Eva Bacon (1909 – 23 July 1994), born Eva Goldner, was a socialist and feminist based in Brisbane, Australia, who was most active between the 1950s and the 1980s. Raised in Austria and a member of several leftist political organisations in her youth, Eva Goldner escaped Nazi occupied Austria in 1939, eventually migrating to Australia. Goldner remained involved in local and international politics and joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), marrying fellow member Ted Bacon in 1944. Throughout her career Bacon was an active member of the CPA, and the Union of Australian Women (UAW), where she was heavily involved in International Women's Day campaigns, including attending the 1975 UN World Conference on Women in Mexico celebrating International Women's Year. Bacon was also an active member of the Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL), the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She was passionate about childcare issues, and through her political work clashed particularly with conservative Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
Early life and young adulthood
Born in Austria in 1909 to Jewish parents, Eva Goldner was aware of fascism and anti-Semitism from early in her life. She was a Communist militant in her youth and as a member of International Red Aid, a Communist organisation established to provide aid to 'class-war' political prisoners, she worked to help victims of fascism. Goldner and her mother, as leftist Jewish women, were forced to flee Austria in 1939 following the Nazi occupation of Austria, migrating to Australia after some time in England. Goldner, a dressmaker and fashion designer by trade, became involved with the left in her new home where she attended her first International Women's Day meeting the same year she arrived. She attributed that meeting to inspiring much of her later political activism. Goldner soon became a member of the Communist Party of Australia, where, at a performance by the Unity Theatre Group, she met her husband Ted Bacon, a returned soldier and fellow communist and political activist. They married in 1944 in Brisbane and had one child, a daughter, named Barbara.
Politics
Communist Party of Australia
During her life in Australia, Eva Bacon was heavily involved in the Communist Party of Australia. A communist in her youth in Austria, it was natural for Bacon to seek out like-minded people when she escaped the Nazis for Australia. Through her involvement with the CPA, Bacon met and married her husband Ted, who served as the Secretary for the Queensland Branch of the CPA for some time. Ted and Eva were heavily involved in the CPA as shown by the hundreds of leaflets, pamphlets, typed speeches, and letters from protest, rallies, events, and meetings contained in their personal Archive.
While Bacon insisted that her Communist leanings did not affect her work with other political groups such as the UAW, it is clear that her involvement in the CPA had a negative impact on her reliability in other areas of her life. Right-wing politicians such as Joh Bjelke-Petersen drew connections between her involvement with the two groups to try and discredit the UAW as a Communist organisation.
Bacon was a member of the Central Committee of the CPA since 1948 by her own account, and she and Ted remained committed members throughout their lives.
Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was the Premier of Queensland from 8 August 1968 – 1 December 1987 who personally objected to Eva Bacon's political activities and her membership of the Communist Party. His attitude towards political activists, and groups such as the Union of Australian Women was paternalistic: “...all these protest groups consist of the hard-core activists who hide behind the gullible, the naive and the well-meaning.” On the subject of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Eva Bacon has been quoted as saying “I believe Mr Bjelke-Petersen in using my personal political commitment is trying to enlist support for his anti-democratic policies”.