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    Shades of the Cold War: The role of Communist workers at the Midland Railway Workshops

    19766_downloaded_stream_284.pdf (221.7Kb)
    Access Status
    Open access
    Authors
    Oliver, Bobbie
    Date
    2005
    Type
    Conference Paper
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citation
    Oliver, Bobbie. 2005. : Shades of the Cold War: The role of Communist workers at the Midland Railway Workshops, in Patmore, G and Shields, J and Balnave, N (ed), 'The Past is Before Us'. Proceedings of the 9th National Labour History Conference, 30 June - 2 July 2006, pp. 183-190. Sydney University: Australian Society for the Study of Labour History.
    Source Title
    The Past is Before Us
    Source Conference
    'The Past is Before Us'. Proceedings of the 9th National Labour History Conference
    Faculty
    Division of Humanities
    Department of Social Sciences
    Faculty of Media, Society and Culture (MSC)
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/41117
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    Although a small minority among the 2500-strong workforce at the Midland Railway Workshops in the 1950s, the Communists were an active group, whose physical focal point was a section of the Machine Shop in Block 3, known as 'Red Square', where Jack Marks, a fitter and turner who was an active CPA member, operated a lathe.This paper argues that the activities of Marks and fellow CPA members went far beyond political proselytising and that herein lay their success as union activists. The paper explores the growth of Communism among the workforce at the Midland Workshops; the role of agitators and activists such as Marks in achieving better working conditions, their political and industrial influence upon other unionists, and the response of management. It concludes that the extent of the Communists' acceptance and popularity among their fellow workers lay in their commitment to every day issues, rather than in their ideological understanding of world events.

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