Communism In Australia In The 1950s

Australia wanted to stop communism and stop the communism ripple effect occurring, with the forward defence policy Australia could ensure its safety. Forward defence is meeting any threats to Australia as far away from the mainland as possible. Menzies was having troubles getting the public to agree on his anti communism views so he created the fear of 'reds under the bed' which got him enough support from the public to support his campaign. Australia first started it’s campaign in 1962 when it sent 30 advisers called ‘the team’ into Vietnam, Australia later sent land and air fighters. Australian troops in Vietnam reached the largest in 1964 with 8,000 troops

Australia’s response to the threat of communism after WW2 was extraordinary. Australia and its politicians immediately recognised what could happen of a result of the domino theory. With the Soviet Union influencing so many countries and causing China, Vietnam, and North Korea to turn Communist it was only matter of time until it reached Australia, and all in all this was when Australia took action.

In 1970, 3 Moratorium Movement had taken place in Australia. The first Moratorium Movement was held in May, over 200 000 people all over Australia marched in it. Luckily this was a peaceful protest; the government didn’t take much action towards stopping the march.  The second Vietnam Moratorium that took place in September that year but unlike the first movement it was a lot smaller and violence occurred, 200 people were arrested in Sydney alone. This movement first took place in the US; hundreds of thousands of people stopped work for the day and protested on streets to their country’s involvement in the war. The strength and number of people in the moratorium movement shocked the government; they were surprised at the level of people against the Vietnam War. Between 1970-1971, Australian troops were slowly withdrawn from Vietnam. In 1972 at the end of the war it became clear that most of Australia were against and that they no longer agreed with the “Forward Defence” policy where they go out and met the threat where it was.

During the Cold War communist began to emerge. Communist are people who follow or believe in communism. They were such a small group that no one paid much attention to them until after World War 2. When WW II ended communist started causing problems. They already took power in other countries and Americans began to fear they would do the same to the U.S. They wondered if Soviet Spies were in America secretly advertising communism. U.S. citizens even questioned if communist were involved in U.S. government jobs or in schools miseducating students and children. To help calm down these fears Joseph Raymond McCarthy started McCarthyism. (Shmoop.com)

The Vietnam War beginning on November 1st 1955 and ending April 30th 1975 was a highly controversial war that originally took place as a civil war between Northern and Southern Vietnam. Northern Vietnam was backed by Russia and China while Southern Vietnam was backed by the USA. This war made a hugely divisive impact on Australian society a few months after they entered in July 1962 as allies to the USA and Southern Vietnam. Some factors of the Vietnam War contributed to cohesion among the Australian public such as the fear of communism and the subsequent “domino effect. However many factors of this war such as the media coverage, conscription being brought back under the Menzies government, anti-war protests and post-war immigration, were all important aspects of this war and made it much more divisive than cohesive, especially in the later stages.

Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War was a result of a combined fear of communism and the fall of freedom from danger in Australian democracy and society. The growing web of communism saw the fall of many countries closing in on Australia and New Zealand, and it was believed Robert Menzies’ government that they would find communism at Australia’s shores.

The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) was greatly feared during the late-forties and early-fifties, due to the previous effects of Communism in other countries. The CPA was formed in early 1920, but did not generate a high level of membership until peaking at 20,000 members in 1945, following the end of World War II. The CPA caused a few trade union strikes at the height of their popularity in 1949, but they were rarely able to cause harm. Despite this, most Australians believed that the CPA was trying to ruin the country. This idea was largely enforced by ‘The Red Scare’, a smear campaign that was influenced in Australia by Menzies’ Liberal Party, and then adopted by the national media sources. The content of this smear attacked both Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the CPA. The fear of Communists rising to power in Australia was too strong for Australians to take risks and the Menzies

Australians, was a  domestic  organization.  While the party was actively  aggressive towards governmental policies, they did  not have the  capacity  to be at war with the Commonwealth.  This provision bore no relation to

Over the course of this investigation I will look into the ‘Red Hunts’, the communist paranoia and at times unwarranted persecution that occurred in American and other Western allied countries during the Cold War, from the early 1950’s to the late 1960’s. I will investigate the way in which the escalation of the Cold War led to communist paranoia in Western countries and how this ‘Red Scare’ was spread through propaganda and magnified by the intense fear of military and nuclear conflict during the Cold War. The red hunts must be viewed in context - as a symptom of communist paranoia that influenced most of the western world during the Cold War. I will then examine the many ways in which the red hunts can be illustrated - movements such as McCarthyism, blacklisting, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the trial of the ‘Hollywood Ten’ and the communist witch hunts which occurred as a symptom of this communist paranoia in America. I will look at the effects of these events on groups and individuals in American society, and finally the carry on effect of this communist paranoia into New Zealand and the way in which this influenced our society, as well as the lasting impact this has on our society now.

Post World War 1 there was a manifestation of Communist influence in the United States. The influence began forming itself in 1919. There was a division within the country between those who followed the beliefs of Communism and those who were against it. However the majority of Americans were against Communism and the spread of it. In J.Edgar Hoover’s testimony before the HUAC,

In the 1950’s there was a widespread fear of communism in Australia. It was a delicate time in history as World War 2 had ended five years prior. At this time the two world powers USSR and USA had began their own war “The Cold War” where they funded proxy wars to battle each other’s ideology. It was Australia’s alliance with USA that vindicated their distrust of the communist states and in turn created the widespread fear well into the 1950’s. The Prime Minister at the time Menzies was very anti communism; he exploited the people’s fears by proclaiming that the communists would steal their cultural identities and take over.

Introduction In this project the subject being researched will be conscription in the Vietnam War. During this particular war, many Australian men were conscripted into the national servicemen and had to work in the army during the war. Many Australians were against the idea of conscription and protested against it. Between late 1964 and December 1972 804,286 twenty-year-olds registered for national service, 63,735 national servicemen served in the army and 15,381 served in Vietnam.

This essay analyses the Australian-China bilateral relationship since 1945 and in particular its political significance to Australia. Many global factors have influenced this relationship, including the advent of the Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the collapse of the Soviet bloc European nations. In addition, internal political changes in Australia and China have both affected and been affected by the global changes. It will be analysed that Australia’s bilateral relationship with China has always had a sharp political edge but that approaching the new millenium economics and trade considerations are shaping Australias and for that matter Chinese politics.

The war in Vietnam started in the 1950s and continued to drag on into the 1960s. President Johnson was becoming desperate to draft more eligible American males. As a result, he enacted a new draft status that stated that all males from eighteen to twenty-five were obligated to enlist and fight the Viet Cong.

One of the reasons that the anti-conscription movement started to receive such massive support was the fact that this was the first 'live' war in Australian history. The battlefield was no longer an abstract idea described in newspaper reports. With the rise of TV news reporting, the battlefield was now in people's homes every evening. The full horror of the Vietnam War was being reported on television and more people were becoming aware that this was not like any