Launch of Communism Exhibition

Monash University Library

16 March 2005

Dr Pete Lentini,
Politics and Global Terrorism Research Unit,
School of Political and Social Inquiry,
Faculty of Arts, Monash University.

I  wish to thank Richard and his colleagues for the opportunity to speak at the opening of this exhibition. This collection is being launched at a fairly significant point in time. About a week ago (11 March 2005), we experienced the twentieth anniversary of Mikhail Gorbachev's elevation to the General Secretaryship of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.  On a personal note, I would also intimate that this event was a turning point in my life. Thereafter, I began studying the USSR in depth.  Mikhail Gorbachev made me want to become an academic. …And I will never forgive him for it.

Within a very short time observers acknowledged that he would be bringing something new to Communist politics. A little more than six years later, his reforms contributed to the collapse of communist party rule. However, as the late ‘Dean' of Soviet studies, Prof Alec Nove declared in 1994, the USSR (and for that matter, communist-party ruled systems) went out not with a bang but with a whimper.

What is/was Communism?

Our own Andrew Milner reminds us in his excellent contribution to the politics of the Left in Australia, The Road to St Kilda Pier that the Left is comprised of both statist and non-statist elements. Communism certainly maintained those elements.

There are five main ways in which we can look at communism, and in particular communist parties and movements―all of which are contained in this wonderful special collection, and the wider Monash University library.

1. Communism as a non-parliamentary political force.
2. Communism as an ideology and revolutionary force.
3. Communist parties in power as ruling or guiding parties.
4. Communist parties as parliamentary participants.
5. Former ruling communist parties and their transitional roles.

As a scholar who has mainly concentrated on the former Soviet Union and, Russia in particular, under communist party rule and its transformations into something else―what that something else is we must still wait to see―I have had my eyes thrown wide open at the range and scope of the publications contained in this collection documenting Australia's and parts of Asia's experiences with communism, and their contributions to a global system of states and political  movements which until only a little less than 14 years ago, ruled over nearly one fourth of all humanity, and in some places for nearly three quarters or half a century.

Nevertheless, in many countries its legacy may be felt for years to come. Its icons and personalities continue to be the foci of academic debates, scholarly publications, and as is demonstrated in several of the items on display, even within contemporary popular culture.

Communism's legacy will certainly be maintained within specific political forces and movements. However, Monash University, its Library and even the materials in this collection, have played important roles in the contributions to Australian communism, as well as studies of communism, which have earned this university a notable international reputation as a bastion of excellence in scholarship on matters currently and formerly communist.

The list of names includes, for instance in Soviet Politics and studies of European communist systems, our former colleague Ian Cummins. Also among them are  as well as the current head of the Centre for European Studies, Marko Pavlyshyn who has worked on Ukraine under communist rule as well as literature and thaws under communist systems, and Millicent Vladiv-Glover and her work on literature during Soviet and Yugoslav communist rule. Former Monash students have also gone on to establish themselves as leading lights of Soviet and Russian studies, including Professor Graeme Gill of the University of Sydney, the noted scholar on Stalinism, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia, who did an MA in Politics here. Tony Phillips, whose work on Soviet and contemporary Russian politics has helped establish Melbourne University as a centre for excellence in the politics of the former Soviet Union, was initiated into academia as an Honours Student in Politics. Recent Monash PhD students who have used this library's materials include Dr Zoe Knox currently of Rice University and Dr Brad Williams of the National University of Singapore, themselves renowned young scholars of the former USSR.

It will be recalled that Monash University has also made significant contributions to our understandings of communist theory and Italian Communism. Peter Beilharz, a noted scholar of Marxist theory completed his PhD in Politics at Monash. Additionally, the leading Marxist theoretical journal, Thesis Eleven included former Monash scholars on its editorial board and was housed for a time at Monash University. Our former colleague Professor Alistair Davidson has written two seminal texts on Italian communist theory and movements. These include his landmark biography of Gramsci and a history of the Italian Communist Party. The study of Italian communism was continued with Steve Wright, currently lecturing in the IT Faculty. Steve's more recent work on Italian communism has addressed Italian autonomous movements and workplace relations. Analysing Italian communism's presence in contemporary youth culture, Steve's research has also examined its role hip hop and in social centres.

A bit closer to home the users of this library, and the materials in this collection more specifically, have generated outstanding scholarship on Communism in Asia and Australia. In studies of Chinese communism, colleagues former and present such as Prescott Clarke and Dennis Woodward come to mind. Ian Turner, Jenny Hocking, Tom Heenan and Paul Strangio and are among the Monash scholars who have written on Australian communism, its chroniclers and fellow travellers. Rex Mortimer's contributions on Indonesia, and former PhD student David Glanz who wrote on the Filipino Communist Party helped to establish Monash University's credibility on Communism in Southeast Asia.

And student politics is also an important contribution to communist politics. This collection contains many fascinating items pertaining to the left and communist movements' use of youth culture and their participation in political actions. Monash itself has long been part of this student politics nexus. From the participation of Albert Langer to the S-11 protests in 2000, to various refugee, Indigenous solidarity and other concerns, our students have contributed to broad leftist struggles. Many of them participated as members of communist organisations.

The legacy of communism both as an academic and political force is thriving in contemporary Monash scholarship or in contributions from former Monash students and academics. It is hoped that the materials contained in this collection will help to sustain and stimulate present and future generations of readers, students and scholars of communism, its various offshoots and its future permutations.

I wish to thank Richard Overell and his colleagues for putting together this outstanding and fascinating collection. Thank you again for the invitation to speak on this occasion. May you all enjoy, and become intrigued, reflective and moved by these diverse, rare and for some, sentimental artefacts of one of the most significant intellectual, political and social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.