Eric Aarons
Encyclopedia
Eric Aarons is a member of the third of four generations of the Aarons family who played leading roles in the Communist Party of Australia
(CPA). Although never a mass party like those in Italy
, France
or Indonesia
, the CPA played many important roles in Australian political life, most notably in the Labour Movement – in which it had significant influence across a wide spectrum of trade unions – and in many social movements, anti-war and peace organisations and anti-racist activities.
Aarons played an important role in the party’s work from the mid-1940s to the winding up of the party in the early 1990s. He rose to be in charge of party education, to be a leading theorist and author, a powerful advocate for de-Stalinisation of the CPA and was one of three people who jointly replaced his older brother, Laurie Aarons
, as CPA National Secretary in 1976.
, Aarons moved with his parents and older brother, Laurie, to Melbourne
as a young boy. Here he became close to his grandparents, Jane and Louis Aarons, Jewish immigrants from the United States and Britain who had earlier been active in both the Australian Labor Party
(ALP) and the far more radical Victorian Socialist Party
.
When the CPA was formed in 1920 – inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917 – Jane and Louis became foundation members in Melbourne and were among the early Australian communists to visit the Soviet Union
. Aarons' father, Sam, joined the CPA and became a prominent figure in the party’s local activities and in the mid-1930s travelled to Spain
to volunteer for the International Brigade formed to assist the Spanish Republic
resist Francisco Franco
's ultimately successful uprising against the elected Popular Front Government.
After finishing school in Melbourne, Eric Aarons moved back to Sydney in the mid-1930s and worked for a couple of years in his father’s boot repair business before studying at Sydney University. There he obtained a First Class Honours Bachelor of Science degree specialising in chemistry. During this period he joined the CPA and became active in student politics and anti-fascist, anti-war and peace causes.
In 1947 he was sent to Wollongong, as secretary of the CPA’s South Coast District. In the early 1950s the Communist Party of China
(CPC) invited the CPA to send a delegation to China to study for several years in Peking (now Beijing
). The idea was for Australian communists to familiarise themselves with Chinese communist theoretical ideas and to study the practical conditions that had led to the victory of Mao Zedong
’s revolution in 1949 so that those experiences could help to develop an Australian path to communist revolution.
The CPA leadership chose Aarons to lead this delegation so that he would return to Australia with fresh ideas for new training and education methods and courses that would be relevant to local conditions. He spent three years studying in China and upon his return he developed a fundamentally different approach to party education that was only partially implemented, due to resistance from older members of the CPA leadership.
His experiences in China led to further CPA groups studying in China, most notably an 18 months school led by his brother a few years later. At this time, the CPA leadership was attracted to Mao’s political ideas and the apparent freshness and vigour of the “New China”. CPA leaders also saw themselves as closely relating to other Asian communist parties within the wider International Communist Movement
. In this, Australian communists were well ahead of other Australian political parties and the Eurocentric Soviet-led communist movement in recognising the growing importance of Asia in world affairs.
In 1959 Aarons was sent by the CPA to be secretary of the Newcastle
District, a highly working class industrial and mining town 150 kilometres north of Sydney. During this period he not only was closely engaged in trade union and community organising activities but also began to review the history of communism, both internationally and domestically, to try to come to terms with the re-appraisals that were taking place in Moscow
and apply those lessons to the Australian experience.
Nikita Khrushchev
’s denunciation of Stalin at the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s (CPSU) 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, followed shortly after by the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
which aimed for an independent and more democratic kind of socialism, had thrown the CPA into chaos, as these events did within most Western communist parties.
In response to these and other events, the two Aarons brothers, together with a wider group of younger communist leaders (including John Sendy, Bernie Taft, Rex Mortimer
, Alec and Mavis Robertson, among others) slowly evolved towards an anti-authoritarian version of socialism
. Ironically, in light of the long years the Aarons brothers, Sendy and Taft had spent in China, the first major catalyst for this new direction was the Sino-Soviet dispute which began to openly emerge in the late 1950s.
By the early 1960s it had become clear that the division between Moscow and Beijing was centrally about Khrushchev’s inconsistent but nevertheless radical departure from Stalin’s political course, including his denunciation of Stalin’s crimes against humanity, catastrophic economic policies and destructive international policy which placed Soviet national interests, as Stalin saw them, first and foremost. Mao was equally determined to reaffirm Stalinism
and apply its methods in China, together with an extreme left position internationally which downplayed the dangers and horrors of nuclear war and urged “revolutionary” action irrespective of the realities in specific countries.
The older CPA leadership endorsed the direction adopted at the 1960 meeting of the International Communist Movement which overwhelmingly rejected Mao’s position and that of his few supporters such as Enver Hoxha
’s Albania
. When Mao launched an international offensive to split communist parties around the world a small group of pro-Chinese CPA members emerged around Melbourne leader, Ted Hill. The younger group of CPA leaders, of which Aarons was a leading member, rallied CPA members against a return to Stalinist methods, as advocated by Hill and his small group of supporters.
Aarons then played a major role in helping to develop new theoretical frameworks to try and make the CPA more relevant in the rapidly changing world of the 1960s, especially looking at the impact on modern capitalism of the explosion of scientific and technological advances. This work coincided with his being elected to the post of CPA National Secretary in 1965 and at this time Aarons also became a key member of the CPA national leadership as the younger generation assumed power from the generation that had run the CPA since the onset of the Great Depression
in 1929.
Aarons and the other members of the new national leadership became acutely aware from the mid-1960s onwards that both Chinese and Soviet authoritarian methods were highly damaging to the cause of communism in advanced democratic countries such as Australia. This realisation soon brought them into sharp conflict with the CPSU, especially as Khrushchev’s successor, Leonid Brezhnev
, embarked on a new clampdown at this time that quickly undid the gains of Khrushchev’s period of liberalisation.
The first open breach between the Australian and Soviet communist parties came in 1965 over the question of official repression of Soviet Jewry and the gaoling of two dissident writers, Yuli Daniel
and Andrei Sinyavsky
, and which the CPA leadership publicly criticised. The CPA’s wider new direction also soon caused tensions with the Soviet leadership and conservative elements within the CPA, especially the development of a Charter of Democratic Rights which clearly advocated a style of socialism at odds with Soviet methods.
Unsurprisingly, Aarons and other members of the new leadership warmly embraced Alexander Dubcek
’s Prague Spring
policies in Czechoslovakia
launched in January 1968, which advocated the freeing up of Czech political, social and economic systems and the development of a national road to socialism – “socialism with a human face”. As the stand-off between the CPSU and the new Czech leadership developed into a crisis in mid-1968, Aarons was given the task of making a deep study of Czech developments and writing detailed analyses of the claims and counter-claims between Dubcek and the Czechoslovak communists, and Leonid Brezhnev
and his supporters among the neo-Stalinist regimes in East Germany, Hungary
, Bulgaria
and elsewhere.
The Warsaw Pact
invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 deeply shocked Aarons and the other CPA leaders who had hoped that Dubcek’s new path would reinvigorate the communist cause, especially in Australia. The CPA became the first of several Western communist parties to unequivocally condemn the Soviet’s crushing of the Prague Spring and to call for the withdrawal of the occupying forces, a stand later reiterated by Laurie Aarons at the 1969 International Communist Movement meeting in Moscow.
This led not only to a rapid and sharp deterioration of the CPA’s relations with the CPSU but to a deep split among the CPA’s membership. The flames of this split were fanned by covert actions on the part of the CPSU to support the pro-Moscow group which now attempted to reverse the policy changes which the new leaders, including Eric, had begun in the mid-1960s.
The split developed into a bitter affair, with people who had been close friends and comrades divided over whether to embrace a new way forward or to stick with the Soviet road. Lifelong friendships were irrevocably destroyed as both sides launched a huge organising effort in preparing for the CPA’s 22nd Congress in 1970, at which the membership overwhelmingly endorsed the positions taken by Aarons and the other leaders.
In this dispute Aarons played not only a significant part in organising among the CPA membership, but also in developing and propounding the ideological basis for the CPA’s new policies and helping to write key documents for the Congress. Although the Congress vote was decisive on key issues, such as endorsing the stand taken over the Czech invasion and adopting a new, democratic course in building socialism in Australia, the CPA was bitterly divided and the following year a new pro-Soviet party (the Socialist Party of Australia) was established with Moscow
’s open support and covert financial backing and around one-third of the CPA membership either left to join it or dropped out of political activities altogether.
During these turbulent events Aarons left full-time employment with the CPA and took up teaching in the public school system. He had also taken up sculpting in the mid-1960s and was soon acclaimed as a gifted artist of both wood and stone sculptures. In 1972 he found the time to read and study philosophical developments and trends and that year saw not only his first major sculpture exhibition but the publication of his book Philosophy for an Exploding World: Today’s Values Revolution. In this work, Aarons attempted to look at social thought outside the narrow, dogmatic Marxist framework, point the way forward for socialist thinking in the modern world and extend the new thinking that had underpinned the CPA’s development over the previous decade.
In 1974 Aarons returned to full-time work for the CPA as Editor (later Coordinator) of the CPA’s weekly paper, Tribune, following the tragic early death of the then editor, Alec Robertson. Two years later Aarons became one of three Joint National Secretaries who worked collectively. This came about as a result of a major reform initiated by the CPA leadership which required that key posts, such as the National Secretary, could not be held by the same person for more than six years. As a consequence, his brother Laurie stepped down from that post at the CPA’s 25th Congress in 1976.
Despite all the efforts that had gone into reinvigorating and renewing the CPA, its membership and influence continued to decline. The major splits with the pro-Chinese and pro-Soviet groups had seen many talented people (especially trade union leaders) depart either in frustration or into the splinter parties. From its height during the Second World War of a claimed 23,000 members, the CPA had shrunk to around 3,000 members in the mid-1970s, although it still exerted considerable influence in the trade unions, on the left-wing of the ALP and in new movements such as Feminist movement, Gay Liberation
and the environment movement.
During the 1970s a further deep division emerged between most of the Sydney-based leaders (including the Aarons brothers) and those in Melbourne grouped around Bernie Taft and John Sendy, who advocated a much more moderate policy towards the Soviet Union
and the Warsaw Pact
countries as well as a less antagonistic attitude towards “reformism” and the ALP. Although this division did not result in a split during the six years that Eric Aarons was joint CPA National Secretary, the Taft-led group eventually left the party in 1984 and led a large proportion of the Melbourne membership into the ALP.
The CPA eventually was wound up in 1991 when it became clear that the party could no longer continue to function due to both the collapse of communism as an idea and the shrinking of its membership and influence.
Over the last 25 years Aarons has lived in the bush to the south-west of Sydney on the site of the CPA’s education facility that he did so much to build up and turn into a vibrant centre for reading, debating and discussing revolutionary theories and practice. Here he has held major exhibitions of the sculptures he has created in his bush home and read widely about political developments, philosophical trends and more recently about economic theories.
This study of right-wing philosophy and activism led him to a deep study of the ideas and influence of the free market economist, Friedrich Hayek
, whose ideas have influenced not only modern neo-liberal thinkers but to one extent or another have been put into practice around the world over the past 30 years. This resulted to the publication of Market Versus Nature: The Social Philosophy of Friedrich Hayek (2008), in which the operation of unfettered free markets is analysed and the problem of market failures addressed, especially as it relates to the destruction of the environment and global warming.
Aarons continues to think deeply and write about modern politics and ideas. In 2008 he completed writing Hayek versus Marx and Today’s Challenges, which compares the philosophies, ideas and influence of Friedrich Hayek
and Karl Marx
and questions whether they are relevant to future global challenges. His final conclusion on the Marxist dream is that the socialist project was flawed because the society envisaged was not feasible, although the movements it inspired engaged in many important campaigns and won important social reforms. He does not regret his own role as a leading Marxist theorist and activist in the CPA.
Communist Party of Australia
The Communist Party of Australia was founded in 1920 and dissolved in 1991; it was succeeded by the Socialist Party of Australia, which then renamed itself, becoming the current Communist Party of Australia. The CPA achieved its greatest political strength in the 1940s and faced an attempted...
(CPA). Although never a mass party like those in Italy
Communist Party of Italy
The Communist Party of Italy was a communist political party in Italy which existed from 1921 to 1926. That year it was outlawed by Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. In 1943, the name was changed to the Italian Communist Party.-Foundation:The forerunner of the party was the Communist Faction...
, France
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
or Indonesia
Communist Party of Indonesia
The Communist Party of Indonesia was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world prior to being crushed in 1965 and banned the following year.-Forerunners:...
, the CPA played many important roles in Australian political life, most notably in the Labour Movement – in which it had significant influence across a wide spectrum of trade unions – and in many social movements, anti-war and peace organisations and anti-racist activities.
Aarons played an important role in the party’s work from the mid-1940s to the winding up of the party in the early 1990s. He rose to be in charge of party education, to be a leading theorist and author, a powerful advocate for de-Stalinisation of the CPA and was one of three people who jointly replaced his older brother, Laurie Aarons
Laurie Aarons
Laurence "Laurie" Aarons , Australian Communist leader, was National Secretary of the Communist Party of Australia from 1965 to 1976. He was born in Sydney, son of Sam Aarons, a leading member of the Communist Party and a veteran of the Spanish Civil War. The Aarons family was of German-Jewish...
, as CPA National Secretary in 1976.
Early life
Born in Marrickville in inner-city SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Aarons moved with his parents and older brother, Laurie, to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
as a young boy. Here he became close to his grandparents, Jane and Louis Aarons, Jewish immigrants from the United States and Britain who had earlier been active in both the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
(ALP) and the far more radical Victorian Socialist Party
Victorian Socialist Party
The Victorian Socialist Party was a socialist political party in Victoria, Australia in the early 20th century. The VSP was founded in 1906 in Melbourne, bringing together a number of older socialist groupings. A leading influence in the VSP's formation was the British trade unionist Tom Mann, who...
.
When the CPA was formed in 1920 – inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917 – Jane and Louis became foundation members in Melbourne and were among the early Australian communists to visit the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Aarons' father, Sam, joined the CPA and became a prominent figure in the party’s local activities and in the mid-1930s travelled to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
to volunteer for the International Brigade formed to assist the Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
resist Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's ultimately successful uprising against the elected Popular Front Government.
After finishing school in Melbourne, Eric Aarons moved back to Sydney in the mid-1930s and worked for a couple of years in his father’s boot repair business before studying at Sydney University. There he obtained a First Class Honours Bachelor of Science degree specialising in chemistry. During this period he joined the CPA and became active in student politics and anti-fascist, anti-war and peace causes.
Political Activism
During the Second World War Aarons worked in key war industries using his scientific expertise for the war effort, but also was active in organising communist industrial branches. After the war he took up work for the CPA as an educator, organising Marxist study courses that aimed to provide working class activists with theoretical frameworks that would help them develop and implement correct communist practice for Australian conditions.In 1947 he was sent to Wollongong, as secretary of the CPA’s South Coast District. In the early 1950s the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
(CPC) invited the CPA to send a delegation to China to study for several years in Peking (now Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
). The idea was for Australian communists to familiarise themselves with Chinese communist theoretical ideas and to study the practical conditions that had led to the victory of Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
’s revolution in 1949 so that those experiences could help to develop an Australian path to communist revolution.
The CPA leadership chose Aarons to lead this delegation so that he would return to Australia with fresh ideas for new training and education methods and courses that would be relevant to local conditions. He spent three years studying in China and upon his return he developed a fundamentally different approach to party education that was only partially implemented, due to resistance from older members of the CPA leadership.
His experiences in China led to further CPA groups studying in China, most notably an 18 months school led by his brother a few years later. At this time, the CPA leadership was attracted to Mao’s political ideas and the apparent freshness and vigour of the “New China”. CPA leaders also saw themselves as closely relating to other Asian communist parties within the wider International Communist Movement
History of communism
The history of the political ideology of communism hypothetically stretches all the way from the Palaeolithic up until the present day. However, most modern forms of communism are based upon Marxism, a variant of the ideology formed by the sociologist Karl Marx in the 1840s...
. In this, Australian communists were well ahead of other Australian political parties and the Eurocentric Soviet-led communist movement in recognising the growing importance of Asia in world affairs.
In 1959 Aarons was sent by the CPA to be secretary of the Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
District, a highly working class industrial and mining town 150 kilometres north of Sydney. During this period he not only was closely engaged in trade union and community organising activities but also began to review the history of communism, both internationally and domestically, to try to come to terms with the re-appraisals that were taking place in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and apply those lessons to the Australian experience.
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
’s denunciation of Stalin at the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s (CPSU) 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, followed shortly after by the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Hungarian Revolution
Hungarian Revolution may refer to:* The Hungarian Revolution of 1848.* The Hungarian Revolution of 1919, which led to the formation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic headed by Béla Kun.* The Hungarian Revolution of 1956....
which aimed for an independent and more democratic kind of socialism, had thrown the CPA into chaos, as these events did within most Western communist parties.
In response to these and other events, the two Aarons brothers, together with a wider group of younger communist leaders (including John Sendy, Bernie Taft, Rex Mortimer
Rex Mortimer
Rex Alfred Mortimer was an Australian academic and expert on communism.Mortimer attended Melbourne High School and received a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Melbourne in 1947. He became a member of the Communist Party of Australia at the university and remained active until 1969...
, Alec and Mavis Robertson, among others) slowly evolved towards an anti-authoritarian version of socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. Ironically, in light of the long years the Aarons brothers, Sendy and Taft had spent in China, the first major catalyst for this new direction was the Sino-Soviet dispute which began to openly emerge in the late 1950s.
By the early 1960s it had become clear that the division between Moscow and Beijing was centrally about Khrushchev’s inconsistent but nevertheless radical departure from Stalin’s political course, including his denunciation of Stalin’s crimes against humanity, catastrophic economic policies and destructive international policy which placed Soviet national interests, as Stalin saw them, first and foremost. Mao was equally determined to reaffirm Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
and apply its methods in China, together with an extreme left position internationally which downplayed the dangers and horrors of nuclear war and urged “revolutionary” action irrespective of the realities in specific countries.
The older CPA leadership endorsed the direction adopted at the 1960 meeting of the International Communist Movement which overwhelmingly rejected Mao’s position and that of his few supporters such as Enver Hoxha
Enver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary andthe leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania...
’s Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
. When Mao launched an international offensive to split communist parties around the world a small group of pro-Chinese CPA members emerged around Melbourne leader, Ted Hill. The younger group of CPA leaders, of which Aarons was a leading member, rallied CPA members against a return to Stalinist methods, as advocated by Hill and his small group of supporters.
Aarons then played a major role in helping to develop new theoretical frameworks to try and make the CPA more relevant in the rapidly changing world of the 1960s, especially looking at the impact on modern capitalism of the explosion of scientific and technological advances. This work coincided with his being elected to the post of CPA National Secretary in 1965 and at this time Aarons also became a key member of the CPA national leadership as the younger generation assumed power from the generation that had run the CPA since the onset of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
in 1929.
Aarons and the other members of the new national leadership became acutely aware from the mid-1960s onwards that both Chinese and Soviet authoritarian methods were highly damaging to the cause of communism in advanced democratic countries such as Australia. This realisation soon brought them into sharp conflict with the CPSU, especially as Khrushchev’s successor, Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
, embarked on a new clampdown at this time that quickly undid the gains of Khrushchev’s period of liberalisation.
The first open breach between the Australian and Soviet communist parties came in 1965 over the question of official repression of Soviet Jewry and the gaoling of two dissident writers, Yuli Daniel
Yuli Daniel
Yuli Markovich Daniel was a Soviet dissident writer, poet, translator and political prisoner.He frequently wrote under the pseudonyms Nikolay Arzhak and Yu. Petrov .-Early life and World War II:...
and Andrei Sinyavsky
Andrei Sinyavsky
Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky was a Russian writer, dissident, political prisoner, emigrant, Professor of Sorbonne University, magazine founder and publisher...
, and which the CPA leadership publicly criticised. The CPA’s wider new direction also soon caused tensions with the Soviet leadership and conservative elements within the CPA, especially the development of a Charter of Democratic Rights which clearly advocated a style of socialism at odds with Soviet methods.
Unsurprisingly, Aarons and other members of the new leadership warmly embraced Alexander Dubcek
Alexander Dubcek
Alexander Dubček , also known as Dikita, was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia , famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring...
’s Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
policies in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
launched in January 1968, which advocated the freeing up of Czech political, social and economic systems and the development of a national road to socialism – “socialism with a human face”. As the stand-off between the CPSU and the new Czech leadership developed into a crisis in mid-1968, Aarons was given the task of making a deep study of Czech developments and writing detailed analyses of the claims and counter-claims between Dubcek and the Czechoslovak communists, and Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
and his supporters among the neo-Stalinist regimes in East Germany, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
and elsewhere.
The Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 deeply shocked Aarons and the other CPA leaders who had hoped that Dubcek’s new path would reinvigorate the communist cause, especially in Australia. The CPA became the first of several Western communist parties to unequivocally condemn the Soviet’s crushing of the Prague Spring and to call for the withdrawal of the occupying forces, a stand later reiterated by Laurie Aarons at the 1969 International Communist Movement meeting in Moscow.
This led not only to a rapid and sharp deterioration of the CPA’s relations with the CPSU but to a deep split among the CPA’s membership. The flames of this split were fanned by covert actions on the part of the CPSU to support the pro-Moscow group which now attempted to reverse the policy changes which the new leaders, including Eric, had begun in the mid-1960s.
The split developed into a bitter affair, with people who had been close friends and comrades divided over whether to embrace a new way forward or to stick with the Soviet road. Lifelong friendships were irrevocably destroyed as both sides launched a huge organising effort in preparing for the CPA’s 22nd Congress in 1970, at which the membership overwhelmingly endorsed the positions taken by Aarons and the other leaders.
In this dispute Aarons played not only a significant part in organising among the CPA membership, but also in developing and propounding the ideological basis for the CPA’s new policies and helping to write key documents for the Congress. Although the Congress vote was decisive on key issues, such as endorsing the stand taken over the Czech invasion and adopting a new, democratic course in building socialism in Australia, the CPA was bitterly divided and the following year a new pro-Soviet party (the Socialist Party of Australia) was established with Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
’s open support and covert financial backing and around one-third of the CPA membership either left to join it or dropped out of political activities altogether.
During these turbulent events Aarons left full-time employment with the CPA and took up teaching in the public school system. He had also taken up sculpting in the mid-1960s and was soon acclaimed as a gifted artist of both wood and stone sculptures. In 1972 he found the time to read and study philosophical developments and trends and that year saw not only his first major sculpture exhibition but the publication of his book Philosophy for an Exploding World: Today’s Values Revolution. In this work, Aarons attempted to look at social thought outside the narrow, dogmatic Marxist framework, point the way forward for socialist thinking in the modern world and extend the new thinking that had underpinned the CPA’s development over the previous decade.
In 1974 Aarons returned to full-time work for the CPA as Editor (later Coordinator) of the CPA’s weekly paper, Tribune, following the tragic early death of the then editor, Alec Robertson. Two years later Aarons became one of three Joint National Secretaries who worked collectively. This came about as a result of a major reform initiated by the CPA leadership which required that key posts, such as the National Secretary, could not be held by the same person for more than six years. As a consequence, his brother Laurie stepped down from that post at the CPA’s 25th Congress in 1976.
Despite all the efforts that had gone into reinvigorating and renewing the CPA, its membership and influence continued to decline. The major splits with the pro-Chinese and pro-Soviet groups had seen many talented people (especially trade union leaders) depart either in frustration or into the splinter parties. From its height during the Second World War of a claimed 23,000 members, the CPA had shrunk to around 3,000 members in the mid-1970s, although it still exerted considerable influence in the trade unions, on the left-wing of the ALP and in new movements such as Feminist movement, Gay Liberation
Gay Liberation
Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...
and the environment movement.
During the 1970s a further deep division emerged between most of the Sydney-based leaders (including the Aarons brothers) and those in Melbourne grouped around Bernie Taft and John Sendy, who advocated a much more moderate policy towards the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
countries as well as a less antagonistic attitude towards “reformism” and the ALP. Although this division did not result in a split during the six years that Eric Aarons was joint CPA National Secretary, the Taft-led group eventually left the party in 1984 and led a large proportion of the Melbourne membership into the ALP.
The CPA eventually was wound up in 1991 when it became clear that the party could no longer continue to function due to both the collapse of communism as an idea and the shrinking of its membership and influence.
Over the last 25 years Aarons has lived in the bush to the south-west of Sydney on the site of the CPA’s education facility that he did so much to build up and turn into a vibrant centre for reading, debating and discussing revolutionary theories and practice. Here he has held major exhibitions of the sculptures he has created in his bush home and read widely about political developments, philosophical trends and more recently about economic theories.
Later life
Since the early 1990s he has published a number of important books, notably What’s Left? (1993), an account of his years of activism in the CPA, which as its title suggests, also posed some searching questions about the future of left-wing ideas and actions, and What’s Right? (2003), which analysed the development of neo-liberalism and questioned where this trend of right-wing ideas has left classical liberal thought.This study of right-wing philosophy and activism led him to a deep study of the ideas and influence of the free market economist, Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
, whose ideas have influenced not only modern neo-liberal thinkers but to one extent or another have been put into practice around the world over the past 30 years. This resulted to the publication of Market Versus Nature: The Social Philosophy of Friedrich Hayek (2008), in which the operation of unfettered free markets is analysed and the problem of market failures addressed, especially as it relates to the destruction of the environment and global warming.
Aarons continues to think deeply and write about modern politics and ideas. In 2008 he completed writing Hayek versus Marx and Today’s Challenges, which compares the philosophies, ideas and influence of Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
and Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and questions whether they are relevant to future global challenges. His final conclusion on the Marxist dream is that the socialist project was flawed because the society envisaged was not feasible, although the movements it inspired engaged in many important campaigns and won important social reforms. He does not regret his own role as a leading Marxist theorist and activist in the CPA.
Major Publications
- Hayek versus Marx and Today’s Challenges, London: Routledge (forthcoming)
- Market versus Nature: The Social Philosophy of Friedrich Hayek, Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2008
- What’s Right? Sydney: Rosenberg, 2003
- What’s Left? Memoirs of an Australian Communist, Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1993
- Philosophy For An Exploding World: Today’s Values Revolution, Sydney: Brolga Books, 1972
Pamphlets and booklets
- Lenin’s Theories on Revolution, Sydney: D.B. Young, 1970
- Let The Sun Shine In: The Energy Crisis and How to Meet It, Sydney: Red Pen Publications, 1980
- Cuba: Beacon of the Americas, (with Pete Thomas), Brisbane: Queensland Guardian, 1966
- Economics for Workers, Sydney: Current Book Distributors, 1958, 1959, 1961
- The Steel Octopus: The Story of BHP, Sydney: Current Book Distributors, 1961
External links
- Dynasties – television program on Aarons and his family history (January 2006)
- Eric Aarons on Radio National, Australia (2007)
- The Aarons family file from the Australian Broadcasting CorporationAustralian Broadcasting CorporationThe Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
radio program Hindsight (2010) - National Library of Australia - Author Entry for Eric Aarons