Richard Dixon (politician)

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Richard Dixon , aka Clifton Reginald Walker , (born May 26, 1905 in Forbes , New South Wales , Australia , † March 7, 1976 in Bankstown ) was an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was from 1948 to 1972 chairman of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA).

Early years

Reginald Walker was the fourth child of Henry Kidd Walker, a miner , and his wife Emily, nee Wilmott. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Lithgow . Reginald left school at the age of 14. After that he was often unemployed. He found his first permanent job in a bicycle shop. He then worked in a post office and in 1925 in the state railway company New South Wales Government Railways and Tramways .

Political career

His early experiences politicized him and he was briefly a member of the Australian Labor Party in 1925 . He then joined the Communist Party of Australia . In 1928 he went to Sydney and worked there in a railroad package office. In early 1929 he was elected Secretary of the Australian Railways Union in Sydney.

In December 1929, Walker was elected to the Central Committee of the CPA, of which he remained a member until 1974. A new party leadership consisting of Jack Miles , Lance Sharkey and himself was installed by the Comintern in the 1930s . During the 1930s the CPA developed influence in the labor and trade union movement, in particular its members were elected to leading positions in large trade unions. The influence of the CPA continued to grow in the Australian peace movement after 1935 when the Comintern changed its policy to fight against fascism and the Australian movement against war and fascism emerged. The CPA intended to bring together all forces against fascism in an umbrella organization under its leadership.

From January 1931, Walker studied at the International Lenin School in Moscow in the Soviet Union . In March 1933 he returned to Australia and changed his name to Richard Dixon in order to escape persecution by the Australian secret service. They had classified him as a dangerous revolutionary. In 1937 he was appointed Deputy Secretary General of the CPA and in 1948 elected its chairman. Richard Dixon held this position until 1972. In the 1930s he was editor of the party newspaper Communist Review , where he also published. In early 1945, Dixon described the White Australia Policy practiced in Australia as another version of Hitler's racial theory , which was directed against immigrant Indians , Chinese and Indonesians in Australia .

In 1951 and 1953 he ran unsuccessfully in the senatorial elections.

In 1968 he protested against the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union and the other Eastern Bloc countries.

Others

On March 25, 1939, he married Dorothy Jean Button. Dixon was also an accomplished golfer.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Greg Patmore: Walker, Clifton Reginald (1905–1976) (English), at adb.anu.edu.au, accessed February 20, 2015
  2. ^ John Percy: Towards a history of the CPA, September 27, 1995 , on greenleft.org.au, September 27, 1995, accessed February 20, 2015
  3. ↑ Immigration and the “White Australia Policy” , CPA archive on marxist.org, accessed February 20, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Dixon, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walker, Clifton Reginald (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian politician and trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Forbes , New South Wales , Australia
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 1976
Place of death Bankstown