Washington Resistance Army wrote:Ayy fam, tell me about this Lang guy. I meant to ask the other day but forgot.
He was a populist, and during his height Labor Premier of New South Wales.
Anti-communist (Hence my prior Social Fascist sig), close with the Unions and cultivated a bit of a personality cult. Known as the Big Fella, and "Lang is greater than Lenin" was a legit slogan. During his first time as Premier, he introduced a variety of social programs and introduced universal suffrage for local elections. Tried to abolish the Upper House because it was too "reactionary". In his second time as Premier, he disagreed with the Federal government and all other state governments on how to handle the Great Depression. They wanted big cuts, tax increases, etc. Lang basically wanted a Keynesian response, reducing interest rates, replacing the Gold Standard, temporarily avoiding paying interest repayments to Britain and injecting millions of dollars into the economy. Didn't work, so he took State money out of the bank and held it as cash in the Union Hall. This led to a whole crisis in which he was dismissed as Premier by the NSW Governor-General and lost the subsequent election.
It's funny, because the two men were close friends but that still didn't stop Lang from considering to arrest the Governor-General possibly plunging Australia into civil war. The Federal government was seriously considering sending troops, and Lang had a lot of support in the Unions, who were and remain influential.