Ian Alexander Turner

Ian Alexander Hamilton Turner (1922–1978) was an Australian political activist, serving important roles in both the Communist Party of Australia and Australian Labor Party. As a leading historian, he wrote the book Industrial Labour and Politics, which examined the Australian labour movement.

Early life Ian Turner was born on 10 March 1922 at East Malvern, Melbourne. His parents were Francis Herbert Blackley Turner, a wheat farmer, and Nina Florence, née Lang. He attended Nhill State School, Geelong College, and the University of Melbourne (LL.B., 1948; B.A., 1949), where he was exposed to political debates on topics about the Spanish Civil War, fascism, and communism.

He spent remarkable years with the Communist Party. He became secretary of Australian Peace Council in 1949, the organised anti-war conferences in Australia. Later, the Communist Party gave him "proletarian industrial experience" as a railway cleaner, where he became part of the Australian Railways Union. After finding his expectations "absurdly romantic", the railway sacked him in 1952. During the Soviet Union's suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, he protested against it, particularly the execution of then Hungarian premier Imre Nagy.