By Iain McIntyre.
The Communist Party affiliated Proletarian Hall operated in Lydia Street during the 1930s providing a soup kitchen as well as a base for unemployed organizing.
A number of unemployed organizations sprang up around the country in the early period of the Depression. With governments floundering in response to mass poverty many were concerned with fundraising and working with charities and councils to deliver sustenance. Wary of annoying their benefactors most shied away from agitating for better conditions. However as these early organizations were unable to secure enough help for the unemployed it wasn’t long before more strident networks emerged. As elsewhere in Victoria the main two unemployed organisations in Brunswick were the militant, Communist Party dominated Unemployed Workers Movement (UWM) and the more moderate trade union aligned Combined Unemployed Council (CUC).
The Brunswick branch of the UWM was set up in 1931 and operated out of the Proletarian Hall, which was located in Lydia Street. At its peak the organisation claimed to have 7000 members and 26 branches located around the state. The UWM’s main position was that since the unemployed were not responsible for their situation they should not have to suffer for it. To achieve better conditions they organized protests, marches and occupations as well as ‘dole strikes’ against relief schemes that failed to provide work at award rates.
The local CUC branch was set up in March 1931. It was affiliated to the Australian Labor Party through the Victorian Trades Hall Council. Trades Hall had initially dragged its feet in setting up a specific organisation for the unemployed. However with the unemployed already organising themselves the Australian Labor Party feared it would be unable to exert influence over the movement and created the CUC to coordinate a number of existing groups. Due to these links the CUC focused more on lobbying politicians and councils and providing Trade Union funded assistance to the unemployed. It was larger than the UWM and boasted 870 Brunswick members in 1935.
There was some hostility between the leaderships of the rival organizations, but at the grassroots members often worked together. In Brunswick the Unemployed Workers Movement often had to go through the Combined Unemployed Council to get access to the Brunswick council. In turn its militant tactics allowed the CUC’s demands to appear more reasonable. Many CUC members joined the Unemployed Workers Movement in taking direct action against evictions and repossessions and the Brunswick leadership tended to turn a blind eye to this. An exception to this rule occurred when a number of CUC members were kicked out of the organisation for destroying a house in Rose Street in 1931 following the eviction of an unemployed family.
Although the Communist Party wanted its members to purely focus on agitation and recruiting its Brunswick branch and the UWM also provided food and other practical help to the unemployed. An example of this was the soup kitchen run at Proletarian Hall by the Workers International Relief Committee which fed up to 80 children a day. Other than holding talks and organizing protests and eviction resistance the UWM also organised regular dances and put on cheap entertainment with the funds going to the soup kitchen. Whilst relations between the council and the UWM were often strained the former still subsidized the kitchen with free firewood and electricity. Whether this support came through solidarity or fear is unknown.