2

Truth will out

Sydney’s Town Hall was packed with official delegates, members, and sympathisers. There was standing room only, and the atmosphere was electric as the huge crowd waited for the commencement of the Communist Party of Australia’s fourteenth congress. It was Thursday 9 August 1945, the day the United States dropped its second atomic bomb, on Nagasaki, Japan, forcing that country’s unconditional surrender and bringing to a close the era of what communists termed ‘Fascist Imperialism’. The faithful gathered at this mass rally believed that a new day was dawning, ushering in the last stages on the triumphant road to socialism.

It was a time of great rejoicing for Australian communists. Their once-tiny party had developed into a powerful force from the mid-1930s, when it started to capture control of many key industrial, white-collar, and transport trade unions. Its membership had grown fivefold during World War II and, as their congress would demonstrate over the following few days, its influence was felt throughout the length and breadth of the country. From the rural backblocks and country towns, through the industrial and working-class suburbs of the major cities and in all the armed forces, the CPA exercised unprecedented power. Few amongst the crowd doubted that it would grow even mightier and soon replace the ‘bourgeois reformists’ of the Australian Labor Party as the major force in the labour movement.

Two months earlier, the CPA’s power had been demonstrated with an awesome display of organisation and tactics at the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ (ACTU) congress, unionism’s national policy forum. In alliance with other militant union leaders, the communists exercised a majority of ninety delegates on the floor.1 Of the five ACTU executive members directly elected by congress, three openly carried CPA cards. All the major policies adopted gave communist unionists great satisfaction, and they looked forward to expanding their influence in the coming period.

The massive public meeting at the Sydney Town Hall that Thursday evening was a ‘pageant’ for the party’s 25th anniversary, celebrated at the zenith of its power. ‘The program commenced with music and community singing.’2 Speakers included the parsimonious Scottish-born general secretary, J. B. (Jack) Miles, an egotistical Stalinist who exercised power ruthlessly and was widely known as the ‘old man’ or simply as JBM; Fred Paterson, a distinguished and charismatic Queensland barrister who was the first (and only) communist member of parliament; Alan Finger, a medical doctor and graduate of Melbourne University who had been dispatched to Adelaide in the mid-1930s to revive the CPA’s flagging fortunes; and Tom Wright, another methodical Scotsman who had been a long-time communist cadre in the union movement, rising to the position of federal secretary of the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union.

The real business began the following day when CPA national president Lance Sharkey — the cunning former lift operator who would be elevated to general secretary in 1948 — declared the congress open, and proposed the election of honorary presidium members. To sustained applause, his first nomination was Generalissimo Stalin, followed by a who’s who of international communism: former Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov; Georgi Dimitrov, the legendary Bulgarian who had faced down Hitler during the Reichstag fire trial in Berlin; China’s Mao Tse Tung (Mao Zedong) and General Chu The (Zhu De), still four years away from seizing power from the Kuomintang; Marshall Tito, the former anti-Nazi partisan commander who ruled Yugoslavia; Maurice Thorez, leader of the powerful French party; Palmiro Togliatti, head of the even more powerful Italian party; Dolores Ibárruri, known worldwide as La Passionara for her defiant stance during the Spanish civil war; and British party leader Harry Pollitt.3

Although physically absent, the cream of international communist leaders symbolically shared the stage with the Australian presiding committee. The most powerful members were the triumvirate of Sharkey, Miles, and Richard Dixon, the warm-hearted and intellectually gifted assistant general secretary who had learned his politics in the rugged school of Lithgow’s coal mines. This group had run the CPA since a Moscow-inspired purge in the early 1930s, which had begun the process of turning it into a disciplined, effective force, modelled completely on Stalinist principles of ‘democratic centralism’. This allowed the national leadership to enforce an iron discipline, right down to the tiniest branch in the most far-flung rural region, while the membership had a notional ability to exercise democracy over the centre.

Their work had transformed the CPA from a tiny left-wing sect with some influence in the union movement into a party that could rightly challenge the ALP for leadership of the labour movement. One historian has estimated that by 1945, communists ‘held controlling positions in unions with a membership of 275,000 and influence in unions with a membership of 480,000, or 40 per cent of all unionists’.4 Communists controlled powerful unions in major industries, including transport, the waterfront, shipping, iron and steel manufacturing, mining, retail, and clerical, and had far-reaching influence in manufacturing and engineering, as well as in many smaller unions.

Operating through highly disciplined, secret ‘union fractions’, a relatively small but very dedicated cadre of CPA members exercised a decisive influence, not only on the policies and tactics of individual unions, but on the powerful ACTU that established national industrial policy at its biennial congresses. Furthermore, CPA influence was strong in the ALP, the traditional party of Australian workers, and it had well-developed branches in universities, literary and cultural groups, the scientific community, and locality areas nationwide.

Nevertheless, in the previous couple of years, communist unionists had noticed a marked increase in organised resistance to their expanding base of influence. In this, Santamaria had been intuitively correct in declaring in his 1944 report to the Victorian bishops that the communists already knew that a secret Catholic organisation was active in the unions, although he was wrong in declaring that public exposure would not be major news. Communists labelled this organisation ‘Catholic Action’. Ironically, so did Australian intelligence. Both the CPA and various intelligence services may have confused the church’s official, publicly declared National Secretariat for Catholic Action with The Movement — an entirely separate and secret organisation with an almost exclusively political and industrial purpose. There was further confusion because Santamaria also held senior posts in both organisations, although few outsiders knew this, or about his unprecedented influence on the church hierarchy.

Santamaria was also intuitively correct when he hinted at the possibility that an unreliable Catholic might lift the veil of secrecy surrounding The Show. The bishops certainly made a major error of judgement when they accepted some of the bland assertions in his 1944 report. Santamaria had assured them that almost no consequences would follow exposure of its secretive operations. Less than two years later, his self-deception was revealed when another of Santamaria’s top-secret reports to the bishops found its way into outside hands. Unlike the document handed to Ron Richards by Father Lalor — which remained classified in Security’s vaults for almost fifty years — this one went straight to the enemy, who gleefully published it, embroiling the church in the first of several embarrassing public controversies surrounding The Show.

SIX WEEKS AFTER the CPA’s fourteenth congress, another significant event occurred in Sydney. Australia’s bishops convened on 19 and 20 September 1945 for an extraordinary meeting, held — among other reasons — to give their official imprimatur to The Movement and to vote it £10,000 [$685,000] per annum to fund its operations.5 Soon after the meeting concluded, Santamaria’s ‘Second Annual Report’ to the bishops ‘on the anti-Communist Campaign’ fell into the CPA’s hands. By year’s end, large extracts had been published in a polemical pamphlet ominously titled Catholic Action At Work.6

In his 1981 autobiography, Santamaria falsely blamed the leaking of his report on an unnamed bishop who, he alleged, had inadvertently left his copy under the pillow in his railway sleeping compartment on the way to the meeting. The document was supposedly one of only thirty that Santamaria had arranged to have printed professionally. It was headed ‘Completely Confidential’, rendering the security breach even more dangerous, as he noted, although by 1981 he claimed to see the humorous side of the incident.7

This story was not new, and had floated around Show circles for many years, long before Santamaria published his autobiography. The culprit’s name — Brisbane’s Archbishop James Duhig — became an integral part of Santamaria’s tale.8 Duhig’s identity finally emerged publicly in 1986 when one-time Santamaria protégé Gerard Henderson — later a critic and his biographer — published Santamaria’s account. According to Henderson, the church’s secret had been compromised when Duhig travelled by train from Brisbane to Sydney for the conference. When he retired to his sleeping compartment, he apparently studied Santamaria’s report, and as he went to sleep, allegedly tucked the document under his pillow. Conveniently for this version of history, there it remained the next morning when, in Henderson’s words, the ‘ageing archbishop’ disembarked.9 In his 2015 biography of Santamaria, Henderson repeated this version, despite the fact that he had been informed in 2011 that it was false.10

Duhig’s alleged security lapse became the official — and enduring — account of how the communists learned of the church’s secret Movement. Versions of this cover story were widely disseminated among the rank and file who, trusting their leader’s much-revered word, believed that the report had been compromised by Duhig when it was discovered in his sleeping compartment by a communist sympathiser in the Australian Railways’ Union, who conveyed it to CPA headquarters in Sydney.

In 1996, Santamaria confirmed this fictional account in writing to Catholic historian Bruce Duncan who, innocently enough, cited it in his comprehensive history; it has also made its way into other reputable histories.11 This version suited Santamaria’s purposes, deflecting as it did from the simple truth: either treachery in his own ranks or, at the very least, a disgraceful lapse of security for which he could have been held personally responsible as The Show official in charge of writing and circulating the report.

The truth emerged during an interview I conducted with former senior communist union leader Jack Hughes — whose responsibilities as a senior CPA member had included combating The Movement. Hughes was well placed to know the provenance of Santamaria’s report, insisting it ‘came from Victoria … to Jack Blake and then to Sydney.’12 Blake was a legendary CPA leader who, like Dixon, had been toughened by the brutal working conditions digging coal underground in Lithgow. He was originally from Newcastle, England, where his Geordie name was Fred Airey. After immigrating to Australia in the early 1920s he joined the CPA, which dispatched him to the International Lenin School in Moscow in the early 1930s, where he was steeped in communist ideology, organisational methods, strategy, and tactics. On his return, Airey adopted the cover name ‘Jack Blake’, a conspiratorial practice then common among senior CPA members in their largely fruitless efforts to confuse the Commonwealth’s security apparatus.13

The problem for Santamaria’s cover story was that Blake was secretary of the CPA’s Victorian branch at the time he obtained the document in 1945. When the Duhig story was recounted to Blake, he rejected completely the archbishop’s alleged role. The truth was more prosaic. According to Blake, the report had been brought into the CPA’s office in Melbourne, having been procured from someone inside The Movement.14 It had not been obtained in Sydney by a communist sympathiser in the railways’ union, but had been simply handed over the counter at CPA headquarters, 700 kilometres away, in Santamaria’s hometown. Blake was adamant that the source of the document was Melbourne, not Sydney, and that it was passed to him by an anonymous Catholic source.

One possible explanation is that someone in the inner circle — a senior cleric, or one of the tiny group of laity with access to the report — disagreed so vehemently with the bishops’ policy of establishing a secret, church-endorsed Movement that he thought it best to deliver the news directly to the enemy. This seems highly unlikely.

Another possibility is that it leaked from the print shop where Santamaria had arranged for it to be typeset and printed. The decision to print the report raises interesting questions. If, as Santamaria maintained in his autobiography, the number of copies required was only thirty, why give the job to a printer with the attendant security risk of providing access to people who might be hostile to the church’s (and The Show’s) interests?15 Why have the report typeset at all, which was expensive in those days, and required expert proof-reading by possibly unreliable print-shop staff? Why not follow the course adopted for the 1944 report, which was an internal print job, using an old-fashioned roneo machine?

So another intriguing possibility arises: having typeset and printed his report (at considerable expense), did Santamaria order more than the thirty copies he claimed in his autobiography, intending a much broader distribution once the bishops had approved his proposals? He was supremely confident that they would support his recommendations, with good cause. In expectation of receiving their imprimatur, did Santamaria plan to selectively distribute it to the apparatus that he had built since late 1942–early 1943, when Mannix had first provided in-principle endorsement of The Movement?

In support of this possible explanation, it is pertinent that Santamaria’s 1944 report had clearly been circulated more widely following its adoption by the Victorian bishops. Father Lalor had received sufficient copies so that he could place an original into the hands of Ron Richards of the Security Service in faraway Perth, during wartime restrictions that made communications difficult. Presumably, Santamaria had subsequently forwarded copies to Western Australia, using church communication channels.

As we have seen, Jack Blake was definite that the 1945 report had come to him from inside The Movement in Melbourne. So it can have originated from only one of three sources: someone in the inner sanctum; someone in the print shop (which would have been chosen because it was believed to be reliable and, in particular, resistant to CPA penetration); or someone who had received a printed copy after its wider distribution following its adoption on 19 September 1945 at the bishops’ conference. Whichever source is guilty, Santamaria’s prediction that an unreliable element might compromise the bishops’ secret had come to pass: the truth was out. By December 1945, the CPA had published revealing extracts of his report in its seminal and influential pamphlet Catholic Action At Work.

In the interests of setting the historical record straight, Brisbane’s Archbishop Duhig is hereby finally exculpated of Santamaria’s calumny, of which he remained ignorant and therefore unable to defend himself. This was not Santamaria’s only recourse to the Stalinist trick of revising history to suit his own narrow political and personal purposes.

BLAKE WAS CONCERNED that the document may have been a provocation — a sophisticated forgery to discredit the CPA when it publicised the report. The party was constantly alert to such tricks, which were regularly used by various intelligence agencies over the years. Luckily, an expert was on hand who could verify it. Blake promptly handed it to his close comrade, prominent Melbourne barrister Ted Hill. A colourless, humourless, and methodical Stalinist, Hill was a well-connected and brilliant barrister. He used his extensive contacts and forensic skills to triple-check the report’s authenticity. His investigation rapidly confirmed the document’s veracity, and it was only then that Blake forwarded it to CPA national headquarters in Sydney.16

The CPA leadership quickly discerned its significance. Blake recalled that it was ‘like a godsend for us. It explained the conspiratorial background of what was going on at that time.’17 As Santamaria had predicted in his 1944 report, the CPA was already aware that a Catholic organisation was working actively in the union field. Communists had been fighting an increasingly bitter struggle with Catholic political activists since at least the outbreak of the Spanish civil war in 1936. Beginning in 1943, the CPA realised that the battle was reaching a new intensity, as The Movement’s methodical organisation spewed out massive amounts of anti-communist propaganda and challenged the CPA’s hold on many formerly securely held unions.

The report confirmed the CPA’s strongly held suspicion that a ‘reactionary’ Catholic element under the direct leadership of the church hierarchy was subverting the labour movement, disrupting unions, and infiltrating the ALP. The battle was immediately joined, as the communists knew they had a major propaganda coup in their hands. The appearance of Catholic Action At Work at the end of 1945 had an electrifying impact across the entire spectrum of the trade union movement.

This sixpenny [$1.70] pamphlet was the first significant public manifestation of the titanic struggle between these two monolithic, highly disciplined, and ultra-secretive organisations. The fight rapidly developed into one of the greatest Australian political dramas of the 20th century. It dominated a significant part of public life for several decades, and still echoes down the years, even a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War. For example, as a youthful student political activist, the future Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott had a close relationship with Santamaria. In his first speech as a federal parliamentarian, Abbott cited Santamaria for inspiring his interest in politics, later calling him ‘a philosophical star by which you could always steer’ and ‘the greatest living Australian’.18

The CPA exposé provided a unique insight into The Movement’s genesis and early development, simply by reproducing large parts of Santamaria’s report to the bishops’ 1945 conference, accompanied by a sometimes tendentious commentary. One historian who studied the original document described it as ‘twenty-nine pages of closely typed foolscap’.19 This could not have been the version distributed to the bishops, but presumably was the typed manuscript sent for printing. The copy provided to me by Catholic historian Professor Edmund Campion had obviously been printed professionally at what was called in those ancient, pre-digital days a ‘printery’. Campion’s copy originated from the official church records of the Adelaide archdiocese, and must be the version referred to in Santamaria’s autobiography that he had distributed to the bishops.20

The report explained that The Movement ‘is the name by which it is known among its members, according to its own constitution’. It had been chosen, ‘For obvious reasons’, since members ‘cannot work publicly as members of a Catholic Action organisation … but working anonymously … they perform the highest work of Catholic Action.’21

However, the report noted a most significant development in 1944, which had greatly strengthened The Show’s effectiveness in organising against the CPA in trade unions: the formation of the ALP’s factory-based ‘Discussion Groups’, the forerunner of the Industrial Groups that officially came into existence in NSW, Victoria, Queensland, and South Australia in 1945–46, specifically to fight communist influence in unions. In the mid-1950s, the Industrial Groups played a major role in the internal factional upheavals that caused the Labor Split. Their original purpose — to oppose communists in the unions — rapidly evolved into Santamaria’s vehicle for his plan to control the ALP.

Even in 1945, well before the significance of the Groups was publicly discernible, Santamaria understood with clarity the advantages such an official organisation conferred upon The Show in the fight against its opponents:

It is impossible for us to exaggerate the importance of this change for our activists. Previously in the battle against Communism in the factory, they were compelled to act individually. Wherever they concentrated in groups it was obvious the groups were Catholic … Today they have the cover of the Labor Party. They carry on the fight as the executives of these factory ‘discussion groups’ and none can effectively question their bona fides. On the other hand the Labor Party has found that it cannot rely on any other force within the factory to ensure the success of these groups than these members.

A bond of self-interest therefore enables our work to function more effectively in the factory.22

Little wonder that Jack Blake and the national communist leadership in Sydney perceived Santamaria’s document as a ‘godsend’. It not only revealed the church’s conspiracy, but predicted with unerring accuracy the form the battle would take. The report’s admission about using the ALP as ‘cover’ was most unfortunate. It would come back to haunt Santamaria in 1954–55 when the ALP disbanded the Industrial Groups because they were effectively controlled by his secretive organisation. The Movement was using the same tactics as the communists to infiltrate, influence, and even control the major workers’ party.

The choice of words was unfortunate, too, leading to widespread confusion about two separate organisations, both involved in the anti-communist battle in the unions. Even today, seventy-five years since The Movement was born, the demonology of the Labor Split labels almost everyone on the anti-communist side as ‘Groupers’, so-named after the official ALP Industrial Groups. In fact, the Groups were entirely ALP organisations, consisting of both Catholics and non-Catholics bound together by their desire to expel communist influence from trade unions. Some stayed in the ALP after the Labor Split, while others left with Santamaria’s forces to form the ALP (Anti-Communist), later the Democratic Labor Party (DLP). On the other hand, The Movement was a purely Catholic organisation, operating under the official aegis and with the financial support of the Australian bishops.

One owed loyalty to Caesar; the other, to God. Where these two forces met and clashed, and how such conflicts were ultimately resolved, would determine many major issues in Australian political life in the second half of the 20th century. This conflict even decided who would govern Australia for the seventeen years between the Labor Split and the election of Gough Whitlam in December 1972, after Santamaria decided to use the DLP to funnel preferences to the conservative parties, breaking a long tradition of loyalty to the official Labor Party by the majority of Catholics.

But in 1945 the issues were not so clear cut, and the contradictions and dangers not so apparent to the bishops. Instead they supported their chief lay advisor, whose smooth presentation and youthful idealism, delivered in person during the evening session of their extraordinary meeting on 19 September, persuaded them that the magnitude of the communist threat required drastic, urgent measures. These secret measures imported many of the positive characteristics of the communists’ union organising (discipline, a national structure, and tight, secretive union fractions), as well as their essential negatives, especially authoritarianism and the cult of personality with which Stalinism had infected the Communist Party of Australia.23

Over the following years, the two opposing forces increasingly came to mirror each other as the church’s Movement assumed its own unique form of Stalinism. This was enhanced by its extraordinary successes in defeating the communists in key trade unions and in building an elaborate, highly efficient, and effective private intelligence network, which the Australian intelligence community utilised in its own operations directed against the CPA.