A HISTORY OF THE BAKERY (OFF-CAMPUS CENTRE OF THE MONASH UNIVERSITY LABOR CLUB 1968-1971) By Ken Mansell.
The Yeast is Red is a case study of the Australian new left of the late sixties. The new left initially emerged as part of a movement of growing opposition to the Vietnam War. The war shattered the previously dominant framework of ‘Cold War’ assumptions and profoundly altered the Australian political culture.[1] Even though Vietnam and the associated conscription of male youths was the catalyst for the youth radicalisation of the sixties which produced the new left, the new radical consciousness was caused also by the effects of the social and cultural changes of the period. While actively opposing the foreign war, theorists of the new left began to develop an original and sophisticated critique, based partly on the demand for more participatory democratic forms, of their own society. Vietnam, an increasingly unpopular involvement, became a metaphor for what was seen as a suffocating and conformist malaise at home.
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As a case study The Yeast is Red has focused on the off-campus centre at 120 Greville Street in Prahran. ‘The Bakery’ was the organisational headquarters during 1969-70 of the Monash Labor Club, perhaps the most militant component of the Australian new left. This was the period of the most concentrated and militant new left activity, one that witnessed concerted effort on the part of radical students to construct a broad off-campus alliance capable of challenging the norms of the social system. In 1967-68 the movement of new radicals seemed poised to play a major role in Australian political life. Student protest had begun to revitalise the left as a whole. Three years later the organisations of the new left lay in ruins and the broader student movement had subsided. The events associated with The Bakery in Greville Street Prahran were inextricably related to this demise. The Yeast is Red offers an interpretation of the meaning of everyday events at The Bakery, believing that a focused narrative of this locale – The Bakery and the Monash left as a special case – will illuminate the broader subject of the failure of the new left.
[1] Barry York, Power to the Young in Verity Burgmann and Jenny Lee (eds.), Staining the Wattle – A Peoples’ History of Australia Since 1788,Melbourne, McPhee and Gribble/ Penguin, 1988. See also John Murphy, Harvest of Fear – A History of Australia’s Vietnam War, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1993, pp. X1X, XX11. See also Goran Therborn, From Petrograd to Saigon, New Left Review, March–April 1968.
The images below have been provided by, and are copyrighted to, Ken Mansell.
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October 1968 graffito protesting gaol sentence of Melbourne conscientious objector John Zarb – photo K.Mansell Glenferrie (Melbourne) 1982 -
1950 graffito celebrating release of Australian Communist leader Lance Sharkey (gaoled for ‘sedition’) – photo K.Mansell Carnegie (Melbourne) 1982 -
Weekend Australian circa 1993 -
Youth Against Apartheid, No. 1, December 1964 (Ed. A.Langer) Capitalism’s Loyal ‘Opponents’ (May Day Manifesto of Socialists for Victory, Jasmine Street Caulfield, May Day 1967) -
Which Way Treason (Committee for Aid to the National Liberation Front, Monash August 1967) Facts About the Anti LBJ Demonstration (Monash SRC, October 1966) -
Old Mole (Sydney), October 1970 The Brisbane Line, Volume 1 No. 1, Brisbane, August 1968 -
Grassroots (Students for Democratic Action, Adelaide University), n.d, 1969 Wednesday Commentary (Sydney University Labor Club), March 1969 Student Guerilla (Society for Democratic Action, University of Queensland), June 1968 -
Poster of ‘Brisbane Underground Machine (BUM)’ – Society for Democratic Action/Young Socialist League, Brisbane, 1968 -
Poster of ‘Brisbane Underground Machine (BUM)’ – Society for Democratic Action/Young Socialist League, Brisbane, 1968 -
The Eleven Months Che Know Thy Enemy -
(image on cloth flag – Third World Bookshop, Sydney 1968) -
(Cover) Rowan Cahill, Notes on the New Left in Australia, Sydney, 1969 Bolshevik (Young Communist League), No. 1, February 1969 -
‘Red is the East – Rises the Sun – China has brought forth a Mao Tse-Tung’ -
Marching songs and posters of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam -
Booklists and anti-Billy Graham (March 1969) -
Barry McKenzie as ‘traitor’ (‘Viet Cong’ supporter) at Alice’s Restaurant Bookshop -
(photo left – in Alice’s Restaurant Bookshop; photo right – in The Bakery workroom) -
Treason (Highett High, Melbourne), March 1969 Student Underground (High School Students Against the War in Vietnam), Sydney, February 1969 -
Is Your School Revolting? (Students in Dissent,The Bakery, 1969) Tabloid Underground (Students in Dissent)1968 Why was Margaret Bailey Suspended?, 1969 -
(from) Peter Coleman, School Power in Australia, 1970 -
120 Greville Street Prahran (centre of photo – from the Grattan Street corner 1992) -
Free U, No. 1 (Sydney Free U), circa 1968 Ergo (Adelaide), circa 1969 -
K.Mansell, The Westgate Bridge Disaster and other Songs of Labour, 1971 -
Material produced at The Bakery for the ‘Prahran Worker’ campaign 1969 -
Langer-Rubin riot trial leaflets, June 1969 1969 Sydney broadsheet (‘Oppression in Society’) Anti-Penal Powers leaflet 1969 -
Half-Baked, March 5, 1969 The Socialist Imperative – A May Day Manifesto, May Day 1969 -
Struggle (Worker-Student Alliance, The Bakery), No. 1, August 5, 1970 Lot’s Wife (Monash University), May 9, 1969 Print (Monash Labor Club), May 12, 1969