Red Europe / by Frank Anstey. (Melbourne : Fraser & Jenkinson,
[1919])
Frank Anstey was a radical Labor politician. From 1902 he was the ALP member
for Brunswick, and was elected to Federal parliament as the member for Bourke in
1910. He had been associated with various left-wing organisations. In 1918 he
visited Europe with the imperial press mission, and spoke to prominent
socialists. Red Europe is an account of his tour and the conclusions he
drew from it.
Despite the lurid cover, Red Europe is pro-Communist. Anstey
supported the revolutionaries in Russia and welcomed them as signalling the
beginning of a world-wide overthrow of oppression. His book ends, "Capitalism
listens with quaking soul to the drum-beats of the Armies of Revolution. Those
beats grow louder and louder - they draw nearer and nearer." (p. 192)
