A common feature of successful revolutions is chaos. Those who have sought change, and have succeeded, have very often not prepared and agreed upon new civic structures. They have concentrated on getting rid of old regimes. Their ideas for a new system of government have usually been very immature.
The French Revolution had one main intention – to rid the land of aristocratic rulers. But plans for the future were many and varied. The same occurred in the Russian revolution which led to the Soviet Union. Theories about communism were no more than just that. The setting up of a new system of government fell very short of practical ideas. Even today, Putin’s Russia has many traits of the systems set up by the Czars who lost power during the Revolution.
When I was an Australian diplomat in East Berlin many years ago, I used to enjoy baiting the East German communists saying, ‘What a pity that their communism had a Russian flavour – and what a pity the German flavour, which was much more aligned with Marx, was being subjugated by the Russians.’
Today, it is fascinating to watch the evolution of a messy attempt in Victoria to create a radical Aboriginal Treaty. The method of change can only be regarded as a modern-day Revolution. The desire to see a new social order in Victoria (and then for this to spread across Australia) has all the hallmarks of a good old revolution.
In the early days of the Russian Revolution, the Soviet jurists had no desire to join any legal tradition – they wanted to make their own.
In 1930, Trotsky wrote in My Life that the first decrees of Soviet government were the program of the party ‘uttered in the language of power … as a means of propaganda rather than of administration’. So too are the words of Labor’s socialist-leaning party in the 2021 Yoorrook Letters Patent, the guiding rules for Yoorrook, gazetted on May 14, 2021.
The Labor government refer to traditional owners of Victoria as having had ‘historic wrongs and past injustices and inter-generational trauma’. No examples are given. Similar comments are made again and again. It is a classic example of political leaders repeating words in the hope the citizens will be convinced of their veracity through repetition.
In 1920, Lenin wrote: ‘It does not matter that many points of our decrees will never be carried out; their task is to teach the masses how to take practical steps … we shall not look at them as of absolute rules to be carried out under all circumstances.’
Said the Victorian modern-day socialist-style minister responsible for shepherding the 2018 Bill titled, Advancing the Treaty Process told the Parliament, ‘In fact probably most Victorians are happy that they do not understand what happens in the Parliament … this piece of legislation is about allowing and supporting Aboriginal people to have a go … and we’ll see how far along this path we can go.’
And there it is: general plans agreed by an elected socialist government. Their implementation still to be decided. The classic chaos of revolution.
Referring to the Indigenous peoples, the Letters Patent for Yoorrook speak of the ‘survival of their living cultures, knowledge and traditions’.
This is stretching everybody’s belief systems to breaking point. A publication titled The Whole Truth – and the Problem With Truth Telling has conducted extensive research using excerpts of eye-witness accounts of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples since the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.
This information was available to the Victorian government long before the Letters Patent were drawn up. But it has been ignored. An embarrassment of epic proportions is unfolding as a ‘Truth Telling’ Royal Commission has not been asked to use undoubted truths – facts – when writing its report. A submission of the contents of The Whole Truth will not be published, according to the Commission.
This is contrary to the Letters Patent which states ‘the State of Victoria acknowledges the importance of non-discrimination, uncovering truth … and preventing further harm to First Peoples’. Echoes again of the Soviet past when a 1918 Statute of the People’s Court said it ‘shall apply the decrees of the workers’ and peasants’ government and, in the absence of an appropriate decree or if a decree is incomplete, the court shall be guided by the socialist concept of the law’.
Here we have the Soviet workers and peasants making decisions in their own favour. At Yoorrook on the same day the Letters Patent were announced the government’s press release referred to ‘the Aboriginal-led’ Commission. The meaning of Yoorrook is ‘truth’. It emerged from one of the hundreds of Indigenous dialects.
The Commission itself tends towards farce, supposedly not of its own making but of the Victorian government. Not only did it fail to seek out the truth of the past, but an Aboriginal-led commission is akin to asking the gambling industry to assess itself with not a judge in sight. In the 2020s, the revolution has been allowed to run a dance.
The media release goes on to say, ‘Because without truth there can be no Treaty.’ This one line may be the government’s greatest ‘own goal’ in relation to its revolutionary Yoorrook antics: because without truth there can be no Treaty.
How quaint that the Soviet debate about the rule of law was described in 1925 as ‘helping us in our work of reconstructing society along socialist lines’. And in 1935, the formal law was described as ‘subordinate to the law of revolution’.
With the Voice, Australians sniffed revolution and voted against the chaos.
Victorians, in true revolution style, weren’t given a choice about Yoorrook or the Treaty to come.
Yoorrook is Revolution, and like other revolutions, chaos will follow.
Roger Pescott is a former Australian Diplomat, Minister in the Kennett Government and Co-author of The Whole Truth
