Australia's Dr. Jim Cairns and the Soviet K.G.B.

• Author: Ballantyne, John
• Position: Obituary
• Pages: 52(12)

Australia's former Labor Deputy Prime Minister, the late Dr. James Ford (Jim) Cairns, was a high-ranking member of a communist front organisation, co-ordinated and financed by Moscow, and was a long-standing Soviet agent of influence.

First elected to the House of Representatives in 1955, Cairns became a popular leader of Australia's Left and, in 1968, almost became Labor Party leader. In the late 1960s and early '70s, he worked ceaselessly to mobilise public opposition to Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War. He served as Deputy Prime Minister and Federal Treasurer in Gough Whitlam's Labor government (1972-75). He died on 12 October 2003, aged 89, still a Labor icon to many.

During most of his public career, though, Cairns was also deeply involved with the World Peace Council (W.P.C.), one of a number of front organisations controlled by the International Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Committee for State Security, the K.G.B.

The W.P.C. was established in 1949 on the initiative of the brutal Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin. It aimed to promote Soviet foreign policy objectives by infiltrating and controlling peace organisations in Western countries. Its first president was nuclear scientist, Professor Frederic Joliot-Curie, a member of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party.

MOSCOW'S "PEACE" OFFENSIVE

In November 1950, the W.P.C. attempted to launch a "peace" conference in Sheffield, England, but failed after the Attlee Labour government barred Soviet and other communist delegates from entering Britain. The following year, the W.P.C. was expelled by the French government for what were described as "fifth column activities". In 1957, the Austrian government banned the W.P.C. for "activities directed against the interests of the Austrian state". In 1968, the W.P.C. established its headquarters in Helsinki. Throughout its existence, the W.P.C. unfailingly defended every act of Soviet military aggression, such as the invasions of Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979), and the 1981 Soviet-backed imposition of martial law in Poland and the crushing of Poland's 10-million strong independent trade union, Solidarity. (1)

Cairns's long involvement with the W.P.C. began in 1949, when he was cofounder and first chairman of an early W.P.C. offshoot, the Australian Peace Council. The A.P.C. was publicly launched at Melbourne's Exhibition Hall on 16 April 1950 by the Dean of Canterbury, Hewlett Johnson, popularly known as the "Red Dean" on account of his fervent admiration of Stalin. The Dean proclaimed to his Melbourne audience, "The Soviet people want peace!" (2) Only weeks after this statement, the Soviets supported communist North Korea's invasion of South Korea.

The W.P.C. and A.P.C. were typical Soviet fronts of the sort originally devised by Lenin, and perfected by the celebrated inter-war communist propaganda genius and Comintern agent, talent-spotter and recruiter, Willi Munzenberg. The strategy Munzenberg used was to create a facade of respectability for communist initiatives by recruiting well-meaning celebrities and public figures to lend their support to seemingly worthy causes such as peace and disarmament--causes which were used to further Soviet strategic objectives against the West.

Munzenberg called these fronts "innocents' clubs". Innocent some of the followers may have been, but not so the behind-the-scenes organisers. The leadership of the A.P.C. consisted heavily of communists and fellow travellers. Prominent among them were two left-wing clerics, Rev. Alf Dickie and Rev. Frank Hartley--both senior office-bearers in the W.P.C. (3)

The Australian Labor Party in that era had few illusions about the hidden agenda of the W.P.C. and A.P.C. In March 1951, the A.L.P.'s Federal Executive accurately denounced the "so-called peace councils" as "instruments of Soviet imperialism" and forbade A.L.P. members from associating with them. (4) At this time Cairns took the precaution of severing his connections with these bodies, but resumed his involvement later. (5)

In July 1958, the W.P.C. launched a renewed "peace" offensive at its World Congress for International Co-operation and Disarmament held in Stockholm. It got off to a shaky start, however, after the British philosopher and pacifist Bertrand Russell withdrew his sponsorship of the congress and denounced the W.P.C. for its refusal to condemn the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and the kidnapping and murder of Hungarian prime minister, Imre Nagy. (6)

Despite its threadbare credentials, the W.P.C.'s Stockholm congress succeeded in spawning an offshoot: the Australian and New Zealand Congress for International Co-operation and Disarmament, which was held in Melbourne in November 1959.

The Melbourne congress was supposedly a broad-based spontaneous movement of peace-lovers, but was in fact effectively controlled by the W.P.C. and the Communist Party. Behind the scenes, running the show, were familiar W.P.C. identities Dickie and Hartley--chairman and vice-chairman respectively--and a brilliant full-time organising secretary, the late pro-Soviet activist Sam Goldbloom. (7) Chairing many of its public sessions was Cairns. (8) It was the same old clock with a new face.

Any resolutions that did not conform to the Communist Party line were soundly defeated. To the dismay of several invited guests--including English writer J.B. Priestley--resolutions voted down included ones calling for freedom of the press, the release of writers and others imprisoned for their political views, and freedom in all countries for the circulation of pacifist propaganda. (9)

VIETNAM MORATORIUM

The Melbourne congress subsequently evolved into a more permanent body called the Congress for International Co-operation and Disarmament. Under Cairns and Goldbloom's leadership, the C.I.C.D. played a big part in mobilising the vast nationwide antiwar protest movement that became known as the Vietnam moratorium. (10) It made history on 8 May 1970, when 75,000 protesters--one of Australia's biggest public demonstrations--occupied the streets of Melbourne, bringing the city to a standstill.

The bulk of the marchers, of course, had no pro-Moscow affiliations or sympathies. For the most part they were simply individuals who wanted an end to the Vietnam conflict, and most of what they knew of the war came from media reporting and also antiwar propaganda. The Australian demonstrations were also inspired by big protests in the United States from 1968.

However, even if many Vietnam moratorium members were probably innocent of the W.P.C./C.I.C.D.'s ulterior motives, the experienced organisers and wire-pullers behind the scenes were not.

Dr. Cairns himself was no Gandhi-like pacifist...