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Episode II
The Industrial Workers Of The World, Lesbia Keogh & the
Conscription Referendums 1914-1918
Terry Costello
Class Actions will continue its coverage of the life and times
of dissenter , socialist & revolutionary Guido Barrachi. The
Life and times of Guido Barrachi is the subject of a book Communism
A Love Story which was written by Jeff Sparrow in 2007. Guido
Barrachi who became a student activist at Melbourne
University during the 1900’s. Melbourne University at that time was
a frightfully conservative and undemocratic place. I came across
some information about Trinity College where Guido Barrachi was a
boarder at Melbourne University during the time that Alexander
Leeper was the Warden of Trinity College. The Term Warden is more
commonly associated with a custodial institution such as a prison
than an educational facility. However the term Warden was
very appropriate term to describe Alerxander Leeper’s role at
Trinity College when Guido Barrachi lived there from 1906
onwards
Given Alexander Leeper’s appalling role as an arch conservative,
religious bigot and zealot who played an active role in persecuting
university staff and students who opposed World War I or who
expressed progressive views, it is truly amazing that Trinity
College’s Library is named after one Alexander Leeper. Indeed one
Melbourne University publication Trinity Papers Number 9 refers to
Leeper’s tenure as being a ‘golden age’. I’m sure the current group
of people who run Melbourne University would be happy to get away
with half of what this character did and the fact that Alexcander
Leeper is revered by the Melbourne University establishment
may be an indication of the direction that Melbourne university is
heading which is an increasingly corporatised and conservative
institution.
In the previous episode we examined Guido’s student activism at
Melbourne University where he honed and developed his skills as a
speaker, writer and an editor of progressive publications. Today we
will be exploring Guido’s involvement with radical poet Lesbia
Keogh and an organization they were both active members of which
was the Industrial Workers of The World
A key person in Guido’s life during this period was Lesbia
Keogh who was a Melbourne University Law graduate , poet and member
of the Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW or Wobblies as they
were known. Lesbia was also a key ally of Guido in opposing the
efforts of Alexander Leeper and other conservatives at Melbourne
University to promote World War I and other reactionary causes.
Lesbia eventually rejected the stultifying and increasingly
irrelevant atmosphere of Melbourne University instead opting
to work in a clothes factory. Lesbia Keogh tutored IWW members
during World War I and through this association got to know the
Melbourne IWW’s leader Percy Laidler who she introduced to Guido
Barrachi.
Guido and Lesbia became lovers and the tragic nature of their
relationship is explored extensively in Jeff Sparrow’s book
Communism A Love Affair. Lesbia deeply influenced Guido’s
views concerning socialism and politics in general. Guido initially
subscribed to the ideas expounded by people at the time such as HG
Wells that socialism would result from the actions of the educated
middle class who would act from above in a benevolent manner
to eliminate poverty amongst the working Class. However
Lesbia believed that socialism would emerge due to the
efforts and struggle of working people. Lesbia convinced Guido that
the working class would play a vital role in the advancement of
socialism and the advancement of progressive causes. Page 79 of
Communism A Love Story states ‘ Lesbia showed Guido the IWW’s
anarchic celebration of working class creativity, a philosophy that
embraced the larrikin rank and file because of – and not despite
their rude vigour’
Lesbia Keogh is described on page 69 of Communism a Love
Affair as ‘a women who so fearlessly overcame so fearlessly the
canyon that separated the university & the working class’.
Lesbia detested the inequality created by capitalism and the role
played in this by the bourgoise
Lesbia Keogh
‘Certain ways of living are wrong. The life of a typist, the
life of a clerk, the life of a merchant, a doctor, a lawyer, seem
to some of us pretty well immoral. We don’t like to think that we
live in houses other people built for us, eat clothes other people
have made for us, eat bread other people have baked for us and that
in return for all this service we have added a few figures or
talked for a couple of hours’
Terry Costello
Guido Barrachi had this to say about his Lover and socialist
fellow traveler Lesbia Keogh
Guido Barrachi Page 69 Communism A Love Story
‘Lesbia was a lovely girl. She was very Irish-Australian, you
know very warm & romantic and at the time very straightforward
indeed. She would never concede anything that she did not
thoroughly believe, she’d just contradict it, but she’d do it in a
nice way, and she was universally liked. Everyone who knew her
liked her very much’
‘She stirred my mind deeply and set my imagination on fire’ Page
80
‘The rebel girl - Its great to fight for freedom with a
rebel girl’ Page 79
Terry Costello
The staunch revolutionary spirit of Lesbia Keogh which deeply
influenced Guido Barrachi is clearly evident in her poem titled
Today is rebels day and now we work
Lesbia Keogh
Today is rebels' day. And yet we work
Today is rebels' day.
And yet we work—
All of us
rebels, until day is done.
And when the stars
come out we celebrate
A revolution that's
not yet begun.
Today is rebels' day. And men in
jail
Tread the old mill-round until day
is done.
And when night falls they sit
alone to brood
On revolution that's not yet
begun.
Today is rebels' day. Let all of
us
Take courage to fight on until
we're done—
Fight though we may not live to
see the hour
The Revolution's splendidly
begun.
Terry Costello
We just heard a poem of radical poet Lesbia Keogh titled Today
is rebels day but yet we work which was read by Sharon Carr. Both
Guido Barrachi and Lesbia Keogh were members of the Industrial
Workers of the World during the latter part of World War I. In
World War I The Yarra Bank which had been described in the book
Communism a Love Affair as being ‘the university of the Working
Class’ was the place where Guido and Lesbia put forward the ideas
of the IWW. I asked the Author of Communism A Love Affair to
describe the Yarra Bank & its significance.
Jeff Sparrow Interview
Terry
And what was the significance of the Yarra Bank and also where
exactly was it I assume it was on the Yarra River. It was
described in the book as being the university of the working class
and so what are your recollections of the Yarra bank I guess it
doesn’t exist any more but
Jeff
It does. Historically the Yarra Bank moved around. The
place that was known as the Yarra bank was an open air space where
the left and free thinkers and religious dissidents would go
primarily on a Sunday but on public holidays or whatever and hold
meetings and most Sundays in Melbourne from the 1890s till the
1950’s you could go there and there would be as many as 13
different stumps with people standing on hem, holding forth
about everything from the single tax to industrial unionism to sex
education to whatever bee they had in their bonnet and there
was a tacit acknowledgement of this as a place where such ideas
could be espoused so there was a degree of protection people had if
they were talking on the Yarra bank there was no other
place in Melbourne where you could speak in the way that you
did on the Yarra bank. I mean there were a couple of other
things as well. It was partly connected to the fact that Melbourne
was the home of Sunday closing on Sundays there was nothing else
open and so for many working class people this was a good Sunday’s
entertainment you could go down and listen to the various speakers
and of course this is a pre electronic culture so the speakers are
much more comfortable about extemporising on a stump without
amplification and people would be today and a lot of working class
people – this is how you heard about interesting ideas. You
would go and you would hear what the speaker was saying
and you would maybe argue with them. So if you go down past the
Tennis Centre you can still see the stumps are still there. Today
it is a bit like a historical exhibit really. The Stumps are
there it is fenced off no one ever goes there but even for
someone like Guido who was well educated and had read widely
it was a real eye opener to go down there and to see these working
class orators who would often be these very witty
funny and very pungent speakers holding forth on all sorts of
topics and it provided you the sort of opportunity that I guess
these days you would turn to the internet to do it but if you were
thinking of starting to get an interest in politics rather than
search the websites to see what the different theories and
organisations were you would go down there and say ok well here is
the speaker from the IWW I don’t like what he has got to say so
I’ll listen to this speaker from the Victorian Socialist
party and I’m convinced by what she says and so on.
Terry Costello
During World War I the International Workers Of The World had
branches in Melbourne and Sydney and the organization was reviled
by the establishment.
The Unlawful Association Act of July 1917 ‘ made membership of
the IWW a crime punishable by 6 months imprisonment with the onus
of proof resting on the defendant.
In justifying this draconian law the then Prime Minister Billy
Hughes said that the IWW’ holds a dagger to the heart of society as
it seeks to destroy us we must in self defence destroy
it’
A member of the then NSW state government said ‘At the
back of the strike lurks the IWW and the exponents of direct
action. Without realizing it, many trade unions have become the
tools of Disloyalists & Revolutionaries. Every striker is
singing from day to day the hymns of the IWW and marching to their
music’
In 1918 12 IWW leaders were arrested and faced long periods of
imprisonment on trumped up charges including merely being members
of the IWW. Some of the IWW 12 were not released until 1931, some
13 years later.
I asked Jeff Sparrow the Author of Communism A Love Affair to
sum up the contribution of the IWW in Australia during World War
I.
Jeff Sparrow Interview
Terry
, you talked about Guido being a member of the
international workers of the world, which I think is known at the
wobblies he was a member in 1918. Who where the wobblies and
what do they stand for
Jeff
the wobblies, the industrial workers of the world. They
described themselves as revolutionary industrial unionists, and I
guess that you were really Australia's first mass revolutionary or
organization. They were very skeptical about the trade union
bureaucracy, very hostile to the so-called parliamentary road
to socialism, and very strong about organizing on the job and
ordinary workers taking actions into their own hands.
Some of the things that made them very distinctive, they had a
tremendous panache a tremendous sense of humour. They were
very colourful characters in terms of the songs they sang the
slogans that they put forward very contemptuous of the normal
sedate trade union bureaucrats who were very much about fighting
the boss with any weapons that came to hand. Their famous
preamble began that the employing class and the labouring class
have nothing in common, and that was very much their starting
point. In the Australian context, one of the things that they
are most significant for was really taking a lead in the opposition
to the first world war. They have been active in Australia
for some years prior to the first world war. But the first
Sunday after the world war was declared in August 1914. The
Sydney branch of the I. W. W. put together a demonstration on the
Sydney domain I think it was one of the first demonstrations
against the world war anywhere to take place in the world and so
they played a crucial role in mobilizing opposition to the
war. Right from the start at a time when the war was very
very popular and because of that they faced the full force of state
repression and the organization was that essentially smashed and
its key leaders were sent to jail for a very long time so.
They were significant in that they were a modern but
pre-Bolshevik form of a Marxist organization so in Australia I
think they paved the way for the likes of formation of the
Communist party. Some of the people who have been involved in
the I. W. W. or certainly influenced by it later went on to join
the Communist Party and Guido was amongst them.
Terry
what role did the wobblies play in the defeat of the
conscription referendums I was also going to ask you Why did
the wobblies fall apart, but I guess you have already answered
that
Jeff
in terms of the conscription referendum, if you sometimes put
forward by people on the far left today. The IWW responsible
for defeating conscription. I don't think that was
quite the case, but the really important thing was that they took a
stand on it before anyone else did. And furthermore, they
were much clearer about the issues involved than many of the other
people who were campaigning against conscription. Partly
because they opposed not only conscription, but the war
itself. And I think that was a very important distinction
that they made. There were plenty of other people, who said
well look we are not against the war but we just think that
conscription is wrong and that of course let them open to counter
arguments from the rights of the world, if you support the
war where are going to get the troops from, we need these troops,
that is why we need conscription whereas the IWW were able to say
right from the start. Well to hell with the war. Let
those who own the country do the fighting. That was one of
their slogans. So that was one of their contributions the
other thing that they did. They were quite strong and
staunchly opposed to racism, which was obviously a big problem in
the labor movement at the time. And so in their opposition to
the war they not only made a point of saying that they supported
the German working-class. But they also stood up to some
extent at least, against the white Australia arguments that many
people on the left were utilizing at that time. One of the
arguments about conscription was if all the white men were
conscripted that this would lead the country open to
coloured labor and the IWW never to their credit never made
that argument
Terry
And it was illegal to be a member of the wobblies due to the
unlawful Associations Act passed by the government of Billy Hughes.
Can a comparison be made of the laws that banned the wobblies
as an organisation to the anti terrorist legislation of today?
Jeff
Yes It is a really interesting point I think for a
lot of people on the left we tend to look back at the most
recent period of radicalisation and draw our analogies from
that. So we talk about the 60’s and the 70’s and so on and so forth
but I think there are some really interesting analogies from
that early period, not only the unlawful Associations
Act which was not exactly the same as the anti terrorist laws
today but it was passed in the same hysterical kind of
atmosphere that led to the anti terrorist organisation and I think
that the kinds of injustices and frame ups that it
produced are very similar to the kinds of effects that we are
likely to see from and have already seen from the new anti terror
legislation but there is more to the comparison than that as well.
It is often forgotten that during the agitation over
conscription during the First World War, there was a
tremendous racial animosity directed to Irish Catholics on a very
similar sort of basis to the racism that is directed against
Muslims today . If you think about it the arguments are very
very similar. The arguments that were made by the newspapers by the
universities by a lot of respectable people about the Irish, the
Irish Catholics were that they believed in this strange
religion. They are loyal to their own priests but they are not
loyal to the Australian population. That they are aligned with
Ireland rather than Australia. They are disloyalist, they are
terrorists because the Thenians were seen to be blowing bombs up
and that sort of thing so very similar sorts of arguments
that were made then against the Irish and its a point worth making
because today the idea that the Irish are this terrible threat just
seems bizarre and ludicrous as the idea that Muslims are this
innately terroristic population will seem ludicrous to future
generations as well.
Terry Costello
The Industrial Workers of The World were renowned for their
songs. Jeff Sparrow describes the IWW song Bump me into Parliament
as a ‘savage parody of labor opportunism’
Bump Me Into Parliament Words &
Music Bill Casey
Come listen all kind friends of mine
I want to move a motion
To make an Eldorado here
I've got a bonza notion
cho: Bump me into parliament
Bounce me any way at all
Bang me into parliament
On next election day
Some very wealthy friends I know
Declare I am most clever
While some can talk for an hour or so
Why I can talk for ever
I've read my bible ten times o'er
And Jesus justifies me
The man who does not vote for me
By Christ he crucifies me
Oh yes I am a Labor man
I believe in revolution
The quickest way to bring it on
Is talking constitution
I think the worker and the boss
Should keep their present stations
So I will surely pass a bill
'Industrial Relations'
Terry Costello
Guido Barrachi gave a speech on the Yarra bank in 1918 that led
to Guido being jailed. Guido was responding to a sensationalist
document titled Anti’s Creed which questioned the arguments and
motives of those who opposed World War I. Part of Guido
Barrachi’s speech on that day was as follows
Guido Barrachi from Page 12 Communism A Love Story
‘I do not care who wins the war, I do not want either side to
win the war, I want the peoples of both sides to overthrow the
governments of both sides’
‘It made perfect sense to avoid going into that holy
holocaust of slaughter for ends that have nothing to do with the
working class’
‘I want to irrevocably with capitalist society and its
bloodbath’
Terry Costello
Before Guido could finish his speech ‘two plain clothes officers
decided that he had said more than enough. Grabbing Guido by the
arms, they dragged him from the stand and then hustled him
out through the hooting crowd. As they shuffled him off to
the magistrate Lesbia caught hold of Guido’s sleeve’ and
said
Lesbia Keogh Page 13 Communism A Love Story
‘It was the hottest speech I’ve ever heard’
Jeff Sparrow Interview
Terry
Guido ended up being in prison. Was that from comments that he
made from speeches at the Yarra Bank
Jeff
After he left university in a period of tremendous tumult. You
have to remember 1917 was well of course the year of the Russian
Revolution but there was also a General Strike in NSW the second
anti conscription referendum there are food riots in Melbourne
there is all this stuff going on there is this tremendous sense
that and of course the war is still taking place too. There is a
tremendous sense of society in turmoil and Guido very quickly
progressed leftward from being a sort of vaguely he was
associated with guild socialism which is an idea you almost hear
nothing about today but at the time was quite influential but as
far as the radical left went it was not the most radical idea
in the world and after he left university he began more and more to
associate with working class radicals and quickly became more
acquainted with the various trends and the various
organisations that were out there . he eventually in 1918
made a speech well by 1918 he was identifying with the IWW .
the organisation itself didn’t exist or it had been smashed and
Guido was involved in something called the anti conscription army
which was essentially an attempt to recreate the
IWW under a different name and early 1918 he gave a
speech on the Yarra bank where he basically said that he
opposed the war , he thought that the real enemy was the ruling
class of both sides and along these lines and he was dragged
off and he was charged with prejudicing recruiting and
a number of other charges, again this was something of a
scandal not so much because of what he said but because
of who he was. It was absolutely unparalleled for someone from a
respectable family and so well educated to hold these sorts
of views and not only to hold them but to say them like
this
Episode I
Melbourne University 1906-1914
Terry Costello
Guido Barrachi was born in 1887 and died in 1975. The life of
and Times of Guido Barrachi is the subject of a fascinating book
written by Jeff Sparrow in 2007 titled Communism A Love Story which
is published by Melbourne University Press. Communism A Love Story
gives an authentic account of left wing politics in Melbourne &
beyond. Guido Barrachi’s radical curriculum vitae or resume is
truly remarkable which starts from Guido Barrachi’s days as a
student Activist when he first attended Melbourne University in
1906, being a part of the anti conscription movement in World
War I which defeated the two conscription referendums held at
that time. Guido was a founding member of the Victorian Labor
College when it was formed in 1917 and performed valuable work for
this organisation as an educator. Guido was a member of the
Industrial Workers of the World and the Victorian Socialist party
during World War I and in the immediate period following World War
I. Guido was a founding member of the Communist Party of Australia
when it was formed in 1920. The cover of the book Communism A Love
Affair also says that Guido worked as a ‘professional revolutionary
in Weimar Germany in the early 1920’s when revolution was a
distinct possibility due to the presence of the Communist Party of
Germany or KPD as it was also known. Guido also visited the Soviet
Union in the 1930’s during the third period as it was known which
was typified by mass starvation and purges in Stalinist Russia.
Guido joined the Friends Of The Soviet Union when it was formed in
1930 and he like many other progressive people at the time was an
apologist for Stalinist Russia despite the monstrous crimes that
were committed by the Stalin regime whose place in history
can only be described as the the gravedigger of the 1917 Russian
Revolution. Initially Guido was a supporter of the Soviet show
trials of the 1930’s and he re-joined the Communist Party which
sadly was run along similar lines to Stalin’s regime in Russia in
the mid 1930’s only to be expelled in the early 1940’s. In the
1940’s Guido became a critic of Stalinism and the Communist Party
of Australia and became a Trotskyist through to the cold war period
of the 1950s & 1960s. Guido witnessed the emergence of a new
period of radicalism which was fanned by opposition to the Vietnam
War in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s up until his death in 1975.
The cover of the book Communism a Love Story says that ‘Long after
many more orthodox radicals gave up the struggle Guido continued to
fight.’ The story of Guido Barrachi and his life and times is truly
remarkable and in the coming episodes of Class Actions we will be
celebrating Guido’s radical activism as well as attempting to draw
some conclusions about the operations of some of the organisations
he was involved with that perhaps might be relevant to exploring
how current activist organisations on the left today can maximise
the amount of positive change they can bring about in the
21st century.
The author of Communism A love Story Jeff Sparrow kindly agreed
to be interviewed for Class Actions concerning the content of his
book. Jeff Sparrow’s book Communism A Love Story freely
quotes Guido Barrachi and the key women in his life from archival
sources and a selection of these quotes will be read during our
coverage of the book by Chris Ryan who has recorded the quotes of
Guido Barrachi and by Sharon Carr who has recorded quotations from
the women in Guido Barrachi’s life that are also featured in the
book.
Guido’s life and times consisted of many tumultuous events which
shook the world to its core such as the Russian Revolution, the
failed revolution in Germany, Stalinist purges and mass starvation
in Stalinist Russia, Two World Wars, The Great Depression and the
Vietnam War and the opposition to it. Some aspects of the
environment in which socialist and socialist organisations operate
today, were and still are influenced by events that occurred during
Guido’s lifetime. From reading Communism A Love Story
and looking at how progressive groups operated in the first half of
the twentieth century in Guido Barrachi’s heyday and in
current times there are many similarities, in terms of strengths,
weaknesses and the ability of progressive forces in society to be
able to effectively struggle and prevail over the forces of
reaction.
We will also be exploring topics such as Stalinism which until
recent times was a taboo topic in many progressive circles. All
this and more will be discussed in the next few issues of Class
Actions so stick around today and in the coming episodes
Jeff Sparrow the author of Communism A Love Story describes
Guido Barrachi’s background and then discusses the trials and
tribulations of Guido’s political activism at Melbourne university
and Trinity college which is a part of Melbourne University.
Jeff Sparrow
Guido’s own background was interesting like that his father was
from Italy and emigrated to Australia in the 1860’s – 1870’s and
one of the things that we often forget is we’re used to a sort of
prejudice against Italians in the 20th century but when
Pietro, Guido’s father came out to Australia Italy was in fact seen
as at that time as this zenith of European sophistication and
cosmopolitanism and so on and in fact Pietro very quickly became
known as this suave sophisticated man about town. He was the
governor’s astronomer a very prestigious position and all the rest
of it but at the same time he was Italian and Guido’s mother Kate
Petty was from an Irish family and again she never suffered
discrimination because her family were incredibly wealthy but
in the very different climate prevailing in Australia after
about 1900 where there was an increasing militarisation
increasing pro empire pro empire patriotism put Guido’s
background of Italian father and Irish mother and both
of whom were Catholic or at least from a Catholic background,
even if they weren’t believers made him an object of some suspicion
and so when he later got into trouble at university and was
protesting against the first world war well there were a lot
of people thought well what would you expect from someone
like that with a name like Barrachi , a foreign name
from an Italian father and an Irish mother you wouldn’t
expect him to be loyal to Britain so. I don’t know that he ever
suffered from racism. He sort of did suffer from racism. Whenever
he was being arrested or being persecuted throughout his life the
question of his nationality would always come up but his relatively
privileged background shielded him from that to some extent but I
think there was a degree to which his own background made him
perhaps sensitive to the fate of the underdog in a way that other
people from his class background wouldn’t have been
Terry Costello
And to go to his university years. Your book talks alot about a
guy called Dr Leeper who ran Trinity College. Can you describe what
Dr Leeper was like and whether or not he was typical of the people
running universities at the time. Apparently it wasn’t only left
wing people like Guido who had to suffer this person’s wrath even
people in the Labor party anyone who was slightly progressive was.
Apparently this person was a bit of a gatekeeper.
Jeff Sparrow
You have to remember that universities for most of the
20th century were tremendously conservative places.
Again we tend to think back to the period after the 1960’s and
think of the university as associated with student radicalism and
demonstrations and so on and so forth but throughout most of modern
Australian history that hasn’t been the case at all and Trinity
College were particularly conservative. It was an elite college at
an elite university and Alexander Leeper was an Ulster Unionist so
very anti Catholic incredibly conservative saw himself as a
guardian of loyalty to the British Empire and so on and so forth.
He played a nasty role in the early years of the First World
War for instance he was one of the people who would inform on
lecturers who were seen not to be sufficiently loyal. In fact he
played a role in getting one of the German lecturers sacked from
the university. Prior to that he also made a scandal about one of
the music lecturers who was seen to be irreligious and so on. So he
was tremendously conservative. A religious bigot and a tremendously
socially conservative as well. But that being said I suspect he was
fairly typical of the people who were involved in running
universities not just in Melbourne but throughout Australia and
probably throughout the world at that time and that’s part of what
made Guido’s story so unusual and in the sense that it was so rarer
for someone to become a radical at a place like the University of
Melbourne at that time.
Terry Costello
In 1913 Guido was the co editor of the Trinity College Magazine
Fleur de Lys and in the very first issue he criticised the decision
of the Warden of Trinity College Dr Alexander Leeper that boarders
had to attend chapel or pay a fine
Guido Quote from Page 34 of Communism A Love Story
‘I plead for freedom, Freedom to go to chapel when we want to
go.. In spite of all you do we reverence what, where and when we
choose’
Terry Costello
In the second issue of Fleur De Lys in 1913 Guido Barrachi ‘took
up the call for a student representative to sit upon the College
Council’
Guido Quote from Page 34 of Communism A Love Story
‘Surely we are entitled to some say in the ultimate
management of our affairs ‘
Terry Costello
Guido Barrachi was opposed to Australia’s involvement in World
War 1 and he expressed this view whilst he was a student at
Melbourne University. Most of the Staff of Melbourne University
including trinity College’s Dr Leeper were outspoken in their
support of Australia’s involvement in World War I. Guido raised the
ire of Melbourne University Staff and some reactionary militaristic
students when he wrote an article for the May 1917 issue of
Melbourne University Magazine titled Australian National Guilds in
which he was very critical of Australia’s involvement in World War
I.
Guido Quote from Page 52 of Communism A Love Story
‘The war whatever the jingoes and junkers tell us is
primarily not our affair, essentially it is a European war, fought
by the allies against Germany to maintain the balance of European
power and Australia is not Europe. This is the true explanation of
our recruiting figures, the exact index of Australia’s war
interest. Nevertheless, through a connection with the British
Empire , on the whole rather tragic, the Commonwealth is
deeply involved in the European cataclysm , and the event is
for us, as for the rest of the world , well-nigh as significant as
the fall of Lucifer.’
Terry Costello
These comments landed Guido in hot water with the professorial
Board which passed a motion on June 11 1917 demanding that Guido
Barrachi ‘explain his recent disloyal statements and to show cause
why he should not be dealt with’ After hearing from Guido the
professors censured Guido and gave him a warning as well as stating
that ‘further misconduct would lead to expulsion’. The ‘further
misconduct’ came one month later in July 1917 when Guido wrote a
letter to the Argus newspaper in which he criticised the pro war
Melbourne university professors who whilst voicing support for
World War I did not demonstrate their support by joining the army
to fight on the front line. Guido enraged the Melbourne University
professors and conservative militaristic students at Melbourne
university as well as the then Prime Minister Billy Hughes and
fellow Melbourne University student one Robert Gordon Menzies.
Guido’s letter summed up the contribution of the Melbourne
University professors to the war effort. In this letter Guido
wrote
Guido Quote from Page 52 of Communism A Love Story
‘when of those who talk and write so heroically
about it , the young men decide to present themselves at recruiting
depots and the old men undertake some useful war work such as
knitting socks’
Interview with Jeff Sparrow Author of Communism A Love Story
Terry Costello
While Guido was there he was subjected to disciplinary
proceedings and apparently these disciplinary proceedings even
attracted interest from the Argus newspaper from the then Prime
Minister It might have been Billy Hughes and a future Prime
Minister Robert Menzies who was studying there. What were the
charges and what was the outcome and did Guido get a fair
hearing?
Jeff Sparrow
It was all essentially related to the role of the university at
that stage which was very much about an institution that
existed to train the next generation of respectable
society and Guido was there at the point at the very first
kind of political fermentation was taking place. He was in a
discussion group called the Historical Society that would
argue about topical questions of the day and he was
also involved in the Melbourne university Magazine the very
first attempt to set up some sort of student
publication and throughout 1916 and 1917 he was
increasingly becoming the centre of this small but quite
influential community of dissenting students . It
included students who were interested in socialism although
that was defined very vaguely , most of them didn’t have much idea
about what socialism actually was but they were interested in
ideas like Fabianism, the Labor party and so but
also a small minority of Irish Catholics students who saw
themselves on the outer because of their religion and because
of their own suspicion about the war and the reasons
why it was being fought and the catalyst for Guido’s
subsequent departure from the university was essentially an
article that he wrote for the Melbourne University
Magazine where he essentially said that the war was none of
Australia’s business and that Australia shouldn’t be involved
and this became a cause celebre after some of the newspapers
picked it up and it was seen as particularly scandalous
not only because of what Guido said but because of who he was
because he was a respectable wealthy young man. His father was very
famous and the name Barrachi was very well known and to
have someone whose background saying something like this was
utterly scandalous and the Argus a conservative
newspaper of the day very similar to the Australian newspaper
today essentially incited the loyal students to do
something about this and the long and the short of it
was that there was a demonstration of right wing
students that threw Guido into the university pond to the great
delight of the respectable newspapers of the time and this was
widely reported and it was seen it was understood as such by
most of the other radical students as being a warning . Even though
the newspapers tried to make out that it was all in good fun the
radical students of the time clearly got the signal this is what
happens to you if you stepped out of line
Terry Costello
Where any attempts made to support Barrachi’s right to
express his opinion in this matter and I was going to say
after all aren’t universities places of free expression and
academic freedom obviously they weren’t at that time but were there
any attempts to support Guido
Jeff Sparrow
He did have some support. That was partly what the whole
incident was all about was the fact that the meetings of the
Historical society were holding and the articles that they
were that people like Guido and people who were associated
with him were publishing in the Melbourne university magazine were
getting a readership and partly the whole point of this
exercise was to smash what was seen as this growing
disloyalty but in the aftermath of the dunking and everything
that was associated with it most of that support at the university
disappeared but it was also coupled with a growing sense of by
Guido and the like minded students that the real action was
happening not at the university but in the campaign against
the war , the campaign against conscription and the growing
radicalisation outside the university so Guido at that point
left the university partly because of this incident but also
because of the sense that the real struggles were happening
somewhere else
Terry Costello
You have already touched on this picture of Melbourne around
World War 1 of having this militaristic culture. Why was this so
prominent and are the reasons for its prominence similar to those
behind the resurgence of Anzac Day in modern times
Jeff Sparrow
Why was it so prominent? I think that you can date the growing
militarisation of Australian society from probably from about the
Boer war and so from about say 1900 it was widely perceived that
there was going to be a war. The war was coming and Australia
needed to be prepared for in fact the British Empire needed to be
prepared for it was a responsibility to produce a generation of
young men who would go and fight and this also coupled an
increasing suspicion of the Asian countries and the Asian
immigrants in Australia an increasing intolerance towards other
religions and so on and of course the outbreak of the war itself
clearly fanned this sentiment to quite an extreme degree. Again it
is often forgotten the hysterical early days of the war. There was
a tremendous movement to change street names all around Australia
that were seen to be Germanic. So wherever you live in Melbourne
today if you live in a Britannia street or a Victoria
Street there is a pretty good chance that prior to
1914 it might have been a Wilhelm Street or a
Kaiser street, so all that sort of stuff is a little
bit familiar . you remember in the early days after 9/11 in the
lead up to the Iraq war that the white house was changing its
French fries to freedom fries. All this stuff happened in the first
world war. Sauerkraut was labelled Liberty Cabbage all that sort of
stuff and in that sense yes it is the same sorts of forces that we
saw after 9/11 when our society is gearing itself up for a war like
this I think it does play out in a similar kind of way.
Terry Costello
Today we have been exploring some of the content of Jeff
Sparrow’s Book Communism a Love Affair which covers the life and
times of Guido Barrachi who was conferred the title of ‘Melbourne’s
Lenin’ by The Sun newspaper which presumably was as anti worker as
its successor the Herald Sun is today. Guido honed his skills as a
writer and editor on the many University publications that he was
involved in producing. This experience stood him in good stead for
his involvement in left wing organisations and struggles that Guido
was actively involved in over the next half century.
One of the first struggles Guido threw himself into were the
anti conscription referendums. I asked Jeff Sparrow the author of
Communism a Love Affair to sum up Guido’s involvement in these
campaigns as well as the significance of the defeat of Prime
Minister Billy Hughes conscription referendum proposal not once but
twice in a very pro war and militaristic environment.
Interview with Jeff Sparrow Author of Communism A Love Story
Terry Costello
And around the time there was a second anti conscription
referendum. How was Guido involved in that
campaign?
Jeff Sparrow
He was very heavily involved in the second anti conscription
referendum he was touring through country regions giving speeches
about why people should vote no. He went down to Geelong he gave
some speeches there. He was not only attending but helping to
organise, he later described it as one of the most tumultuous
experiences of his life and it really was because they didn’t
expect to win basically. the left thought that they very narrowly
won the first anti conscription well the no case had won the
first referendum in 1916 , they really didn’t expect to win
the second one and it was an absolutely astonishing result when
they in fact managed to defeat it and again you have to see
it in a context of everything else that was taking
place the strike wave, the riots and most of all the
Russian Revolution and the tremendous new ideas that were coming
out of this new society that that was being created in
the Soviet union so for someone like Guido it seemed like
there were both these new ideas but there was that practice
that seemed to be showing that people were being radicalised
that the impossible could suddenly seem possible and so for him and
for many other people it was an absolutely life changing
experience
Terry Costello
During and immediately after World War I there was a cavalcade
of left wing groups operating in Melbourne, perhaps as many that
operate in Melbourne in the twenty first century. This no doubt was
confusing to all except for the activists in these groups and the
secret police who monitored the activities of these groups. One of
Guido Barrachi’s closest friends Nettie Palmer relates a
conversation she had with Guido’s father Pietro Barrachi who
questioned her about Guido’s involvement with various societies
& movements.
Nettie Palmer Quote from Page 61 of Communism A Love
Story
‘Mr Barrachi senior questioned me about all possible
societies & movements as we were going back to town. You’d have
chuckled at my succinct replies.”What is the Socialist party?”,
“The Labor College?”,”The IWW?” and women’s movement too. I hadn’t
time to wonder if he was at all pulling my leg or what he would
prefer me to reply. He’s an old dear, anyhow. Says that on every
occasion, Guido has beaten him in argument and been
right
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