Panic spread across the Mallee’s flatlands around tiny Ouyen in far north-west Victoria.

Wheat farmers, hard-pinched soldier settlers and leading townsfolk grabbed their guns and shovels and rushed to the barricades.

They frantically dug trenches, blockaded the road from Mildura and hefted sandbags to give them protection from an imminent communist invasion they imagined was on its way.

The Ouyen cell of the secret fascist White Army militia, in short, stood ready to defend the state of Victoria.

It was the strange, terrible and ultimately ludicrous night of Friday, March 6, 1931.

Word had come through hushed phone calls that Sydney had fallen to a communist insurgency.

Bolshevik forces, bolstered by Catholics and the unemployed, were said to be gathering near Mildura on their way to

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