A socialist who grew with the movement
Ernie Lane was an active fighter for revolutionary socialist politics - as he understood them, in different ways over the years - in Brisbane, Australia, from the late 1880s through to 1954, a model of persistence and tenacity though not always of acuity. Jeff Rickertt, author of a recently-published biography of Ernie, The Conscientious Communist, talked with Solidarity about Ernie and about the book. I was interested in pre-Bolshevik socialism in Australia, and even the better books written about that don't have much in them about Queensland. Another reason for writing about Ernie was his...