Talk:Communist Party of Australia

Memo to "Peter" and "Steve"

Comrades, you are evidently quite knowledgable about CPA history, so it is a pity that you are wasting your time trying to turn this article into a propaganda tract, which will never be acceptable as an encyclopaedia article and will always be reverted. I have twice asked you at your Talk page to discuss the issues you have with the present article at this page, and I am more than happy to debate them with you. But if you continue making unilateral polemical edits without discussion, they will be reverted. Adam 02:02, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Memo to Adam

Comrade, you are evidently quite knowledgable about ALP history, so it is a pity that you are wasting your time trying to turn this article into a propaganda tract for the ALP, which will never be acceptable as an encyclopaedia article and will always be reverted. peter 17:32, 20 Sep 2004

OK smartypants, well the page is now protected and will remain so until you are prepared to discuss the matter intelligently. Adam 09:08, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My 2c

The wrong page is being protected.

Note

I agree completely with Monsieur Travail and Mainman: the protected page is clearly written to cast the CPA in a negative light, and to promote other political currents, primarily the Australian Labor Party, in a positive light. It is advocacy writing of the worst sort, that contains many factual errors and actual slanders and lies against the CPA.

Writing any sort of political history -- particularly of an organisation that was as loved and hated as the CP -- is always going to be a minefield. It's probably best if another page, containing progressive and left-wing views of the CPA, is started and protected, so that right wingers are unable to edit it. That way, conservatives, like Mr Carr, can write their fantasies to their heart's content without affecting the content.

The article is based on the party histories by Alistair Davidson and Stuart Macintyre, plus the many other works I read while writing my thesis, including the complete run of Workers Weekly from 1924 to 1939. If Communists think it reflects badly on the CPA, that is the result of the CPA's own history, not because of my presentation of that history. I am happy to discuss any issue of fact or interpretation with legitimate users, but not with anonymous persons, and not with people who just want to score propaganda points. It is not Wikipedia policy to have two articles on the same subject, but I'm not involved in policing Wikipedia policy. Adam 23:56, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Well, I'd like to redirect David Martin to David Martin (poet); can of worms or not. Charles Matthews 20:43, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

While the article is protected, you can ask an Administrator, preferably the one who protected it, to do that for you. Adam 23:56, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Memo from mainman

The suggestion of starting a progressive page on CPA/Australian Left history is perfectly acceptable to me, as long as it's protected so that conservatives can't vandalise it. This is particularly critical in an area as important as CP and labour history.

As a note to Dr Carr: do think it's in any way possible that your membership of the Australian Labor Party and your employment as an ALP spin doctor might just be a teeny, weeny bit of a conflict of interest, that might just preclude you from writing objectively on such a topic? John

No. Adam 10:13, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm glad to see rhetoric is not dead in the Australian Labor Party. John

Ok, let me spell it out then.

• I have a PhD in Australian history, and my thesis dealt extensively with CPA history. I therefore know what I am talking about. As a professional historian, I am perfectly capable of writing objectively about political parties whose views I do not share, whether they are the CPA or the Liberal Party.
• Is it your position that only Communists can write Communist history? Presumably you therefore also think that only Nazis can write the history of Nazism. This is nonsense.
• As a matter of fact, although I am (obviously) not a Communist, I have no particular animus towards the CPA. I had many friends who were CPA members in the 1970s and 80s and I have a high opinion of most of the former CPA members I have met. Nevertheless the CPA failed, and it failed for clear and identifiable reasons, and any article about the CPA's history must reflect that, whoever writes it.
• Your edits to the article were not done to correct errors or add material, they were a blatant attempt to impose a pro-Communist POV on the article. I reverted that and will continue to do so.
• So far you have made no serious effort to discuss whatever issues you have with this article, instead merely making flippant remarks and childish insults. Until you adopt a different attitude the article will remain as it is.

Adam 03:26, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)