Crusade or Conspiracy? Catholics and the Anti-Communist Struggle in Australia

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Number of Pages: 528

The split in the Labor Party in the mid 1950s was the culmination of an enormous struggle for the soul of the party, waged by fair means or foul. – Locked in bitter ideological dispute were, on the one hand, a small but energetic group of Communists and their sympathisers and, on the other, anti-Communist forces led by B.A. Santamaria. – Santamaria’s role, and the activities of his semi-clandestine – organisation, the Movement, created enormous controversy within the Catholic Church. The split and its aftermath had a profound impact on the landscape of Australian politics up to the present day. – Drawing on previously unreleased documents, this is the first comprehensive account of the events leading up to the split. – Bruce Duncan interviewed many of the key players and has had access to archives not open to previous scholars working on this topic. – This is likely to be the definitive work on the Movement, just as Stuart Macintyre’s book The Reds will be the standard reference on the Communist Party of Australia. – Illustrated with black & white photographs