- by Denis Doherty
- The Guardian
- Issue #2128
In 1954, the 100th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade, the Communist Party of Australia published a portfolio of lino prints commemorating the event. The introduction of to this portfolio reads:
This folio of lino-cuts produced by the Melbourne Popular Art Group, pays tribute to a great occasion in our history – the stand of the Ballarat miners in the Eureka Stockade.
At dawn on Sunday, 3 December 1854, a handful of poorly-armed diggers stood within their flimsy wooden stockade in defiance of the organised might of government, army and police.
Their grievances had been acute: an unjust and oppressive tax on their labour, enforced by a corrupt and brutal administration in the election of which they had no choice.
Military victory went to the government – but the moral victory was the diggers’.
Within one year of Eureka the tax they fought against had been abolished, and the democratic reforms they demanded had been granted. Within two years their leader, Peter Lalor, at first declared an outlaw, had become their representative in the Parliament their blood had won.
In remembering this anniversary, we celebrate men standing together, in mateship, to defend their rights and liberties. We celebrate the birthday of Australian democracy.
In 2004 at the 150th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade, the Party republished the lino prints with the permission of the artists or their relatives. The 2004 anniversary introduction said in part:
As the Eureka Stockade 150th Anniversary dawns, the struggles of the men of 1854 still resonates down the ages to call on all Australians to join the march to protect democratic freedoms. The men of Eureka would be disappointed to see their most cherished desire for democracy skewed into a two-party dominance of the present day Australian Parliaments. These parties rule for the same types who so cruelly oppressed the gold miners at Ballarat in the 1850’s.
At the time, Karl Marx responded to Eureka:
“There are actually two big issues around which the revolutionary movement in Victoria State is revolving. The gold diggers are demanding the abolition of the gold digging licences, ie of a tax directly imposed on labour; secondly, they demand the abolition of the property qualification for Members of the Chamber of Representatives, in order themselves to obtain control over taxes and legislation. Here we see, in essence, motives similar to those which led to the Declaration of Independence of the United States, except that in Australia the conflict is initiated by the workers against the monopolists linked with the colonial bureaucracy.”
