1930 Sharkey visited the Soviet Union for the first time as one of the Australian party's representatives to the 5th World Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (RILU). At the 7th World Congress of the Comintern Sharkey was elected as an alternate to the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI). When Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies declared the CPA illegal in June 1940, Sharkey and other party leaders went underground. A year later Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union entered the Second World War as an ally of Britain. The ban on members of the CPA was accordingly relaxed, and Sharkey resumed open political activity. In 1942 the ban was removed completely. With the onset of the Cold War Sharkey displaced Miles as the CPA's secretary-general. The CPA became openly hostile to the ALP, and withdrew its previous conditional support of the American-sponsored program of post-war reconstruction. General Secretary At the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of Australia between May 7–10, Sydney, New South Wales, Sharkey was elected general secretary. He took over from Jack Miles whom stood down from nomination. On 9 June 1965, Sharkey's resignation of general secretary of the Communist Party was accepted. Sharkey resigned due to ill-health and was replaced by Laurie Aarons. In March 1949 Sharkey told a Sydney journalist that "if Soviet Forces in pursuit of aggressors entered Australia, Australian workers would welcome them." For this statement Sharkey was tried and convicted of sedition. The High Court upheld his conviction and he was sentenced to three years imprisonment, but eventually served a total of 13 months. On his release, he undertook a national speaking tour. He then spent six months at a sanatorium in the Soviet Union, for treatment of a heart condition. Under his strong leadership he was able to ensure that the CPA did what many other countries' Communist parties failed to do: namely, minimise the impact of Nikita Khrushchev's repudiation of Joseph Stalin early in 1956, and of the Soviet invasion of Hungary later that year. In November 1960 Sharkey attended the Meeting of 81 Communist and Workers Parties in Moscow, at which the CPA initially sympathised with the Chinese in the Sino-Soviet split. Ultimately, though, it backed the Soviets. Eleven months afterwards, Sharkey attended the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow. Later years, death, and