Taft, Bernie

Description

Agent TypePersonPlace of BirthHanover, GermanyPlace of DeathMelbourneActivities & OccupationsPolitical activistsGenderMaleHistoryBernie Taft was born in Hanover, Germany in 1918. At just 13 years of age he joined the Young Communist Party. This was short lived, as Hitler’s rise in Germany caused his family of Polish Jewish decent to seek refuge in Palestine. It was 1933.The family returned to Europe in 1935, before migrating to Australia in 1939. In 1941 he joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). This coincided with the Soviet Union entering into the Second World War. Four years later, in 1945 he accepted his first full time functionary position of the CPA as Director at the Marx School. He later studied for sixteen months at the Higher Party School in Peking (1955-1956), and at the Higher Party School in Moscow (1961-1962). In 1964 he was elected national committee member of the CPA, before national executive in 1967. He then became joint national secretary in 1979. Recognised as an Australian political figure who sought to take the Communist Party into mainstream politics Bernie Taft was committed to social justice. He resigned from the CPA in 1984 after forty years of service. In 1994 he published his memoir ‘Crossing the party line’. He died in 2013 aged 95.

B. Taft, Crossing the Party Line: Memoirs of Bernie Taft, Scribe Publications, Newham Victoria, 1994.Search records of this agent

Item

Accession

Dates

Date27 June 1918-23 July 2013

Names

Given NameBernieFamily NameTaft

University of Melbourne Archives

Archives

Menu

Taft, Bernie