Richard Dixon, born Clifton Reginald Walker (26 May 1905 – 7 March 1976) was an Australian trade unionist who served as national president of the

Communist Party of Australia The Communist Party of Australia (CPA), known as the Australian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was an Australian political party founded in 1920. The party existed until roughly 1991, with its membership and influence having been i ...

from 1948 to 1972. He was born at

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

to miner Henry Kidd Walker and Emily, ''née'' Wilmott, although the family soon moved to Lithgow. Reginald, as he was known, left school at fourteen and worked at a bicycle shop and then at a post office. He joined the New South Wales Government Railways and Tramways in 1925 and briefly joined the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...

, although he was quickly drawn to the

(CPA). Moving to

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

in 1928 to work at the railway parcels office, he became secretary of the CPA's Sydney branch in 1929, as well as secretary of the local branch of the

Australian Railways Union The Australian Railways Union (ARU) was an Australian trade union in existence from 1920 to 1993. The ARU was an industrial union, representing all types of workers employed in the rail industry, excluding locomotive enginedrivers and tradesme ...

. A supporter of independence from the Labor Party, he was involved in a successful push for leadership change in 1929 led by

Lance Sharkey Lawrence Louis Sharkey (19 August 1898 – 13 May 1967), commonly known as Lance Sharkey or L. L. Sharkey, was an Australian trade unionist and communist leader. From 1948 to 1965 he served as the secretary-general of Communist Party of Austr ...

and

Jack Miles John R. "Jack" Miles (born July 30, 1942) is an American author. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the MacArthur Fellowship. His writings on religion, politics, and culture have appeared in numerous national pub ...

, which brought with it a berth on the party's central executive committee, a position he held until 1974. In January 1931, Walker embarked on a visit to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, attending the

International Lenin School The International Lenin School (ILS) was an official training school operated in Moscow, Soviet Union, by the Communist International from May 1926 to 1938. It was resumed after the Second World War and run by the Communist Party of the Soviet Unio ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. He returned to Australia in March 1933 and changed his name to Richard Dixon in an attempt to evade the attention of the security service, which had labelled him a "dangerous revolutionary". He became the CPA's general secretary in 1937. On 25 March 1939 he married Dorothy Jean Button at the registry office in North Sydney. He was elected national president of the CPA in 1948. In 1945 he attacked the

White Australia policy The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting i ...

as racist and offensive, and he represented the CPA at the Petrov royal commission in 1954. Although loyal to the Soviet Union, he agreed with the CPA's independent stance in the 1960s and disagreed with the 1968 invasion of

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

. Dixon retired as national president of the CPA in 1972 and died in 1976 of hypertensive

cardiovascular disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, h ...

Bankstown Bankstown is a suburb south west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 16 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is located in the local government area of the City of Canterbury-Bankstown, hav ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dixon, Richard 1905 births 1976 deaths Australian expatriates in the Soviet Union International Lenin School alumni Communist Party of Australia members