was an Australian politician. Born in Melbourne, he received no formal education and was raised in an orphanage. He became a farm labourer and was secretary of the Victorian branch of the Carters and Drivers Union.
William Fyfe Finlayson was an Australian politician. He was an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1910 to 1919 and a member of the Queensland Legislative Council from 1920 to 1922.
William Patrick Conelan was an Australian politician. He was an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1939 to 1949, representing the electorate of Griffith.
George William Martens was an Australian politician. He was an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1928 to 1946, representing the electorate of Herbert.
John Thomas Kane was an Australian politician. Born in Burraga, New South Wales, he was educated at Catholic schools in Lithgow, after which he became a coalminer. He was Vice-President of the Transport Workers' Union 1952–1956 and Assistant General Secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party 1952–1955. In 1955, he was expelled from the Labor Party together with many other members, joining with them to form the Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist), which became the Democratic Labor Party (DLP). He was the NSW DLP General Secretary 1956–1971 and the Federal Secretary 1957–71.
John Valentine (Jack) MacDonald was a New Zealand-born Australian politician.
James Bernard Keeffe was an Australian politician who served in the Australian Senate as a Labor Senator for Queensland.
The Australian Labor Party split of 1955 was a split within the Australian Labor Party along ethnocultural lines and about the position towards communism. Key players in the split were the federal opposition leader H. V. "Doc" Evatt and B. A. Santamaria, the dominant force behind the "Catholic Social Studies Movement" or "the Movement".
Socialism in Australia dates back at least as far as the late-19th century. Notions of socialism in Australia have taken many different forms including utopian nationalism à la Edward Bellamy, the democratic socialist reformist electoral project of the early Australian Labor Party, and the revolutionary Marxism of parties such as the Communist Party of Australia.
Tribune was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia. It was published by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia from 1939 to 1991. Initially it was subtitled as Tribune: The People's Paper. It was also published as the Qld Guardian, Guardian (Melbourne), Forward (Sydney). It had previously been published as The Australian Communist, (1920-1921) The Communist, (1921-1923) and the Workers' Weekly (1923-1939).
The Socialist Labor Party was a socialist political party of Australia that existed from 1901 to the 1970s. Originally formed as the Australian Socialist League in 1887, it had members such as George Black, New South Wales Premier William Holman and Prime Minister Billy Hughes.
The Building Workers' Industrial Union of Australia was an Australian trade union covering workers in the construction industry.
Gladys Dorothy O’Shane was an Australian Aboriginal activist, the sixth child of parents Caroline, née Brown, and Edgar Davis, a labourer, at Mossman, Queensland.
Llewellyn Harry Gould, generally known as Harry Gould, was a prominent Australian communist, best known as editor of the Tribune, the official organ of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA).
The Communist Party of Australia – Queensland (CPA-Q), also known or referred to as the Queensland Communist Party (QCP) and the Queensland Communist Group, was the Queensland branch of the national Communist Party (CPA). Established approximately at the same time as its parent party, the QCP was one of the party's three largest branches, sitting behind the New South Wales and Victorian branches in electoral results, membership and popularity.
