Talk:Freda Brown

Freda left the CPA in 1971. She found herself 'increasingly in disagreement with the policies pursued by the leadership' (excerpt from her resignation letter). I'm currently writing a biography of Freda, and will be adding more information to this page. Lisa Milner, Australia, lisa.milner@scu.edu.au — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.56.26.119 (talk) 00:38, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

We know that! What about the SPA???--Jack Upland (talk) 09:49, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

SPA

I have added her membership of the Socialist Party. There seems to be some confusion in the sources, which imply that she left the CPA because of disillusionment with the USSR. The opposite is true. The facts are set out in Mark Aarons' Family File (for example). I'll try and dig up the reference.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:25, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure that Mark Aarons is not reliable on this subject or at least his version is contested. There is an apparent confusion between the CPA and SPA in the article. What I think is the sequence is that the Brown/Lewis families went to the SPA in the split, but that Freda subsequently left the SPA due to general disillusionment. As discussion on the Lee Rhiannon page, the decision to take the SPA side in the split is described by Rhiannon as having as much to do with an allegiance to the people in the maritime union as anything else. Chrismaltby (talk) 01:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

• Based on her blog entry, Rhiannon objects to Aarons' interpretation of the facts and his recollection of certain details but not to his basic presentation of the facts. And contrary the impression given by her comments, Aarons is not one-sidedly antagonistic to the Brown family. He records that Bill Brown enthusiastically embraced Khrushchev's condemnation of Stalin (p 180) and indicates that his support for the USSR post-1968 was based on loyalty even though he thought the intervention in Czechoslovakia was a mistake (pp 224-225, p 245). He even praises Bill Brown's "saint-like self-restraint" (p 245). Clearly people's recollection of events can be genuinely different, and no one can claim to be an authority on the nuances of someone else's opinion. However, I don't think the nuances matter here.
• I don't know when Freda Brown left the SPA (if she in fact did). Based on this article she was still involved in Communist front groups up till 1989. The story about her disillusionment seems stem from a misunderstanding of her leaving the CPA in the 1970s, which is perpetuated by the sources of this article. I think I have corrected the confusion. Moreover, various people seem to think that to praise her they need to differentiate her from the Communist movement. However, it is clear from the facts that she was a leader of the movement.--Jack Upland (talk) 21:31, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

PS I query the dates of membership given in the article. It seems unlikely that Freda Brown remained on the CPA's Central Committee after Bill had joined the SPA...--Jack Upland (talk) 03:01, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

her supporter's minimising of her Communism

Notice how, even in their obituary for her in the SMH, they used "elected at its conference in Berlin in 1975", instead of the accurate "elected at its conference in East Berlin". Paul Austin (talk) 04:47, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

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Article photo

Freda looks a lot like the character played by Julian Beck in Poltergeist II: The Other Side in this photo. 180.150.39.166 (talk) 22:11, 16 September 2021 (UTC)