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Clip description
When the men arrive at the pub to celebrate the end of the strike at the factory, Mick Mendel’s younger brother, the firebrand communist agitator, Jakob (Swawomir Wabik), is furious, and calls them scabs for not holding out. The men are sullen and resentful and Mick (Henri Szeps) tries to lighten the atmosphere by offering to shout a round of drinks to celebrate their return to work.
Curator’s notes
The Dundee Palace is a working-men’s pub and when the men are being paid the pub does fine but when the men are out on strike, then everyone feels the pinch. Jakob, Mick’s brother, has only recently arrived from communist Russia. He’s a young Trotskyite and sees no other way forward for the working man than through revolution.
The difference between capitalism and communism and between socialism and communism is finely drawn through the different characters portrayed in this sequence and it’s a lesson that young Tom learns quickly.
This sequence echoes an earlier segment when Tom learns through his experiences with Charlie that the New Guard, the nearest Australia came to a prewar fascist organisation, is not the way forward either.
