Early political career
Dixon was born Clifton Reginald Walker in 1905. Railway work and union organisation shaped his political development. He used the name Richard Dixon after returning to Australia in 1933 and became a full-time party organiser. His recorded assistant general secretaryship began in 1937.
National directorate
The transformed party built parliamentary support and militant committees from 1936. Dixon coordinated its revolutionary structure while Miles and Sharkey handled other organisational and political responsibilities. The title revolutionary directorate leader describes his role in this national chronology; it does not backdate the formal party presidency associated with 1948 in biographical references.
July 1945
The directorate launched coordinated attacks on federal and state institutions on 6 July 1945. Killings and detention of officials discredited it among many previously neutral Australians. The subsequent Restoration campaign lasted until 6 April 1946, although the capital was recovered before the campaign's end. Approximately 2,500 officials and civilians died during the uprising and repression.
Historical position
The founding government used the crisis to define its opposition to coercive communist government. Dixon remained a central figure in that political memory, while ordinary workers and unions were not treated as identical to his militant command.
Trial and execution
A High Court supervised provincial tribunal tried Dixon for his leadership of the armed seizure and the associated killings. He was convicted and executed following trial. His fate became a defining element of the founding government's anti-communist political memory.