Ralph Gibson (political activist)
Ralph Gibson | |
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Born | W.R. Boyce Gibson | 19 February 1906
Ralph Siward Gibson (19 February 1906 โ 16 May 1989) was an Australian communist organiser and writer.
Life
Gibson was born in
In 1925 Gibson was one of the founders of the university Labor Club and was active in the Labor Guild of Youth. He returned to England in 1927 and received a
Gibson was a full-time party organiser for forty years. He was gaoled in 1933 for three weeks after addressing an illegal street meeting. On 16 March 1937, after returning from the World Peace Conference in Brussels, he married Dorothy Alexander in Melbourne. They settled in Oakleigh. Gibson was a member of the central committee and editor of the communist newspaper the Guardian from 1943 to 1948. He was the principal witness before Justice Lowe's royal commission of 1949โ50 into communism in Victoria, and was little moved by Khrushchev's revelations about Stalinism in 1956.[2]
Gibson published My Years in the Communist Party in 1966, and following his wife's death in 1978 published a memoir of her, One Woman's Life, in 1980. He later published The People Stand Up in 1983 and The Fight Goes On in 1987, two exhaustive histories of communism in Australia and the world. He died at
References
- ^ Salvete, The Fleur-de-Lys, no. 24 (Oct. 1924), p. 10.
- ^ a b c d Macintyre, Stuart (2007). "Gibson, Ralph Siward (1906โ1989)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. Retrieved 21 July 2011.