Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia

Evan Smith is Lecturer in History in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University in South Australia. He is also Visiting Research Fellow with the School of Humanities at the University of Adelaide, Australia.Jayne Persian is a historian, predominantly of Central and Eastern Europe displaced persons, many of whom migrated to Australia in the post-war period. She is Co-chief Investigator on a 2022–25 ARC Discovery Project: Russian Immigrants and Anti-Communism in Cold War Australia, 1946–1966.Vashti Jane Fox is a PhD student at the University of Western Australia. She writes on the history of anti-fascism in Australia in the post–World War II period. She is also a socialist activist and an anti-fascist agitator.

• 1. Introduction: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australian History 2. An Uncomfortable Past: Historiographical Reflections on Fascism and Interwar Australia 3. Labour ‘Armies’ in the 1930s Depression: From Industrial Disputes to Anti-Fascism 4. Egon Kisch and Black Australia 5. ‘The Renaissance of our Fatherland’: Fascist Rhetoric and Intra-Communal Tension, Loveday Internment Group Camp 14A, 28 October 1942 6. ‘War on the Whiteman’: Australia in the Racial and Political Imagination of Britain's Far Right, 1945–1970 7. Fascism in Exile: Ustasha-Linked Organisations in Australia 8. European and Australian Fascisms: The Case of Ferenc Molnár and National Socialism in Cold War Australia 9. Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Perth in the 1980s 10. Far Right, Far Left and Australian Engagement with Libya in the 1980s 11. ‘I cop this shit all the time and I’m sick of it’: Pauline Hanson, the Far Right and the Politics of Victimhood in Australia 12. Discourses of Western Civilisation in the Australian Federal Parliament 13. Fascists In and Out of Uniform: Situating Street Fascism in the Broader Context of White Supremacy

"This is an original and timely book with a stellar line-up of scholars. While research on the far right and fascism in Australia has grown over the years, anti-fascism and resistance have remained under explored and this book fills this significant gap magnificently."Aurelien Mondon, University of Bath, UK"This collection brings together the leading authorities on fascism and anti-fascism in Australia with a new generation working in the archives. It challenges our inherited understanding of the militant anti-fascism of the 1930s, and the early movements against the White Australia immigration regime. Lively and accessible, it documents the immediate predecessors to the racial populists of our own times, and the generations who resisted them."David Renton, author of No Free Speech for Fascists"In a world where right wing extremism continues to flourish, this history of fascism and anti-fascism is both timely and illuminating. There is an impressive depth of empirical research together with insights drawn from global fascism and anti-fascism studies, and it’s all told with clarity and style. The chapters, by both well-established and emerging scholars, explore in depth the shifting relationships between extremist and mainstream political movements. A key theme is the manner in which Australia’s distinctive forms of racism – expressed in Indigenous and immigration policies, public discourse, and popular culture – have shaped its historical experience of fascist ideas and movements. Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia also explores the achievements as well as the limitations and failures of anti-fascist movements in the past, making for a multi-faceted and nuanced work of history with both scholarly and practical value."Ann Curthoys, Professor Emerita, Australian National University, and co-author with Shino Konishi and Alexandra Ludewig of The Lives and Legacies of a Carceral Island: A Biographical History of Wadjemup/Rottnest Island