A Communist Sums up the Communist Party (1929)

From the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Quoted from the November 1929 issue of the Communist Review:

  Indeed, what with the anxiety of the “Rights” to prove themselves to be “Left,” the Party leadership is in such a state of confusion that one almost stands aghast at the situation. I will illustrate the criticism. First examine the way in which the anti-war question is being handled, and especially the Russo-Chinese crisis.
  In Workers’ Life of August 30th, headlines of a splash article on the Russo-Chinese crisis proclaim : “Hostilities have broken out.” It goes on to tell that we are on the brink of world war. We must “Organise demonstrations and strikes against the war-makers' Government.” The first paragraph of the article qualifies the headlines. The second and third paragraphs hold America responsible as the devil behind the Chinese Government. The fourth tells us that the Labour Government is assisting the Border States to prepare for war. But it does not say a word as to what the Labour Government is doing in relation to the Russo-Chinese war. How shall we get the British workers to strike against the Labour Government because America is pushing the Chinese on to war in Manchuria is not explained to us at all.
   Then, please turn up the next issue of Workers' Life, September 6th, and it will be found that the Russo-Chinese crisis has vanished into thin air and nobody knows why. There is no news of the strike we were to call the previous week; no news of the world conflagration that was overwhelming us. This also has vanished. Surely we ought to have been told how this happened. But by September 13th the Russo-Chinese crisis quietly re-appears.
  Can we hope to win influence amongst the workers so long as the most serious questions are treated in such an irresponsible manner? The Party appears to be wildly gesticulating and nothing happens, except that we continue to report decline in sales of Party papers. Is it surprising? (J. T. Murphy, in the Communist Review, November.)