Issue No 36 | 22 October 1999 | |
HistoryHow the Cunning Fox SurvivedBy Rohan Cahill
Len Fox recently turned 94. He celebrated the event by sending out copies of his latest publication to friends; a booklet of his selected pencil and crayon sketches since 1925, with autobiographical commentaries.
Author of more than 40 books on economics, history, biography and poetry, Len Fox is one of the few surviving journalists and writers whose work was an integral and crucial part of Australian Left politics and culture prior to, and during World War 2 and the Cold War---people like Rupert Lockwood, Edgar Ross, Bill Wood, George Farwell, Paul Moline. Fox was born in 1905 and grew up against the backdrop of his family's Jewish and Irish-Scottish-North English origins in Melbourne's Eastern suburbs. Educated in private schools and at Melbourne University, he graduated in science, and with a Diploma of Education worked as a private school teacher. A developing awareness in the late 1920s and early 1930s that the world was deeply troubled and that modern life posed significant moral and ethical questions, led Fox to an interest in what is now termed 'progressive' education. The key to creating a better world was through child centred schooling, and education that explored notions of individuality, creativity, communality, and freedom, and which took account of modern psychological theory. With a view to perhaps teaching at a progressive school, Fox went to England in 1933 to learn from leading progressive practitioners like Dora Russell and A. S. Neill. However the extremes of the Depression, significant events like the Hunger Marches, a visit to Nazi Germany, and exposure to socialist thought, politicised the burgeoning educationist. Returning to Melbourne in 1934 Fox became active in the national consciousness raising Movement Against War and Fascism, and soon became Secretary of its Victorian Branch. He joined the Communist Party (CPA) the following year. For the rest of his life Fox earned his living on the Left, increasingly as an intellectual and writer. When Australians mobilised in support of the Spanish Republic in its fight against Fascism, Fox was active on the Victorian Spanish Relief Committee. Here he was influenced by the broad cultural approach of the Committee president, well-known writer Nettie Palmer. In 1940 Fox transferred to Sydney, and journalism. The war years were spent on the lively four page Leftist weekly Progress. With a circulation of 20,000 Progress was one of the few legal sources of Left information and perspective in heavily censored times. The paper folded in 1946. During the early 1950s Fox edited the four page weekly magazine section of the communist newspaper Tribune, before joining editor Edgar Ross on Common Cause, weekly newspaper of the Miners' Federation. Following the retirement of Ross, Fox edited the paper until his own retirement in 1970. There was a two year break, in 1956-1957, when Fox and his wife, the playwright Mona Brand, worked in North Vietnam helping the government with the English language which had assumed political importance as the language of the International Commission supervising the divided country's scheduled 1956 elections. Aside from journalism, Fox was a widely read pamphleteer during the late 1930s and 1940s on political, economic and historical matters. His pamphlets were between 4000 and 9000 words in length, and based on extensive research; aimed at both working and middle class audiences, the language was accessible, the intention tended to be educational rather than agitational, the style dogma and jargon free. Fox was also part of a cultural minority in the 1940s and 1950s which argued that Australia had a national culture, and directed significant energies to identifying and promoting this. He did important research and writing leading to the recognition and honouring of the Eureka Flag. In the face of dominant cultural cringe attitudes, and academic, media and political hostilities, people like Fox, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Brian Fitzpatrick, Stephen Murray-Smith, Helen Palmer, Ian Turner, Russel Ward, did much of the spade work leading to the post 1960s recognition of, and interest in, Australian culture. As a communist Fox identified with broad Left forces. Although he remained in the party until 1970, he was variously at odds with leaderships that favoured doctrinaire narrowness. During the 1960s and 1970s Fox and Brand were active in a number of committees for Aboriginal Advancement whose campaigning led to major progressive changes in Australian legislation and public opinion. The bulk of Fox's literary output has taken place since 1970, reflecting a wide range of interests, from the old windmills of colonial Sydney through to the impact of multinationals on the Australian economy. Two autobiographical works, Broad Left, Narrow Left (1982) and Australians on the Left (1996), are increasingly being drawn upon by historical researchers. Looking back at his life on the Left, the old writer stresses the value of a broad and tolerant approach in personal life and politics, and a wide interest in cultural matters. In his recent writing, he has stressed the need for broad Left alliances (as was achieved in South Africa) for democracy, internationalism and world peace--with the importance for Australians of Aboriginal Reconciliation and friendship with the Asian peoples.
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