Migrants, Identity and Radical Politics

What is it about?

This paper examines ten years (1963–1973) of visits to Australia of Italian Communist Party (PCI) officials. In particular, the visits' origins, meaning and ramifications are analysed and framed against the background of post-war migrant worker identity discourses and radical politics. They appear to have shaped markedly the direction of the experience of Italian communists in Australia, especially in Sydney, and their interaction with both the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and the PCI. Ultimately, they helped spread the message of Italian communism among migrants and encourage the replication on Australian soil of the successful experience of the Europe-based PCI federations with thousands of worker members. For the CPA, which had been looking for new ways to break through to the hearts and minds of the migrant proletariat, the visits heralded a stronger partnership with its Italian members, a closer link with Eurocommunism, and a potential new stream of recruits that would have reversed the hemorrhaging of membership. The visits were instrumental, as argued in this paper, for the establishment and promotion of an Italian cultural and language space for which far-left Italian migrants in Australia had long yearned.

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Why is it important?

The paper assesses the role the visits to Australia of Italian Communist Party (PCI) officials played in the process of politicisation of migrants in Australian radical politics during the Cold War period and within the rich and complex relationship between Communist parties in Italy and Australia. It argues that presence of the PCI in Australia, from short visits by Italian officials to the creation of a structure at grass-roots level, added a transnational dimension to the political experience of Italian migrants and a much craved sense of empowerment and a migrant identity for the community of Italian radicals.

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