title: RED CRIMINALS : Censorship, surveillance and suppression of the radical Russian community in Brisbane during World War I
Creators: name: Curtis, Louise Ann
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2010
Subjects: subject: red criminals
subject: censorship
subject: World War 1
subject: Brisbane
subject: Russian Community
subject: surveillance
subject: intelligence

description: Keeping Australia safe and protecting the interests of the Commonwealth is the mission of Australia’s intelligence agencies. The collection, analysis and provision of intelligence on domestic and foreign threats to Australia’s security assists the government’s decision-making and underpins policy. During World War I, the potential for monitoring political trends in the domestic population was enhanced through mass postal and cable censorship and surveillance in Australia, the wider British Commonwealth and several other countries. This thesis explores the collection and analysis of intelligence by defence and security agencies during World War I through the case of a group of immigrant activists in Brisbane, the Russian Workers Association (RWA). Taking an historical approach, the aim of the thesis is to explore how the emergence of a coordinated intelligence network is reflected in the data collected on the events and personalities of the Russian group, and in turn how the radicalism of the Russians and the rise of communism shaped the focus of intelligence collection. This work contributes to the substantial body of existing literature on political surveillance and radical organisations in Australia by providing a fuller understanding of the censorship and surveillance processes that led to the suppression of the Russians and how this intelligence focus had longer term impacts on post-war policy. The historical context for this study is the legislative framework established by the Fisher government and expanded under the Hughes government. The War Precautions Act 1914 and War Precautions Regulations were administered by the Department of Defence and greatly empowered its intelligence arm, the Intelligence Section General Staff. Military intelligence was assisted by state police and two new federal agencies, the Special Intelligence Bureau and the Commonwealth Police. In addition to managing Australia’s contribution to the war in Europe, these Regulations set up the parameters for dealing with wartime disloyalty and sedition on the home front. At this time the radicalism of organisations like the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was sweeping through the domestic labour movement. The successes of the Bolsheviks in Russia and the promises of their Soviet revolution also bolstered the ideas promoted by socialist and later communist groups. In response, the Hughes government’s focus on disloyalty and sedition, through the Unlawful Associations Act 1916, set in place restrictions to suppress groups like the RWA. This study draws on documents created by state and federal agencies and the radical Russian community in Brisbane. The most significant and voluminous intelligence collection tool of the Great War was postal and cable censorship. From these sources alone, 846 censors’ reports relevant to the RWA were identified for this study through a comprehensive survey of all reports from Queensland between 1915 and 1919, and selected reports from New South Wales and Victoria in 1918 and 1919. These reports are complemented by analysis of selected correspondence and subject files produced by state and federal agencies responsible for monitoring subversive groups. This primary material is also contextualised by secondary literature which deals with political surveillance and radical organisations in Australia and the United Kingdom. The thesis begins by describing the historical context which surrounded the intelligence agencies that safeguarded the World War I home front, and introducing the story of the Russians in Brisbane. Chapter 1 focuses on the RWA and reconstructs the origins and development of the radical identity that made it an object of government interest. Chapter 2 examines the historical context for the development of the intelligence agencies. The final chapters form the narrative core of the thesis. Chapter 3 traces early Queensland state government correspondence and police reports on the Russian community centred in South Brisbane, and explores discussions at state and federal levels on how best to manage the group. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the intelligence collected through censorship and surveillance, and how the intelligence agencies analysed and distributed this information. Through this process the agencies determined which members of the RWA were subversive, disloyal or seditious. The voices of the Russians and the censors in these records reveal wartime intelligence at the grassroots level.