Workers Defence Corps
{{Short description|Australian Communist paramilitary organisation}}
{{Infobox militant organization
| name = Workers Defence Corps
| logo =
| caption =
| other_name = Lang's Army
| leader = Jack Fegan{{Cite journal |last=Moore |first=Andrew |date=2009 |title=Red devils and white reaction : Jack Fegan and the Workers Defence Corps of the 1930s |url=https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws:24177 |journal=Journal of Australian Studies |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=165–179 |doi=10.1080/14443050902883389 |s2cid=143105949 |via=Western Sydney University |access-date=2023-07-27 |archive-date=2023-07-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230727010115/https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws:24177 |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |title=Jack Fegan, Edna Stack and the Sydney Left in the 1930s: A Memoir |url=https://www.labourhistory.org.au/hummer/vol-4-no-5/jack-fegan/ |access-date=2023-07-27 |website=Australian Society for the Study of Labour History |language=en-AU |archive-date=2023-07-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230727094844/https://www.labourhistory.org.au/hummer/vol-4-no-5/jack-fegan/ |url-status=live }}
Dave Williams
| foundation = {{start date and age|1929}}
| dates = {{circa}} 1929–1935
| dissolved = {{end date and age|1935}}
| merger =
| split =
| predecessor =
| merged =
| successor =
| country = Australia
| allegiance = Communist Party of Australia
| motives =
| area = New South Wales
| headquarters = Lithgow, New South Wales
| newspaper = Red Fist{{Cite journal |last=Moore |first=Andrew |date=2005 |title=The New Guard and the Labour Movement, 1931–35 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27516075 |journal=Labour History |issue=89 |pages=55–72 |doi=10.2307/27516075 |jstor=27516075 |issn=0023-6942 |access-date=2023-07-27 |archive-date=2023-10-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231020121430/https://www.jstor.org/stable/27516075 |url-status=live }}
| ideology = Communism
Marxism–Leninism
Anti-fascism|
| position =
| crimes =
| attacks =
| status =
| size =
| revenue =
| financing =
| partof =
| allies = {{plainlist|
- Labor (New South Wales)
- Australian Labor Party (Non-Communist)
- Unemployed Worker's Movement
}}
| opponents = New Guard
Centre Party
| battles =
| flag =
| website =
}}
The Workers Defence Corps (WDC) was an Australian communist paramilitary organisation during the Great Depression.
The WDC was based on similar organisations formed in Britain during the 1926 United Kingdom general strike by the Communist Party of Great Britain for protecting picket lines from police and paramilitaries, which the WDC also undertook.{{Cite news |date=1949-06-24 |title=REDS PLANNED WORKERS' DEFENCE CORPS |work=The Northern Star |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article99057267 |access-date=2023-07-27 |archive-date=2023-11-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231102190004/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/99057267 |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |title=The Reds and the General Strike – The Lessons of the First General Strike of the British Working Class |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/britain/pamphlets/1926/reds.htm |access-date=2023-07-27 |website=Marxists Internet Archive |publisher=Communist Party of Great Britain |archive-date=2022-12-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225152325/https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/britain/pamphlets/1926/reds.htm |url-status=live }} The organisation was first active in 1929 during the Northern Coalfields lockout, where it was used to coerce strikebreakers and defend picket lines from police. The organisation was reformed in 1931 to defend Communist meetings from the growing proto-fascist New Guard.
The WDC is most notable for its clashes with the New Guard, but also engaged in bank robberies and reprisals against police officers. Most of which failed. The WDC did have a successful string of weapons thefts. The WDC assisted the Unemployed Workers Movement in opposing evictions.{{Cite book |last=Wheatley |first=Nadia |title=Sydney's anti-eviction movement: community or conspiracy? |date=2001 |publisher=University of Wollongong Press |isbn=0947127038 |pages=146–173}}
The WDC saw itself as a Red Army that would eventually lead a nationwide Communist revolution.
Members of the WDC were involved in the 'Battle of Bankstown,' in which several hundred New Guardsmen brawled with Bankstown locals, workers, Unemployed Worker's Movement members and WDC members. The New Guard was reportedly defeated, with their vehicles heavily damaged. The riot then continued as the crowd searched Bankstown for New Guardsmen or police officers.{{Cite magazine |last=North |first=Alex |date=2020-08-23 |title=When Fascism Almost Came to Australia |url=https://jacobin.com/2020/08/fascism-australia-old-guard-anticommunism |website=Jacobin |language=en-US |issn=2158-2602 |access-date=2023-07-27 |archive-date=2023-07-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230727094841/https://jacobin.com/2020/08/fascism-australia-old-guard-anticommunism |url-status=live }}