Better Dead than Red? After surviving a very real war against Germany and Japan, Australians were pitted against an equally formidable enemy – a Communist menace that they could sense but could not see – in a conflict that became known as the Cold War. Exactly how real this threat was is for you to decide during this week. The Cold War had very real casualties in Australia; none less than the Labor Party. The inability of the Labor Government to preserve an independent distance from Communists contributed to its loss in the 1949 election and contributed to electoral defeats throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Civil liberties, creative and political freedoms were other casualties, as Australians were forced to censor their creative ideas and political attitudes for fear of being labelled a communist or a communist sympathiser, which could led to the loss of one's job or commission, or the denial of future opportunities. The Cold War also forced Australia to strengthen its military and economic alliances with the United States and Britain, in order to secure protection should it ever come under Communist attack. Among the dues Australia paid to secure these alliances was to allow the British to begin a program of atomic weapons testing on Australian soil, and to commit Australian troops, some of them conscripted, to wars being waged by the Americans in Korea and Vietnam. Focus Questions: 1. How real was the threat of communism in Australia? 2. How did the fight against communism affect Australia's relationship with the United States and the rest of the world? 3. What role did Australian communism play in the Labor Split, and the fortunes of the Labor Party in federal elections after World War Two? 4. Why were alternative political ideas believed to be so dangerous in the 1950s? How did Australians respond to them? 5. How did the Cold War and the atomic bomb affect Australian life? 6. Which writers and intellectuals were Australia's most prominent Cold War warriors? How did their political views shape their vision of Australia's past and future? THESE 6 POINTS HAVE TO BE ANSWERED Essential Reading: B.A. Santamaria, 'Peace or War?: The Global Strategy of World Communism', public address at the Civic Theatre, Albury (NSW), 15 April 1958. 958. 'Smash Communism's Fifth Column with a Yes Vote on September 22', NSW Liberal Party leaflet [1951], in R.W. Connell and T.H. Irving, Class Structure in Australian History: Documents, Narrative and Argument, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1980, pp.340-1. Frank Cain and Frank Farrell, 'Menzies' War on the Communist Party, 1949-1951', in Ann Curthoys and John Merritt (eds), Australia's First Cold War 1945-1953, vol.1, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992, pp.109-34. Also see other essays in this volume. Robert Manne, 'The Petrov Affair and the Election of May 1954', in Manne, In the Shadow of 1917: Cold War Conflict in Australia, Melbourne: Text Publishing, 1994, pp.93-123. Web Resources: The Petrov Affair (Old Parliament House exhibition website) http://www.oph.gov.au/petrov/ Discovering Democracy: Movements against Communism 1951–54 http://www.civicsandcitizenship.edu.au/cce/default.asp?id=9571 This website contains information concerning the actions and policies of the Menzies Government in the early 1950s in relation to the perceived threat of communism. It deals with the movement to outlaw the Communist Party and the resulting split in the Labor Party. Also contains links to downloadable sections of Australia's Democracy: A Short History by John Hirst, which deal with the communist threat and the Labor Split.