On the Side of History: Stuart Macintyre’s The Party: The Communist Party of Australia from Heyday to Reckoning

Abstract

Stuart Macintyre’s long-awaited The Party is a masterwork of Australian history that traces the Communist Party of Australia’s meteoric rise during the Second World War and its post-war decline. The work is guided by several key questions including: How deep was the Australian Party’s support for the Soviet Union? How did members navigate the disjuncture between Soviet Policy and local realities?