A Communist’s Journey: To Moscow and Beyond

This book, although a memoir is not simply a chronology of a life but a personalised history of a movement. It isnot the drawing of a line under a life, but the turning of a page. Briggs weaves the personal with the political. It is a communist’s journey; a political journey that led him to Moscow and beyond. It traces the history of the communist movement in Australia across six decades. It is a story of personal development and of political upheaval. While he was writing this memoir, he took the decision to leave the Communist Party of Australia. This does not mark an end, but simply a new beginning as the fight for the ideas of Marxism-Leninism continues. He asks, ’what comes next?’ As he says in the book, ’the journey is by no means over. There will come a time when my personal journey will end. That personally is of little consequence. What is important is to fight with whatever weapons you might have at your disposal for a future that will bring dignity, fulfilment, hope and a better world. To fight against a world that exploits labour, that enriches the few at the expense of the many, that perpetuates greed, inequality, despair, that drives people mad, that promotes hatred, war and the devastation of our planet, is a fight worth the effort.’