Manning Clark

If we look at the numerous monuments dedicated to this prestigious historical figure we realise how even when Clark was close to his death in 1991 he had acquired enormous recognition for his work and his character. Simply by looking at him it becomes apparent how he knew the relevance of his role: he used to have a long beard, an eccentric hat a long walking stick. His very scenic speeches were known even amongst those who never read his work.

He became so much of a character that even a musical was dedicated to his life. The Australian Bicentenary sponsored the Musical and the scriptwriter was Don Watson, another historian involved with the Labour Party. The show proved being a huge flop but Clark’s popularity amongst the lefties never really decreased. In spite of the fact that his last two tomes were a fictional interpretation of his life, his followers credited this novel as being a historic challenge. Clark went thought his childhood; to then narrate the Quest of Grace and to finish during his times at College. The whole work was an intermittence of historical and personal episodes. This work was then published when he died in 1992 by the Melbourne University Press as a tribute to his life more than as a book of history.
Many critics working for the Quadrant were already commenting on the validity of his piece and were ready to attack him with some reviews on the Quadrant but they let go these feeling as Clark soon after the publication died. Nevertheless in 1993 some harsh reviews finally appeared but they were less pungent then expected. Ryan, who was a good friend of Clark during his times at Melbourne, and than later became a good drinking partner of his, coordinated a lot such critics. As Director, he edited and published Volumes II to VI, and their relationship was at times tormented but generally cooperative. Firstly he admitted after his death how beneficial was Clark’s work to its contemporaries and as a publisher, as it had been a prolific investment for him. If on one side he praised his friend’s work as a good contribution to his own career then in 1993 he confessed in a article that Clark’s “scholarly rigour and historical strictness were slowly seeping out of both man and History” and added that it was unimportant for the publishing house to have released his book. In retrospect, he admitted, he was ashamed to have published Clark’s work. He denied its validity and said there was pressure at the times to publish his volumes just because of his popularity and regardless of the tomes’ content.

Ryan went really personal about his comments on Clark. He mentioned from their times at University and their friendship. He clearly remarked how the author declined in his later years. He minimised at times his contribution  both as a literate and as a historian. He discussed on the integrity of his work and of his persona

He mentioned Ryan’s reflexive Anglophobia and his vanity. He found him very hypocritical in attacking the Anglo-Australian middle-class and their “bourgeois” culture when he himself was coming directly form that social system. Then Ryan insisted on the fact that due to the credibility he obtained he manipulated Australian masses, making them believe on fake and personal interpretation of history. Ryan stressed on the lack of facts, statistics, and the incapability to report an historical person  (1788 to 1935, like Clark did) without real engagement on history.
He ultimately claimed that when most people buy a work of history expect something of a work of reference that was what Clark lacked of. The real issue is to try and understand what was Clark real intention with these six volumes. He had from day one an apocalyptical and almost epical approach to his country’s history and did nothing else that express this in books that were nonetheless read and bought .If that can be seen as “success”, than Clark achieved what any writer’s dream is: to be read.

Ryan’s extreme critics were not shared in fact by many other historians. He was himself criticised to attack Clark on the basis of their personal relationship rather than strengthening his comment on objective facts. He was denounced for making such comments only after his death and for the hypocrisy that accompanied their friendship. Then, some years later, started a movement for the defence of Clark’s personal and professional integrity, leaving aside the controversies regarding his Australian history-writing techniques. Two factions emerged after Clark’s death: the lefties lines supported the recognition of Clark as a valuable author, while the conservatives felt obliged to support Ryan.

On the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper Clark started being prised again and those allegations of presumptuous conspiracies with the Soviet regime had been discharged. But in other newspapers, like The Australian, some articles claimed the opposite. Clark and some e of his contemporaries had been given a mass-produced bronze medallion when they visited Moscow in the 70s. They actively intervened in a conference organised to celebrate the centenary of Lenin’s birth. Further investigations by the Australian Press Council found Lenin’s conspiracy allegations not to be true. Too little evidence was given in order to find reliable such allegations.  The Press Council found rather that there was much evidence to opposite of what critic claimed.  The accuracy of the sources was not reliable enough in order to claim such allegation and the case remained unsolved.  In the Courier-Mail many articles were dedicated to challenge these assertions but the Press Council believed in Clark’s integrity.

When Les Murray, a right wing poet that often wrote for the Quadrant, expressed his views to destroy Clark’s image as an honest political figure, even his critics dissociated from such strong affirmations. A large amount of speculation around the historian made his work even better known after his death. Although some people saw Clark around with a soviet medal, one has to admit that such iconic ornament were in use at the time and now. Imply that having worn such medal had to do with the Order of Lenin was absurd. The Courier-Mail and other newspapers did not accept this point of view and kept referring to Clark as the spy of the century. This was a way of explaining a general psychosis around an historian that changed the approach scholars had towards history. Nowadays it is seen as one of the most absurd journalistic phase of Australian’s press, for its incongruence and irrationalism against an overall successful historian.

Even an officer commented (Michael Thwaites) that no evidences were proved to declare that Clark was an agent of the Soviet Union. The debate could be endless and rich of contradictions. It is true that he sometimes expressed views that I thought were misleading, but it is known as well that he was an excessive spokesman. He depend his knowledge and he was interested in the Soviet regime, confirmed by the tilted of one of his books, Meeting Soviet Man, wrote after his visit to Russia. And he had a very emotional approach to politics so it’s undeniable that at times his views were radical and slightly one-way but that’s not enough top claim that he was engaged in the Lenin regime. I would rather  say that as an historian should do, he shown for a period of his life a strong interest in understanding that political system.

Recently more critics brought back the debate regarding Clark’s reliability and integrity but they were fast swept away. After a deep analysis of his work, letters, document research, some writer and those dedicating to his autobiography tried to dismiss such accusations. By examining Clark’s letters and diary it was established that it was Clark’s future wife Dymphna, and not the author himself, who was present on that day in Germany, although Clark did arrive in Bonn a fortnight later. Thought Dymphna’s letter it is impossible to believe that Clark had been in Bonn on the morning of the 10th of November. He arrived there only 5 days after. For those that believe in facts that is the only real prove of his innocence. For those critics that did not like his literary approach to history, they can believe what they want but they should be aware to be attacking Clark on the basis of presumptions.