Series 01: Laurie Aarons personal and political papers, ca. 1900-2005

MLMSS 7924/Boxes 1-38, 41-43
MLMSS 7924/Boxes 39X-40X
GR 316

series

ca. 1900-2005

Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Nonmusical Sound Recordings, Clippings, Ephemera, Photographs

877009

8.44 metres of textual material (41 boxes and 2 outsize boxes), including 3 sound discs (gramophone records) 45 rpm, and 8 albums and photographs
1 sound disc - 24.5 cm - analog, 33 1/3 rpm

Laurie Aarons (1917-2005) was a member of the third of four generations of the Aarons family who played leading roles in the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). He was a powerful advocate for de-Stalinisation of the party and was CPA National Secretary from 1965 to 1976.

Born in Undercliffe in inner-city Sydney in 1917, Laurie moved with his parents and younger brother, Eric, to Melbourne as a young boy. Here he became close to his grandparents, Jane and Louis Aarons, Jewish immigrants from the United States and Britain who had earlier been active in both the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the far more radical Victorian Socialist Party. When the CPA was formed in 1920, Jane and Louis became foundation members in Melbourne in 1921 and were among the early Australian communists to visit the Soviet Union.

In the mid-1920s Laurie’s father, Sam Aarons, moved to Sydney with Laurie, while Eric stayed in Melbourne with their mother. Sam soon also joined the CPA and became a prominent figure in the party’s local activities. In the mid-1930s Sam took the arduous journey from Australia to Spain to volunteer for the International Brigades formed to assist the Spanish Republic to resist Franco’s ultimately successful uprising against the elected Popular Front government. Sam later became a senior CPA official in both South Australia and Western Australia and a member of the Central (later National) Committee along with his two sons.

After leaving school and home at the age of 14 to become a ‘professional revolutionary’, Laurie became politically active, first in the Young Communist League and soon after he joined the CPA. He spoke at CPA public meetings in Bondi and the Domain and was active in the Boot Makers’ Union as he worked in his father’s boot repair business.

He married Caroline Arkinstall in 1945 and they had three sons (Brian, John and Mark) over the next few years. In 1946 he was sent to Adelaide as assistant metropolitan secretary and in 1948 to Newcastle as district secretary. In early 1952 he shifted back to Sydney as state secretary of the NSW branch, the largest and most important in Australia. Soon after he emerged as a national leader, joining the CPA’s powerful Secretariat of four and working closely with the General Secretary, Lance Sharkey, and Chairman Dick Dixon. From the mid-1950s he travelled widely on party work, including to New Zealand, Indonesia, India, Italy, France, Britain and the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. In 1955-1956 he led a party delegation to study for fifteen months at a special school established in Beijing by the Communist Party of China.

Laurie was elected CPA National Secretary in 1965. In 1967, he delivered his first report as national secretary to the CPA’s triennial national congress. The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 deeply shocked Laurie. There was a resultant rapid and sharp deterioration of the CPA’s relations with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and a deep split among the CPA’s membership. At the CPA’s 22nd Congress in 1970, the membership overwhelmingly endorsed the positions taken by Laurie and the big majority of the party leadership. One of the most significant decisions taken at the Congress was a major reform initiated by the CPA leadership which required that key posts could not be held by the same person for more than six years. As a consequence, Laurie stepped down from that post at the CPA’s 25th Congress in 1976 at the relatively young age of 59.

In the late-1970s and early 1980s Laurie turned his considerable knowledge of the CPA’s decades-long involvement in struggle to good use when he became an oral historian. He travelled almost the entire length and breadth of Australia recording hundreds of hours of recollections of veterans and activists of the CPA and the wider Labour Movement.

BOX 1
1. Correspondence – personal, folder one, 1949-2004
2. Correspondence – personal, folder two, 1987-2003
3. Correspondence – personal, folder three, 1981-2000
4. Correspondence – personal, folder four, 1991-2004

BOX 2
1. Correspondence – Eric Aarons, 1997-1998
2. Correspondence – Katherine Susannah Prichard, 1966, 1968
3. Correspondence – Dave Davies, 1972-1974
4. Correspondence – Mavis Robertson, 1975, no date
5. Correspondence – John Sendy, 1973-2003
6. Correspondence – Sam and Annette Aarons, 1959-1999
7. Correspondence – Socialist Party of Australia supporters [Jas. B. Henderson (Brisbane), 1970]
8. Correspondence – CPA Official, 1943, 1957-1993
9. Correspondence – International, 1963-1993
10. Correspondence – Jim Staples, 1985-2000
11. Correspondence – Peter Baume, 1974-1997
12. Correspondence – Michael Kirby, 1962, 1986-2003
13. Correspondence – Keith Wilson, 1991-2003
14. Correspondence – Elliott Johnston, 1996
15. Correspondence – Jim Comerford, 1993-2004
16. Correspondence – Bob Heggen (and Memoir and Funeral Oration), 1997-2004
17. Correspondence – Dame Mary Gilmore
18. Correspondence – Paul Mortier
19. Correspondence – Michael Nibbs
20. Correspondence – Veterans’ Affairs
21. Correspondence – Geoffrey Chandler
22. Correspondence – Eliot and Della Elliott
23. Correspondence – Bernie Taft, 1971-1976 n.d.
24. Correspondence – Michael Thwaites, 1988

BOX 3
1. Central Committee Report, February 1965
2. National Committee and National Executive Papers and Some Industrial Papers, 1970-1975
3. 12th CPA Congress Papers, being photocopies, Nov. 1938
4. 14th CPA Congress Papers, being photocopies, 1945
5. 17th CPA Congress Papers, 1955
6. 20th CPA Congress Papers, being only cover folder, 1964
7. 21st CPA Congress Papers, 1967
8. 22nd CPA Congress Papers, 1970
9. 22nd CPA Congress – Laurie Aarons’s speech, miscellaneous notes and documents on the aftermath and the SPA Split, 1970
10. 23rd CPA Congress Papers, 1972
11. 24th CPA Congress Papers, 1974
12. 25th CPA Congress Papers, 1975
13. 26th CPA Congress Papers, 1979
14. 27th CPA Congress Papers, 1982
15. 28th CPA Congress Papers, 1984
16. 29th CPA Congress Papers, 1987
17. 30th CPA Congress Papers, 1989

BOX 4
1. International Communist Meeting Speech, circa 1965
2. Notebook and notes, circa 1972 (including discussions at National Executive re delegation to the CPSU)
3. 1973 CPSU Talks – Letters and Notes (including Mavis Robertson and Bernie Taft)
4. 1973 CPSU Talks – Background Information
5. 1973 CPSU Talks – Transcripts (including notes and drafts)
6. 1973 CPSU Talks – Meeting notes of aftermath and emerging differences
7. 1973 CPSU Talks – Communiqué (including drafts and notes)
8. 1973 CPSU Talks – National Executive Report and Discussion
9. Notes – Late 1960s-mid-1970s (including National Executive and National Committee)
10. Left Tendency, 1973-1975
11. Differences in the CPA – 1970s onwards (including with the Victorians and Alec and Mavis Robertson)
12. International Trips
13. New Times Controversy, 1971-1973and letter from CPA to Central Committee Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1970

BOX 5
1. Notes and photos of meeting with Tito and Yugoslav Presidency, 19 April 1969
2. Andrei Sakharov – 1973 (Communist Parties attitudes worldwide)
3. Soviet-China issues – Soviet statements to the CPA
4. Note on Schools in China (including Chinese gramophone record, being A Selection of Nieh Erh's Songs, obtained at School in Peking in 1955-56)(Gramophone record, 33 ½ rpm, transferred to GR 316)
5. Notes on China – circa 1970, visit to Japanese CP
6. Notes on PCF – Roger Garaudy?
7. Spain – papers, ca. 1930-1996, including historical notes, letters, 45 rpm gramophone records (3), and photos on the Spanish Civil War in which Laurie Aarons’s father, Sam, fought in the International Brigade
8. Laurie Aarons’s passport, 1955, and birth certificate
9. Expulsion from Japan, 1970
10. Romanian visit, 1972
11. Japanese CP meeting, 1967
12. USSR
13. Vietnam, being mainly newscuttings and printed material

BOX 6
1. Indonesia (including East Timor), being mainly newscuttings and printed material
2. Notes on Lukman (Communist Party of Indonesia) and Harry Pollitt (Communist Party of Great Britain)
3. Books on Indonesia, including an inscribed copy of D.N. Aidit’s Problems of the Indonesian Revolution, 12 June 1963

BOX 7
1. The Hill Split – Speech to Central Committee (Report of Committee of Five); Speech to Melbourne Cadres’ Meeting on the Work of the Committee of Five; Report to Political Committee on Behalf of the Committee of Five (October 1962)
2. The Hill Split – Notes on Political Committee Discussion (June 1961?); Report to Political Committee (Post-February 1962 Central Committee Meeting); Report to Central Committee (June 1962?) and Notes of Hill’s Speech; Notes for Political Committee Meeting (1962?); Notes of Hill’s Speech at Political Committee Leading to His Resignation (1962?); Report to the Central Committee Meeting (October or November 1962); Report on Victorian State Committee Meeting and Related Matters (undated)
3. The Hill Split –The Hill Split – Political Committee and Central Committee Resolutions (September 1962 and November 1962); Victorian Conference Resolution (1962)
4. The Hill Split – Report to Victorian State Executive (March 1961); Notes of 1962 Discussion in Victoria (either State Executive or State Committee); Notes of Victorian State Committee Meeting (October 1962); Report to Victorian State Committee Meeting (undated); Report to Victorian State Committee Meeting (September 1962?); Notes of Victorian State Committee Meeting (September 1962); Report to Victorian State Committee (1963); Report to New Victorian State Committee (Post-defeat of Hill)
5. The Hill Split – Miscellaneous Notes
6. The Hill Split – Hill’s Notes on Consolidation (Speech)
7. The Hill Split – Correspondence
8. The Hill Split – Hill’s Expulsion
9. The Hill Split – Hill Speeches and Articles
10. The Hill Split – Clippings
11. The Hill Split – Rank and File Committee Circulars
12. The Hill Split – Miscellaneous

BOX 8
1. The SPA Split – General File
2. The SPA Split – 1971 Meetings and Documents
3. The SPA Split – Lists of Attendees at “Secret” Meetings, correspondence to and from Opposition Members, Resignations etc
4. The SPA Split – Documents Relating to Charges Against L. Aarons by W.J. Brown
5. The SPA Split – Maritime Branch
6. The SPA Split – A. Watt & E. Ross
7. The SPA Split – Pat Clancy 1983Talks
8. The SPA Split – Split in the SPA (1980s)
9. The SPA Split – SPA 1996 Congress (renaming to CPA)

BOX 9
1. Clippings – CPA and Labor Movement
2. Clippings – General (one of three)
3. Clippings – General (two of three)
4. Clippings – General (three of three)
5. Clippings – Aarons Family
6. Clippings – Obituaries
7. Clippings – Gerard Henderson

BOX 10
1. Marshall Green
2. Graham Richardson
3. Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers about Taxation and Economic Issues
4. Vicki Wootton
5. Manning Clark “Scandal”
6. Casino Oz, folder one
7. Casino Oz, folder two



8. NCC and League of Rights
9. Tom Uren manuscript
10. Bernie Dowling Play
11. Martha Ansara Film
12. Speech re 60 Families Who Run Australia

BOX 11
1. Notes on CPA Leadership
2. Unidentified Notebooks
3. 1990s Notebook
4. Lecture Notes
5. Czechoslovakia 1968
6. 1969 International Communist Movement Meeting
7. 1959-61 – Notes
8. 50th Anniversary of USSR – Debate in CPA and Laurie Aarons’s Speech in Moscow
9. 1967 Moscow Meeting
10. Laurie Aarons’s Army Discharge Certificate
11. Second World War Ex-Servicemen, including Pamphlet by Laurie Aarons
12. Richard Dixon – Funeral Oration by Laurie Aarons
13. John Sendy – Request for Laurie Aarons’s Biography, 1976
14. Laurie Aarons interviewed by Margaret Penson
15. Joyce Stevens on “Shit Work”
16. High Court Case on Communist Party Dissolution Bill (including Original Legal Papers), 1950-1972
17. Miscellaneous Notes & Notebooks

BOX 12
Pamphlets and Booklets

BOX 13
Pamphlets and Booklets

BOX 14
Pamphlets and Booklets

BOX 15
Pamphlets and Booklets

BOX 16
1. Jim Comerford – 1949 Miners’ Strike Diary
2. Jim Comerford – Play manuscript
3. SEARCH Foundation
4. New Left Party
5. Lance Sharkey Lecture Notes
6. Education – CPA National Schools (including course and lecture notes)
7. Professor Cooray
8. Eskell, VAM etc
9. Collins House Notes
10. BHP
11. Alex Carey
12. Corporate Cowboys – Unpublished Manuscript, 1993
13. Hilton Bombing, 1991-1992
14. Len Boardman’s tax returns, 1948-1959
15. Bill McDougall – History of the CPA on the South Coast (NSW)

BOX 17
1. Bugging of Dixon Street CPA Headquarters
2. Daily Tribune (1975)
3. Young Communist Movement
4. Joyce Stevens – on Communist Women
5. Jack Blake
6. Jack Henry
7. Laurie Aarons interviewed by John Singleton
8. 1980s Notes
9. Bernie Taft
10. Laurie Aarons interviewed by Jan Edmonson, 27 June 1979
11. Tribute to Mao Zedong
12. Lessons of 1956 – Study Course
13. Communist Arts Group
14. Australian Railways Union – Ted Walsham material
15. Fiction Manuscript?
16. North Queensland CPA History (Frank Bishop)
17. CPA Involvement in Local Government
18. Clippings on Jack Lang
19. Clippings on the IWW and Early CPA Documents, being photocopies
20. Laurie Carmichael on Working at Williamstown

BOX 18
1. Miscellaneous Manuscripts and Notes (Laurie Aarons)
2. Marjorie Pollitt – Memorabilia, 1911-1989
3. Manuscript re Wattie Creek Struggle
4. George Bliss – on Communists in the Army
5. Ted Moyle’s Handwritten Notes on the History of the IWW in Australia (plus transcribed version), 1945
6. Clippings on the New Right
7. Clippings on the Top Australian Companies, 1963
8. Japan and Militarism – Clippings from 1970 and 1987
9. Clippings on the International Economy, 1981
10. Clippings on International Finance, 1981-82
11. Clippings on ASIO

BOX 19
1. John Hughes Collection – Index List
2. John Hughes – letters and transcripts of interviews
3. John Hughes – Clippings from the 1930s and 1940s

BOX 20
1. Political Memorabilia, being mainly photocopies and printed material, 1935-1998
2. Miscellaneous Memorabilia (CPA)
3. Memorabilia (Funerals)
4. Jack Williams

BOX 21
1. Ted Wheelwright Interview
2. ABC Review Submission, 1996
3. Hope Royal Commission Submissions
4. Tom Uren, 1985-2004
5. US Documents on Australian Trade Unions
6. Manuscript on “Illegal” Work of Communists
7. Kevin Healy
8. Newcastle Workers’ Club
9. Hansard Extracts, 1994
10. Harry Webb (1903-1985)
11. John Hewson
12. David McKnight Material on the CPUSA and Rosenbergs
13. Commonwealth Investigation Bureau
14. Billy Hughes
15. Jo Waters’s Papers on ASIO/Petrov
16. Privacy Committee Report on Special Branch (1978)
17. Stan Deacon (Funeral)
18. Inprecorr, being issues of International Press Correspondence, 1924-1925
19. Lawrence Maher
20. Clippings/Notes on Intelligence

BOX 22
1. Interviews with Laurie Aarons, June 1993 and March 1999
2. Central Disputes Committee Files
3. BLF-BWIU Manuscript (partial)
4. Tribune Problems (1970s)
5. CPA Finances (1970s)
6. Post-1976 CPA Structures
7. Canberra Times Defamation, 1965
8. ALP Documents
9. CPA Illegality in World War II
10. Wally Clayton
11. Soviet Jews (Mortimer Statement, 1966)
12. Left Action Conference (1969)
13. Divisions Over the Role of Women (1970s)
14. CPA Maritime 1918-37
15. Ernie Bustin
16. Manuscript – Anonymous Partial Memoir from World War I
17. Max Thomas, 1941-1994

BOX 23
1. State Labor Party-CPA Amalgamation, being photocopies
2. Early CPA Documents, being photocopies
3. Central Committee Meeting 1949, being photocopies
4. Police Complaint 1968
5. Tasmania – CPA Publications, 1950-
6. Ted Roach on the Pig Iron Dispute
7. Miscellaneous History
8. Unemployed Workers Movement, being photocopies
9. Australian Socialist Party Minutes 1919-21, being photocopies

BOX 24
1. Executive Committee of the Communist International, being photocopies
2. CPA in Australian History (Eric Fry)
3. White Collar Workers
4. International Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies), being photocopies
5. What is in Document J
6. Newspapers – 1930s & 1940s
7. Hec Chalmers Manuscript (?)
8. Brian Aarons on Portugal (1975)
9. Eric Aarons – 1980s

BOX 25
1. CPA Conferences – 1920s, being photocopies
2. Herbert Moxon, being photocopies
3. Ron Brown
4. Underclass & New Right
5. Shares (Lendlease, James Wallace, LA Stewart)
6. Here Come the Uglies (Miscellaneous Papers)
7. Bill Parkinson
8. Lectures & Talks (circa mid-1960s)
9. Denis Freney – The CPA Crisis (1968)
10. ALP Affiliation Campaign, 1946, being photocopies
11. Miscellaneous Early CPA Documents, being photocopies
12. Katherine Susannah Prichard, 1920s, being photocopies

BOX 26
1. Imputation Credits
2. Corporate Control (circa 1960?)
3. Supply Side Economics etc
4. Tax Inquiry
5. CPA Notes on Monopoly (1960)
6. Monopoly in Australia – BHP (Notes by Rupert Lockwood)

BOX 27
1. The Cold War on the Sydney Waterfront – BA (Hons) thesis by Kate Simone Harrington, University of Western Sydney (Macarthur), 1995
2. Militant Minority Movement, being photocopies
3. Central Committee Circulars, 1938, being photocopies
4. Loughran, 1935, being photocopies
5. Guido Baracchi, 1939-40, being photocopies
6. FN Wiggin, 1937, being photocopies
7. Politburo [CPA Political Bureau] Minutes, 1932, being photocopies
8. Politburo [CPA Political Bureau] Minutes, 1933, being photocopies

BOX 28
1. Politburo [CPA Political Bureau] Minutes, 1934
2. Politburo [CPA Political Bureau] Minutes, 1935
3. Politburo [CPA Political Bureau] Minutes, 1936
4. Politburo [CPA Political Bureau] Minutes, 1937
5. Politburo [CPA Political Bureau] Minutes, 1938

BOX 29
1. Clippings and printed material – Rogues
2. Clippings – John Elliott
3. Clippings – Elders
4. Clippings – Conrad Black
5. Clippings – Reserve Bank & High Court
6. Clippings – Tax
7. Clippings – Japan
8. Clippings – JD Kahlbetzer
9. Clippings – Hawke and Keating – 1983
10. Clippings – The 1987 Crash
11. Clippings – 1980s Economy
12. Clippings – International Tycoons

BOX 30

1. Clippings – Keating
2. Clippings – Keating’s Piggery
3. Clippings – Richardson
4. Clippings – Labor
5. Clippings – Macroeconomic Policy – 1992
6. Clippings – Banks – Senator Maclean
7. Clippings – Bastardry
8. Clippings – Top Corporations

BOX 31
1. Clippings – Milton Friedman’s Credo
2. Employment Jobs Levy
3. Tax Articles
4. Tax & Miscellany on Keating and the Economy
5. New Right
6. Prophets of Boom/Doom
7. Luxury
8. Economy – 1982
9. Title Deeds
10. Liberals – Costello & Co

BOX 32
1. Records of the Left Book Club (including formation, membership, finances, publications, Board papers, reviews etc)

BOX 33
1. Records of the Left Book Club (including formation, membership, finances, publications, Board papers, reviews etc)

BOX 34
Files relating to Laurie Aarons’s use of the ASIO records held in the National Archives of Australia, including a case and appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, 1985-1998

1. National Archives – General
2. Correspondence with National Archives – Volume One
3. Correspondence with National Archives – Volume Two
4. National Archives – 1994

BOX 35
Files relating to Laurie Aarons’s use of the ASIO records held in the National Archives of Australia, including a case and appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, 1986-1992

1. AAT Case and Decision
2. AAT Appeal
3. AAT 1991 Appeal and Judgement
4. ASIO and Archives Act – Parliamentary Committee

BOX 36
1. Bernard Smith – Poems, 1990
2. Manuscript on International Travels
3. Peter Kapitza (including report of 1969 meeting, photos and letter from Mark Oliphant, 13 Aug. 1969)
4. Alexander Dubcek’s Protest on “Security”, 1974
5. The Czechoslovak Opposition
6. Old File Index
7. The O’Shane Family
8. Partial Manuscript of I’d Rather Be Left (James MacAuley Play Written for the New Theatre)
9. Anne Neil and Other ASIO Agents in the CPA
10. Personal – Medical etc
11. CPA/SPA and Solzhenitsyn
12. Geoff Wilson, BA (Hons) Thesis, The ASIO-Murphy “Affair”, 1973

BOX 37
Miscellaneous Magazines and Pamphlets

BOX 38
1. Laurie Aarons’s Personal Copies of the Royal Commission on Espionage (the Petrov Royal Commission), including Bound Volumes of Transcripts of Evidence (with Index), Final Report of 22 August 1955 and Speech of Doctor Evatt
2. Bound Volume of News & Views, 1940
3. Bound Volume of News & Views, 1941
4. Bound Volume of Communist Review, 1961

BOX 39X
1. Photo Album from Indonesia Trip, 1954

BOX 40X
1. Photos of Communist Leaders, Len Donald and Eddie Robertson
2. Laurie Aarons speaking at CPA 22nd Congress, Easter 1970
3. Photo of International Communist Movement Meeting, Moscow, June1969
4. Photo Album from Japan Trip, 1970

BOX 41
1. Photos of Japan visits, 1967 and 1970
2. Photos, miscellaneous and general, with printed material, 1930s-2001
3. Photos of Vietnam trip, 1974
4. Photos of Soviet visit, 1969 (world meeting of the International Communist Movement and visit to Pjotr Kapitsa’s dacha)
5. Photos of China visit, 1956 (one from someone else’s trip, 1957)
6. Photos of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) visit, 1967
7. Photos of Soviet trip with Dave Davies, 1971 (24th CPSU Congress) and postcards
8. Photos – surveillance of security police and NCC
9. Photos of Soviet trip, 1967
10. Photos of Indonesia trip, 1954
11. Two small photo albums, Indonesia trip, 1954

BOX 42
1A.-1B. Two photo albums of Czechoslovakian trip, 1958
2. Photo album of 1967 trip, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Italy, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia)
3. Photo of Eddie Robertson, member of the CPA Secretariat and close comrade and friend of Laurie Aarons
4. Soviet photo album (probably form 1958 trip)
5. Federated Clerks’ Union Federal Council, circa 1950

BOX 43
Oral history transcripts of:
Ted Bacon
Bill McDougall
Charlie Morgan
Bill Gollan
Claude Jones
Harry Hatfield
Alice Hughs
Charlie Gifford
Max Thomas
Keith Wilson
Ray O'Hara
Eva Bacon
John Hughs
Stan Deacon
Jim Baird
Laurie Carmichael

These papers were arranged and described by Mark Aarons

English, Russian, French, Spanish, Indonesian, Japanese