CPA - The Guardian

With the crash of 1929, Vic Williams, a boy of fifteen, lost his farm life and his kelpie dog when his family were forced to sell when wheat was ten pence a bushel.

Later he wrote –

“Why does it drive us on the street,

This crime of growing too much wheat?”

He has continued to campaign against capitalism, the cause of unemployment, the evictions, the growing poverty and the wars. He first marched in a demonstration against the Munich sellout in 1938, a betrayal that led to World WarII.

In the Spanish Civil war he saw an elected government attacked by the Franco uprising, backed by German and Italian fascism, the betrayal of the British and French governments, but saw the courageous assistance to the Spanish people by the Soviet Union.

He became convinced of the need for a socialist society and joined the Communist Party.

He enlisted in the AIF for services in the anti-fascist war and the defence of Australia against Japanese imperialism.

With his wife Joan he has used his voice, his poetry, his writing against imperialism, and for world peace and for a stable and developing and peaceful socialist society.

As a young girl Joan Allen saw the fruit from the family orchard wasted because there was no market following the 1929 crash.

Joan was deeply concerned over the Spanish Civil war against the Franco uprising and the German bombing of Guernica. She was stirred by the courageous speeches of “La Passionaria”, the Communist leader, and supported the Spanish Relief Committee.

As a journalist she had seen the bitter problems of girls who became pregnant with the only solution illegal abortions, with danger of prison. Later she was one of the founders of Association for Legal Rights to Abortion. Sacked as a journalist because she had married, she took up struggle for the rights of women.

Joan and her husband went to Europe and travelling through Nazi Germany, saw all the preparations for war, and joined in the anti-fascist campaigns. Her experiences and contacts took her into the Communist Party in 1939.

During the illegal period of the Communist Party she cut the stencils of the newspapers, risking jail.

Loan led the first demonstration against the US nuclear powered and probably armed warships in Fremantle. A campaign grew to massive demonstrations that led to the election of Senator Jo Valentine.

Joan has used her voice, her poems, her short stories and letters to the press in the campaigns for world peace, for the liberation of women over many years. It is a life to commemorate for its love of people, for its anger against the injustices and the savagery of capitalism, and profound belief in the future of a socialist society.

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