Guide to Publications of Communist and Socialist Inspired Organisations

The Noel Butlin Archives of Business and Labour is the oldest non-government collecting archives in Australia. It maintains, preserves and makes available for research records of national significance with comprehensive coverage of archives of employer, employee and professional organisations and a major collection of Australian companies. Its holdings range in date from the mid 1820s to the mid 1990s.

• Introduction
• Scope of the Guide
• Holdings
• Access to Records
• Finding-Aids
• Published Sources
• Further Information

Introduction

The traditional collecting activities of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre (Archives of Business and Labour) have centred on records of business and labour organisations, and individuals associated with these two areas. Usually the records collected by these organisations are used in the context for which they were created (ie history of the trade union or company). However, records of organisations and individuals have a second use or life beyond their original purpose.

Records of organisations or individuals are invaluable in throwing light on other organisations that may no longer exist or whose records do not survive in their own right, including international labour movements, political movements, peace and civil liberties groups, philosophical movements and ephemeral associations formed to take part in specific campaigns. Usually, only fragments of the records created by these (often temporary) groups survive but labour collections, for example, usually hold copious records which bear on them, including correspondence, minutes, reports, pamphlets, periodicals, leaflets and photographs.

The Archives has always collected printed material, serials, leaflets and pamphlets which are often hard to find elsewhere but which are a valuable part of the Archives' resources and which reflect the interests of those organisations whose records the Archives holds. It has particularly concentrated on documentary evidence of radical social and political organisations.

Scope of the Guide

This guide identifies periodical publications of communist or socialist inspired organisations held by the Archives. While the bulk of the Archives' holdings are Australian-based it does hold some international publications and these are included. It does not identify other records such as pamphlets, leaflets, posters, photographs or written records (correspondence, minutes etc). Information on these records and the collections they are within can be found through the relevant finding-aids and catalogues available at the Archives.

The guide does not include publications of communist inspired trade unions such as the Seaman's Union of Australia, Waterside Workers Federation, Federated Ironworkers Association, the Sheet Metal Workers Union, the Building Workers Industrial Union, NSW Teachers Federation etc, for whom we hold significant amounts of records, visual material and publications.

The reader should also be aware that the Archives holds publications relating to organisations opposed to many of the groups represented in this guide. For example, Problems of communism (published by the United States Information Service), International Communist Front Organisations : a monthly survey compiled from press, radio and various publications and ABN Correspondence (the monthly bulletin of the Anti-Bolshevik bloc of nations) all provide detailed information on the activities of radical organisations. Further information is available in-house at the Archives.

The guide is based on work done by the Archives for its entry in Communism in Australia : a resource bibliography which has been further developed and expanded in this guide. The guide includes additional publications received since the original entry was prepared in 1993.

Holdings

Access to Records

For access to the records mentioned in this guide and other collections of relevance please contact:

Reference Archivist
Noel Butlin Archives Centre
Building 76, Australian National University
Canberra 0200

Email: butlin.archives@anu.edu.au
Ph: (02) 6125 2219
Fax: (02) 6125 0140

Access to the records is governed by NBAC staff at the discretion of the owners of the records.

All researchers are required to contact the Centre and give advance notice of any visit to ensure that:

• the records they wish to consult will be available to them;
• any required permissions have been obtained; and
• the Centre will be open on the day they intend to visit.

Written requests for information are preferred.

Finding-Aids

The Centre maintains and creates detailed finding-aids and guides that record the arrangement and description of all collections in its care. Detailed finding-aids for all the collections noted in this guide are available through the Centre, and researchers are advised to consult them for further sources of information as well as additional information on series and items noted in this guide.

Published Sources

• Burgmann, Verity. Revolutionary industrial unionism : the industrial workers of the world in Australia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, c1995.
• Macintyre, S. The Reds : the Communist Party of Australia from origins to illegality, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998
• Symons, Beverley. Communism in Australia: a resource bibliography. Compiled by Beverley Symons with Andrew Wells and Stuart Macintyre, National Library of Australia, Sydney, 1994
• Symons, Beverley. Communism in Australia: a supplementary resource bibliography, 1994-2001. Compiled by Beverley Symons; with the assistance of Stuart Macintyre. [Newtown, N.S.W.]: Sydney Branch, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 2002.

Further Information

You may also wish to:

• search the Register of Australian Archives and Manuscripts (RAAM) at http://www.nla.gov.au/raam/ and
• contact the University of Melbourne Archives (Reference Archivist: Ph: 03 8 344 9893. Fax: 03 9347 8627).

Prepared by Ewan Maidment, 1993
Amended by Emma Jolley, 2002