Abstract

This book captures the experience of pre-Revolution socialism half a world away from its origins and before the pressures of a Soviet, socialist orthodoxy. It focuses on a time when Marx was respected, not worshipped. It was also a time when socialisms were coloured by indigenous political and social traditions - when the Eureka Rebellion on the goldfields of Ballarat and early voting rights for Australian women made international headlines. This book examines how Marx's ideas arrived in Australia, often via other, more accessible proponents of socialism such as textile designer William Morris. It also considers the wide variety of contemporary responses to the socialist doctrine from both its supporters - including utopianist William Lane, activist Tom Mann, reformist J.C. Watson and the anarchists of the IWW - as well as its detractors. Among the latter were middle-class Fabians Sidney and Beatrice Webb, who disparaged the rough-and-readiness of the antipodean comrades. Historian W.K. Hancock went so far as to declare Australian socialism as 'fraudulent'. Yet political historian Dr. David Lovell makes the case that if Australia was not a 'workingman's paradise', it was certainly more than 'just another capitalist country'.