Early in the autumn of 1919, the city of Brisbane, sweltering in humidity, was swathed in racial and political tensions.

As soldiers returned from World War I, they were confronted by an unfamiliar enclave of Russians who had set up their headquarters in South Brisbane.

Some of the Russians were Bolsheviks, and in the eyes of the soldiers — and mainstream Australia — they were no different to their traitorous countrymen who had made peace with Germany.

The Russians, many of whom had arrived as political refugees, were subject to abuse from the press, political suppression and routine discrimination.

It set the backdrop to an intense outbreak of racial conflict, known as the Red Flag riots, that saw nationalist groups go up against the police and the Russians.

And some historians, like Raymond Evans, draw similarities between the riots and attitudes towards Muslims in Australia today.

"In both instances, we are dealing with a strong ideological and ethnic struggle that amounts to a concentrated pattern of xenophobia that results or threatens to result in extreme social violence," he says.

Tensions over 'enemy aliens'

In the wake of the war, Australia's Russian community numbered 11,000, and was a source of great anxiety for the nation's overwhelmingly British population.

Many people harboured fears that the Bolshevik Revolution, which had transformed Russia into a communist state in October 1917, would be exported to Australia.

Who were the Bolsheviks? The Bolsheviks were members of a Russian communist party founded by Vladmir Lennin

The Bolsheviks were members of a Russian communist party founded by Vladmir Lennin They were responsible for the Russian Revolution of 1917, which established communism in Russia

They were responsible for the Russian Revolution of 1917, which established communism in Russia They believed in a highly centralised, professional communist party

"This was not a good time to be a Russian in Australia, and most of the Russian community was anti-Tsarist, which made things worse," the ANU's Kevin Windle says.

"When the war was over, Russia under its new regime was defined in the public view as the home of a hateful ideology, against which Australia had to be protected."

A key source of distrust was the Brest–Litovsk Treaty, through which the newly established Soviet government had made peace with Germany in the height of war.

"During the Great War, Imperial Russia was an important ally to Britain and France but this changed suddenly after the October Revolution," Dr Windle says.

"Russians in Australia came to be seen as traitors to the allied cause, on a par with German residents: not merely aliens, but enemy aliens — they had let the British-Australian side down."

The Bolshevik Revolution took thousands of Russian soldiers away from the anti-German war effort. ( Getty: L'Illustrazione Italiana )

Returned Australian soldiers began founding groups to resist the perceived threats to their country.

The Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Citizens Loyalty League was established in August 1918, vowing to crush the "disloyalists, traitors and the scum of Australia".

Their enemies, they thought, were being financed by "a great deal of German money" and it was their job "to keep the Union Jack flying over Australia".

Its formation was built on ground already pegged out by other loyalist groups — some which even had seats in Queensland's parliament.

Politicians also joined the chorus, as did the media.

Queensland newspaper the Sun didn't mince words when it called for Australia "to rid the community of the parasitical Bolshevists", said to be "the lowest type of human beings".

Cartoons like this one, in the Daily Mail, give some insight into the way Australia perceived its Russian community. ( Supplied: State Library of Queensland )

"Anglo-Saxon Australia at large was hostile," Dr Windle says.

These tensions were compounded in September 1918, when the government, under the War Precautions Act, prohibited the flying of the Socialist red flag.

If Australian trade unions were disturbed by the banning of their universal symbol, the Bolsheviks were nothing short of incensed.

The Bolshevik adversary

Communist-fearing Australians often pointed to a small community of Bolshevik revolutionaries congregated around South Brisbane.

Many were political refugees, sentenced for agitating against the Tsarist rulership. Some had done time in the harsh prisons of Siberia.

"The Russian community in Brisbane contained a revolutionary kernel who had escaped from exile in Siberia and made their way to Queensland in the pre-war years," Dr Windle says.

They were led by Captain Alexander Zuzenko, who had come to Brisbane in 1911 with a hankering for a communist revolution.

Captain Alexander Zuzenko, who led the march against the War Precautions Act, had been a political prisoner in Tsarist Russia. ( Supplied: The State Library of Queensland )

On March 23, 1919, he led a protest march through the middle of Brisbane in resistance against the War Precautions Act.

At the march's conclusion three large red flags were unfurled, along with smaller banners, ribbons and handkerchiefs of a similar hue.

Police were unable to contain the fervour, but it wasn't long before a group of returned veterans, summoned by the loyalist groups, arrived on the scene.

They disbanded the Russians, threatening to throw anyone who didn't move on into the Brisbane River.

The soldiers then turned towards the nearby Russian Hall, the cultural home of the Russian community.

But when they arrived, they were met with a series of warning shots.

Unprepared for what would might have been a bloodbath, it was their turn to disband.

Revenge (the next night)

The following night a crowd of British loyalists, numbering in the thousands, assembled at the same point where they had interrupted the Socialists.

Pamphlets had been dropped into Russian homes from "the Returned Soldiers and Loyalists of Queensland" giving them 12 hours' notice that "direct action" was to be taken against them.

"The soldiers weren't operating as military units, but they had been banding together for action at least since an earlier protest march in January 1919," Dr Windle says.

"That one passed off without incident, but elements among the soldiers had plainly decided they'd be ready next time, and they reacted quickly and violently to the procession of March 23."

As the crowd swelled to the cries of "Death to the Bolsheviks", some of its members turned to begin marching towards the Russian Hall, this time prepared to attack.

Blocking them, however, was an army of mounted police armed with rifles and bayonets — setting the stage for a bloody two-hour confrontation.

In the end 14 police officers were injured and three police horses were shot, while 19 of the loyalists needed to be evacuated by ambulance.

Violence continued in the streets of Brisbane throughout the week, with the blame placed squarely at the feet of the Russians.

"Russian leaders were arrested and deported: Zuzenko in April, and others in September," Dr Windle says.

"Russians were already complaining of discrimination in employment — among other things — before the riots.

"But in the wake of the riots, Australian attitudes hardened further."

From Bolshevism to Islamism

Dr Windle says the riots show how negative attitudes towards minority groups can escalate into violence, especially when given platform through the media.

He says there are similarities between the fear of Russian Bolshevism a century ago and attitudes towards Muslims in Australia today.

Reclaim Australia, pictured here at at rally in Melbourne, like other contemporary far-right groups share many of views of the loyalists of the 1920s. ( Audience submitted: Liam Giuliani )

"In a sense that both have been seen as an 'other' which represents a threat, there is much in common between Muslims living in Australia today and the Russians of last century," he says.

"The risk [of events like the Red Flag riots] is probably ever-present and we've seen the hideous attack in Christchurch, [allegedly] committed by an Australian.

"When we are tempted to stigmatise a whole community on the basis of the actions of some members of that community, the consequences can be dire and animosities self-perpetuating."

It is a view also espoused by retired historian Professor Evans, whose 1988 book on the Red Flag Riots, subtitled "a study of intolerance", remains the authoritative work on the topic.

The Russians of the early 20th century and many of the Muslims of the early 21st century, according to Professor Evans, are comparable as refugees from a non-British or non-Western origin.

"Both have attracted substantial intolerant responses from the mainstream and the media, with Russophobia in the first case and Islamophobia in the second," he says.

"For the former a profound anti-capitalist revolutionary consciousness and in the latter a powerful alternative religious conviction propels them forward as a community.

"And these are targeted beliefs that the dominant majority of Anglo-Australians conceive of in an exaggerated context of extreme threat, [creating] a clear political propulsion of mobilised hatred.

"But the outcomes, of course, have the clear potential to be tragic and disastrous for the stereotyped and scapegoated minority populations."