Obituary:

Len Fox (1905-2004)

John Gardener

Len Fox, the well-known writer and activist, died on January 3. 
He was 98 years old.

Len was born into a middle-class family in Melbourne in 1905. He 
was educated at private schools, and later graduated from 
Melbourne University with a Science degree and a Diploma of 
Education. After leaving university, he taught at the exclusive 
Scotch College, in Melbourne, where he developed an interest in 
progressive education.

In 1933, he travelled to England, to study progressive 
educational practitioners like Alexander Neill, founder of the 
Summerhill School, and Dora and Bertrand Russell, who had 
established a progressive boarding school in Sussex. Whilst in 
England, seeing first-hand the Hunger Marches and the effects of 
the Depression, he began to question and re-examine his beliefs 
on politics and education. Coming into contact with Communist 
Party (CP) members — and hearing British CP leader Harry Pollitt 
speak at a rally — led him to a developing interest in socialism 
and the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

Whilst in England, he was also increasingly concerned with the 
growing fascist influence of Oswald Mosely's Blackshirts, whose 
growth was steered by sections of the bourgeois media of the day. 
As he recounts in his autobiography, Broad Left Narrow 
Left, the Daily Mail, one of the largest circulation 
newspapers of the day, even ran a competition — as unbelievable 
as it sounds today — to find "... Britain's most beautiful woman 
blackshirt ..."

He clearly saw, very early, the class links between capital and 
fascism, and between fascism and war. A visit to Nazi Germany in 
1934 opened his eyes still further, and he became convinced that 
fascism posed a great danger to humanity.

On his return to Melbourne later that year, he joined the 
Movement Against War and Fascism (MAW&F), quickly becoming the 
Secretary of the Victorian Branch. He immersed himself into the 
anti-fascist struggle: and in so doing, he increased his contact 
with CP members, many of whom were active in the MAW&F. The 
following year, 1935, he joined the Communist Party. Throughout 
the rest of the decade, the MAW&F helped to build a broad peace 
movement, that included many church, civil and trade unions 
groups: and Len was active at every step in the process.

After the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, Len became 
seriously involved in the Victorian Spanish Relief Committee and 
helped mobilise support for the Spanish Republic. Alongside Vance 
and Nettie Palmer, amongst others, he was involved in organising 
public meetings, often with returned Civil War veterans and 
nurses as speakers.

It was a difficult process: Australia was a long way away from 
the fighting, and the support for Franco's fascist forces was 
overwhelming amongst the bourgeoisie. Amongst Franco's supporters 
were the UAP — the United Australia Party, the forerunners of 
today's Liberal Party — and many right-wing sections of the 
Labor Party: particularly those sections who had close links with 
the Catholic Church, which stood closely allied with Franco 
against the Spanish people.

Early in 1940, Len was asked to travel to Sydney to edit the 
journal Soviets Today, published by the Friends of the 
Soviet Union. He quickly discovered the delights of wartime 
censorship: just after he arrived, it was announced that the 
journal had to submit all issues to the censor for approval. A 
number of editions were banned in their entirety — even the 
journal's name was banned, alongside every article and photo! — 
and in May, 1940 it was formally placed on the Government's 
banned list. Little more than a month later, the CP was itself 
declared an illegal organisation, and operated under conditions 
of illegality for a number of years.

After this, Len spent the remainder of the war years writing for 
a weekly left newspaper based in Sydney, Progress. Progress 
 was published under the aegis of the State Labor Party until 
1946, and at its height it had a circulation of more than 20,000. 
It was distributed widely throughout Sydney.

When the Tribune was printed and distributed illegally 
during the first part of the war, Progress remained legal 
the entire time, and managed to openly print left and progressive 
news, despite the stringent wartime censorship restrictions.

A number of other well known Party figures contributed material 
to Progress: Rupert Lockwood and Edgar Ross, amongst 
others, Edgar regularly writing the editorial.

At the end of the war, Len began working on Tribune, and 
for a number of years edited the newspaper's four-page magazine 
section. Later, he moved to Common Cause, the Miner's 
Federation weekly newspaper, at the behest of then editor Edgar 
Ross.

He took time off from the paper in 1956-57 to travel to North 
Vietnam — which had by then freed itself from French colonialism 
— with his wife, well-known playwright Mona Brand, to help the 
North Vietnamese Government with English language education and 
translation. During this period he met many legendary Vietnamese 
political and military figures, including Ho Chi Minh and Vo 
Nguyen Giap. Ho Chi Minh — in particular — made a considerable 
impression on Len.

After returning to Australia, he resumed work at Common 
Cause. Concurrently, Len and Mona became active in the NSW 
Australian-Aboriginal Fellowship, an Aboriginal rights 
organisation. The organisation was active in building a campaign 
to repeal the reactionary and discriminatory legislation that 
still enslaved Indigenous people: the campaign included around 30 
affiliated trade unions and Aboriginal advancement bodies.

It built a campaign that the bourgeoisie could not withstand: in 
the early 1960s, the worst of the NSW Protection Acts — the 
legal cornerstone of the Aborigines Protection Board — were 
repealed. The Fellowship continued its work, and was a leading 
element in the victorious 1967 constitutional referendum, that 
removed formal discrimination against Aborigines. Len personally 
designed the famous "Right Wrongs" poster, that featured a 
child's face.

In 1966, after Edgar Ross was commissioned by the mining union to 
write The History of the Miner's Federation, Len took over 
the editorship of Common Cause, which he maintained until 
his retirement in 1970.

After his formal retirement, Len certainly didn't cease work: 
instead, he embarked on what was possibly one of the most 
creative periods of his life. Two of his autobiographical works 
written during this time, Broad Left, Narrow Left (printed 
in 1982) and Australians on the Left (published in 1996), 
have become cited sources by historians and researchers of 
various political persuasions.

His well-known book on the economic domination of the Australian 
economy by transnational corporations — Multinationals Take Over 
Australia — is still of great benefit.

All in all, Len wrote more than 100 books or pamphlets — on 
topics as diverse as economics, politics, windmills, the Eureka 
Flag, Australian culture, Aborigines and poetry — during his 
long life. His life and work were a mirror of his times. He was 
particularly proud, and justifiably so, of his writings and 
activism for Aboriginal people.

He remained committed to socialism, as he understood it, until 
his death.

He is missed by many.