Comrade Ryan, International Trade Unionism and White Australia
Global Communism, Trade Unionism and Empire in Interwar India
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11944451 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kama Maclean (0000-0002-8562-5696, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1125-1152 |
| Publication date | 2019-03-04 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0308-6534 • E-ISSN: 1743-9329 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03086534.2019.1576834 |
| OpenAlex | W2919226793 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 34 |
This paper considers the parallels and disconnections between leftist thought in Australia and India at a key moment in the interwar era, as the Comintern transitioned from its Second to its Third Period, eschewing the united front with nationalist and parliamentary parties. It does this by tracing the movements of the Australian communist Jack Ryan, who visited India in 1928 representing the Pan-Pacific Trade Union (PPTU), a Comintern organisation that sought to build solidarities between workers in the Asia Pacific region. Arriving in Bombay at a critical time when leftist organisation in India was on the rise, Ryan was trailed by government intelligence organisations that monitored his activities, letters and speeches. Although the formal purpose of his visit–to affiliate Indian Trade Unions with the PPTU–failed, Ryan’s journey to India had a substantial political impact. Coinciding with the interventions of a number of other foreign communists in India, it escalated attempts to legislate against the movement of political dissidents in the empire, by launching the Meerut Conspiracy Case. Back in Sydney, Ryan’s transnational movement gave him an international prominence that fired domestic communist jealousies, contributing to his expulsion from the Communist Party of Australia, in 1930. Finally, by highlighting the inability of Australian Trade Unions to form lasting solidarities across boundaries of race, Ryan’s politics revealed a substantial faultline in Australian leftist thought
Communism · Economic history · Economics · Empire · International trade · Left-wing politics · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Trade union · Australian History and Society · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Law
Age of Entanglement
The Discourse of Civilization and Pan-Asianism
The Comintern, the CPA, and the Impact of Harry Wicks
Echoes of Mutiny
Webs of Empire
Transcultural Encounters between Germany and India
Drawing the Global Colour Line
Hub of the Anti-Imperialist Movement
‘A Triple Empire…United under One Dominion’
Nationalism, Internationalism, and Cosmopolitanism
Trade Unions on Trial
The Fundamental Rights Resolution
Australian perceptions of Asia
From East to West and West to East
Imperial Subjects in the Soviet Union
The Johnstone Affair and Anti-Communism in Interwar India
The great Tisco strike and lockout of 1928-Part 1
A long, strange trip
Purifying Empire
Indian Nationalism and the 'world forces
Connected Worlds
Examinations, access, and inequity within the empire
Bihar, California, and the US Midwest
The Reds
The Australian Communist Party and the Comintern in the Early 1930s
Imagining Asia in India
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |