Vietnam Forum

Poster advertising an anti-Vietnam War 'Vietnam Forum' at the University of Sydney, depicting an image of a Vietnamese farmer and a water buffalo, bordered by barbed wire. Len Fox (1905-2004) was a well known writer and activist. In 1933 he witnessed the hunger marches and the effects of the Depression and began to develop an interest in Communism and the work of Marx, Engels and Lenin. In 1934 he returned to Australia and joined the Movement Against War and Fascism. The following year he joined the Communist Party and in 1940 moved to Sydney where he wrote for the weekly left newspaper, 'Progress' and subsequently wrote for the journals 'Tribune' and 'Common Cause'. In 1956-57 he took time off from the paper to travel to North Vietnam , with his wife, the well-known playwright, Mona Brand, to help the North Vietnamese government with English language education and translation. He returned to Australia and took over editorship of the 'Common Cause'. He was also a painter and poet and a long time campaigner for Aboriginal people's rights.