A Ghost of the Past (1938)

From the September 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

As a propagandist, the present writer has recently met with some violent abuse from Communists when referring to the changing policies of the Communist Party. The abuse has often reached the point of accusing the S.P.G.B. and its speakers of deliberate lying and even of fabricating evidence of the Communist Party's past hostility to the Labour Party. A case in point which provokes Communists to accuse us of lying is reference to a statement made in 1930 by Mr. H. Pollitt, which encouraged Communists to break up Labour meetings. Mr. Pollitt's statement is so often denied at our meetings that there can be no harm in reproducing it. It appeared in The Daily Worker on January 29th, 1930, and reads: —

"A Labour meeting should not be allowed to be held anywhere. This will bring us into conflict with the Authorities, but must be done. The Daily Worker will lead the revolutionary workers boldly and openly against this Government of scoundrels and agents of capitalism."

Perhaps, quite naturally, in view of the Communist Party's present genteel drawing-room methods of wooing the Labour Party, any evidence of its apostasy is likely to arouse hatred.

Sammy Cash