Jeff Sparrow’s biography of Australian communist Guido Baracchi - "Communism, a love story", published by Melbourne University Press - is an allegory for twentieth century radicals and anti authoritarians.
Australia has produced a number of prominent communists and radicals over the pass hundred years, including journalist and author Frank Hardy, author Katherine Susannah Pritchard and feminist writer Germaine Greer. So Sparrow’s choice of subject is an interesting one, Baracchi is little known outside of the small Australian Trotskyist circles but his story is an interesting one, engagingly told by Sparrow.
Sparrow charts Guido’s life long struggle against capitalism and, later against the stifling and eventually destructive influence of Stalinism on the labour movement while staying true to his vision of a humanity liberated from the crushing existence meted out under capitalism.
Guido was born to a prominent Melbourne family, his father, Pietro, the well-known state astronomer in boom time Victoria. Guido attended university as a ‘gentlemen of independent means’ and lived and studied accordingly. He was after a time drawn towards a radical critique of society and authority. In the course of a number of on campus struggles Guido was to come up against future conservative Prime Minister Bob Menzies and reactionary WW2 hero Edward Dunlop. Guido threw himself into campaigning against the government referendum on conscription, a campaign that was won not once but twice. Guido was jailed for a short period during the campaign.
In the early 1920’s Guido was to assist in founding and building the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), an organisation that he was later to be expelled from twice. Guido headed for Europe a number of times to escape the isolation and conformity of Australia, and more than once fled Australia to escape tangled relationships. Once experiencing the heady whirlwind of revolutionary activity in Berlin, the German Communist Party an organsiation with significant resources and a large membership, Guido struggled to reintegrate into political activity in Australia. The fledgling CPA was tiny, and racked with in fighting. Fleeing Australia once more, Guido and his then partner returned to Europe and onto the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union at the time was, naturally, a great pull on those that were repelled by the horrors of capitalism of the time – a Europe wide war that devastated whole countries and a looming economic crisis that seemed unresolvable leaving only hunger, unemployment and insecurity in it’s wake. By contrast, the USSR had by the late 1920’s appeared to have broken the inexplicable cycle of boom and bust of the west, the soviets had instituted socially progressive legislation that greatly improved the quality of life for many, most notably women.
Guido, and Betty, arrived in the USSR in 1933, a year that had seen unparalleled hunger, a result of Stalin’s attempt to brutally modernise the country. There was much discontent in the USSR, much of which was probably undetectable by newly arrived foreigners. Guido and Betty threw themselves into work while there, and extolled in the progress that was being made toward the creation of a new type of society. Guido initially averted his eyes to the most obvious failings of the soviet system – beggars on the streets, the benefits and nepotism that attached itself to party bureaucrats, the whispered stories of arrests and disappearances made in the middle of the night by secret police.
Despite endeavouring to see only the birth of a new society from the decaying ruins of a destructive past doubts began to surface in Guido’s mind about the unrelenting progress of socialism in the USSR and the infallibility of Comrade Stalin.
Arriving back in Australia in 1935, Guido found the CPA to increasingly be the uncritical conduit and apologist for Stalin’s policies regardless of previous views or positions. At one point Betty reported glowingly on the availability of abortion in the USSR. Shortly after the report appeared Stalin introduced anti-abortion legislation that was reported favourably in the CPA press. Such volte-face did little to dispel concerns that Guido and others had about the direction that the USSR was apparently taking. There was dark talk reaching Australia of long time communists in the USSR now becoming agents of counter-revolution, of fascism, hand maidens of imperialism. Stalin’s paranoia, and the demand for unquestioning, obedience and absolute loyalty was about to devour a generation of communists that had made the revolution of 1917 and stuck through the darkest days that followed.
Locally, the CPA was developing a reputation as serious and committed campaigners on any number of issues – the rights of the unemployed, Aboriginal rights, anti fascist crusaders. The parties numbers were swelling, recruiting not only workers but middle class intellectuals, writers, actors, lawyers and the like. As war loomed threateningly the CPA, under instructions from Moscow, began to form pacts with respectable folks, seeking to have famous individuals speak on public platforms. This reflected Stalin’s view that alliances between governments were the best basis of the security for the USSR. When conservative Prime Minister Menzies established a register for males between 18 and 65 as a precursor to conscription the CPA ensured it’s members registered. Meanwhile, Guido watched Trotskyists defiantly burn their registration cards, Guido increasingly found himself assenting to the actions and views of the tiny Trotskyist sect.
The CPA, like Stalin, could brook no dissent or tolerate differing opinions. Political activity on such a basis was becoming untenable for Guido, until finally he broke with the CPA to join the politically isolated tiny Trotskyist Communist League (CL). Guido was vilified and smeared by unscrupulous former comrades of the CPA as a traitor life become increasingly difficult. The CL, convinced that the only way it could realistically hope to make sustained and systematic contact with the working class was to enter the Australian Labor Party (ALP) as a faction, and hope to attract the best militants in the party to its viewpoint. This they did with little success. Post war the world was a different place, Australia was economically expanding and politically stable. The horrors of the USSR were there for all to see, the appeal of a post capitalist world retreated, consumer society was producing goods for many, the activists were left further marginalised than when they entered the ALP. The ALP split on religious/politically conservative basis and a conservative government held power for an unbroken twenty-one years. The CL meantime forgot to leave the ALP and its numbers evaporated like dew in the morning sun.
To Sparrow's credit Guido is portrayed not in bold relief simply as an enduring communist hero that committed himself to a life long struggle for an equalitarian and compassionate society, but as a complex and flawed man, with stunted emotional development, a father that fled responsibilities. Guido’s story is interspersed with the making and breaking of relationships, sometimes on a whim, and his unpreparedness to accept responsibility for the emotional tangles he wove. On occasion, Guido flees the country rather than deal with difficult matters of the heart at home, a trait that does little to endear him. Contrast this with Guido’s early recognition of the need to support women’s suffrage and his rejection of mainstream thinking on the role of women in society and relationships. Guido was a man of multifarious ideas and actions, Sparrow does well to capture his depth, our understanding of Guido is the richer for it.
Guido’s life mark all the high, and low, points of the Australian left in the twentieth century – the anti-conscription battles, the formation of a communist party at a time when Europe was racked with revolutionary upheaval and awash with the hope of a different kind of society, the struggles against fascism and racism, the birth of the women’s liberation movement, the movements against Australian imperial involvement in the region, and many others besides.
Beyond all else, Guido was committed to a radically different kind of world, and despite the personal and politically challenges that confronted him, he remained true to his vision, and dedicated his life to convincing others of that possibility.
