- The Guardian
- Issue #2187
Sydney Trade Union Choir, May Day Sydney 2016.
On 1 May workers across Australia celebrate May Day. At its peak in the 1940s to 1970s, tens of thousands of workers marched. Union leaders and the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) representatives gave political speeches, while members held red flags and workers’ symbols. Workers marched behind their union banners, and large choirs sang socialist songs in theatre groups, brass bands played labour anthems, and the crowds sang political songs.
During the Cold War, after the Menzies government attempted to ban the CPA, communist and militant labour songs were censored, banned from radio, public broadcasting, and public venues. Party members continued to sing.
Communist cultural strategy believed collective singing strengthened class solidarity and unity. Choirs were mass participation, providing political education: the lyrics explained exploitation, strikes, and socialism. Large choirs created a powerful sense of shared struggle, such as the Sydney Workers’ Choir, Melbourne Workers’ Choir, and the New Theatre Chorus. They performed at May Day demonstrations and anti-fascist rallies during WW2, Vietnam War protests, and at union strike meetings.
The most important May Day song was the Internationale, sung at the end of rallies. Its lyrics, ‘Arise ye workers from your slumber, arise ye prisoners of want,’ celebrate the worker revolution and the unity of the international proletariat. The early labour movement’s demand for humane working hours is sung in Eight Hour Day. The lyrics, ‘Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest,’ shouted out what workers wanted.
Solidarity Forever was popular at union marches. The lyrics, ‘When the union’s inspiration, through the workers’ blood shall run,’ explained, ‘For the union makes us strong,’ emphasising union organisation was the path to worker power. The Red Flag was sung by CPA members and socialist groups after speeches. Its lyrics, ‘Then raise the scarlet standard high, beneath its shade we’ll live and die,’ honoured the socialist martyrs’ symbol of the red banner of socialism.
Folk music played a major political role in the Australian left and Communist movement. The CPA believed folk culture could express the history, struggles, and consciousness of the working class more effectively than could elite culture. Folk songs were used as political teaching tools. At meetings, festivals, and rallies, songs explained the poverty under capitalism, the history of union struggles, and the continuing struggle against imperialist wars.
Dorothy Hewett,’s Weevils in the Flour is a satirical attack on poverty and capitalist neglect. This humorous song is a bitter satire often performed in theatre or revue shows. Another is Freedom on the Wallaby, which told of the historic 1891 Queensland Shearers’ Strike. The lyrics, “So we must fly a rebel flag, as others did before us,” linked modern workers with colonial labour rebellions.
These songs, once considered dangerous or subversive, are now widely studied as part of Australian labour and cultural history. Workers’ songs continue to unite.
