At the end of World War II, the Communist Party of Australia led many big trade unions. This was also a time of major strikes across a range of industries. While the media blamed the strikes on the Communists, the CPA was not necessarily in the vanguard of the movement. It tailored its approach in part to the needs of Stalin's dictatorship in Russia. This talk explains the role of the CPA in the class struggle at this time, and how this changed as the Cold War heated up.

OTHER SESSIONS IN THIS STREAM

• Shop Committees, Bureaucracies and radical workers in the the flood tide 1968-75

• Unions, the ALP and the ebb tide 1983-1996