People Australia

Alfred Deaken (Alf) Watt (1907-1987) carpenter, trade union official and Communist

Birth: 2 September 1907, at Northcote, Melbourne, son of James Hudson Watt (1864-1939), born at Byker, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, England and his second wife Sarah Jane, née Lord (1870-1945) born at Tarnagulla, Victoria. Marriage: 1950 at Adelaide, South Australia, to native-born Elsie Ray Ballantyne MA (1908-2000). They had two sons. Death: 24 July 1987 at Calvary Hospital, Kogarah, Sydney; usual residence Oyster Bay, New South Wales. 

• Aged 13 he participated in a waterside workers strike at Fremantle, Western Australia.
• Moved with his family back to Melbourne, completing his education at night school. Worked as a carpenter and became a member of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters & Joiners of Australia, later the Builders Workers Industrial Union.
• Joined the Australian Labor Party aged 17 and the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) at 19.
• Active during the 1930s Depression with the Workers Defence Corps and was beaten up by the New Guard.
• From 1934 to 1938 was editor of Workers’ Voice (CPA, Victoria journal) and Guardian. In 1935 he was secretary of the Friends of Soviet Union; also active in Movement against War and Fascism.
• In the 1940s worked for the CPA during the illegal period in South Australia, where he was State secretary for several years and was state Secretary of the Carpenters and Joiners Union, SA.
• in military service with AIF during WW II, 15 months from 1943.
• In 1950 he moved to Sydney to edit the Tribune and was a member of the CPA's central executive.
• Opposed ‘dangerous trends’ in the CPA in 1960s aligning with pro-Moscow faction. Was correspondent for the Tribune in Moscow, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in the early 1960s.
• Upon his return to Australia he opposed ‘incorrect policies’ of CPA leadership taking a prominent part in the formation of the Australian Socialist in opposition. Was expelled from the CPA in 1970. ‘It was Alf Watt more than anyone else, who laid the ideological framework for the formation of the Socialist Party of Australia’.
• Cause of death: squamous cell carcinoma of lung (1 month), diabetes mellitus (7 years) and cerebro-vascular accident (11 years).

Sources
Guardian, 29 July 1987; John Playford, Doctrinal and strategic problems of the Communist Party of Australia, 1945-1962, PhD thesis, ANU, 1962; Tribune, 5 March 1946; 5 August 1987; Jim Moss, , Representatives of discontent; history of the Communist Party in South Australia 1921-1981 (Melbourne, 1983).