The Party: The Communist Party of Australia from Heyday to Reckoning by Stuart MacIntyre

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Ex library copy with no external stickers. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Stamps on inside pages. Date due slip, borrower car pocket and RFID patch have been removed, leaving tearing to endpages. Dust jacket has light creasing at edges and spine. Body text and binding are still very good.

The Party is the second volume of Stuart Macintyre's masterful history of Australian communism.

Communism was unlike any other political movement Australia has ever seen. At its peak in the 1940s, unions led by communists could call a strike that paralysed the nation, and communists influenced the highest level of government and commanded the unswerving loyalty of thousands. It showed working men and women they could have a better life, and gave them the tools to achieve it.

Stuart Macintyre reveals how sources of strength in the party's heyday became the undoing of the party over the following two decades. Unconditional support for the Soviet model broke down as the horrors of Stalinism were revealed. Public support for the party eroded amid a series of strikes, and hostility from the mainstream political establishment and security services took a toll. But for those who remained, the comradeship and intense political engagement are the strongest memories. (book flap)